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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has tasked a number of his cabinet officials with traveling to Washington to meet their counterparts in the Trump administration in anticipation of a meeting between the two leaders. [Trudeau’s overtures to the White House follow a month in which his personal approval ratings have plummeted following a series of ethics scandals and embarrassing public appearances before hostile audiences during a nationwide town hall tour. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan all visited Washington this week. Freeland met her U. S. counterpart Rex Tillerson and reportedly used the occasion to object to a hypothetical tariff on Canadian goods. Freeland’s office also recently opened a special unit for bilateral relations with Washington, CBC reports, at Trudeau’s behest. On the same day Freeland met Tillerson, Sajjan met with Defense Secretary James Mattis to discuss “ethics in soldiering. ” Sajjan did not expand upon the topics of conversation, lending only his support to the U. S. government and dismissing a question about President Donald Trump’s ability to handle a crisis by noting that he is the legitimate president of the United States. Morneau, meanwhile, arrived in Washington on Wednesday and is currently speaking at Georgetown University. The meetings are all intended to lay the groundwork for Trudeau and Trump to meet and discuss policy in person — and, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr told reporters Wednesday, “to make friends” with the Americans. The meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, according to both the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office. Trudeau has a hefty travel schedule before him for next week — the Prime Minister is also expected to travel to France and Germany and deliver an address to the European Parliament. Trudeau will also meet with German chancellor Angela Merkel. Trudeau has yet to establish a concrete relationship with Trump and instead has used the President’s policies to promote his own leftist agenda. Following President Trump’s signing of an executive order limiting refugee flows from nations, Trudeau posted on Twitter that Canada would take in those rejected by the United States. Trudeau’s confrontational Tweet did not match Canada’s record of rejecting hundreds of foreign nationals in 2016 for a variety of national security reasons. Trudeau’s approach also does not seem to match what Canadians are seeking from him as prime minister. A poll by the firm Mainstreet Research released this week found that over half of Canadians approve of President Trump’s national security policy, compared to only 39 percent who approve of Trudeau’s. Similarly, the poll found 53 percent of Canadian respondents supported Trump’s approach to the economy, compared to 41 percent for Trudeau. Trudeau’s meeting with Trump will follow a tumultuous January that saw the Prime Minister’s national approval ratings drop under 50 percent for the first time since he assumed the top government office. Following several public blunders, including praising Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and attempting to hide a lavish New Year’s vacation in the Bahamas, Trudeau went on a nationwide tour to speak to Canadian audiences. Upon arriving in Calgary, the crowd loudly booed the prime minister and accused him of lying to the Canadian people on energy policy. Trudeau is currently undergoing an unprecedented ethics investigation for the Bahamas vacation, in which he accepted a ride on a private helicopter owned by the head of the Ismaili sect of Islam, the Aga Khan. Accepting such free private transportation is a violation of both Liberal Party ethics guidelines and the Canadian government’s ethics rules. | 1 |
In a major abortion ruling Monday, the Supreme Court struck down parts of a Texas law that would have forced dozens of clinics to close. Here are reactions from all sides of the issue. | 1 |
SHISUN VILLAGE, China — The three miners befriended a lonely, luckless man and offered him work down an iron mine in eastern China. After working together for 10 days, the three pushed a boulder down a steep tunnel, crushing the man to death. They reported it as an accident. Days later, three men and a woman turned up at the mine, saying they were the dead man’s relatives and demanding compensation. The mine owner offered them $110, 000 if they agreed not to report the death to officials. Prosecutors and the police now say that this death, in Shandong Province in 2014, was one of many in which a sophisticated network of grifters dispatched isolated, men, some mentally impaired, and dressed up their deaths as accidents to swindle compensation from mine owners. The investigation led the police to Shisun Village in southwestern China, where mine murders for cash appear to have become a cottage industry. Of the 74 suspects indicted in late May in 17 killings, up to 40 were from Shisun Village, prosecutors said. The police said they were still investigating reports of 35 more possible victims. But Shisun is not the only place where such cases have cropped up. A search of court judgments online and news reports of court verdicts turns up dozens of instances across China of gangs killing vagrants and workers in dark, isolated chambers far underground, and using the deaths to defraud mine owners. There have been at least 34 such cases over the past two decades, Caijing Magazine, a prominent business weekly, estimated in June. The allegations have prompted anguished debate across China about the social and legal failings that led people to make a living by murdering vulnerable strangers, and fanned speculation about whether the crimes were inspired by a bleak cult movie with a similar plot. Shisun is a hardscrabble, farming village of 5, 000 people nestled in the hills of Yunnan Province. Many villagers work in factories and on building sites in distant provinces, leaving farming and child care to aging parents and grandparents. Those who stay behind often live in crumbling homes of mud and wood. But on the main street, rows of concrete houses suggest budding prosperity. Wang Fuxiang owns one of those houses, as well as a restaurant in a nearby city. With his dapper suits and loud, casual wear, the kind seen more often on suburban golfers than on dirt farmers, Mr. Wang, 39, appeared to be among the lucky few who had escaped the hard life. But it did not go unnoticed that Mr. Wang and several other villagers would abruptly disappear for days, weeks or months, and return flush with cash, which they often squandered on gambling binges, neighbors recalled. Some thought the men might be selling drugs. “He never told me what he did,” said Mr. Wang’s daughter, Hu Yun, 17. Nor, apparently, did she try to pin him down on the question. About two years ago, she started to sense that something was amiss. “I began to get the feeling that there was something not right about the way he’d been making money,” she said recently in an interview at her home. A farmer who lived nearby was blunter. Asking that his name not be used for fear of recriminations, he wrote a letter in case he was ever asked about the cases, which said, “There are eight homes in this little village that have been built from human blood. ” The mystery began to unravel two years ago, when the Yunnan police received an anonymous message saying that the man killed in the Shandong iron mine had been working under another man’s identity. (The victim’s real identity, if it has been determined, has not been announced.) Another mine killing late that year in Inner Mongolia, a region of northern China, also left clues pointing to Shisun Village and nearby areas. Detectives descended on Shisun and began questioning villagers. What they found were organized gangs devoted to serial killing for cash. Some participants recruited and killed the victims, having won their cooperation by promising good wages, friendship, even marriage. Others posed as the grieving family members who turned up at the mine to demand compensation, the police have said. The gangs disguised the identities of their victims, using stolen or bought identity papers that they persuaded or tricked victims into using, ensuring that their real families would not learn of their fate. Most victims were quickly cremated by their fake families, making identification even harder and erasing clues about their deaths. Discovery is further complicated because the families of marginalized drifters are unlikely to file a report. Even if they did, they would be unlikely to know when or where the men had last been seen alive — or when simply being out of touch had turned into their being missing or dead. The other side of the equation that kept the business humming is the mine owners, who paid handsome sums to the impostor families in order to keep the deaths quiet. If a fatal accident were reported, the owners feared, safety regulators would shut down the mine for months while they investigated, several mine owners told the police after the killings came to light. If these killings sound like the plot of a thriller, that may be no coincidence. A similar case inspired the 2003 film “Blind Shaft,” a Chinese drama about two men who kill fellow miners for their compensation. In what seems to be an endless loop of life imitating art imitating life, some officials have said that the movie became an instruction manual for the recent killings. “Some viewers saw the film ‘Blind Shaft’ and found a way to get rich,” the township government that oversees Shisun Village said in a notice posted outside the village committee office. “The culprits showed no compassion at all for life, and in particular kin and friends who were mentally impaired became assets used to make money. ” The movie’s director, Li Yang, dismissed as “ridiculous” the idea that suspects in isolated corners of the countryside had seen his film. Because of its grim plot, the Chinese authorities banned the film before it was released, and it has rarely been seen except by urban film enthusiasts. Even Mr. Li had difficulty tracking down bootleg DVDs of it, he said. Still, many people have heard of the movie, and when the cases started coming to light, they were immediately described as “Blind Shaft killings. ” Similar cases first entered China’s national consciousness in the late 1990s, when a gang with dozens of members was convicted of killing 28 migrant workers in Shanxi Province. Those killings inspired the movie, Mr. Li said. Since then, the Blind Shaft scheme has been firmly implanted in the national psyche of a country peppered with thousands of notoriously dangerous mines. Most likely, the Shisun gang heard of it by word of mouth. According to available court records, the pace of such killings appears to have picked up in recent years, possibly because compensation payments have grown. As China’s regulators have clamped down on mine safety, driving down the number of accidents, the stricter regulation has perversely encouraged some mine operators to hide fatalities and pay off victims’ families, increasing the incentive to carry out the crimes. In 2011, nine men from Leibo County in Sichuan Province were convicted of similar crimes, and the police said gangs from there had committed at least 20 murders in mines. In 2014, 21 defendants were convicted in Handan, northern China, of killing four migrant workers in faked mine accidents. Last year, 10 men were convicted in the Ningxia region of killing five people in the same way. The recent killings have veered from the movie version in at least one conspicuous way. In the movie, the killers extorted 30, 000 renminbi, or about $4, 475 at today’s rates, in hush money for one death. The Shisun Village gangs extracted payments of $75, 000 to $120, 000 from mine bosses, according to news reports. If he were to remake the film today, Mr. Li said in a telephone interview, “it wouldn’t have anything different, except the amounts of money scammed would be larger and the perpetrators would be gangs. ” The charges against the Shisun suspects include homicide, faking accidents, swindling compensation, fraud and hiding crimes, though the police have not said publicly who is being charged with what. Long prison terms, and death sentences for the ringleaders, are likely, if similar cases are a guide. Chinese courts almost invariably convict, and the suspects have not been allowed to publicly answer the charges. Mr. Wang was arrested early last year. His daughter, Ms. Hu, now acknowledges that he may have innocent blood on his hands. “I think he did do something, but I don’t blame him,” she said. “He was doing it so that we could live a better life. ” | 1 |
ISIS Executes 300 Iraqi Civilians by Firing Squad North of Mosul 7 Shares 0 1
Member of Nineveh Provincial Council, Hossam al-Din al-Abbar, announced, that the ISIS executed 300 civilians and former security members, north of Mosul.
Abbar said in a press statement, “Today, ISIS members executed 300 persons for collaborating with security forces,” pointing out that, “The ISIS was detaining them in its prisons, and then executed them by firing squad in Moshairefa village, north of Mosul.”
“ISIS filmed the execution after the so-called Sharia Court issued the death sentence in Wilayet Nineveh,” Abbar added.
The ISIS executed thousands of Mosul residents after capturing the city in June 2014, on different charges, especially for collaborating with the security forces. Recommended For You | 0 |
.@AnnCoulter: “What I’m frustrated with right now is, I think the GOP should change their motto to, ‘next time’. ” #Hannity pic. twitter. . @AnnCoulter: All of the people who should have been standing up for the 1st Amendment here all ran away with their tails between their legs pic. twitter. On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” author Ann Coulter weighed in on the cancellation of her speech at and President Trump’s dropping of his demand for border wall funding by stating, “I think the GOP should change their motto to ‘Next Time.’ We’ll fight this next time. ” Coulter said, “I think the GOP should change their motto to ‘Next Time.’ We’ll fight this next time. We’ll show them how good we are this time. No, we want to win now. Whether it comes to judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets — you may Google it — about 98 votes from the Republicans, and Clarence Thomas, 52. Gorsuch barely slips through. You have Donald Trump with, — he gives away DACA, and then he doesn’t get the wall. Well, that’ll show ’em how good he is. What a good humanitarian, by saying what a big heart he has for those DREAMers, the illegal aliens he promised to deport. Next time we’ll get them. And now we have YAF saying, well, we’re going to strike a blow for the next speaker at Berkeley. No, I want to win now. Can Republicans ever win now?” She later added, “[A]ll of the people who should have been standing up for the First Amendment here all ran away with their tails between their legs. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
On Nov. 20, 2016, AP reported that former Greek President Constantine Stephanopoulos who was the former president of Greece had died. Stephanopoulos was 90 at the age of his passing.
The former Greek president had entered a hospital on Thursday, Nov. 17 when he was suffering from pneumonia. While at the hospital his condition hastily waned as he struggled through the night.
On Saturday Stephanopoulos’s doctors had released a statement that said he was suffering from multiple organ failures. The report also indicated that he was not responding to treatment.
The late president of Greece was known to most residents of the country as Costis. Stephanopoulos presidency of Greece dated from the year 1995 and lasted unto the year 2005. The former Greek statesman served the two terms that were allowed by the constitution of the nation.
Stephanopoulos won wide popular approval with his modesty and lack of pomposity. Although, the Greek presidency is largely ceremonial.
Despite being a conservative Stephanopoulos worked well with other politicians from across the political spectrum. The late president of Greece especially worked well with former Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Costas was also prime minister of Greece from the year 1996 unto the year 2004.
Written by John A. Federico
Edited by Cathy Milne
Source:
AP: Former Greek President Stephanopoulos dies at 90
Image Courtesy of C.’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License Constantine Stephanopoulos , stephanopoulos | 0 |
Repeal national identity for a wholesome homogeneity in a New World Order run by benevolent elites?
This whole murderous nonsense stinks to high heaven of the Hegelian Dialectic. Assad is the problem, mass emigration of refugees the reaction. And a fractured Europe ripe for further globalization the solution.
I for one, am tired of being treated as an idiot without eyes, and being awake to the manipulation by the mass-murderers and their pet military trigger-pullers - prefer nationalism over an envisioned hell on Earth. But thank you so much for playing. | 0 |
The ‘victorious’ legacy of the Vietnam War By Emanuel E. Garcia, MD
“What’s he talking about?” you might be thinking, “didn’t America lose the war?”
I guess it all depends on how you look at it.
Sure, over 58,000 American soldiers perished , with many more wounded, and over a million Vietnamese fighters and civilians , according to the best estimates, died. And although there is some uncertainty about the actual number of Vietnamese casualties, one thing is certain: their names are not engraved on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC—an omission which brings “irony” to unimaginable heights. Surely the Vietnamese, whose country committed no infringement against the United States, and whose people were slaughtered whether they took up arms to defend their territory or merely attempted to ply their rice paddies—deserved some acknowledgment.
Nevertheless, narrative has it that the war—or, since there was never any formal declaration of war, I should more properly say ‘conflict’—was lost and that American pride and the American military and, according to some, the American psyche, suffered a terrible blow.
But in one respect the Vietnamese entanglement proved to have an enduring and efficiently victorious legacy, a legacy moreover that informs the recent escapades in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and the so-called ‘war on terror’.
To explain what I mean, I have to meander a bit into the terrain of human psychology and war, guided by a remarkable book: Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s On Killing . Grossman makes two cogent observations: (1) there exists even on the fields of war a very powerful and innate human resistance against killing, which armies throughout the centuries have fought to diminish, and (2) it was in Vietnam that the American soldier was “psychologically enabled to kill to a far greater degree than any other soldier in history.”
People, generally speaking, do not kill easily. Soldiers throughout history have had a hard time killing face to face and very often turned their weapons away. Only an extremely and brutally efficient methodology of deconditioning, which made its appearance in Vietnam, could result in vastly higher ‘kill rates’. In other words, the more distant and dehumanised the enemy is made to seem, the less resistance there is to murder.
Vietnam, therefore, heralded a great victory of mechanised death and destruction over the inner humanity of individuals; and those techniques, we can be sure, have only been fortified since then by the increasing reliance on long-range bombing, video-game-like machinations from far away, by the rendering of individual human beings who bleed and laugh and cry and suffer into anonymous digits or blips.
So on the one hand, it is a wonderful thing to realise that even in the bloodiest times of war, humankind has struggled to kill at close quarters—that, in fact, no matter how much we are inundated by the press and by the purveyors of violent war games, killing is no easy thing. More often than not, even in the great battles between recalcitrant adversaries, compassion showed its presence.
But compassion seems to have no place in, for example, drone-assassination campaigns that have been ‘legitimised’ by an onslaught of propaganda, with victims that are merely insignificant dots. Killing has been perfected, as it were.
Indeed, now that I think of it, the irony of the Vietnam War Memorial is no match for the irony inherent in the fact that the man who has won a Nobel Prize for Peace is the very same individual who has presided over an assassination programme whose distinction is as a kind of apex of dehumanised murder.
I hope for a greater victory, however: one that awaits those who fight not against other men and women, but against the organised forces and practices that seek to abolish our humanity by digitising, anonymizing and atomising us when our great and truer essences cry out for love, connection and community.
Dr. Garcia is an American-born poet, novelist and physicians who resides in New Zealand. This entry was posted in Commentary . Bookmark the permalink . | 0 |
On Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks praised the Syria strike by saying “it was incumbent upon the US to do something when chemical weapons were used. ” And “there is some upside to having somebody who’s a little unpredictable. ” Brooks said, “The question what’s next strikes me as a secondary question. The primary question is, what are we going to do about chemical warfare? A hundred years ago, right now, World War I was going on, and there were people were being gassed in the trenches. And the fact that the world community has basically tried to eliminate chemical weapons since that time strikes me as a great achievement. And to go back on that would be a great step backward for civilization. And Barack Obama, unfortunately, didn’t do anything when chemical weapons were used. So, I think it was incumbent upon the US to do something when chemical weapons were used. ” He continued, “Does this signal some grand change of strategy in the Middle East? I sort of doubt it. But at least we set this precedent on this particular issue. Now, the question — I think it was probably totally impulsive of President Trump to do this. He’s an impulsive person, and we’re stuck the downsides of his impulsivity. But there are upsides to having an impulsive president because nobody in the world, and especially in places like North Korea, quite knows what’s going to happen. And so, frankly, there are some advantages to that. ” Brooks later added, “I would rather have a strategy, obviously. But I’m just pointing out there is some upside to having somebody who’s a little unpredictable. … I suspect it was a case … but I think it was the right thing to do. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Posted on October 26, 2016 by Eric Zuesse. Eric Zuesse For the very first time, on October 25th, a high federal official, the “SIGTARP” or Special Inspector General for the TARP program that bailed out the largest financial institutions and their top investors after the 2008 economic crash, is now making a specific proposal to hold the top-level crooks accountable for the incentive-systems they had put into place motivating their employees to pump-and-dump ‘investments’ during the growth-phase of the ‘free market’ Ponzi game that existed since 2000 when the end of the FDR-era Glass-Steagall Act and the start of totally unregulated financial marketeering went wild after 2005 and came crashing down in 2008. Despite the deregulation that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (and both political parties in Congress) instituted, there still remained on the books some laws that high financial executives were breaking, but the SIGTARP has now come to an impasse in trying to obtain the evidence that will enable investigations to proceed against the top executives, and so she is coming out to urge cooperation of the rest of the government in order to enable it to happen. The SIGTARP, Christy Goldsmith Romero, urges : A PROPOSAL TO BRING ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE “INSULATED CEO” I propose that Congress remove the insulation around Wall Street CEOs and other high-level officials by requiring the CEO, CFO and certain other senior executives to sign an annual certification that they have conducted due diligence within their organization and can certify that that there is no criminal conduct or civil fraud in their organization. According to a Reuters report from Patrick Rucker, titled “Wall St. Rescue Fund Watchdog Says U.S. Bank Heads Too Insulated” , “Wall Street executives are too shielded from prosecution and should answer for misdeeds committed by underlings, the watchdog for a multibillion-dollar [federal-government] bailout [of the mega-banks] said on Wednesday.” This article, dated Wednesday October 25th, continued: “Senior banking officials should attest each year that their companies are free of criminal fraud and civil abuse, said Christy Goldsmith Romero, special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. ‘Every executive should be able to conduct due diligence,’ she told Reuters in an interview. ‘If they are too big to do that, then they are too big, period.’” That policy, if honestly placed into practice, would likely result in lengthy prison terms for many of the people who are the big-dollar political donors; and so it can’t possibly happen. But the very fact that someone in a federal-government capacity has finally said publicly that it needs to happen is shocking enough. The article continues: “U.S. taxpayers have invested more than $400 billion since the crisis, mostly in large Wall Street banks. Goldsmith Romero leads a staff of roughly 140 investigators examining possible abuse of the TARP program.” Romero on Wednesday sent to Congress her agency’s 550-page investigative report (not linked-to by Reuters but here ) on that subject, and Rucker continued: “Goldsmith Romero said the report also described cases where executives are complicit in fraud but the highest-ranking officials are walled off. ‘The knowledge stops,’ she said. ‘It resides at lower levels and stops there. And in many cases, I think that’s by intentional design.’” The reporter, Mr. Rucker, makes clear how grave this situation really is: “Goldsmith Romero has never before suggested a reform of the financial system. She said that she felt compelled to speak up this time after facing so many cases where senior executives seemed out of reach from prosecutions.” So: although the aristocrats’ immunity will not be removed, a federal official has now had the courage to state that it must be removed. Elizabeth Warren, a U.S. Senator who held off from making any endorsement during the Presidential primaries, is now campaigning for Hillary Clinton to become President — the same candidate that Wall Street executives are overwhelmingly funding to win the Presidency — but Warren is already verbally supportive of what Romero is urging. On September 15th, David Dayen at The Intercept bannered, “Elizabeth Warren Asks Newly Chatty FBI Director to Explain Why DOJ Didn’t Prosecute Banksters” , and he reported that on that day: “Warren released two highly provocative letters demanding some explanations. One is to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, requesting a review of how federal law enforcement managed to whiff on all 11 substantive criminal referrals submitted by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC), a panel set up to examine the causes of the 2008 meltdown. The other is to FBI Director James Comey, asking him to release all FBI investigations and deliberations related to those referrals.” Warren’s campaigning for Clinton, who has always been against accountability at the top in the U.S., is drastically inconsistent with this public display of supporting such accountability, and is therefore untrustworthy. I (who until now had always voted only for Democrats) earlier reported the fundamental dishonesty of the Democratic Party’s elite about precisely this matter: — Privately, Obama had told Wall Street executives that he would protect them. On 27 March 2009, Obama assembled the top executives of the bailed-out financial firms in a secret meeting at the White House and he assured them that he would cover their backs; he promised “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks” . It’s not on the White House website; it was leaked out, which is one of the reasons Obama hates leakers (including such heroes as Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange). What the DOJ’s IG indicated was, in effect, that Obama had kept his secret promise to them. Here is the context in which Obama said that (from page 234 of Ron Suskind’s 2011 book, Confidence Men ): The CEOs went into their traditional stance. “It’s almost impossible to set caps [to their bonuses]; it’s never worked, and you lose your best people,” said one. “We’re competing for talent on an international market,” said another. Obama cut them off. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that,” he said. “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” It was an attention grabber, no doubt, especially that carefully chosen last word. But then Obama’s flat tone turned to one of support, even sympathy. “You guys have an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem,” he said. “And I want to help. But you need to show that you get that this is a crisis and that everyone has to make some sacrifices.” According to one of the participants, he then said, “I’m not out there to go after you. I’m protecting you. But if I’m going to shield you from public and congressional anger, you have to give me something to work with on these issues of compensation.” No suggestions were forthcoming from the bankers on what they might offer, and the president didn’t seem to be championing any specific proposals. He had none: neither Geithner nor Summers believed compensation controls had any merit. After a moment, the tension in the room seemed to lift: the bankers realized he was talking about voluntary limits on compensation until the storm of public anger passed. It would be for show. He had been lying to the public, all along. Not only would he not prosecute the banksters, but he would treat them as if all they had was “an acute public relations problem that’s turning into a political problem.” And he thought that the people who wanted them prosecuted were like the KKK who had chased Blacks with pitchforks before lynching. According to the DOJ , their Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF) was “established by President Barack Obama in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes.” But, according to the Department’s IG , it was all a fraud: a fraud that according to the DOJ itself had been going on since at least November 2009. — If this matter that Romero is raising will be coming up during a Hillary Clinton Administration, the lying about it will simply continue, that’s all. Barack Obama is no less vicious a liar than Hillary Clinton is, but she’s not nearly as skillful a deceiver as he is, but that’s the only real difference between them. She’ll get the job done for the political megadonors, just the same, like she always has. However, if Donald Trump is to be President, then no one can intelligently say what his policy on accountability would be — other than that he’ll work with Congress to get an independent prosecutor to investigate the criminal allegations against Hillary Clinton, including the ones that the untrustworthy FBI alleges that it has already investigated in an impartial manner. Regarding the specific issue that Romero is implicitly also urging, the reinstatement of the FDR-era Glass-Steagall Act, which Bill Clinton and the Republicans terminated in 2000 and which had limited bank-size, Trump is on record as demanding that it be done . (That’s one of the reasons why he has been receiving far less from Wall Street than Hillary Clinton has been. Wall Street loathes Trump. Almost everything in this ‘election’ is nearly the opposite of what is commonly presumed.) For the first time in recent memory, there really is an important difference between the two major-Party Presidential candidates. The last time it happened was 2000, when the far-right candidate, George W. Bush ‘won’. This time around, it seems likely to be repeated (and maybe this time by a landslide): the far-right candidate Hillary Clinton will probably win — same result, just different nominal parties this time around. In an important sense, this year’s George W. Bush is Hillary Clinton. (He demanded regime-change in Iraq; she demands regime-change in Russia.) This year’s Al Gore is Donald Trump. Except that this time the big issue isn’t global warming, but instead nuclear war against Russia. Of course, GW Bush was bad on both issues (denying climate-change, and demanding “regime-change in Iraq” where the Moscow-friendly dictator Saddam Hussein ruled). But so too is Hillary (who followed up her ardent advocacy for regime-change in Iraq, by regime-change in Moscow-friendly Libya, and regime-change in Moscow-friendly Ukraine, and regime-change in Moscow-allied Syria; and who is now pushing for regime-change in Russia itself, and thus unchallenged U.S.-aristocracy control over every other nation’s aristocracy). All of this election-year, the supposedly big issue was bigotry, but the thing that’s actually destroying this country and the entire world is class — rich versus poor; the super-rich crushing everyone else — and the ‘news’ media are controlled not by the many poor but by the very few super-rich. And this is why Romero’s call for justice is, sadly, just a cry into the wind. Regarding politics, one has no reason to trust what one hears from the politicians, reads in the newspapers and magazines, or hears or sees on radio and TV. The elite scams are overwhelming from all of the Establishment sides. But finally, an obscure federal official, Ms. Romero, the SIGTARP, has spoken her conscience, despite knowing that she’ll only be punished for it once she’s out of office. Unlike the Democratic Party politicians, she’s not grandstanding. She’s instead truly heroic, speaking truth to power, and really meaning it — and ready to face the consequences for having done it. It’s remarkable. It’s Quixotic, in a really heroic way: pathbreaking, even if that path leads only to a brick wall. At least it will expose to the public the extent to which the system itself is their enemy. Not Mexicans. Not Blacks. Not Whites. Not Muslims. Not Christians. Not Jews. Not Russians. Not men. Not women. Not even (though bigots are dangerous fools) bigots against any such group. The system, right here in the U.S., needs to be changed. Nothing can authentically be blamed on any “not us” target — either for invasion, or otherwise. Romero wants to cancel the immunity of aristocrats — the people who control this country . | 0 |
RT October 27, 2016
Britain is deploying troops, aircraft and armor in the biggest military buildup in Eastern Europe since the Cold War.
The deployment, which was first floated in the press by UK defense chiefs on Wednesday, appears to have been prepared well in advance.
It will see up to 800 armored infantry troops deployed to Estonia and Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter jets deployed to Romania in what appears to be a reiteration of the strategy of containment employed against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
France and Denmark will also commit more troops.
On Wednesday, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon struck a belligerent tone in the Wall Street Journal when he warned that Europe “ is our continent ” and, as such, would be defended.
While he claimed the force would be “ defensive in nature ” he pledged it would be “ fully combat-capable. ” A d v e r t i s e m e n t
He denied the placement of small formations around the Baltic area are merely a “ trip-wire ” in case of the much-heralded, but hypothetical, clash with Russia.
“ This is a serious military presence, ” he said.
Tensions have only just begun to subside after a fleet of Russian naval vessels bound for the Mediterranean Sea passed through the North Sea and English Channel.
The passage caused a press frenzy in the UK, framed as though Russia was launching an invasion of the British Isles. The Royal Navy deployed destroyers to, in Fallon’s words, “ man-mark ” the vessels while the RAF overflew the ships with fighter jets.
According to the Russian military, the naval group’s task was to “ ensure a naval presence in operationally significant areas of the world’s oceans, ” as well as “ the safety of maritime navigation and other maritime economic activities ” of Russia.
Britain’s deployment of troops, drones and aircraft is expected to begin in May 2018. This article was posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 6:45 am Share this article | 0 |
SAN JUAN, P. R. — Before she played in her last tennis tournament, Mónica Puig was pretty much like anyone else at San Juan International Airport. Her grandparents would drop her off curbside and she would wait at the gate area flipping though her phone just like anyone else, save for the occasional moments when someone recognized her and asked for a photo. But after her last tournament, at the Rio Olympics, no trip to Puerto Rico will be the same. When she landed at the airport this week, carrying the first Olympic gold medal in Puerto Rico’s history, she was met by thousands of cheering fans, a retinue of three beefy security guards and an escort of several police cars and motorcycles with lights flashing. As her motorcade drove through San Juan, people poured into the streets to greet her, even as it passed the hardscrabble Luis Llorens Torres housing project, where baseball and basketball players and boxers are usually the most idolized stars. But in the span of a week, Puig went from a curiosity here — the girl born in San Juan who went to Miami and became a professional tennis player — to a hero, with the island’s first gold medal around her neck at age 22. “I was stunned,” Puig said in an interview at her San Juan hotel, about a mile from her grandmother’s apartment, where she spent summers as a girl. “The support I am getting here is just indescribable. I didn’t fully understand the weight of my actions until I got here. ” Puig’s impromptu parade from the airport was followed by an organized version through the streets of San Juan on Tuesday that drew thousands of supporters. It was intended to commemorate the efforts of the entire Puerto Rican Olympic squad, but without Puig, there would have been no parade. With the United States Open set to begin Monday, Puig had only a few days to soak in the appreciation of Puerto Rico and the fans who had fallen in love with her. She stood at the front of a roofless bus, her gold medal dangling over the side, singing along with Puerto Rican pop tunes and waving to a grateful island. Waving back were grandmothers and little girls holding red, white and blue flags gritty bikers business people pouring out of office buildings and truckers, parked in their rigs and honking their horns. There were teenagers in tank tops doctors, nurses, schoolchildren in uniform and nuns in habits. One elderly man wore a crisp, new with an image of Puig celebrating her gold medal victory and her motto Pica Power. He held a small cardboard sign that read, “Gracias, Monica. ” “It was the most incredible experience of my life,” Puig said. “Obviously, I was overcome with emotion because you saw me crying up there. I could see it on their faces, what it meant to everyone. I felt so proud. ” Puig’s historic success came at an opportune moment for Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States that is enduring hard times. The economy is faltering under the crushing weight of more than $70 billion in government debt, morale is low and fears over the Zika virus caused Major League Baseball to cancel a series. People are leaving the island to seek their fortunes elsewhere, and it seems that the populace is divided about whether to push for statehood or become an independent nation. But Puerto Ricans here and abroad were united each time Puig took the court in Rio, the momentum building with every win. Unseeded and ranked No. 35, Puig drew scant interest for the first match she played. By the second match, people began to take notice. After she crushed No. 3 Garbiñe Muguruza, the French Open champion, in the third round, Puig had Puerto Rico’s full attention. By the time she beat the Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the semifinals, she had captivated an island. Gigi Fernández, also from San Juan, won gold in doubles in the 1992 and the 1996 Olympics, but she did it representing the United States. Before the Rio Games, Puerto Rico had captured only eight medals since it first entered the Olympics in 1948 — two silver and six bronze. When Puig stepped onto the court to play Angelique Kerber in the gold medal match on Aug. 13, the streets across Puerto Rico were silent and empty, according to numerous reports and accounts of dozens of people here. But when she won, people came out on the balconies of apartment buildings waving flags and shouting, cars honked their horns and people in bars and restaurants danced and hugged. “The whole island came together,” she said. “I feel like I united the island. ” She added: “I know that in Puerto Rico, not many people watch tennis or know what it is all about. But it is amazing how much a moment like that can mean for so many people. ” After Puig’s victory, Puerto Rican celebrities sent out congratulatory tweets, including the entertainers Miranda, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony and Puig’s friend Carlos Correa, the star shortstop of the Houston Astros. But this, at its core, was a victory for the average Puerto Ricans to revel in. Javier a puppeteer from Bayamón, was on a church mission in Nicaragua for the final, but found an internet signal and watched on his phone. “It is the greatest thing to happen to Puerto Rico,” he said Wednesday near the beautiful public tennis courts in Parque Barbosa in San Juan. “That a young woman from Puerto Rico set her mind to a goal and reached it, it gives us hope. The people here are frustrated. But it feels like everyone in Puerto Rico has a gold medal because of her. ” Puig’s sudden popularity is more remarkable considering tennis is not a big sport here. Baseball is considered the passion of the island, and basketball and boxing are immensely popular. Soccer, volleyball and maybe even judo and may rank higher than tennis. But Puig’s mother, Astrid, played it as a girl in San Juan and earned a top ranking as a junior on the island, although she never played professionally. The Puig family moved to Miami when Monica was 1, but she and her brother returned regularly to spend summers with their grandparents. As her daughter’s tennis improved in her teenage years, Astrid said, the family decided she would play for Puerto Rico, which offered more financial support than the United States Tennis Association did. But the money was contingent upon Puig’s winning medals in events like the Pan American Games and the Central American Games. That may have etched the importance of medals in her mind. At 16, she won gold in the Central American Games, played in Puerto Rico, and last year she won bronze at the Pan American Games in Toronto. “Playing for Puerto Rico was the best decision I ever made,” Puig said. “I am so proud of my Puerto Rican roots. To pay off like this just reaffirms it. ” Puig struggled in 2015, and her ranking, once in the top 40, fell to No. 92 at the end of the year. This season, though, her road to Rio was paved with success. She reached the final at the Sydney event in January and the semifinals at Eastbourne in June to bring her into the top 40. Players are no longer awarded ranking points at the Olympics, but she seized something just as valuable there: confidence. It was buoyed after her victory over Muguruza and then soared when she stunned Kvitova in three sets in the semifinals. In the final, against Kerber, Puig said her nerves cost her the second set. But when she led, in the third, she promised herself she would remain calm. “That was a big, fat lie,” she said. “It was definitely the moment of my life. The most scary, exciting mix of emotions I have ever felt. My hands were shaking. ” Her next stop is the United States Open, next week in New York. Puig knows she enjoys great support from people of Puerto Rican descent and from Caribbean nations. But she noted that now, after Rio, her appeal may broaden. “I know this will probably be one to remember,” she said. “I hope I can go far enough to make it a good memory. ” In less than a month, she obtained a lifetime of memories. On Tuesday in San Juan, the parade in her honor ended at the Coliseum of Puerto Rico, where she and the other Olympians danced and sang on stage in a jubilant celebration in front of thousands. Puig cried during her speech. Carlos Nido, a public defense lawyer from San Juan, took his two little girls to watch. “They are very young,” he said. “But maybe someday they will play tennis, too. ” | 1 |
An NSA Whistleblower says that Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails are easily accessible by the NSA and FBI should they desire to look at them, and he suggests that the hacks on the Democratic National Committee’s server was not done by Russia, as many pundits are claiming, but possibly by a disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker.
William Binney, the architect of the NSA’s surveillance program, resigned on October 31, 2001, after working for the agency for more than 30 years. He thinks that an intelligence worker may have hacked into the DNC emails due to concern about Hillary Clinton’s disregard of national security in her use of a personal email server and her continued lies about her activity. Once accessed, there’s no telling where the information could have gone.
The “Putin did it” story is a fable used to sway voters towards Clinton’s war-driven agenda.
On a talk radio show, he mentioned that there are numerous questions that are not being answered about the hacked DNC emails and the network log available to the NSA.
Binney explains that there was no evidence tying the alleged Russian hacks to Wikileaks, and he says that they would have access to this information through the network logs. “So, if the FBI really wanted them, they can go into that database and get them right now,” he said.
He finds their reluctance to speak to this matter highly suspicious. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Regardless of what Congress ends up doing about the future of the tax system, you don’t need to pay more than you owe for the 2016 tax filing season. You can probably whittle your liability by going through last year’s records and checking to see if tips from tax professionals may apply to you. Whether you use a professional tax preparer or software, or handle the return on your own, you will need to assemble information and gather receipts and tax documents. Here are the basics: You need to track your income, but you are likely to get plenty of help on that. Be prepared for a blizzard of tax forms. Employers issue Forms to employees. Banks, brokerage houses and other payers, including businesses that use independent contractors, issue Forms 1099 and sometimes Schedules reporting the money they paid. They must report these payments to the I. R. S. as well, and discrepancies are likely to result in an I. R. S. notice. But it is up to the taxpayer to claim itemized deductions and available tax credits. If you neglect to do so, you may end up overpaying. Taking deductions requires good . Consider the rules for charitable deductions on donated money, household items or clothing, valuable art or properties. Sidney Kess, a New York accountant and lawyer, who is a senior consultant to the accounting firm Citrin Cooperman, said your own check is sufficient for gifts of less than $250, but for higher amounts a receipt from the charity is needed. “To claim a deduction for items or property worth over $500 but less than $5, 000, in addition to a written acknowledgment, records have to show when and how you got the property, the cost or other basis, and you must report this information on Form 8283,” Mr. Kess said. “For a deduction over $5, 000, you need an appraisal from a qualified appraiser. ” But is only part of what confronts taxpayers trying to reduce liabilities. The tax code — four million words by some estimates — is of complexities, but therein lie opportunities. Mr. Kess discussed one such opportunity: deciding how family members should file their returns. Like so much involving taxes, it’s complicated. Say a couple has a daughter in college who earned money from a summer job. The couple provides more than half her support and could claim her as a dependent, but the I. R. S. imposes certain limits. Personal exemptions, which exclude $4, 050 per person from income, begin to phase out for married couples filing jointly with adjusted gross income of $311, 300 and are eliminated when income reaches $433, 800. If the parents had an income below those levels, they would probably have claimed their daughter as a dependent. Because their income is above the upper limit, they do not do so. Instead, she claims her own exemption on her return reporting her summer income, and she can take an education credit as well. Her parents could not get that credit because of their high income. Individual Retirement Accounts and Health Savings Accounts can be used to shelter tax refunds, noted Barbara Weltman, a lawyer in Vero Beach, Fla. and author of two J. K. Lasser books, “1001 Deductions Tax Breaks 2017,” and “Small Business Taxes 2017,” both published by Wiley. “You can use your tax refund to lower your 2016 tax,” Ms. Weltman said, “but you have to file as early as you can” because the deadline for depositing the money into an I. R. A. or H. S. A. is the same as the due date for filing tax returns, April 18 this year. If you are eligible for an I. R. A. or H. S. A. claim deductions for them on the return, based on the amounts calculated by the accounts’ custodians, and include Form 8888, directing the I. R. S. to deposit those amounts directly into the accounts. Tell your account custodian (it may be a bank or a mutual fund company or a brokerage) that the deposit should be applied to 2016, she said. Any excess from the refund can go to your regular bank account. Julian Block, a tax lawyer in Larchmont, N. Y. said that big refunds can sometimes cause problems. He cited the case of a new client who, he discovered, had been receiving a plump refund every year. Mr. Block advised him to file a revised Form with his employer, aimed at reducing the amount of money being held out of his regular paycheck and paring down his refund. The reason, Mr. Block said, is that online identity thieves are increasingly active, and if they file a fraudulent return using your Social Security number and claiming a refund, your own refund will be delayed while the I. R. S. sorts it out. Of course, you won’t be held liable for the actions of a thief. If, instead, you owe a small balance to the I. R. S. you won’t have that headache, though you will need to check whether your identity has been compromised in other areas of your financial life. Mr. Block also noted that there is an alternative to an I. R. A. for some older people, including people who turn a hobby into a small business or do work like child care. If they are over age 70½, such people can no longer contribute to an I. R. A. but they can set up and contribute to a Simplified Employee Pension Plan. That enables them to deduct contributions now and withdraw money in later years. It will be taxable then, but their income may be lower, too. For tax purposes, alimony counts as earned income, he added, so recipients who otherwise qualify for an I. R. A. may contribute the alimony to it and claim a deduction. Many people do not realize that they are allowed to deduct the cost of health insurance, regardless of whether their unreimbursed medical expenses are high enough to take a deduction on Schedule A, Mr. Block said. They can deduct the health insurance cost on the front of the Form 1040, on Line 29. That’s just one of several deductions on the front of the 1040 that are worth keeping in mind. Others include teachers’ outlays of up to $250 for students or for their own professional development, the deductible part of tax, student loan interest, alimony paid and an H. S. A. deduction for those who are eligible. All are especially valuable because they reduce adjusted gross income on Line 37. That number ripples all through a tax return, often limiting other tax breaks. In addition to filing a 2016 return by April 18, many taxpayers must file Form to pay quarterly estimated taxes on income on which no taxes are withheld, like income interest, dividends and capital gains on investments, or rental and royalty income. Preparers often base the calculations on the previous year’s taxes, Mr. Kess said, but if tax cuts are indeed enacted by Congress, estimates based on 2016 taxes may turn out to be too high. If that happens, you will need to recalculate the estimate later — in June, September or even the end of the year, depending on when a law is enacted — and can reduce the payments accordingly. For anyone thinking, “I wish I’d known that last year,” Greg Rosica, a tax partner with EY, formerly Ernst Young, in Tampa, Fla. says it’s probably not too late. Whatever the reason, you realize belatedly that you failed to take a deduction for which you were qualified. All is not lost. “It’s fairly simple to amend returns,” Mr. Rosica said. Taxpayers may file a Form 1040X up to three years beyond its original due date. Say you filed a Form 1040 for 2013 income in March 2014. The due date was April 15, 2014, so you have until April 18 this year. But if you filed under an automatic extension in 2014, you have until Oct. 16 of this year to file the amended return. Mr. Rosica is a member of the editorial board for the “EY Tax Guide 2017,” which is published by Wiley, and includes this tip: Many taxpayers know they can deduct state income taxes on their federal return, but many do not realize they have the option of deducting sales taxes instead. That is advantageous if you live in a state like Texas, New Hampshire or South Dakota that has no state income tax. It may also be a boon to anyone who bought a item like a car with a big sales tax, and is often the best choice for people over age 65 because many states — even New York — exempt Social Security income and some income from state income taxes. Both Mr. Rosica and Mr. Kess advised taxpayers to check the tax consequences of any big life changes that may have taken place, like getting married or divorced or having a baby, all of which could affect filing status and the number of personal exemptions, as well as bring medical expenses that may have tax consequences. Changing jobs or moving may also mean income changes that would affect withholding. If you have a financial account outside the United States, be careful to report it, Ms. Weltman said. “Foreign financial accounts are high on the I. R. S. scrutiny list, and people who fail to disclose foreign accounts can be penalized severely,” she said, including people who inherited accounts overseas and those who worked abroad and still have ties where they once lived. FinCEN Form 114, the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, is used for accounts of $10, 000 or more and is filed electronically with the Treasury, while Form 8938, which is attached to Form 1040, is used in more complex situations, with the lowest threshold being for accounts of $50, 000. | 1 |
Good morning. (Want to get California Today by email? Here’s the .) At 56, Henry Rollins is still angry. When he was a younger man, the rage flowed out of him as the scowling frontman for Black Flag, the pioneering Southern California punk band. Today, Mr. Rollins may no longer scream to get his point across. But as a spoken word performer, radio host and, notably, a widely read columnist at LA Weekly, he has reinvented himself as a political voice that is similarly hard to ignore. “It’s definitely one of the most popular regular features that we run,” his editor at LA Weekly, Andy Hermann, said of his writing. “He’s just a great commentator and satirist. ” (Here are a couple of pieces that Mr. Hermann said struck a big chord with readers.) We caught up with Mr. Rollins by phone. Some excerpts from the conversation: Q. What’s your approach to the column? A. As far as political writing, to use the baseball idea, if you can’t hit them where they ain’t and score, then — basically don’t be obvious. And if you’re going to make a point, if you can’t bring some humor into it — I mean obviously someone getting shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo. there’s no fun there. But anything with Donald Trump, where there’s so much to say, if you don’t bring some humor in, it’s going to be unreadable. Q. Have you mellowed with age? A. Not really. I’ve just been able to prioritize and direct my energies with a little bit more care and aim, where I don’t need to scorch the entire forest because I’m angry. I can just pick out the three trees and that turns into a column or that turns into something on stage. Q. You’ve said you cultivate your anger. Why? A. Because it turns into good things. I saw the HBO documentary on the West Memphis Three and I said, ‘Oh, O. K. you’ve officially pissed me off. Arkansas we’re coming for you.’ And it was out of anger. I was concerned for guys in jail, yeah, but it was anger that got my civic muscle going. And I started calling rich, famous people I knew — ‘Hey can I have a thousand dollars [to donate to a legal fund]?’ I couldn’t believe it. I was like a member of Congress dialing for dollars. Q. Do you ever think about making music again? A. No. For me it was a real time and place. I never really enjoyed being in a band. It was never fun. It was necessary. I really had to say those words. But I never enjoyed it and I’ll be the first to admit I was never all that good at it. But it was real. (Please note: We regularly highlight articles on news sites that have limited access for nonsubscribers.) • Democrats fiercely criticized Representative Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican who heads a House panel investigating Russian interference in the election, for taking information straight to the president. [The New York Times] • “Mr. Nunes is a lapdog in a watchdog role. ” [Opinion | The New York Times] • Representative Duncan D. Hunter, a San Diego County Republican, is under criminal investigation. He’s accused of spending campaign funds on vacations and video games. [The New York Times] • California passed the nation’s toughest methane emission regulations even as federal rules are expected to be rolled back. [San Francisco Chronicle] • “Measure S was not the answer to L. A.’s housing crisis, but neither is returning to business as usual. ” [Opinion | Los Angeles Times] • A former U. C. Berkeley student said a renowned philosophy professor sexually assaulted her. [Daily Californian] • Four people were found dead inside a Sacramento home. A man was detained. [Sacramento Bee] • Big banks and Silicon Valley are battling over something akin to gold: your data. [The New York Times] • Disney is looking for a successor to its chief executive, Robert A. Iger. But nobody seems to measure up. [The New York Times] • In Sequoia National Park, communing with some of the biggest trees on Earth. [The New York Times] • U. C. L. A. faces Kentucky in the N. C. A. A. men’s basketball tournament. Here’s how they match up. [Los Angeles Times] It wasn’t looking good for Nalu. The small, dog inhaled a lot of smoke after a fire erupted at a Santa Monica apartment on Tuesday. The fire was quickly put out. Nalu, a bichon tzu mix, was limp and not breathing. “He was essentially dead,” said Andrew Klein, the firefighter who pulled the dog from the burning home. Mr. Klein set Nalu on the grass and began delivering oxygen with a specialized pet mask and performing resuscitation. Minutes passed. Nothing. Kneeling nearby, the dog’s owner, Crystal Lamirande, who had been running errands when the blaze broke out, was distraught. She put her hand on the dog’s belly. “Come on Nalu,” she said. Then, an improbable 20 minutes after efforts to revive him began, Nalu blinked and, slowly, his chest rose. Ms. Lamirande, 35, a nurse, had just lost her home. Yet for the moment she was elated. “She couldn’t stop saying, ‘Thank you,’” said Billy Fernando, a who watched the drama. Speaking by phone Thursday, Ms. Lamirande said Nalu was back to his old self. “He’s so lovely. People just love him,” she said. Ms. Lamirande said she lost sentimental objects in the fire, whose origin was unknown. But she was coping, she added, “It’s just stuff. ” California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from U. C. Berkeley. | 1 |
Lionsgate has acquired the U. S. distribution rights to Dragged Across Concrete, a police detective thriller starring Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson. [According to the Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate will release the film under its Summit Entertainment banner after negotiating a deal at the Cannes Film Festival in France this week. The film reportedly stars Gibson and Vaughn as police detectives (Gibson an “ ” and Vaughn as his “volatile” partner) who are suspended from the force when video of their rough tactics is leaked to the media. “Low on cash and with no other options, these two embittered soldiers descend into the criminal underworld to gain their just due, but instead find far more than they wanted awaiting them in the shadows,” the film’s IMDb synopsis reads. The film was written and will be directed by S. Craig Zahler and is expected to begin production in Canada on July 17. Gibson and Vaughn are coming off a successful pairing on last year’s war drama Hacksaw Ridge, which won editing and sound Oscars, a Best Director nod for Gibson and a nomination for Best Picture. Lionsgate also distributed Hacksaw under its Summit Entertainment label last year. “We are delighted to be working again with Mel Gibson who helmed our double Oscar winner Hacksaw Ridge along with Vince Vaughn and the great production team behind this film,” Lionsgate president of acquisitions and Jason Constantine said in a statement. “It’s a double treat to have screenwriter S. Craig Zahler also direct what will be an intense film for audiences. ” The project is reportedly looking for international buyers in Cannes this week. Gibson’s acting slate is filling up quickly. The will star next in The Professor and the Madman alongside Sean Penn, and is currently filming a role for the comedy sequel Daddy’s Home 2. Vaughn previously worked with Zahler on the upcoming Brawl in Cell Block 99 and will also star in the upcoming wrestling comedy Fighting with My Family from director Stephen Merchant. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
ROME (AP) — Jim Harbaugh didn’t have a great answer, believe it or not. [Speaking with a Nigerian refugee who now lives in Rome, Michigan’s coach was presented Sunday with the basic, fundamental question of why American football is called “football,” given that players barely use their feet. At a loss for words, Harbaugh summoned his father, Jack, to help give a quick lesson. All in a day’s work. All part of the Roman experience. All part of Michigan football’s blitz of Rome. “The smiles on everybody’s faces here,” Jack Harbaugh said, “it’s just so fantastic. ” The Wolverines landed in Italy around 9 a. m. Sunday. The entire group has yet to arrive — more will be on the way Monday. But the first group of travelers exited their flight and headed straight toward Rome’s Villa Borghese, a spacious park in the center of the city. There, they spent some time with refugees from the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center, which is located at St. Paul’s Within The Walls Episcopal Church. St. Paul’s, built in 1873, was the first Roman church to be built inside Rome’s city walls. Michigan handed out more than 50 Jordan Brand backpacks, filled with Michigan gear, to the refugees in the park. The Harbaughs — father and son — gave a quick lesson to the refugees about how football is played. “These are precious gifts,” said Ade Dagi, a Nigerian refugee who came to Italy in 2015. “It’s beautiful. ” The Wolverines will spend the first four days of the trip touring Rome — an excursion that will see them visit the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, the Vatican and more. Harbaugh, his wife and two players (Grant Newsome and Salim Makki) will have a chance to sit near Pope Francis on Wednesday during his weekly Mass. The rest of the team will also be in attendance before touring St. Peter’s Square. Michigan is the first Football Bowl Subdivision team to take a spring trip abroad, and it’s already seeing the benefits. “(A refugee) I met said he came here with one shirt on his back, a pair of shorts and some shoes that didn’t fit,” Michigan quarterback Wilton Speight said. “A lot of us take that for granted. We’re here in Jordan jumpsuits with an American and Italy flag on them. It kind of puts all this in perspective a little bit. ” | 1 |
CAIRO — The last days of the government of Hosni Mubarak and the turbulent revolution that followed were tense, occasionally times for many in Egypt. But for gay and transgender Egyptians, it was also a period of unaccustomed freedom. They socialized in bars and sidewalk cafes and met partners over cellphone dating apps with a greater degree of openness and comfort than they had known. But that era came to an abrupt end with the return of military rule. Since the 2013 military intervention that established former Gen. Abdel Fattah as the country’s ruler, at least 250 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have been arrested in a quiet crackdown that has shattered what had been an increasingly vibrant and visible community. Through a campaign of online surveillance and entrapment, arrests and the closing of businesses, the police have driven gay and transgender people back underground and, in many cases, out of the country. Before the crackdown, “there was no deliberate campaign of arrest and monitoring,” said Dalia Abdel Hameed, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. “But now the police are going out of their way to arrest gay men and trans women. ” Between the unraveling of the Mubarak government and the overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people faced little threat from the police, who were focused on other matters and largely ignored what happened at house parties or bars in Cairo’s crumbling, bohemian downtown. The crackdown began in earnest when a military curfew imposed after the removal of Mr. Morsi ended in fall 2013, said Scott Long, a human rights activist who lived in Egypt for many years and wrote a landmark report for Human Rights Watch on the last major crackdown. At the time, control of Egypt’s streets was passing from the army, a relatively trusted institution, to the police, a hated symbol of the Mubarak government. “Somebody in the Ministry of Interior realized this was a way to get good publicity for the police,” Mr. Long said. The arrests signaled the return of an aggressive approach by the morality police division, which has participated in a larger crackdown that has jailed tens of thousands of people since 2013. Using tools last deployed in a campaign against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people over 10 years ago, the division has reasserted the authority lost by the police before and during the revolution. Other branches of the security forces have also flexed their muscles since the return of military rule, arresting protesters or clamping down on unlicensed street vendors, activists said. “The police want to show they have a strong grip on society,” Ms. Abdel Hameed said. “So this is the morality police having their own campaign to arrest L. G. B. T. people. ” There is no law in Egypt specifically banning homosexual acts, so gay and transgender people are charged with “habitual debauchery” under a 1961 law that is used to prosecute men for homosexuality and women for prostitution, Ms. Abdel Hameed said. So far, the sentences have ranged from two to 12 years. The crackdown has primarily targeted gay men and transgender women, some of whom have been arrested in raids on private homes or picked up on the street if their appearances raised suspicions. (Transgender women are usually prosecuted as men because the police, courts and news media in Egypt, unlike those in the West, make no meaningful distinction between gay men and transgender women, activists said.) Most, however, have been arrested after officers entrapped them on dating apps like Grindr, which now greets its users when they log in with a warning message about a possible police presence on the site. Ms. Abdel Hameed said the police used the apps to flirt with people, engaging in sexual banter and asking for risqué photos that could be used as evidence in court before asking them out on dates. When the unsuspecting targets of the stings arrive for the dates, they are swiftly arrested. This is not the first time these tactics have been used against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Egypt. A crackdown that began in 2001 is still remembered for a raid on the Queen Boat, a nightclub where the police arrested dozens of men accused of being gay. Their trials dominated Egypt’s headlines for months and sent a wave of terror through gay circles. “There was the Queen Boat and its aftermath, then there was our normal life, and now this is the biggest crackdown after the Queen Boat,” Ms. Abdel Hameed said. Perhaps the crackdown’s greatest physical manifestation is in the proliferation of police checkpoints in downtown Cairo and the closings of cafes and other businesses that were gathering spots for activists, intellectuals and gay people during the heady days of political upheaval. One gay man, who asked to be identified by only his middle name, Ali, for fear of arrest, said the police campaign had devastated his community. “Everything leads to getting arrested,” Ali said. “The huge threat is being arrested or losing your friends to prison, because after the failed revolution there was a huge crackdown on the downtown community, especially. This is my community, and it is being destroyed. ” Many gay and transgender people who are able to leave the country have done so or still hope to, Ali said, adding that he wanted to move to Europe or North America. “I am running out of friends because they are all being arrested or they are leaving Egypt,” he said. The police also seize detainees’ phones and “search their data to find others,” Ms. Abdel Hameed said. When they find them, they often torture them to produce lists of gay friends and former sex partners. Detainees are also subjected to forced anal examinations, a form of torture that the police believe can prove if a person has engaged in homosexual conduct, a contention that Egyptian jurists have said is false. Mr. Long said that online entrapment had become especially effective in the last two years, because the shutdown of spaces had left many with no place to go. “There aren’t many queer places left in downtown or in the rest of the city, so people become more reliant on apps and social networks,” he said. “People are lonely and they meet someone who seems like they’re interested, and bang, they’re arrested. ” Ali agreed that despite the dangers, the internet was one of the few public spaces left for gay and transgender people. “There is no other way,” Ali said. “It is Egypt. ” | 1 |
Despite the recent move of the Raiders from California to gambling mecca Las Vegas, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has reaffirmed the league’s stance against gambling. [With the move to Vegas and the growth of sports betting websites such as Draft Kings, many have wondered just how hard the NFL will continue the fight to restrict gambling. But, Goodell’s recent comments seem to answer that question, at least for now, USA Today reports. “I would probably tell you that I think society has probably had a little bit of a change with respect to gambling in general,” Goodell said at the league’s annual meeting in Arizona on Tuesday. “I think we still strongly oppose it in that room, and otherwise, legalized sports gambling. The integrity of our game is No. 1. We will not compromise on that. ” Even with that negative assessment, Goodell did admit that Vegas isn’t the same, crooked city it once was. “But I also believe that Las Vegas is not the same city it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It’s a much more diverse city. It has become an entertainment mecca. It’s the city in the country,” he added. “So I think when you look at it today versus what it was a decade or two ago, I think it’s a much different city. And they made a very compelling proposal, which the owners obviously approved overwhelmingly. ” Indeed, many polls have shown an increased tolerance for gambling among the pubic. Polls last year revealed that nearly half of respondents were in favor of legalizing sports betting. Governments are also hungrily eyeing sports betting as a likely new source of tax revenue, as well. Consequently, various bills have been introduced in Congress to lift the federal ban on sports betting. But, other signs pointed to new problems in the internet age when sports fan sites like Draft Kings and Fan Duel came under fire for corrupt practices last year. Yet, even with the controversies, it was reported that several pro sports leagues are looking to work closer with the gambling industry. Unlike the NFL’s Goodell, NBA chief Adam Silver recently went in the opposite direction on sports betting by softening his league’s stance against gambling. But, there is still faint hope for gamblers looking for football to favor them. In the end Goodell noted that the NFL reserves the right to change rules whenever it makes sense to do so. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
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Home / Be The Change / War on Drugs / The Real Reason Police Fear Monger About ‘Drug-laced Candy’ on Halloween The Real Reason Police Fear Monger About ‘Drug-laced Candy’ on Halloween William N. Grigg October 26, 2015 2 Comments
Halloween looms on the horizon like a rising Harvest Moon, and with its approach comes the perennial onslaught of scare stories about drug fiends trying to poison “The Children.”
The Jackson, Mississippi Police Department was one of many that used their Facebook page to disseminate a warning about Ecstasy pills that were deviously disguised to look like children’s candy. The message contained a photo of what appeared to be an assortment of what appeared to be Pez-style hard candies in various shapes and colors.
“If your kids get these for Halloween candy, they ARE NOT CANDY!!!” bellowed the Facebook post , which was composed by someone dangerously addicted to punctuation marks. “They are the new shapes of `Ecstasy’ and can kill kids through overdoses!!! So, check your kid’s candy and `When in doubt, Throw it out!!!’ Be safe and always keep the shiny side up!!!”
No instrument yet invented can measure the infinitesimally small possibility that a child in Jackson would receive Ecstasy or any other drug as part of the Halloween haul. However, parents who follow the police department’s admonition will infect their youngsters with alarm over the supposedly all-encompassing menace posed by fiendish drug addicts who spent considerable sums on expensive drugs that they simply give away to kids whom they will never see again.
“Law enforcement agencies across the country have caught people with ecstasy pills shaped like candy,” intoned Memphis CBS affiliate WREG , which also passed along a report from a sister station in Louisville that “a guy got busted last week for having ecstasy pills with Disney characters on them.” Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies contacted by WREG replied to requests for comment about this supposed threat. The Memphis PD insisted that “they have not heard anything about this, but would ask the Organized Crime Unit about it in the morning.”
The families and the police ignore the fact that many ecstasy pill manufacturers mimic pop culture to brand their specific blend of drugs. The “Disney Characters” on pills are little more than that drug dealer’s logo. It is in no way intended to lure unsuspecting children into eating these pills that cost upwards of $30 each.
Dr. Jon McCullers, Chief Pediatrician at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, introduced an element of sobriety into the discussion, endorsing he common-sense notion that “parents have to remain vigilant” while assuring the public that the specter of drug-tainted candy isn’t “on their radar.”
“We haven’t seen that here at Le Bonheur,” Dr. McCullers declared. “It [the annual scare over adulterated Halloween candy] goes back to when I was a kid. Everybody worried about that sort of thing.”
One supposedly verified incident of children being given marijuana-infused candy took place not during trick-or-treating, but in a government-controlled, “drug-free” environment: One teenager was arrested and two others may face charges for allegedly giving pot-enhanced Skittles candies to students at the high school in Miller, Missouri. Police were told that five students “ate the tainted candy and their parents were immediately contacted,” according to a report from KY3news.com.
School superintendent Dustin Strom claims that the “poisoned” candy “has a different color, different look, and a different texture as well.” It’s not clear from available reports, however, that toxicology tests were performed on the candy to confirm that they had been coated with THC (the psychoactive compound in cannabis), and, if this is the case, where the alleged offenders had obtained it.
Despite Strom’s assurance that this alleged tampering was “an isolated incident,” the Miller Police Department announced that it will provide “safety checks” on Halloween candy at the request of concerned parents.
Moral panic of this kind bubbles up every year in mid-October, and the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington – which can take the form of edibles that resemble brownies, cookies, or candy – has added a new flavor to that familiar witches’ brew. However, as MTV News reported a year ago , “we’ve been to this dance before. The myth of poisoned or drugged Halloween candy has been going around at this time of year since at least the ‘60s. Before marijuana candies, Americans have been scared of everything from heroin to metal shards in their kids’ sugary loot.”
Despite this annual outbreak of alarm, “there’s never been a proven case of some random madman intentionally poisoning random trick-or-treaters. In fact, children are more likely to be poisoned by a family member than a stranger around Halloween.”
“I have always been skeptical of claims that maniacs try to poison kids’ treats,” observes Joel Best, a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Delaware. “Why would they do that?”
The implicit answer, from the perspective of those promoting the panic, is that drug fiends are motivated by a sadistic desire to defile childhood innocence. Just as “war on terror” propaganda cultivates a directionless fear of swarthy, savagely bearded foreigners who “hate us for our freedom,” agitprop conducted in the “war on drugs” endlessly recapitulates similar themes put into circulation decades ago by the arch-prohibitionist Harry Anslinger .
In testimony under oath before Congress in 1937, Anslinger insisted: “Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” As head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Anslinger maintained a “gore file” replete with lurid stories – many of them entirely fictitious — of marijuana-crazed people committing hideous crimes, including rape, murder, and “miscegenation.” Ansligner was endlessly preoccupied with the idea that black people are particularly susceptible to marijuana, and that one particularly acute danger posed by the demon weed was its role in breaking down the barriers against “race-mixing.”
The most important reason to outlaw marijuana, Anslinger insisted, “is its effect on the degenerate races.” Marijuana was nothing less than the drug used to seal the bloody covenants sworn by members of the ancient Order of Assassins, Ansligner tremulously informed a credulous public, and even today it plays a central role in the never-ending plot by dark and devious men who seek to steal the innocence of “Our Children.”
“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers,” Anslinger reportedly said on one occasion. “Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”
Following World War II, after it was documented that marijuana did not promote outbursts of violent, aggressive behavior, Anslinger reversed field entirely. By 1948, he insisted that the same drug that turned men into paranoid, predatory criminals and white women into aggressive sluts would somehow turn young people into weak-willed pacifists unwilling and unable to obey the muster call to take up arms against the Communist Menace.
Parents whose children participate in trick-or-treating should exercise discretion and supervise them carefully, but they shouldn’t fall prey to officially-promoted urban myths. Practicing adults should know better than to be spooked by the ghost of Harry Anslinger. Share R O M C H O M P A
nobody gives drugs away for free. cops are so dumb lol reversalmushroom
The first one’s free. That’s how they get ya. Social | 0 |
The Fake News About Central Banking By Daily Bell Staff - November 22, 2016
Trump Shouldn’t Bully the Fed … U.S. President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen during his campaign. British Prime Minister Theresa May has questioned the Bank of England’s recent actions, for a while putting Governor Mark Carney’s tenure in doubt. The long-cherished principle of central-bank independence seems to be under attack. – Bloomberg
The mainstream media is up in arms over “fake news” but the reality is that almost everything the mainstream reports is in a sense fake. Global warming is fake. Vaccines do not work as advertised. Central banking is fake too.
On and on. Truth has been overtaken by propaganda. We call these fake notions “dominant social themes.” They are inevitably intended to reinforce the idea that a very few must have control over the many.
Central banks fix the volume and value of “money” – and price fixing inevitably creates disasters. But you will never find this simple fact stated in almost any mainstream media article about central banking.
This Bloomberg article is no exception. Seldom do we see all the fallacious reasons for a central bank gathered together in one short editorial, but Bloomberg has done us this favor.
In this case, Bloomberg is trying to justify why central banks should be “independent.”
More:
The standard case for leaving central banks alone to conduct monetary policy rests on three points.
First, a government that controls the central bank might be tempted to finance unaffordable budget deficits by printing money. (See Zimbabwe.) Second, to provide economic stability, a steady hand on the monetary controls is required, which demands some insulation from day-to-day politics. (Would anybody want to put Congress in charge of interest rates?) Third, monetary policy done right is a technical thing, like running a utility. It’s basically apolitical.
All three of these points are fallacious. First, central banks, independent or not, over-print money on a regular basis. Western central banks have a goal of creating price inflation, which institutionalizes this overprinting, usually via too-low interest rates.
Second, the idea that an independent central bank can provide “a steady hand on monetary controls” is laughable. Central banks the world over are cartelized via the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Central bank policy is created via a secret monopoly and anyone looking over the past 20 years of central bank existence can easily see that the current “steady hand” has yielded up a series of global monetary disasters.
Even Bloomberg has trouble with the third reason being cited, that central banking is “apolitical.”
The editorial admits that “Changes in interest rates hurt some and help others,” and thus central bank policy-making is innately political. But because it is political, the predictable argument is made by Bloomberg that central banking ought to be “independent.”
Bloomberg states, “Disagreement is OK. Intimidation is not.”
The argument here is that statements by Donald Trump regarding the endless and ruinous low-rate regime of the Federal Reserve are “worrying” because Trump is bullying the Fed rather than criticizing it.
The larger argument, and it’s one that Trump is surely familiar with, is that central banking cannot be justified at any level. As soon as individuals or groups attempt to manipulate the money supply, prosperity is inevitably affected and wealth is endlessly consolidated.
This is just what’s happened around the world and especially in the West. Wealth has been gathered into fewer hands and the financial industry itself has grown without stopping until it has virtually taken over the larger economy.
Conclusion: Money needs to be regulated by markets, not by a handful of individuals. There is plenty of free-market economic theory that illustrates logically why this should be so. Bloomberg’s argument is wrong, but at a more fundamental level, Bloomberg is addressing the wrong issue. The problem with central banking is not whether it should be independent, but whether it should exist at all. | 0 |
FBI releases Bill Clinton pay-to-play investigation November 02, 2016 U.S. President Barack Obama (L) listens to former president Bill Clinton during an event marking the 20th anniversary of the national service program AmeriCorps at the White House in Washington September 12, 2014. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
On Tuesday, the FBI released documents related to a 2001 closed investigation into a pay-to-play scheme between former President Bill Clinton and Marc Rich, a man he granted a last-mine pardon. Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, donated more than $1 million to various Clinton and Democratic entities, including the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign and the Clinton Foundation. Release reminds voters that the Clinton White House and Clinton Foundation were embroiled in an investigation concerning pay-to-play allegations. New files include one entry which shows that “the required pardon standards and procedures were not followed” prior to the Rich pardon. Roger Adams, the U.S. Pardon Attorney at the time, testified to Congress in Feb. 2001 that “none of the regular procedures were followed” ahead of the Rich reprieve. Former Attorney General Eric Holder is also mentioned in the file. It cites Holder’s testimony that he was the only person who worked at DOJ — he was deputy attorney general at the time — about the Rich pardon. Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon: “Absent a FOIA litigation deadline, this is odd. Will FBI be posting docs on Trump's housing discrimination in '70s?” FBI: “The FBI’s Records Management Division receives thousands of FOIA requests annually which are processed on a first in, first out (FIFO) basis.”
(WASHINGTON, DC) The FBI on Tuesday released documents related to a now-closed federal investigation of an alleged pay-to-play scheme involving Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
The documents, which are heavily redacted, regard the investigation of Clinton’s last-minute pardon of Marc Rich, a billionaire fugitive who was wanted in the U.S. for tax evasion.
The Jan. 20, 2001 pardon sparked the last controversy to befall the scandal-plagued Clinton administration. Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, donated more than $1 million to various Clinton and Democratic entities, including the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign and the Clinton Foundation.
The release provides little in the way of information that has not already been publicized. But the dump is noteworthy for two reasons. It reminds voters that the Clinton White House and Clinton Foundation were embroiled in an investigation concerning pay-to-play allegations. The Clinton Foundation is reportedly being investigated at the present by multiple FBI field offices.
The FBI issued a statement late Tuesday afternoon saying that the file was released in response to a FOIA request.
“The FBI’s Records Management Division receives thousands of FOIA requests annually which are processed on a first in, first out (FIFO) basis,” the statement reads.
“By law, FOIA materials that have been requested three or more times are posted electronically to the FBI’s public reading room shortly after they are processed. Per the standard procedure for FOIA, these materials became available for release and were posted automatically and electronically to the FBI’s public reading room in accordance with the law and established procedures.” | 0 |
WASHINGTON, D. C. — Vice President Mike Pence highlighted the nearly 2 million Americans who have dropped Obamacare this year in a Tuesday speech to employees at U. S. Health and Human Services ahead of meetings with lawmakers at the White House and on Capitol Hill. [The Vice President called the “ongoing collapse” of Obamacare — the “death spiral” — one of the most pressing issues facing Americans today. “This will be the North Star of our Administration,” Pence said of improving the healthcare system. “We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare,” he said, citing the broken promises of the Affordable Care Act. While discussing the promise that premiums would go down, Pence referenced a report that revealed premiums have instead skyrocketed under Obamacare — more than doubling for the average American. “While costs are soaring … choices are plummeting. Insurance companies are pulling out of Obamacare left and right,” said Pence. A chart displayed above Pence read, “Only 10 million enrolled, 28 million still uninsured. ” He also referenced the 1. 9 million Americans that signed up for plans on the Obamacare exchanges, but have not followed through on paying their premiums. This figure comes from a new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) report released on Monday, detailing the 10. 3 million who have paid their premiums as of March 15, out of the 12. 2 million who have signed up. Pence described meeting Julie Champine on a recent trip to Wisconsin. He recalled her story of losing health insurance and her doctor while she faced health issues. She was forced to sign up for an Obamacare plan which in 2016 cost more than $9, 000 in premiums for her family and carries a $13, 000 deductible. Champine’s plan premium increased another $2, 600 this year, said Pence. “Julie told me that her Obamacare health insurance plan costs more than her mortgage and she can’t even afford to use it,” said Pence. A few months back she dropped her plan for a few months in order to afford Christmas presents for her kids. Pence remarked how important the men and women who serve in U. S. Health and Human Services are and thanked them for their service. HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price said before introducing Pence, that the work of HHS goes beyond the border of the United States and recalled a recent trip to Liberia. He lauded U. S. efforts to beat back Ebola in Africa. Price remarked of the challenges Americans face when it comes to obtaining quality health care. He voiced the goal of getting us to a healthcare system where Americans can afford health care and health coverage. He spoke of stabilizing markets, opening up enrollment options and … with the goal of installing a more healthcare system. “The Affordable Care Act took a lot of power away from the states,” added Price who said they are continuing to make progress on innovations. In early May, health insurer Aetna pulled out of yet another state’s individual market, Virginia. CNN Money reported that the company cited massive losses under Obamacare as the reason why. Within days, Fox Business reported that Aetna would pull out of Obamacare exchanges completely by 2018. After passing through the U. S. House of Representatives, the American Health Care Act sits waiting for a vote on the floor of the U. S. Senate. The bill is designed to roll back much of President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance mandate. The bill has been presented as the first of several phases to dismantle Obamacare. President Trump has often stated that Obamacare is in a “death spiral” under which healthcare premiums continue to skyrocket. He has promised to repeal Obamacare. Following his speech, the Vice President is traveling to the White House for lunch with President Trump and members of Congress. Afterward, Pence will join lawmakers for the Senate Republican Policy lunch and hold additional meetings. | 1 |
TEARS WE CANNOT STOPA Sermon to White AmericaBy Michael Eric Dyson228 pp. St. Martin’s Press. $24. 99. One Sunday in 1984, my father did something unexpected, at least for a white man in Georgia. He drove us past the little rural church we usually attended and kept going 40 miles south, all the way to Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist — home parish of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and an epicenter of the American civil rights movement. Reading Michael Eric Dyson’s “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America,” I was often reminded of that morning, when I was first exposed to the righteous anger, wry humor and unflinching honesty of a black pastor, determined to guide and teach his flock. While Dyson is best known as a writer and sociologist, he is also an ordained Baptist minister, and his new book draws both its impassioned style and its moral urgency from his years in the pulpit. At a time when one video after another has forced us to acknowledge that unarmed are regularly killed by the police, Dyson desperately wants his readers to confront the sources of that violence in our nation’s longstanding culture of white supremacy. But he also knows how many political arguments and sociological studies have fallen on deaf ears. And so rather than a treatise, “Tears We Cannot Stop” is a fiery sermon, and an unabashedly emotional, personal appeal. “What I need to say” to white America, Dyson writes, can only be said in “a plea, a cry, a sermon, from my heart to yours. ” The result is one of the most frank and searing discussions of race I have ever read. This is a book that will anger some readers, especially those who reject Dyson’s central premise: that if we want true racial equality in America, whites themselves must destroy the enduring myths of white supremacy. Even sympathetic readers might mistake this extraordinary work for merely a catalog of white sins. But such a reading fails to account for the actual experience of Dyson’s sermon, in which a black preacher speaks to his white congregants in the most tender, intimate terms, even as he preaches against a culture of “whiteness” that “grows more shameless, more cruel, more uncaring by the day. ” Dyson is all too familiar with the claims of innocence and the kneejerk defensiveness that will surely greet this book, and yet he sets out to conquer such denial not only with the difficult truth but also, astonishingly, with love. “Beloved,” he writes, in the voice of one ministering to the sick, “your white innocence is a burden to you, a burden to the nation, a burden to our progress. It is time to let it go, to let it die in the place of the black bodies it wills into nonbeing. ” Many white readers may wince, as I did, to hear their own indifference to black suffering named with such precision, and some, desperate not to face their involvement in America’s systems of racial oppression, might abandon this book altogether. But that would be to miss an essential lesson. For again and again Dyson makes it clear that more than white guilt, he seeks action, and more than condemnation, he wants change. He wants readers to wake from their sleep of ignorance about “what it means to be black in America. ” Reading his praise for James Baldwin, I couldn’t help thinking that the same is true of Dyson himself: “His words drip with the searing eloquence of an evangelist of race determined to get to the brutal bottom of America’s original sin. ” If there is a criticism here, it is that Dyson gathers steam slowly, and his opening “Hymns of Praise” to artists give little indication of the moral power to come. But this is a small quibble with a deeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” and King’s “Why We Can’t Wait. ” The comparison might at first seem hyperbolic, but like those books, “Tears We Cannot Stop” is a lament, originating from within the grieving heart of black America, aimed directly at white readers who are often too frightened, or indifferent, or ashamed, to look a man like Michael Eric Dyson in the eyes. I can only hope that others will read and be changed by this book. It ends with a desperate plea for white Americans to rise up in defense of, and in solidarity with, our brothers and sisters. In response, I say simply: Amen. | 1 |
You are here: Home / US / Look Who 97% of Donations from DOJ Employees Went To Look Who 97% of Donations from DOJ Employees Went To October 26, 2016 Pinterest
It will probably come as no surprise to anyone, but a huge majority of federal workers give political donations to… Democrats, namely Hillary Clinton.
Of course this isn’t a shocker. Federal workers know their jobs will remain intact if they keep helping the people who have continued to grow government to the outrageous behemoth it has become.
From The Hill :
Of the roughly $2 million that federal workers from 14 agencies spent on presidential politics by the end of September, about $1.9 million, or 95 percent, went to the Democratic nominee’s campaign, according to an analysis by The Hill.
Employees at all the agencies analyzed, without exception, are sending their campaign contributions overwhelmingly to Clinton over her Republican counterpart. Several agencies, such as the State Department, which Clinton once led, saw more than 99 percent of contributions going to Clinton.
Employees of the Department of Justice, which investigated Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, gave Clinton 97 percent of their donations. Trump received $8,756 from DOJ employees compared with $286,797 for Clinton. From IRS employees, Clinton received 94 percent of donations.
What’s even more ironic is that these people are paid with taxpayer dollars. They keep using their salaries paid for with taxpayer dollars to help elect Democrats, who keep spending taxpayer dollars to keep these people employed with cushy benefits and salaries that are higher than for the same position in the private sector.
The only people who actually suffer, of course, are those who have to foot the bill for everything. And yes, federal workers pay taxes as well, but they are paying taxes using taxpayer dollars that pay their salaries to further push politicians that will keep increasing the size of government AND taxes and their salaries.
It’s especially ironic that the Department of Justice spent so much on Hillary considering she has made fools of them. Obama has completely politicized the department. There is no justice at the Department of Justice anymore. They have lost all credibility thanks to Democrats, just like the FBI. | 0 |
This woman’s “floating head” halloween make-up is genius
@Ailishoctigan over on Twitter writes, “My halloween floating head realness:”
@Ailishoctigan says, “I started with a red oval about halfway up my neck then filled above that to my jawline with black…”
And amazingly she did it all with this simple paint:
Brilliant. | 0 |
State that fired pastor demands his sermons, notes 'This is an excessive display of the government overreaching its authority' Published: 3 mins ago About | | Archive Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially. Print Dr. Eric Walsh (Photo: First Liberty)
The state of Georgia is demanding copies of the sermons and related notes of a lay pastor who was fired by the Department of Public Health after it investigated what he said in his church.
But Dr. Eric Walsh is resisting, issuing a statement via his legal team that he will not comply with the demand from state lawyers.
The state’s demand is in response to a lawsuit filed by Walsh against the Department of Health charging discrimination based on his religion and other civil rights violations.
He’s getting support from a pastor who successfully fought off a demand by Houston officials for copies of his sermons.
Walsh’s ordeal began in May 2014 when he accepted an offer as to become district health director with the state agency. Only a week later, a state official asked him to provide copies of sermons he had preached as a lay minister with a Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Lee Rudd, the agency’s human resources director, then assigned staff members to listen to the YouTube recordings immediately. Two days later, Walsh was fired.
At that point, lawyers with First Liberty Institute joined forces with the Atlanta legal team of Parks, Chesin & Walbert to file a federal lawsuit against the state agency.
“Police State USA: How Orwell’s Nightmare Is Becoming Our Reality” chronicles how America has arrived at the point of being a de facto police state, and what led to an out-of-control government that increasingly ignores the Constitution. Order today!
Now, in response to Walsh’s lawsuit, the state delivered a “Request for Production of Documents” that demands, among a flood of other paperwork, “copies of his sermon notes and transcripts.”
“This is an excessive display of the government overreaching its authority and violating the sanctity of the church,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty.
“No government has the right to require a pastor to turn over his sermons,” said Walsh in a statement released by his lawyers. “I cannot and will not give up my sermons unless I am forced to do so.”
Officials with the Georgia Department of Health declined to respond to a WND request for comment, instead referring a reporter to the state attorney general, who did not respond to a request for comment.
Walsh’s lawyers scheduled a news conference as a display of support.
On the guest list was Pastor Dave Welch of Houston, one of five pastors whose sermons were demanded by a lesbian mayor during her campaign to establish protections for her sexual preferences in city code.
WND broke the story when the city launched its action against the pastors and also reported when Rush Limbaugh described Parker’s actions as possibly “one of the most vile, filthy, blatant violations of the Constitution that I have seen.”
The mayor at the time, Annise Parker, withdrew the demands amid a flood of protest .
In a prepared statement Wednesday on Walsh’s case, Welch said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Georgia’s demand is even worse than when the mayor of Houston demanded 17 different categories of materials, including sermons, from … us.”
Welch, the executive director of the Texas Pastor Council, said what is happening to Walsh is “worse than what happened in Houston for multiple reasons.”
“First, this is state government coming after a pastor, not just a rogue mayor in one city,” he said. “Also, the state is demanding much more material: sermons, sermon notes, all documents without even topical or time limits. It could even include margin notes in this pastor’s preaching Bible. It’s almost as if they are ransacking the pastor’s study. This sweeping demand is ominous and a threat to every pastor, every church, every denomination, and every citizen of faith in America.”
Leaders of Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, part of the nation’s largest public policy women’s group with 500,000 members, also came to Walsh’s defense.
Penny Nance, CEO, said: “The words of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ still reverberate today – especially as we witness the ‘Gestapo-like’ tactics of his native state. The state of Georgia’s blatant attack on religious freedom, as they discriminate against another pastor, Dr. Eric Walsh, is indeed a threat to every American, whatever our religious beliefs.
“Can there be a clearer violation of our First Amendment right to religious freedom than for the state to monitor, examine, and retaliate against a person because of the sermons they share?”
WND reported earlier on the case brought against the state after its officials reviewed Walsh’s sermons and then fired him.
“No one in this country should be fired from their job for something that was said in a church or from a pulpit during a sermon,” Dys told Fox News when the case was filed. “He was fired for something he said in a sermon. If the government is allowed to fire someone over what he said in his sermons, they can come after any of us for our beliefs on anything.” The original state investigation of Walsh’s sermons apparently was sparked by “one complaint” from an official with a county Democratic Party and “gay activist.”
State officials also joked about informing Walsh of his firing.
The telephone call was between Dr. Patrick O’Neal, an agency official, and Kate Pfirman, an agency financial officer. The call was captured on an answering machine, which also caught their conversation after they thought they had hung up.
Pfirman said: “And I’m gonna be very – I’m gonna try to come off as very cold, because I don’t want to say very much. If I try to make it warm – I’ve thought that through, it’s gonna just not – there’s no warm way to say it anyway.”
Then there was laughter from both parties.
O’Neal then said to inform Walsh, “You’re out,” and there was another round of laughter.
“It’s very funny,” Pfirman said.
The voicemail:
In the Houston dispute, voters ultimately soundly rejected Parker’s ordinance giving “gays” and transgendered people special rights. | 0 |
Sonntag, 13. November 2016 Sonntagsfrage: Was sagen Sie dazu, dass Donald Trump tatsächlich gewonnen hat? "W s?!" Das werden sich hierzulande viele gedacht haben, als sie am Mittwochmorgen die ersten Nachrichten von Donald Trumps Sieg gelesen haben. Nun, wo Sie sich allmählich damit abgefunden haben dürften, will der UStillon (nicht unterstützt vom Meinungsforschungsinstitut Opinion Control , weil denen seit der Wahl nicht mehr zu trauen ist) in dieser Woche von Ihnen wissen: Und hier noch die unglaublich spannenden Ergebnisse der letzten Sonntagsfrage (Stimmen gesamt: 65.997): Wer soll nächster Bundespräsident werden? (Top-3-Antworten) 3. Tim Wiese - Pro: Rhetorisches Ass / Contra: Passt nicht durch die Tür im Schloss Bellevue - 15,56% (10.271 Stimmen) 2. Ich selbst - Pro: Einzige Person, der ich traue / Contra: Leider korrupt - 17,01% (11.226 Stimmen) 1. Jan Böhmermann - Pro: Etwas lustiger als Gauck / Contra: Krieg mit der Türkei - 17,11% (11.290 Stimmen) | 0 |
Actor Robert Davi electrified the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday with a brief speech in which he described how President Donald Trump is the “force of nature” America needs to move on from the past three decades of its adherence to globalist policies and principles. [The veteran actor and Breitbart News contributor began his speech by asking how many CPAC attendees were Trump supporters from the very first day he announced — a few raised their hands. When he asked how many were Trump supporters now, the room exploded in cheers. “I’m thrilled to be here with all of you, and I have to say how moved I am to see how many young people are engaged,” Davi began. “You are the future of this country. And you’ve gotta be engaged, and you have to understand how important this moment of your history is, because this nation belongs to you. ” The “Bond host” continued by referring to a Breitbart News article he had written on June 16, 2015, the day that Trump announced his bid for the presidency. Davi said that former President George H. W. Bush’s 1988 campaign marked the beginning of a “shift” toward what became a era of globalist policies that ultimately weakened the country. Davi argued that Bush’s campaign slogan, “A kinder, gentler nation,” was not the kind of message the United States needed after eight years of President Ronald Reagan’s bold reforms. “George Bush is a good man. But that was the globalist flag [being] put in the ground. That was the beginning of it all,” he said. “After Reagan we’ve had Bush, Clinton, Bush Two, Obama. We needed a force of nature to take the ship back. ” Later in his speech, Davi criticized the news media, which he said he had seen been manipulated for years. “There are good people. I respect everyone’s living, everyone’s point of view, that’s what America is about,” he said. “But I understand when I see the vitriol, and the continued misrepresentation of certain things, or the exaggeration of certain things, carried to a point that they shouldn’t be — and that’s what we see happening now. ” “Every media outlet is saying, ‘The first hundred days … ’” he added. “Well, he’s only been in office days. It’s not a hundred days! And look what’s been accomplished! Look what the future is going to be. ” Davi concluded his speech by quoting the late Red Skelton’s commentary on the Pledge of Allegiance, suggesting that young people and unassimilated immigrants today lack the patriotism that was so vital in building the country. “‘Indivisible’ — incapable of being divided. ‘With liberty,’ which is freedom, the right to live one’s own life without threats, fear or some form of retaliation,” Davi said. “‘Justice’ — the principle equality of dealing fairly with others. ‘For all,’ which means boys and girls it’s as much your country as it is mine. ” He then led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. Watch the full speech above. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Rumors are circulating of who Donald Trump is considering to serve as his cabinet members if he wins on Tuesday, and the names on his list will chill you to the bone.
According to several sources close to Trump, high ranking Republicans who have stood by the GOP nominee’s side throughout the campaign have made the short list. Which means, of course, that he has chosen the worst of the worst.
NBC reports :
“Among the names being considered, according to conversations with three campaign advisers who requested anonymity to speak freely: Rudy Giuliani for attorney general, Newt Gingrich for secretary of state, retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn for defense secretary or national security adviser, Trump finance chairman Steve Mnuchin for Treasury secretary, and Republican National Committee finance chair Lew Eisenberg for commerce secretary.”
Reince Priebus, the current RNC chairman, is also being considered as a possibility to serve as Trump’s chief of staff. He earned the favor of the bigoted billionaire by staunchly defending him time and time again when other Republicans were quick to jump ship.
“They’re thinking, ‘We need to find that balance between someone who knows how Washington works and someone who shakes things up,'” the senior campaign adviser said.
NBC points out that appointing Priebus as chief of staff would be “an olive branch to the establishment,” but it isn’t clear at the moment if the RNC chair would even consider taking the position.
One veteran of the George W. Bush White House said that Trump’s transition team had convinced him that they were looking for people to fill these positions that had “experience” in Washington.
“They’re reaching out to people with experience, they’re listening to them, they’re taking their counsel,” the former official said. “I was very impressed.”
The NBC report did say that Trump really isn’t putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. The sources they spoke to said the Trump campaign is “focused on winning first and foremost as well and no decisions have been made or positions finalized.” Trump campaign spokesman Hope Hicks said that “none of this is accurate” and added that Trump “is entirely focused on the campaign and the American people.”
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Friday at a press conference addressing a shooting at the Ft. Lauderdale International Airport that resulted in at least five dead and six injured, Gov. Rick Scott ( ) said his heart when out to the families and individuals impacted by the shooting. However, he vowed to hold those responsible accountable. “Whoever is responsible will be held accountable to the full extent of the law,” Scott said. “The state of Florida, the citizens of Florida, law enforcement in this state will not tolerate evil acts. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
An East Bay police department is now looking for a new office after being kicked out by their landlord.
The Lafayette Police Department is being evicted from Desco Plaza because there are not enough parking spots for all of their police cruisers. According to city manager Steven Falk, the overbearing presence of cruisers is impacting tenants in the building, affecting their ability to park their own vehicles.
Desco Plaza owner Curt Blomstrand has told the department that it must leave as soon as its lease ends at the end of the year.
In a council meeting earlier this week Blomstrand referenced “ a growing force and too many police cars crammed into his property” as reasons for evicting the department.
Each tenant gets ten parking spaces, but the department is using forty. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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Contributed by Ryan Banister of The Daily Sheeple . | 0 |
Donnerstag, 27. Oktober 2016 Studie beweist: Indianer kennen doch Schmerz New Haven/Connecticut (Archiv) - "Ein Indianer kennt keinen Schmerz": Diese Worte bekommen kleine Kinder immer dann zu hören, wenn sie tapfer sein sollen. Wissenschaftler der Universität Yale haben den Wahrheitsgehalt des alten Sprichwortes nun an 1000 amerikanischen Ureinwohnern untersucht – und konnten es eindrucksvoll widerlegen. Offenbar sind Indianer genauso schmerzempfindlich wie jeder andere auch. Dr. Dwight Ewing, der Initiator der Studie, erklärte auf einer Pressekonferenz: "Egal, ob wir unseren zahlreichen Probanden mit einem Hammer auf die Hand schlugen, sie an den Haaren zogen oder ihnen gar Salz in die Augen streuten, sie reagierten nicht anders, als man erwarten würde." Will unbedingt weiterforschen: Dr. Dwight Ewing Auch die Zugehörigkeit zu einem bestimmten Stamm oder das Alter habe keinen Einfluss darauf, wie gut man einen Tritt in die Leistengegend oder eine zünftige Backpfeife verkraftet: "Junge Apachen schreien genauso laut wie alte, weise Komanchen-Medizinmänner, wenn sie wegen eines Stocks in den Speichen vom Rad stürzen", sagte Ewing. Das Fazit der Studie lautete daher, dass das Sprichwort unwahr ist – oder es müsste wortwörtlich genommen werden, woraus folgen würde, dass tatsächlich nur "EIN Indianer" keinen Schmerz kennt. Um diesen einen schmerzunempfindlichen Indianer zu finden, hat Ewing seine Feldversuche nun auf unbestimmte Zeit verlängert. ssi; Foto rechts: © S. Schuldis - Fotolia.com; Hinweis: Erstmals erschienen am 29.10.09 Artikel teilen: | 0 |
Edward Snowden and over 100 other activists called for President Trump to drop charges brought against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. [The Guardian reports that over 100 activists have signed an open letter calling for President Trump to drop any possible charges being brought against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. “A threat to WikiLeaks’ work — which is publishing information protected under the First Amendment — is a threat to all free journalism,” the open letter reads. The open letter, created by the Courage Foundation, warns that criminalizing a journalist or their work can lead to the criminalization of all journalism. “If the DoJ is able to convict a publisher for its journalistic work, all free journalism can be criminalized,” the letter claims. The Courage Foundation is a supporter of whistleblowers, raising funds to cover the legal costs of individuals such as Edward Snowden. “We call on you as President of the United States to close the Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks and drop any charges planned against any member of WikiLeaks,” the letter reads. “It was a free and robust press that provided you with a platform on which to run for president. ” “Defending a truly free press requires freedom from fear and favour and the support of journalists and citizens everywhere for the kind of threat now facing WikiLeaks — and all publishers and journalists — is a step into the darkness,” it continues. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked at a press conference in April if arresting Julian Assange was a priority for the Trump administration, to which Sessions replied, “We are going to step up our effort, and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. ” “This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks, and some of them are quite serious,” he continued to say. “So yes, it is a priority. We’ve already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail. ” Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, has argued that prosecuting Assange could set a dangerous precedent. “Never in the history of this country has a publisher been prosecuted for presenting truthful information to the public,” Wizner told CNN in April. “Any prosecution of WikiLeaks for publishing government secrets would set a dangerous precedent that the Trump administration would surely use to target other news organizations. ” 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 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter For those of you who have no clue who Gord Downie is, you are likely either not Canadian, or were born after the 90s. Gord Downie is the front man for the iconic Canadian band, The Tragically Hip . This band lives in the hearts of millions of Canadians and they are something we can basically call our own, as for some unknown reason they never really made it big anywhere else. It was recently announced that Gord Downie had been diagnosed with stage 4 terminal brain cancer. In the true spirit of the band, they decided to do one final farewell tour across Canada so that all of their loyal fans could enjoy the energy, performance, and great music, live on stage, one last time. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) even aired the final show, in the band’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario. The Tragically Hip is such a big part of being Canadian that our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, was even there, singing along. So, by now you may or may not be wondering why I am calling Gord Downie a real Canadian hero. Yes, his music touched the hearts of millions, but it is because of how he has used his voice, time and time again, for the voiceless. Gord Downie stands up for those who are often not heard and advocates to bring awareness to a dark part of Canadian history and issues that are currently plaguing the First Nations people of Canada. At the end of their very last show, Gord Downie didn’t draw attention to his own illness, and didn’t ask for money to be raised for cancer charities. Instead, Gord Downie addressed Canada’s new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, and vocalized his fears that the Indigenous people of Canada are perhaps in more dire straits today than they have ever been. He said he believed that Trudeau could help bring about meaningful change and called upon all Canadians to “be more mindful of northern affairs.” This meant the world to thousands of Indigenous people across the country, as this performance and announcement was broadcast on live television with millions of people tuning in. Leaders in the Indigenous population say Downie’s words are accurate and thanked him for taking the time out of his final performance to speak up for their community across the country despite his own struggle. The Secret Path From the Secret Path website: “Gord Downie began Secret Path as ten poems incited by the story of Chanie Wenjack, a twelve year-old boy who died fifty years ago on October 22, 1966, in flight from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, Ontario, walking home to the family he was taken from over 400 miles away. Gord was introduced to Chanie Wenjack (miscalled “Charlie” by his teachers) by Mike Downie, his brother, who shared with him Ian Adams’ Maclean ’s story from February 6, 1967, “The Lonely Death of Charlie Wenjack.”” The stories Gord’s poems tell were fleshed into the ten songs of Secret Path with producers Kevin Drew and Dave Hamelin. Recording took place over two sessions at the Bathouse in Bath, Ontario, in November and December, 2013. The music features Downie on vocals and guitars, with Drew and Hamelin playing all other instruments, except guest contributions by Charles Spearin (bass), Ohad Benchetrit (lap steel/guitar), Kevin Hearn (piano), and Dave “Billy Ray” Koster (drums). In winter 2014, Gord and Mike brought the recently finished music to comic artist Jeff Lemire for his help illustrating Chanie’s story, bringing him and the many children like him to life. Secret Path acknowledges a dark part of Canada’s history – the long-supressed mistreatment of Indigenous children and families by the Residential school system – with the hope of starting our country on a road to reconciliation.” This ten song album was released by Arts & Crafts accompanied by Leire’seighty-eight page graphic novel published by Simon & Schuster Canada. Secret Path was released on October 18th of this year in a deluxe vinyl and book edition and as a book with album download. Downie’s music and Lemire’s illustrations inspired The Secret Path , an animated film was broadcast by CBC in an hour-long commercial-free television special on Sunday, October 23. The Secret Path and Road to Reconciliation panel discussion can be watched at cbc.ca/secretpath . What Can You Do? Proceeds from the sale of Secret Path will be donated to the Gord Downie Secret Path Fund for Truth and Reconciliation via The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba. Money is also being raised for the Gord Downie and Charlie Wenjack Fund that focuses on cross-cultural education to support the healing and recovery of the Indigenous population, as well as directly supporting the NCTR. You can purchase a copy of the book, album, or film to support this initiative directly, or simply donate by following this link . Share this article to help raise awareness about this important cause to finally try and bring about true reconciliation for the First Nations Peoples of Canada, and the horrible atrocities that they were forced to endure. It’s time to make amends, and you can be a direct part of that! Much Love | 0 |
Sputnik reports:
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government is set to present a parliamentary bill to amend the Migration Act , and prevent adults who are sent to Australia’s offshore immigration centers from receiving an Australian visa in the future.
“This will send the strongest possible signal to the people smugglers, it will send the strongest possible signal to those who are seeking to persuade persons currently on Nauru and Manus (the islands where Australia’s immigration centers are located) that the Australian government will change its mind and allow them to settle here,” Turnbull said.
Australian barrister Greg Barns, spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, told Radio Sputnik that the proposal breaches the UN Refugee Convention. This declares that refugees are entitled to claim asylum regardless of their method of reaching a country, if they say they have been persecuted in their country of origin. The government’s plan would prevent migrants from visiting Australia many years later, while on business or as tourists, even if they have successfully settled in a third country and gained citizenship there.
“It’s the most draconian legislation the world has ever seen, it’s unprecedented in global terms, and it means that Australia puts itself, yet again, in the basket of pariah states when it comes to those sorts of issues ,” Barns said.
Turnbull’s Liberal Party will require the support of opposition parties to pass the legislation. While Bill Shorten, leader of Australia’s opposition Labor Party, said the proposal “seems ridiculous,” his party stopped short of rejecting it and instead promised to examine the plan closely.
“Unfortunately the opposition Labor Party in Australia has been very weak on these issues in recent years, and both the major political parties, the conservatives (Australia’s Liberal Party) and the Labor Party, have been able to force these sorts of changes on Australian policy,” Barns told Sputnik.
“There have been suggestions today that the Labor Party might finally get some backbone and oppose this legislation, because if the Labor Party, which is the major opposition party, supports this legislation, then it will become a reality.”
The government’s claim that their proposal is compliant with international law is “laughable,” and “shows yet again that Australia snubs its nose at international law when it suits it,” Barns said.
Barns said that Australia’s immigration policy has become harsher as a result of public fears of migration, and the actions of successive government which have played on these fears.
“Some Australians have a xenophobic, racist view about the rest of the world, they have this ridiculous fear about hordes coming to this island continent and invading it, that’s been historic.”
“If you don’t have strong political leadership which says that we can do better, this will become politically popular,” said Barns, who contrasted the current policy with that of Malcom Fraser’s 1970’s Liberal government, which accepted large numbers of refugees who came on boats from Vietnam.
Since the government of John Howard from 1996 to 2007, “successive governments in Australia have pandered to the xenophobic, racist side of the country, and that’s precisely what Malcolm Turnbull is doing with this legislation.”
“Australia is a nation built on migration, and in fact some of the leading figures in Australian society came here by boat. Those very same people now would be banned under this law.”
Turnbull’s proposal has won the praise of Australia’s right-wing populist One Nation party, led by Pauline Hanson, who won re-election to Australia’s House of Representatives this year. Good to see that it looks like the Government is now taking its cues from One Nation. Just like last time. #auspol #PHON #Nauru #Manus https://t.co/c0GQew7vR8
— Pauline Hanson (@PaulineHansonOz) 30 October 2016
Barns said that Turnbull’s proposal is an effort to attract votes from Hanson’s One Nation to the conservative Liberal Party.
“Malcolm Turnbull’s party wants to try and take over some of its vote, and it seems to be that this is the way to do it. To pass outrageous, draconian laws that trash Australia’s reputation even further in world eyes when it comes to refugees, simply for short-term political gain.” | 0 |
“I was never given any kind of dress code. I was never asked beforehand to show my wardrobe.” Streeter (left) and the 76ers home court at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia
“I also felt it was important to express the ongoing challenges and ongoing injustice we face as a black community within the United States of America — that’s very important to me,” Streeter said. “Yes, we live in the greatest country in the world but there are issues that we cannot ignore. This can’t be ignored.” Advertisement - story continues below
“I was angry, extremely, extremely angry and disappointed and honestly brought to tears by all of it. It broke my heart,” she said. “Honestly, I was very excited about being able to perform the national anthem. I was really looking forward to that.”
Firstly, pro tip: The more times you say “honestly” about something, the more it becomes exponentially less likely to the listener that they will believe you’re being honest. In this case, I believe Streeter honestly wanted to make a point, not sing the national anthem, which is the matter of contention here.
The national anthem is sung to honor the heroes who have served (and died) for our country before major events. It isn’t time to make a point or “have a discussion” (a discussion, may I add, that usually takes the form of a monologue from whatever social justice warrior is giving it — who usually acts surprised and disappointed when people have a real discussion and push back against their disrespect of the flag).
If you’re singing the national anthem, it isn’t about your opinions. It isn’t about your talent. It isn’t about what you’ve done. Advertisement - story continues below | 0 |
JERUSALEM — Undeterred by a resounding defeat at the United Nations, Israel’s government said Monday that it would move ahead with thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem and warned nations against further action, declaring that Israel does not “turn the other cheek. ” Just a few days after the United Nations Security Council voted to condemn Israeli settlements, Jerusalem’s municipal government signaled that it would not back down: The city intends to approve 600 housing units in the predominantly Palestinian eastern section of town on Wednesday in what a top official called a first installment on 5, 600 new homes. The defiant posture reflected a bristling anger among Israel’s political leaders, who not only blamed the United States for failing to block the Council resolution, but also claimed to have secret intelligence showing that President Obama’s team had orchestrated it. American officials strongly denied the claim, but the sides seem poised for more weeks of conflict until Mr. Obama hands over the presidency to Donald J. Trump. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has lashed out at Security Council countries by curbing diplomatic contacts, recalling envoys, cutting off aid and summoning the American ambassador for a scolding. He canceled a planned visit this week by Ukraine’s prime minister even as he expressed concern on Monday that Mr. Obama was planning more action at the United Nations before his term ends next month. The prime minister defended his retaliation. “Israel is a country with national pride, and we do not turn the other cheek,” he said. “This is a responsible, measured and vigorous response, the natural response of a healthy people that is making it clear to the nations of the world that what was done at the U. N. is unacceptable to us. ” The Security Council resolution that passed Friday condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation under international law” and an obstacle to peace. The Council approved it 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining instead of using its unilateral veto, as it has in the past. Mr. Trump publicly pressed for a veto of the resolution and has chosen a settlement advocate as his administration’s ambassador to Israel. He turned to Twitter on Monday night to air complaints that the United Nations “is just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. ” Palestinian leaders made clear that they would use the resolution in international bodies to press their case against Israel. With the imprimatur of a United Nations finding of illegality, they said, they will campaign to require that other countries not just label products made in the settlements, but ban them. “Now we can talk about the boycott of all settlements, the companies that work with them, et cetera, and actually take legal action against them if they continue to work with them,” Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, was quoted as saying by the Palestinian news media. He outlined other steps the Palestinians could now take, using the resolution to press the International Criminal Court to prosecute Israeli leaders, file lawsuits on behalf of specific Palestinians displaced by settlements and urge the international authorities to determine whether Israel is violating the Geneva Conventions. “We are looking to devise a comprehensive vision, and hopefully 2017 will be the year when the Israeli occupation ends,” Mr. Malki said. Israeli officials said such pronouncements showed that the resolution actually undermined chances for a negotiated settlement because the Palestinians now have less incentive to come to the table. By declaring Israeli settlements illegal, they said, the United Nations essentially took away the one chip that Israel had to trade, meaning land. “The Palestinians are waging a diplomatic and legal war against Israel. That’s the strategy,” Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, said in a phone interview. “Their strategy is not to negotiate an agreement with Israel because a deal is give and take. They want take and take. ” Israel’s settlement project, once a scattering of houses across the Green Line marking the borders before the 1967 war, has grown substantially over the years. In 2009, the year Mr. Obama took office, 297, 000 people lived in West Bank settlements and 193, 737 in East Jerusalem. That increased to 386, 000 in the West Bank by the end of last year and 208, 000 in East Jerusalem by the end of 2014, according to Peace Now, a group that opposes settlements. Israeli officials note that when Mr. Netanyahu acquiesced to a settlement freeze sought by Mr. Obama in 2009, the Palestinians still did not agree to negotiate until just before time ran out. But the addition of more than 100, 000 settlers during Mr. Obama’s tenure convinced him that it was time to change his approach at the United Nations, aides said. The 618 housing units to be granted building permits in East Jerusalem on Wednesday have been in the works for a while, and the planning committee meeting agenda was set before the United Nations acted. But the committee chairman said he was determined to go forward with units totaling 5, 600. “I won’t get worked up over the U. N. or any other organization that might try to dictate to us what to do in Jerusalem,” Deputy Mayor Meir Turgeman, the planning committee chairman, told the newspaper Israel Hayom. “I hope that the government and the new administration in the United States will give us momentum to continue. ” Although he did not specify which projects he had in mind, Ir Amim, a private group tracking settlements in East Jerusalem, said he was probably referring to projects in Gilo and Givat Hamatos. Betty Herschman, the group’s director of international relations and advocacy, said it was “defiance demonstrated after Trump’s election, now reinforced by the U. N. resolution. ” Anat Ben Nun, the director of development and external relations for Peace Now, said such construction was problematic. “Netanyahu’s attempt to avenge the U. N. S. C. resolution through approval of plans beyond the Green Line will only harm Israelis and Palestinians by making it more difficult to arrive at a solution,” she said. Israeli leaders said they had no reason to stop building. The Security Council resolution “was absurd and totally removed from reality,” said Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the Yesha Council, which represents West Bank settlers. “Israeli building policies are set in Jerusalem, not New York. ” For the fourth day, Israeli officials accused Mr. Obama’s team of ambushing them at the United Nations. While the White House denied it, Israeli officials pointed to a meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and his New Zealand counterpart a month before the Council vote discussing a resolution on the conflict. New Zealand was a sponsor of Friday’s measure. Mr. Dermer, the ambassador, said Israel had other, nonpublic information proving the Obama administration’s involvement but provided no evidence and would not elaborate beyond saying it would be provided to Mr. Trump’s team when he takes office. “They not only did not get up and stop it, they were behind it from the beginning,” Mr. Dermer said. “This is why the prime minister is so angry. We’re going to stand up against it. ” Israeli officials worried that Mr. Kerry would use a coming speech or a conference in France to outline an American peace plan that would be hostile to Israel’s interests. Mr. Kerry’s office had no comment. The fury of Mr. Netanyahu’s response has generated debate at home. Mitchell Barak, a political consultant, said the political left considered the resolution “an epic foreign policy and diplomatic debacle” by Mr. Netanyahu. But to his base, the Security Council action confirmed what they believed all along, that Mr. Obama is inherently and so the prime minister comes across as a champion beset by enemies. “For them,” Mr. Barak said, “Netanyahu emerges from this unscathed, as the lone wolf in a lion’s den of hatred. ” | 1 |
Equally infuriating to a radical Islamist killing innocent children at a pop concert in Manchester, is the very likely possibility that it will not be the last time. [We’ve seen this tragic routine before: a radical Islamist wages violent Jihad against the Western world and, after a few days of cliché sloganeering and useless hashtags, all is forgotten. Well, for the parents and loved ones of those who were killed, all is not forgotten. They will live forever with a hole in their hearts that can never be filled. These are the consequences of open borders, and the willingness of a society to bury its head in the sand while attempting to shame and silence anyone who dares speak the truth. The truth is this: when you flood your country with millions of migrants from the Islamic world, you shouldn’t be “shocked” when your society acquires the same problems as the Islamic world. One plus one equals two. We can have borders, or we can have terror. No, there is no third option. This is the real world, not a sociology lecture, or CNN. You cannot force Islamists to assimilate because Islamists do not value the same things we do in the West. While most in the West view an Ariana Grande concert as an opportunity for young girls to have a fun night of singing and dancing with their friends, many in the Islamic world views it as a shameful display of dirty infidels, who deserve death for their indulgence. Manchester bomber Salman Abedi’s parents were Libyan “refugees. ” He was given refuge and even tax dollars of the very parents whose daughters he killed. Jihadists are not impressed by Katy Perry’s almost instantaneous call for “no borders” and “ ” in response to the Manchester massacre. They are emboldened by it. She, and every other pompously ignorant celebrity like her, are worse than useless. They are useful for our enemies. This pacifistic, “let’s all hold hands” reaction to the death of innocent children perfectly encapsulates why the West remains a giant sitting duck for radical Islamists. Imagine the disbelief our enemies must be feeling about how easy it is to wage war on a society that seeks to fight them with tolerance. Even after one of their caliphate soldiers bombs a teenage pop concert, one of the most popular singers on the planet welcomes more Islamists to our shores with open arms. But we shouldn’t make Katy Perry feel like the lone wolf in her suicidal delusions. After all, we’re only 6 months removed from a kumbaya President that fought ISIS with a live serenade of “You’ve Got a Friend” by James Taylor. While I, like most Americans, fear another deadly Islamic terror attack, the mainstream media’s biggest concern is — that’s right, you guessed it — “Islamophobia. ” Martha Raddatz, who gained notoriety for her appallingly biased Presidential debate moderation, lamented to George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America, “This is likely to fuel backlash across Britain, across Europe. ” Don’t worry Martha, chances are there will still be plenty of niqabs worn in Manchester long after the carnage of young children is removed from the concert venue, and we have open border propagandists to thank for that. Unfortunately, for those who actually want to protect ourselves and our children from Jihadists, nitwitted celebrities and media pundits aren’t the only problem. groups like the SPLC and ACLU have volunteered themselves to be useful idiots for radical Islamic outfits like CAIR, a notorious Muslim Brotherhood front group that has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted in a operation. Their strategy? To smear, intimidate, bully, and ultimately silence anyone who gets in the way of their agenda. They are counting on patriotic Americans to stay silent and seated, while their agenda marches on. Are we really going to let these open borders fanatics do to America what they’ve done to Europe? Are we really going to allow terrorist attacks to become the norm in America, as they are the in the Islamic world and, increasingly, Europe? Let the goons at the SPLC and the mainstream media call me what they want, I know what I am. I am an American who loves her country, and doesn’t want to see it diminished to the same rubble I laid under when Islamists blew up my home as a little girl. For those who want to do more than just tweet their outrage, who want to make their country, community, and family a safer place to call home, I invite you to join me, and every other patriot at ACT for America’s National Conference this coming October in Arlington, Virginia. Go to actcon. us for more information about how you can fight back against America’s enemies. Brigitte Gabriel is a terrorism analyst and a New York Times author of “Because They Hate” and “They Must Be Stopped”. She is the Founder and Chairman of ACT for America, the nation’s largest grassroots organization devoted to promoting national security and defeating terrorism. | 1 |
Via Newsbusters :
All three of the networks still have yet to mention any of the videos released by Project Veritas even though there has been a new video released every day this week. In one video, Democratic operative Bob Creamer is heard talking about having communication with the Hillary Clinton campaign, a violation of federal law. They instead continued to hype her leads in key battleground states and confidence in the race.
Why is that?
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 27, 2016 They don't want to hurt their candidate. https://t.co/zd8e4eoWZC
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 27, 2016
WHAT mainstream media bias? Trending | 0 |
CHARLOTTE, N. C. — The fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott here on Tuesday afternoon has sparked outrage and concern, and set off, once again, a national conversation about the treatment of minorities by the police. The details of the case have also been a source of intense debate. Here are some questions that readers have asked reporters at The New York Times since Mr. Scott’s death. Why did police officers confront Mr. Scott? Two officers with the Police Department determined that Mr. Scott, 43, was a potential threat to public safety because they saw him with two items: what they believed was a marijuana cigarette and a gun, according to a statement released on Saturday by the department. The plainclothes officers, who had been near Mr. Scott’s home to serve a warrant on another person, first noticed Mr. Scott when he parked his S. U. V. next to their unmarked police vehicle, which was in his apartment complex in Charlotte’s University City neighborhood. The department said in a statement that its officers initially saw Mr. Scott “rolling what they believed to be a marijuana ‘blunt,’” but ignored the behavior and went about their business. Later, one of the officers, Brentley Vinson, 26, said he saw Mr. Scott “hold a gun up,” the statement said. (A separate statement issued by the city on Tuesday said that Mr. Scott “exited the vehicle armed with a firearm,” and that officers approached him after he got back inside his white S. U. V.) After seeing the gun, the authorities said on Saturday, the officers decided to approach Mr. Scott, but they first left the area to don safety vests that identified them as the police. They returned to the vicinity of his S. U. V. and “again” saw Mr. Scott with a gun. What do the police say about why Officer Vinson fired upon Mr. Scott? Body and dashboard camera footage released on Saturday provided no clear evidence that Mr. Scott had a gun. In the video, Mr. Scott’s arms were at his sides and he was backing away from his vehicle when he was shot. In its statement on Saturday, the department said the officers gave “clear, loud and repeated verbal commands” to Mr. Scott that he should drop his handgun. When Mr. Scott did not, the department said, Officer Vinson “perceived Mr. Scott’s actions and movements as an imminent physical threat to himself and the other officers” and opened fire. The State Bureau of Investigation is leading an inquiry into the shooting. Although the Charlotte police chief, Kerr Putney, said on Saturday that Officer Vinson was “absolutely not being charged by me at this point,” the decision about whether the officer will face prosecution will ultimately fall to others. “If there was a weapon in his hand, then the case for using lethal force becomes stronger,” said Kami Chavis, a law professor who is the director of the criminal justice program at Wake Forest University in N. C. But she also noted that there have been cases in which a person was unarmed “but it was determined that a reasonable officer could have viewed whatever it was in their hands as a weapon. ” In many of those cases, officers were cleared of criminal conduct. “Even if the officer was mistaken about what he had in his hand, and yet it was reasonable, it could be deemed a justified shooting,” Professor Chavis said. Some critics argue that the police overreacted. “It seems there were multiple opportunities to do this in a way, and it seems like everything they did in response was escalating,” said Mark Dorosin, the managing lawyer at the University of North Carolina Center for Civil Rights. “I think there’s an argument to be made that they exceeded their authority. ” What evidence do the police say shows that Mr. Scott had a gun? Chief Putney has flatly and repeatedly said that Mr. Scott had a gun, but he also acknowledged that no recording exists to definitively prove the department’s account. The police statement on Saturday said that crime scene investigators recovered a loaded gun at the scene and that a forensic analysis revealed Mr. Scott’s DNA and fingerprints on the weapon. The police also released a photograph of the gun, as well as one of an ankle holster they said Mr. Scott was wearing. The police have not said where they recovered the weapon, but the photograph of the gun shows it resting on asphalt, next to an evidence marker. In the short video that Scott family lawyers made public on Friday, Mr. Scott’s wife, Rakeyia, can be heard telling the officers: “Don’t shoot him. He has no weapon. ” In an interview on Friday, the family’s lawyers said Ms. Scott was unaware that Mr. Scott owned a firearm. And one of his children said numerous times in a cellphone video she recorded in the aftermath of the shooting that he did not have a gun. Critics have accused officers of planting the gun. If Mr. Scott had a gun, was that allowed under federal and North Carolina laws? No. Although the North Carolina Supreme Court has recognized a general right to carry a firearm openly for nearly 100 years, there are exceptions, including ones related to criminal history, drug use or immigration status, under federal and state laws. Mr. Scott effectively forfeited his right to carry a gun in 2005, when he was convicted in the shooting of a man in San Antonio and sentenced to prison. Police officers on the scene last week in Charlotte almost certainly did not know about Mr. Scott’s legal history before they confronted him. A number of critics have wondered why officers would confront a man with a gun in an state. But experts said it was not unreasonable for officers to investigate Mr. Scott’s possession of a firearm, even in a state that allows open carry, if they also believed he had marijuana. “If you see a person with drugs in one hand and a firearm in the other, I think that gives you a basis for thinking that a violation of federal law has occurred, and there might also be state crimes,” said Jeffrey B. Welty, an associate professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “If it is the case, as the police have represented, that they confronted a person who had drugs and a weapon at the same time, then no, I don’t think there’s any question that that set of facts would support an investigative stop or an effort to speak further with that person,” he said. Does North Carolina permit marijuana? North Carolina law forbids possession of marijuana, but the police said on Saturday that the officers did not “consider Mr. Scott’s drug activity to be a priority” and approached him only after seeing the firearm. If Mr. Scott had been arrested for drug possession, the severity of the charge would have depended on the quantity of marijuana seized by the police. If he had enough for only one cigarette, the charge would have been a misdemeanor. The police have not explained why or how they assumed, from inside their unmarked vehicle, that Mr. Scott was rolling marijuana while sitting in the driver’s seat of his own vehicle. Did Mr. Scott have a book? Although the police say Mr. Scott was holding a gun before he was shot, friends and family members have said that he actually had a book with him. At least one sign at the protests that swept through Charlotte last week declared, “IT WAS A BOOK. ” Chief Putney said no book was recovered from the scene. What do we know about Officer Vinson? Three facts seem particularly noteworthy about Officer Vinson: He is relatively new to the police force, he has a clean disciplinary history and he is, like Mr. Scott, . Officer Vinson, a member of a unit in the department’s metro division, was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, a standard procedure here and across the country. The police said he joined the department in 2014, and has never been disciplined. Officer Vinson grew up in Charlotte, where, according to a profile published in 2012 in The Charlotte News and Advance, his father was the first black homicide detective on the police force here. As a high school student, Officer Vinson talked of a career in law enforcement and said he wanted to become a federal marshal. Over six feet tall, Officer Vinson’s formidable size served him as a college football player. After playing at Fork Union Military Academy, he enrolled at Liberty University, the Christian college founded by the evangelist Jerry Falwell. Officer Vinson graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in executive leadership. What did Mr. Scott’s wife mean when she yelled, just before the shooting, “Keith, don’t do it”? This phrase, a variation of which Ms. Scott yells out numerous times in the cellphone video she made of the episode, has been the subject of intense speculation. Because Ms. Scott’s video is jerky and flits around the scene of the confrontation, it is hard to say what action Ms. Scott is asking her husband not to engage in. In the video, Ms. Scott can be heard telling her husband to get out of the S. U. V. so that the police will not break its windows. “Keith, don’t do it,” she says, while her husband is still inside the S. U. V. “Keith, get out the car! Keith, Keith, don’t you do it! Don’t you do it!” At that point, Mr. Scott can be seen getting out of the car. “Keith, Keith, Keith! Don’t you do it!” she says. Just as she finishes the sentence, the four shots ring out. Justin Bamberg, one of the lawyers for the family, said the statement was an effort to get Mr. Scott to stand still after he got out of the car. The dashboard camera video shows Mr. Scott walking backward before he is shot. What was Mr. Scott’s mental and physical state when the police confronted him? This is difficult to say conclusively, but some facts suggest that Mr. Scott may have been impaired in numerous ways. He suffered a traumatic brain injury last fall when he was involved in a motorcycle accident, neighbors and lawyers for his family said. His wife told officers during the confrontation that he had a “T. B. I. ,” or traumatic brain injury, and that he “just took his medicine. ” The family’s lawyers said they did not know what kind of medication he had taken. A photo of the marijuana cigarette released by the police on Saturday suggested that it had been smoked. Did the police offer medical assistance after the shooting? The Police Department said that officers performed CPR, but the footage that the authorities released on Saturday did not confirm or refute that assertion. The body camera recording showed that immediately after Mr. Scott was handcuffed, an officer asked for a bag and “some equipment. ” He soon added, as he gestured with a bloodied hand, “Get some gloves. We need to hold the wound. ” Mr. Scott was pronounced dead at a hospital later on Tuesday. | 1 |
To prepare for Sunday night’s town debate, Hillary Clinton is not dwelling on plans or attack lines. Instead, she is holed up with aides to practice her body language, facial expressions, vocal cadences and more conversational answers about college debt, the heroin epidemic and other topics that have come up at her campaign events and that have allowed her to show empathy and emotion along with policy knowledge. Donald J. Trump scoffs at all that. “I don’t need to rehearse being human,” he said in an interview last week. He and his advisers say that Sunday night’s town format, with its open stage and questions from real voters, will showcase his comfort on television and his direct style, which they see as appealing to voters who are turned off by what they call Mrs. Clinton’s canned warmth. “After decades in public life, Hillary Clinton is still ‘finding her voice,’” said Kellyanne Conway, the campaign manager for Mr. Trump. “For her to have to come from behind the comfort of the podium is fraught with peril. ” Both campaigns say the town exchanges with voters will reveal — for better or for worse — “the real Clinton” and “the real Trump. ” But it is Mr. Trump who faces graver political consequences if he does not show the best of himself, according to several of his allies and advisers. His performance in the first debate was widely criticized after he seemed to struggle to stay focused and to keep to the debating points and tactics that his advisers had given him. They are now preparing him again, somewhat differently than before, but with the same uncertainty about whether he can follow through. Some of his advisers fear that Mr. Trump’s fiery style could create uncomfortable moments with undecided voters in the debate hall at Washington University in St. Louis. The two candidates will take a mix of questions from voters and from the moderators, Martha Raddatz of ABC and Anderson Cooper of CNN. Mrs. Clinton’s polished and disciplined performance in the first debate helped give her a boost in some national and battleground state polls. The trend has Trump advisers acknowledging privately that Sunday’s debate is a for their candidate. Only a strong performance will offer Mr. Trump hope of reversing his slide and starting a effort to persuade undecided voters that he is qualified to be president. “He understands this debate is very important for him,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, who is a senior adviser to Mr. Trump and is helping prepare him for Sunday. For Mrs. Clinton, the town event provides her biggest venue yet to try to project a softer side and to improve her likability. A majority of voters tell pollsters that they distrust and dislike Mrs. Clinton, a reality that could hurt turnout and, if she prevails in November, hamper her presidency. For all the praise for Mrs. Clinton’s performance in the first debate, her surgical takedown of Mr. Trump did little to change voters’ perceptions of her. But, in contrast to Mr. Trump, who prefers big rallies, Mrs. Clinton has interacted regularly with voters during her campaign, and some of her most powerful moments have come in those settings. At a town event in Iowa, Mrs. Clinton became teary and embraced a girl who said she had been bullied at school. And just before the New Hampshire primary, in response to a question from a rabbi, Mrs. Clinton delivered an extended riff about her own spiritual journey. “She likes answering questions from individual citizens and she listens and relates to people,” said John D. Podesta, the campaign chairman for Mrs. Clinton. “That’s a format that Donald Trump isn’t as used to. ” But the audience of undecided voters who will ask half of the questions on Sunday will not be as friendly as the supporters who asked Mrs. Clinton questions at campaign stops. Her efforts to seem sincere and personable may also collide with Mr. Trump’s efforts to score points against her for her use of a private email server as secretary of state her oversight during the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya and her ties to wealthy donors to her family foundation. “It helps if you’ve been subjected to questions from normal people during the campaign, which of course Donald Trump has not, but it’s not the same,” said Mickey Kantor, a longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Kantor said that having a moderator, an opponent and a television audience of potentially 80 million viewers made it almost impossible to prepare. “You can’t just take a question and run off to your talking points,” Mr. Kantor said. Advisers say Mr. Trump must alternate between personable and piercing during the debate. They want him to show interest, empathy, and even some humility, in his exchanges with the audience, while hammering Mrs. Clinton in a way that is not too . “It’s just harder to attack when nice, undecided voters are all around you,” Mr. Giuliani said. “It’s easier to do when people are sitting in a dark hall and you can barely see them. ’’ Mr. Trump logged some practice on Thursday in New Hampshire by participating in a town forum that even included a clock — the same time limit he will face on Sunday. Mr. Trump denied that the event was a dry run for the debate, saying such a suggestion made him look “like a child. ’’ His performance was uneven, even facing an audience asking friendly questions. Some of his answers were pointed, like his criticism of the Iran nuclear deal. Others were perhaps reassuring, like his insistence that he would stop the flow of heroin into the state. At other times, Mr. Trump meandered, such as a long response about Hispanics that included an observation about those in Las Vegas. “Latinos, they like to be called in that area,” he said. Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, said Mrs. Clinton’s aides anticipated a more disciplined and prepared Mr. Trump who wouldn’t “unravel or unwind the way he did an hour into the last debate. ” Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, for their part, are setting a low bar for his performance. They say Mr. Trump needs to be articulate, play offense against Mrs. Clinton and not lose his cool as he did in their first matchup. Yet his ability to accomplish this remains in doubt, given his tendency to hit back hard when challenged — sometimes to the point of sputtering, as he did when he came under attack at the first debate over his past insults of women. A smaller group of advisers is helping Mr. Trump prepare than were involved before the first debate. The group includes Ms. Conway and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, as well as Stephen K. Bannon, the campaign’s chief executive, and Mr. Trump’s Jared Kushner. Mrs. Clinton is also practicing. At a “Family Town Hall” in Haverford, Pa. on Tuesday, she nearly leapt out of her chair to respond to a high school student who said she worried that Mr. Trump’s comments about women hurt the body image of girls her age. Her formal preparations include drills and mock debates with Mr. Podesta and Karen Dunn, a Washington lawyer Jake Sullivan, her chief policy adviser Ron Klain, a veteran presidential debate coach, and Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign’s communications director. The team joined Mrs. Clinton at her home in Washington on Wednesday, snacking on fresh strawberries as they helped shape her answers. In some respects, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers, many of whom also worked for Bill Clinton, invented the town format. Mr. Klain was among the advisers who first suggested to President George Bush and Ross Perot that the candidates abandon the traditional format, and take part in a televised town forum with a live audience of undecided voters. Mr. Clinton was not yet known as the master of the format, and his opponents agreed. The official debates have included a town event ever since. That 1992 debate led to a moment that cemented Mr. Clinton’s popular appeal. When a woman asked the candidates how the national debt personally affected them, Mr. Bush delivered a dry response about interest rates. Mr. Clinton, using a tactic he had rehearsed, stood up off his stool and took several steps closer to the voter. “Tell me how it’s affected you again,” Mr. Clinton said, looking directly into the voter’s eyes. “You know people who have lost their jobs and lost their homes?” Mr. Bush, before his response, had checked his watch as the voter was talking, a movement that led Mr. Clinton’s advisers to burst out in cheers backstage, recognizing the moment. Trump advisers are well aware that even small gestures can lead to setbacks. They have reviewed video footage of Mr. Trump’s expressions while Mrs. Clinton was speaking and say the town format will play to their advantage in at least one respect: The dreaded split screen, which captured Mr. Trump scowling and barking into his microphone during the first debate, may be used less if the candidates move around the stage to engage with voters. “A rigid atmosphere can get him in trouble,” Mr. Giuliani said about Mr. Trump. “He’s a quick learner, but that doesn’t mean he knows all the tricks that you learn over decades in political life. ” | 1 |
Why Hillary Won't Unleash WWIII By Pepe Escobar October 31, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " RT " - She is fully supported by virtually the whole US establishment; a bipartisan, neocon/neoliberalcon, regime change/humanitarian imperialist axis.
On the opposite side, for all his personal pathology problems and incoherent twitter-mouth ramblings, Donald Trump seemed to be on the money when he said that if elected, Hillary would use Syria to unleash WWIII.
To check out if that holds, lets start with an essential backup.
The Queen of War, at the final US presidential debate in Las Vegas: " A no-fly zone [in Syria] can save lives and hasten the end of the conflict. "
The Queen of War, in one of her 2013 speeches to Goldman Sachs, published by WikiLeaks: a no-fly zone would " kill a lot of Syrians .
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: a no-fly zone in Syria would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia. "
No-fly zone would require war with #Syria and #Russia top US general https://t.co/veSy8uETak pic.twitter.com/zXyCmWjdXj
RT America (@RT_America) September 22, 2016 Predictably, the Clinton (cash) machine has been relentless promoting Hillarys no-fly zone. Whenever cornered, the machine switches the narrative to Russian hacking of the DNC. Edward Snowden, who knows a thing or two about cyberwarfare, stresses there is no solid proof Russian intel hacked the Democratic/Clinton machine. And if they actually did it, the NSA would know. The fact the NSA is mum reveals this is no more than information war.
Pass the missile launchers, please Trump seems to have been more on the money when he insisted how Hillary will be outsmarted as she already was in the past when dealing with President Putin, who she has demonized as Hitler.
I have shown how Hillary will be prevented from launching WWIII because her no-fly zone is already implemented in Syria by Russia. And the Pentagon reflecting Dunfords comments - knows it, no matter how emphatically soon-to-be-unemployed Pentagon head Ash Carter threatens consequences .
The Pentagon ranks Russia and China as the number one and two existential threats to US national security, in that order. And the US government reserves for itself the privilege of a nuclear first-strike which Hillary supports (but not Trump); this is part of the 2002 Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine.
The relentless hysteria now crystallized as Cold War 2.0 has led scores of analysts to game the actual terrifying - possibility of a US-Russia hot war. As much as the Cold War MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine may now lie in the dust exactly because Washington refuses to back down from first-strike only armchair Dr. Strangeloves get their kicks with the possibility of fighting a nuclear power. Dunford does not seem to be one of them.
What Hillary Clinton will certainly do is to double down on proxy wars, Vietnam/Afghanistan-style. So expect a President Clinton to authorize full weaponization of those Beltway-loved moderate Al-Qaeda-in-Syria rebels with plenty of shoulder-held missile launchers. This could easily get out of control with lethal, yet not nuclear, consequences.
Thats exactly the point made by Mikhail Rostovsky in Moscow daily Moskovsky Komsomolets; if Hillary ratchets up tensions, things could get out of hand .
Also expect not so proxy ratcheting up of tension in the South China Sea; after all it was Hillary who claimed mothership of the pivot to Asia; and it was Hillary who steered intra-South East Asian maritime disputes into the boiling cauldron of wider US-China competition.
And if that was not hard boiled enough, US frustration will be at an all-time high after Philippines President Rodrigo Dutertes own pivot to China.
Say hello to my new Sarmat A case can be made that official Moscow is carefully getting ready to work with a Clinton as in Obama III presidency, with Hillary, a devil they know well when she was Secretary of State, to be dealt with as a pragmatist, unwilling and unable to plunge US-Russia relations into total incandescence.
A Clinton presidency for its part should know better than overestimate Russias financial weakness.
The national debt of Russia is only 17.7 percent of GDP; for the US it is a whopping 104.17 percent of GDP, or $19.2 trillion. Russia in 2015 had a trade surplus of $150 billion, while the US had a trade deficit of $531.5 billion. The current account surplus of Russia was 5.1 percent of GDP, or 65.8 billion, while the US ran a current account deficit of 484.1 billion, or 2.7 percent of GDP.
Besides, Russia has all the natural resources it needs; unlike the US government, which believes it needs an empire of bases overseas and ten aircraft carrier task forces to secure the resources it lacks.
Moreover, as much as the Pentagon may continue to be infested by neocon cells, sound generals are also able to identify key Russian signals such as the unveiling of the RS-28 Sarmat nuclear missile, which NATO calls Satan 2. The Sarmat delivers monster warheads of 40 megatons; boasts a top speed of seven kilometers per second; and is able to outfox any anti-missile shield system anywhere.
First images of new thermonuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile to replace 'Satan' unveilled in Russia https://t.co/mmX2EHALQu
RT (@RT_com) October 25, 2016
Hot war? Hillary Clinton may have pulled a Julius Caesar over Gaddafi. But shes realist enough to not pull a (nuclear) Hitler over Moscow. Or is she? | 0 |
Facebook says users can't stop it from using biometric data Bloomberg
Facebook Inc.'s software knows your face almost as well as your mother does. And like mom, it isn't asking your permission to do what it wants with old photos.
While millions of internet users embrace the tagging of family and friends in photos, others worried there's something devious afoot are trying to block Facebook as well as Google from amassing such data.
As advances in facial recognition technology give companies the potential to profit from biometric data, privacy advocates see a pattern in how the world's largest social network and search engine have sold users' viewing histories for advertising. The companies insist that gathering data on what you look like isn't against the law, even without your permission.
If judges agree with Facebook and Google, they may be able to kill off lawsuits filed under a unique Illinois law that carries fines of $1,000 to $5,000 each time a person's image is used without permission -- big enough for a liability headache if claims on behalf of millions of consumers proceed as class actions. A loss by the companies could lead to new restrictions on using biometrics in the U.S., similar to those in Europe and Canada. | 0 |
The conservative radio host Glenn Beck called the Women’s March in Washington an “AstroTurf” rally funded by the liberal billionaire George Soros. He complained that the news media refused to acknowledge this fact. But there’s one news organization he praised as an exception: The New York Times. As evidence, he pointed to a piece by Asra Q. Nomani, a liberal feminist and Trump voter, who claimed to document the extensive financial ties Soros had to march partners. The conservative website Breitbart News tied the piece to The Times in a prominent headline. And the site The Daily Stormer wrote about the piece under a headline that referred to Soros as an “International Jew. ” Suddenly, The Times was a crowd pleaser. Only it wasn’t The Times that ran this article. It was published on a site affiliated with The Times — but completely distinct from the paper — called Women in the World. The site is part of an events organization founded by Tina Brown (of The Daily Beast and The New Yorker fame). The Times is a business investor in Women in the World and provides the website’s digital platform, but the two have separate editorial operations. None of that was apparent to many readers who wrote in, confused about whether the story was the work of The Times. Here’s one from Susan Kruglinski of New York: It’s easy to be confused. I was. At the top left corner of the website, for example, there is the familiar “T” logo of The New York Times, and the URL has “nytimes” in it. Click the stylized “T” and you’ll be taken to The Times’s website. If you scroll to the very bottom of the Women in the World home page, squint to find the “About Us” link, and click, you’ll be taken to a page that, in the fourth paragraph, explains the relationship between The Times and Women in the World. For the most part, the site publishes news and features about women that don’t seem particularly controversial. This one, which was labeled Opinion, was more ideologically charged and made The Times the perfect foil for conservative news sites. Adam Bryant, who oversees the newsroom’s role in conferences, was sympathetic to the idea that something more might need to be done to make evident the degree to which the two organizations are separate. “As part of the The New York Times’s business relationship with Women in the World, we currently provide the digital platform for them, but we have separate editorial operations,” he said. “We strive to avoid any confusion on the part of our readers, so we are going to look again to see if there is more we can do to explain our relationship to Women in the World in their articles. ” Glad to hear it. Updated 12:12 p. m. January 27, to clarify Soros’s connection to the march. | 1 |
The Islamic state magazine Rumiyah has called on supporters and Islamic State fighters in Germany and Austria to murder moderate Imams who they consider “apostates. ”[The magazine was released in several languages earlier this week through the various internet channels Islamic State uses to broadcast propaganda to its sympathisers, MEMRI reports. One of the methods used was a “telegram” app, an encrypted messaging service that ISIS often uses and is generally the first place the group takes credit for terror attacks. The terror group named several prominent members of the Muslim community in both Germany and Austria as potential targets for assassination in an article entitled “Kill the infidel imams in Germany and Austria. ” Among the targets listed is Aiman Mazyek, of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany. Mazyek has made controversial statements in the past, such as calling for German leaders to limit the number of migrants flowing into the country in late 2015. The Muslim leader has also slammed the migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) likening them to Nazis after they revealed a platform of last year. Omar a Vienna city councilman for the Socialist Party (SPÖ) and a member of the Council Committee on European and International Affairs was also listed as a target. is also no stranger to controversy — in 2010 he led an official condemnation of Israel in the Vienna city hall over the Israeli raids on a flotilla heading for Gaza, which Israeli authorities claimed was not the humanitarian mission activists stated it to be. also led a protest against Israel in Vienna. Among the demonstrators were members of the Turkish nationalist group the Grey Wolves who have clashed with Kurds in Germany and have been accused of trying to infiltrate German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party through its diversity program. Killing Imams they don’t agree with is nothing new for the Islamic State. In 2014 ISIS executed 13 clerics in the city of Mosul whom they deemed to be too moderate. Imam Muhammad al Mansuri was one of the victims of the terror group and was the imam in charge of the mosque in which ISIS leader gave a rare public appearance to lead prayers. Islamic State killed a further six imams in early 2015 after they condemned the group’s actions when they burned Jordanian pilot Mu’ath Kasasbeh alive. Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com, | 1 |
President Donald Trump celebrated the opening of a new coal mine in Pennsylvania, sending a recorded video to miners for the ceremony. [“I’m absolutely thrilled to be speaking with you on this great, great day,” Trump said in the video. “The miners of Pennsylvania — we’re digging coal again. ” The Corsa Coal Company is opening the Acosta coal mine and is expected to employ miners. Yesterday, Trump delivered a speech via video celebrating the opening of a new coal mine in Pennsylvania https: . pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) June 9, 2017, Trump reminded the miners of his promises during the campaign, and his ongoing efforts to reduce regulations to bring back jobs. “Clean coal will power America into the future,” Trump said. He also celebrated his decision to remove the United States from the “horrendous” Paris Climate Agreement, asserting that it would have sent the United States back “decades and decades. ” “We are doing something special and we are helping American coal,” Trump said. Hail to their hero. At Acosta mine opening. pic. twitter. — Debra Erdley (@deberdley_trib) June 8, 2017, Trump also highlighted the mine’s opening during his speech announcing his decision to withdraw from the climate agreement. The president’s video aired as attention was focused on former FBI director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate. He vowed to continue fighting for coal jobs despite opposition: Though Washington may be some 180 miles down the road, as long as I’m the president of your great country, each and every day I’m fighting for you and I’m fighting for all the forgotten men and women in our country. It’s not easy, we have a lot of bad opposition, we have a lot of bad, bad phony opposition, but together we will all make sure that our nation is a land of prosperity and opportunity for all. Table centerpiece @CorsaCoal Acosta Deep Mine opening day pic. twitter. — Stephen Huba (@shuba_trib) June 8, 2017, | 1 |
GIFU, Japan — Liu Hongmei was fed up with her job at a Shanghai clothing factory, where she worked long hours for little pay. So three years ago, she quit to take a job in Japan. A garment factory there promised Ms. Liu three times her $ Chinese wage, and she hoped to save thousands of dollars for her family, which was growing with the recent birth of a son. “It seemed like a big opportunity,” she recalled. Call it an opportunity, maybe, but don’t call it work. Legally, the time Ms. Liu spent ironing and packing women’s wear in Japan is considered “training. ” She had entered the murky and at times abusive world of Japan’s technical trainees — essentially laborers brought in from abroad to fill jobs that Japanese citizens aren’t taking. Just like the United States and other developed countries, Japan has a hard time finding people to pick vegetables, collect bedpans and wash restaurant dishes. In America, many of these jobs are filled by illegal immigrants, an arrangement attacked by President Trump during his campaign. Japan, on the other hand, long ago achieved what Mr. Trump has promised: It has very little illegal immigration and is officially closed to people seeking work. Now, though, its tough stance on immigration — legal and illegal — is causing problems. Many Japanese industries are suffering from severe labor shortages, which has helped put a brake on economic growth. That is prompting Japan to question some fundamental assumptions about its labor needs. The debate is politically delicate, but changing realities on the ground — in Japan’s factories and fields — are forcing politicians to catch up. Japan’s total labor force topped one million for the first time last year, according to the government, lifted in part by people entering the country on visas reserved for technical trainees. That growth has also led to an increase in cases of worker abuse and fraud, labor activists say. Ms. Liu is part of that debate. She arrived in Japan in debt after paying brokers $7, 000 to arrange her visa. Once there, she said, she found onerous working conditions and pay. Her bosses, she said, “treat us like slaves. ” Ms. Liu and other Chinese workers at her factory came to Japan through a internship program. Its purpose is to square the circle between Japan’s labor shortage and its ban on immigration. Farms, businesses and many manufacturers would struggle to stay afloat without foreign trainees, specialists say. “Practically every vegetable in the supermarkets of Tokyo was picked by a trainee,” said Kiyoto Tanno, a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University. To appease business groups, the government has created immigration loopholes, and hundreds of thousands of workers like Ms. Liu have poured through them. They come from China and Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia, and they are filling empty jobs in Japan as the Japanese population shrinks, becoming a crucial if underacknowledged motor of the economy. Their numbers are soaring. The trainee program has doubled in size in the last five years, to over 200, 000, according to official data, and the government is planning to expand it. The biggest source of workers has been China, but much of the recent growth has come from Vietnam. Few doubt that “training” is a fig leaf. Beyond a short period of language study, most trainees receive little or no instruction that would distinguish them from regular manual laborers, specialists and participants say. “The system is like calling a crow white,” said Yoshio Kimura, a member of Parliament from the governing Liberal Democratic Party who heads the party’s labor committee. “What we’re really doing is importing labor. ” Training is not the only way around Japanese immigration restrictions. There are also students in jobs, asylum seekers waiting for refugee applications to be processed — almost all are ultimately rejected — and South Americans of Japanese descent who can obtain special visas based on their ancestry. Demand still outstrips supply. The number of Japanese has been falling since the a consequence of decades of low birthrates. Nationwide unemployment is just 3 percent, and in some places, jobs are simply going begging. There are three to four positions open in nursing care and construction for every person who applies, according to government surveys. Eventually, Japan plans to lengthen the maximum time that trainees can stay in the country to five years, from three, and allow more kinds of businesses to hire them, including nursing homes and cleaning companies for offices and hotels. Parliament approved the creation of a new agency to oversee the trainee program last year, in response to criticism over worker exploitation. Once it is in place, the plan is to bring in more workers. Mr. Kimura and some other lawmakers want to go further, by establishing a formal guest worker system. Though it would not open a path to immigration — workers would still be expected to go home eventually — it would be more forthright than the current approach. Business groups favor the proposal, and the Liberal Democrats approved it as party policy in May. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not indicated whether it will follow through. “If we want economic growth in the future, we need foreigners,” Mr. Kimura said. Nobuya Takai, a lawyer who has represented foreign trainees in labor disputes, said the pretense that trainees are not workers contributes to problems. Companies do not hire them directly, but through a byzantine system of government and middlemen. Most trainees end up thousands of dollars in debt to pay broker fees before they even arrive, say Mr. Takai and others who have studied the program. And because trainees cannot easily switch jobs — their visas tie them to a single company — they lack what should be major leverage: the ability to walk out on a bad employer. “They can’t change jobs, and they lose money if they go home,” Mr. Takai said. In 2011, an American State Department report on human trafficking flagged the trainee program for what it said were inadequate protections against “debt bondage” and other abuses. When trainees don’t save enough to repay broker fees, they sometimes stay on illegally. Almost 6, 000 did so in 2015, according to Japan’s Justice Ministry. (There are about 60, 000 foreigners total in Japan without valid visas, according to the government, compared with an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States.) The New York Times spoke with more than a dozen trainees. All of them said they had paid labor brokers in their home countries, usually $7, 000 to $11, 000, to come to Japan to work. Most borrowed the money from family or banks. The trainees came from several countries in Asia and worked in different industries, in different parts of Japan: a Cambodian construction worker, a Chinese lettuce picker, seamstresses from China and Vietnam. Complaints about unpaid labor were common. Cao Bao, a from Jilin Province in northeast China, worked for Kishimoto Manufacturing, a small auto parts supplier in central Japan. He said Chinese trainees there were made to clean and paint the factory on their days off, without pay, when managers found errors in their work. He was fired when he complained, he said, and a Japanese labor union has taken up his case. “Some Japanese are helpful and nice, but the people at the company are different,” Mr. Cao said. Masahisa Kishimoto, the company’s president, said Mr. Cao had left of his own accord, and he blamed cultural differences for problems at the factory. In China, he said, “they don’t clean. ” “There are no rules,” he continued. “There’s a sense that you if you don’t get caught, you can do anything. ” Mr. Kishimoto referred other questions to Joho Highway an employers’ association that recruits trainees on behalf of Kishimoto Manufacturing and other local businesses. The said that Kishimoto had been imposing “penalty” overtime on both Japanese and Chinese workers, in violation of labor rules, and that Kishimoto had compensated the employees after the intervened. Mr. Kishimoto said the company had fully complied with labor laws. Government data on workplace accidents shows that trainees are more likely to be hurt on the job than Japanese workers — a result of poor training, language barriers or more dangerous assignments. Since 2010, two trainee deaths have been recognized by the government as cases of karoshi, the Japanese term for death by overwork. Given widespread underreporting of overtime, the true number could be higher. In the financially struggling garment industry, abuses are pervasive enough that the minister of economy, trade and industry promised an inquiry last year, during a debate in Parliament over expanding the trainee program. Tham Thi Nhung, 32, a mother of two from Vietnam, said she worked from 8 a. m. to 9 or 10 p. m. Her job was to sew jackets, coats and dresses at a small clothing factory in Aichi prefecture, an industrial region in central Japan. All but one of the business’s six seamstresses were Vietnamese, Ms. Nhung said. They hadn’t had a day off in four months, she said, but the owner was recording only part of their overtime. In November, after the women complained that they were being underpaid by $712 a month, the owner sent a letter saying the factory was closing, and they were being laid off. A telephone number registered for Ms. Nhung’s employer, Fashion Ai, was not working, and a lawyer representing the company declined to comment. “We told the boss, but she said she wouldn’t pay more,” Ms. Nhung said. “She told us to keep working or go back to Vietnam. ” Ms. Liu said she emptied her savings and borrowed from relatives to cover the visa fee. Ms. Liu and her colleagues said their employer had been paying them less than the legal minimum wage for overtime, and had been overcharging them for company housing. The employer was Takeshi Nakahara, who along with his wife owns several small garment factories in Gifu, near Aichi. He started using Chinese trainees 15 years ago, he said in an interview, because “no Japanese want to work in the apparel industry. ” Low wages are the only way to compete with cheap foreign factories, he added. “Most manufacturers have moved overseas,” he said. “It’s the only way to stay profitable. ” Mr. Nakahara said he had been paying Ms. Liu and other Chinese workers less than minimum wage for overtime, though he said the idea had been theirs. “They demanded more overtime work,” he said. “I told them it wouldn’t be profitable for the company, and they said they were willing to work for less. ” Although the arrangement was illegal, he said he felt betrayed when the women, nearing the end of their contracts, made demands for back pay. The workers sought help from Zhen Kai, a Chinese labor activist who has lived in Japan for decades. He operates a small union office in Gifu that includes temporary rooms in which workers can stay. Mr. Zhen says that he sympathizes with the businesses and that many would have folded without the trainee program. The government, he says, has effectively kept such businesses alive by letting them exploit workers. “Owners often say to me, ‘Are you trying to destroy my company? ’” he said. Mr. Zhen negotiated with the Nakaharas, who offered a settlement, initially about $5, 800. Fed up and homesick, Ms. Liu accepted the offer and was getting ready to go back to China, even though she still owed money to the relatives who helped her pay for her visa. The other four women decided to stay in Japan to fight for more compensation, and a few weeks later accepted offers of $10, 000 to $16, 000. Asked if they had learned anything during their ostensible training, they laughed bitterly. “Only hardship,” Ms. Liu said. “My image of Japan,” she said, “was that it was a good country. ” | 1 |
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November 8, 2016, is election day. On Tuesday, Americans will vote for who will represent them to the world. That would be the position of the most powerful person in the world; President of the United States (POTUS). It is up to every citizen, young and old, to remind people to get out and vote. Support the freedom afforded Americans.
Also, there are state elections for senators and representative seats. In fact, there are 270 congressional positions available. Most states have significant measures on the ballots for voters to decide. Some measures include; Marijuana legalization, whether or not to raise taxes, fund bonds to fix the school system, build a stadium.
Vote for POTUS As far as voting for the POTUS goes, the country has found itself more divided than ever before. There are four candidates,
Hillary Clinton , the first female candidate from a major party, Democrat, former first lady, and former secretary of state; Gary Johnson , governor of New Mexico, Libertarian Party; Jill Stein, Green Party, a presidential candidate in 2012; Donald Trump , real estate mogul, reality star, and entrepreneur, Republican. Stein and Johnson are unlikely for two reasons;
Neither are members of the two primary parties. Neither have numbers in the polls that are in the double digits. Clinton has many good qualities that indicate she would be a strong leader. As the first lady, she understands the pressures of the presidency from watching her husband deal with the job. As the secretary of state, Clinton learned first hand the ins and outs of dealing with foreign affairs and American citizens. In this post, she worked closely with the president. When she was a senator, the Democratic candidate learned how difficult it could be to compromise across the aisle.
Trump has qualities that may help him should he win. His business acumen and his personality indicate he will be a force to with which to be reckoned. He knows the art of the deal making. The Republican candidate has no political experience short of lobbying for his causes, which could serve him well by understanding how the lobbyists think.
Lesser of Two Evils? Both Clinton and Trump have red marks on their reputations, and they have attacked one another relentlessly since each won their primaries. Whereas, the former’s are over a decade old the latter’s are current.
How does one decide which to choose? What happens if neither wins the majority of the vote? Would it be as simple as whoever garners the highest number?
Stein and Johnson each proclaim they are the better choice for voters over choosing the better of two evils. Their positions are unique and intriguing. The Libertarian ticket may be strong as both the presidential and vice presidential candidates are former governors.
Early Voting Numbers As of November 4, there have been at least 37 million ballots cast, according to Business Insider. There are approximately 219 million eligible voters in the U.S. in 2016. Polls indicate a drop in the number who are stated they are definitely casting their ballots; in 2012 the number was 76 percent, and in 2016 it was 69. That leaves 41 percent of registered voters who need to have people, adults, teenagers, and children alike, to push them to get to the polling sites and cast their ballots.
Questions about what is on the ballot for individual states can be found on Ballotpedia. A person can choose the see what is on the federal, state, local ballots. Another option would be to go the website for the state’s registrar’s office. It is important to exercise the freedom to vote.
By Cathy Milne
Sources:
Websites: Presidential Candidates; Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Donald Trump
Business Insider: 37 million people have already voted — here’s what the data say
Statistic Brain: Voting Turnout Statistics
Featured Image Courtesy of George Makris’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Top Inset Image Courtesy of League of Women’s Voters’ Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Inset Image Courtesy of Marcia Cirillo’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Third Inset Image Robert Palmer’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Fourth Inset Image Courtesy of Irish Labour Party’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Fifth Inset Image Courtesy of Julie Faith’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License #CMJournalist , Donald Trump , Get Out the Vote , Hillary Clinton , spot , vote | 0 |
He believed the shelter, which was about 10 feet deep, could have been built during World War II after a German bomb landed close to where his home now sits.
Marks said he bought the home from an elderly couple, who had built it in the 1970s.
He added that the previous owner wasn’t too concerned about the shelter, as he had just covered it up.
“He clearly wasn’t very worried about it and it just sat there until the hatch fell through. I think it’s great and I want to clear it out and preserve it if it’s structurally sound.”
“It’s incredible to think it has all been made by hand. It’s part of our history, so it should be kept.”
When he first started digging, the shelter was almost completely full of mud. After the area was cleaned out, Marks discovered glass bottles and old newspapers inside.
Since some of those newspapers were much more recent than World War II, you have to wonder what else has gone on down there.
Share this story on Facebook and Twitter and let us know what you think about this incredible discovery. What do you think about this surprising discovery? Scroll down to comment below! Advertisement Popular Right Now | 0 |
Wednesday 2 November 2016 Facebook user wastes two hours sharing things to impress his insurance company
Facebook user Simon Williams has admitted he only shares things on social media to impress other people, so trying to impress his insurance company seemed like a sensible thing to do.
Williams said Admiral Insurance’s decision to offer better insurance deals to people with Facebook profiles that looked ‘safer’ to their quotation algorithm had led to an afternoon of frantic social activity.
He explained, “Obviously, as a millennial social media user, I only ever share things that will impress my friends, future employers and potentially those women who happen across my Facebook profile from any of the number of dating apps I use.
“So sharing and posting things purely to make myself look better is nothing new to me. Tweaking that for an insurance company was pretty easy.
“I simply liked a number of Facebook pages about driver safety, signed a petition calling for lower speed limits on UK roads, added a couple of driving safety courses as Life Events, and even put a couple of posts on my historic timeline about how people are ‘driving way too fast past the school these days’.
“Also, Driving Miss Daisy is now my favourite film, by the way.
“It would definitely have got me cheaper car insurance. It was a flawless plan.
“Of course, Facebook has now put an end to that – the bastards. Two hours of my life I won’t get back.
A spokesperson for Facebook told us, “We simply can’t have a third party business exploiting the information our users share on the Facebook platform for commercial gain.
“That’s what our advertising business is for.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
By Bill Palmer | October 28, 2016 | 327 230026 SHARES
For all the noise emanating from FBI Director James Comey’s shocking decision to send a letter to Congress falsely implying that he’s reopening his investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails just eleven days before the election, one might think that Comey at least knew how to cover himself. But as it turns out, not only are the emails in question not from Clinton’s private email server, it’s now been confirmed that they were neither sent by her or received by her. In other words, these emails have literally no connection to Hillary.
The Los Angeles Times confirmed on Friday night that “The emails were not to or from Clinton, and contained information that appeared to be more of what agents had already uncovered.” In other words, James Comey just got caught lying in his attempt at rigging a Presidential election. And yes, that’s a severe violation of a specific federal law.
Once the smoke clears, the FBI Director will have to explain why he not only misused his office to tamper in the election in violation the Hatch Amendment of 1993, but why he flat out lied while doing so. This new confirmation from the LA Times makes unequivocally clear that these new emails in a totally unrelated investigation of Anthony Weiner were not Hillary Clinton emails in any way shape or form.
Even prior to this shocking new confirmation of criminal intent on Comey’s part, CNN was already demanding that he resign, and MSNBC was already condemning him in the strongest way possible, even as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee gave him a deadline to rectify his scandalous behavior. But now that’s known for certain that this new FBI investigation does not involve any emails that were sent or received by Hillary Clinton, the probability has increased that Comey will end up facing criminal punishment for what can now only be defined as an act of domestic terrorism on his part. If you enjoy Daily News Bin, consider making a contribution: Contributed by Daily News Bin staff 230026 | 0 |
Meet the journalist facing 45 years in jail for filming the tar sands pipeline protest in North Dakota
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Are North Dakota authorities waging a war against the public’s right to know about the ongoing Standing Rock pipeline protests? We are joined by documentary filmmaker Deia Schlosberg, who was charged earlier this month with three felonies for filming an act of civil disobedience in which climate activists manually turned off the safety valves to stop the flow of tar sands oil through pipelines spanning the U.S. and Canada.
The actions took place in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Washington state. Schlosberg is an award-winning filmmaker and was the producer of Josh Fox’s recent documentary, “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change.” She was filming the action at a valve station owned by TransCanada in Walhalla, North Dakota. She was arrested along with the activists, and her footage was confiscated. Then she was charged with a Class A felony and two Class C felonies—which combined carry a 45-year maximum sentence.
For original video interview please click here . TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: But we’re joined right now in Los Angeles by Democracy Now! video stream by Deia Schlosberg, the award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer, who was arrested on October 11th in a different area of North Dakota, while reporting on a climate change protest in Walhalla, North Dakota, charged with three felonies, facing 45 years in prison, if convicted. Also with us, Josh Fox. His article in The Nation, “The Arrest of Journalists and Filmmakers Covering the Dakota Pipeline is a Threat to Democracy—and the Planet.” His previous documentaries include Gasland, which first exposed the harms of the fracking industry, nominated for an Academy Award, also made Gasland 2, which aired on HBO.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Deia, describe what happened to you.
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: Well, on October 11th, I was working as a climate reporter, as I’ve done for years and years and years, as Josh and I were doing, and the rest of the How to Let Go of the World team, when we made the film. And I was documenting people taking a stand, people on the frontlines of the fight to lessen the impacts of climate change. So, there were—there were five activists across four states that had planned to turn the emergency shutoff valves on the five pipelines that bring all Canadian oil sands into the U.S. And I was documenting this occurrence at the North Dakota site, outside of Walhalla, as you said. I was—I was filming the action. I was on public land. I was on a public road and at no point trespassed, at no point, you know, broke in or destroyed any property. I had nothing to do with the planning of the event. I was there to document it. I think it’s essential for journalists to—journalists and filmmakers to go where the mainstream media is not. And there’s a major hole in the coverage of climate change and people that are already dealing with the consequences of climate change and people that are fighting climate change. So, I take that responsibility very seriously.
AMY GOODMAN: So when did the police come?
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: The police came after—well, the activist that was doing the action, Michael, had called the company ahead of time to say that he was—he was going to shut off the valve, so they could—to give them ample time to take any emergency precautions. And then he turned the valve. And meanwhile, the company notified the local police. So, after the valve was closed, they came in probably about 15 minutes. I had my camera set up on a tripod on the public road. And they told me I was arrested for being an accessory to a crime, at which point I was brought to the local jail . I figured it would—things would just have to clear up once they realized what was—
AMY GOODMAN: So, they charged you with three felonies?
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: —that I was just, you know, exercising my First Amendment—
AMY GOODMAN: What were the felonies?
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: Conspiracy—they were all conspiracy charges: conspiracy to theft of public—theft of property, conspiracy to theft of service and conspiracy of interfering with a public—a critical public infrastructure.
AMY GOODMAN: And you face 45 years in jail? What is your comment on this?
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: What is my what? Sorry, the connection is—
AMY GOODMAN: What do say about this?
DEIA SCHLOSBERG: It’s absolutely outrageous. Yeah, I mean, this is what I—this is what I do for my living. This is what I’ve done for years and years. There’s absolutely no grounds for these charges.
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Congressman Thomas Massie wants spending cuts, not tax increases elsewhere, to offset income tax reductions. [Congressman Massie ( ) spoke to Breitbart News on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days, saying the president is off to a great start, and calling the nomination of Neil Gorsuch a defining moment for the Trump presidency. He told Breitbart News: I’m excited for the wins that we got already, which includes Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch being confirmed and that’s going to last for decades. Neil Gorsuch was worth the entire election, everything else is a bonus. As for other stuff he scores big points for rolling back the regulatory state. In my district two big deals are the EPA’s Waters of the US rule, and the Social Security gun grab. I’m excited about those things. Massie explained that he loves using the Congressional Review Act to repeal regulations. He explained, “I lost track of how many we’ve done, and it was only used once successfully before Trump. and that was an OSHA rule with President George W. Bush that Bush was able to rescind a rule created during the Clinton era. I’m excited about all of those and more. but I’m particularly excited about the Social Security gun ban. ” The Kentucky congressman would love to see a comprehensive infrastructure plan. Massie said: I would love for us to make progress on infrastructure. I am one of the most conservative members of Congress, and I serve on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee because I believe it’s vital to our country. it’s one of the few things our country should spend money on. I believe that there’s a constitutional and a federal nexus for it so I’d like to figure out how to address the nation’s infrastructure needs. Trump spoke to that on the campaign, and I think that a lot of Republicans and Democrats agree that we need this. So I believe that Trump can get the six votes he needs in the Senate to pass an infrastructure plan. We know he can get 218 in the House. I’m really excited he chose Elaine Chao to be Transportation Secretary. Massie cheered Trump nominating Scott Garrett to run the Bank. He said: He couldn’t pick a better person than Scott Garrett to run the Bank. Obviously I want to eliminate the Bank, but if there’s going to be someone to run, then Scott should run it. He’s the best person he can choose. It’s not in the win column, but it’s something for Congress to do, not the president. We should elect more people in Congress to get rid of the Bank. Looking forward, Congressman Massie believes that tax reform can do some great work if it cuts Americans’ tax burden and does not add to the deficit. He said: In spite of the caution, there’s a lot of opportunity in tax reform. I think what we should do instead of swallowing the entire apple whole, we should take several bites at it. I agree in large part with Stephen Moore and Larry Kudlow in their Wall Street Journal that we should take it slow and rack up some wins and realize that tax reform does not have to be revenue neutral. Revenue neutral means that someone’s taxes are going down and somebody’s taxes are going up. “I would like us to see a real tax cut along with tax reform and we can accomplish that without increasing the deficit. We can make up the difference by cutting spending, especially in a lot of ways that works with Trump’s narrative. We spent a $100 billion in Afghanistan rebuilding their infrastructure … . I would like to see Trump bring that money back. That’s a great opportunity right there,” Massie concluded. | 1 |
The Trump campaign is having a collective nervous breakdown after the James Comey letter about new Hillary Clinton emails failed to swing the election in his direction.
Robert Costa of The Washington Post tweeted a view from inside the Trump campaign: My read of Trumpland tonight: They know the path is very narrow. They see the polls, pub and priv. But they're scrambling map post-Comey…
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 30, 2016 Many of them describe the way to 270 not as a direct shot but a series of upsets and bank shots, of strong R showing + depressed D turnout
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 30, 2016 But list of hurdles goes on and on. HRC and Dems highly organized. Early vote. Top Ds hitting trail. FBI news also enthusing D voters…
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 30, 2016 What you're seeing is a small group of aides who truly believe Trump's populism/non-trad pitch can put new things in play, in spite of data.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) October 31, 2016
The Trump campaign is now that reality detached place where a few true believers are running the show. This is why Trump is going to spend the last week of his presidential campaign in blue states that he has no chance of winning. Trump still thinks that he can win Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. Wisconsin might be the most laughable of three delusions because Trump was routed in the Republican primary there, and GOP support from Wisconsin Republicans like Paul Ryan and Scott Walker has been lukewarm at best.
These are the final days that all losing campaigns go through when the nominee refuses to accept the likelihood of their defeat. The Comey letter didn’t move the needle for Trump. It didn’t give him a surge of national momentum or make the majority of voters rethink their support for Hillary Clinton.
The Clinton emails didn’t save Trump, so now he is going to waste his time campaigning in states that he will lose in search of a miracle as his poorly managed presidential bid stumbles to the finish line. | 0 |
White Students Start Whites-Only Group to Wreck White Racism Quincy Clarke, Campus Reform, November 2, 2016
A number of white Pomona College students formed a new club called “We’ve Got Work To Do: White People for Deconstructing Whiteness.” The club, open to students from all five of the Claremont Colleges, aims to “work on owning our racism, deconstructing our Whiteness, and to engage in movement & action toward dismantling White Supremacy.”
“White people at the 5C’s: we’re all racist. we’re all microaggressive. [W]e are all not only complicit in, but actively perpetuating white supremacy,” states an advertisement for the group. “Pretending that we are not racist and hoping that no one will discover our racism really doesn’t cut it. [W]e need to ACTIVELY be doing work to deconstruct our whiteness (and holding our peers accountable in doing the same).”
“Recognizing that White identity is a self-fashioned, hierarchical fantasy, Whites should attempt to dismantle Whiteness as it currently exists,” explains the group’s Facebook page , quoting Ian Haney López, a leading racial justice scholar. “Whites should renounce their privileged racial character, though not simply out of guilt or any sense of self-deprecation. Rather, they should dismantle the edifice of Whiteness because this mythological construct stands at the vortex of racial inequality in America.”
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PARIS (AP) — Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are preparing for their televised French presidential election debate, with much at stake for both contenders. [advertisement | 1 |
The American jobs machine has moved back into high gear. After a long stretch of conflicting reports, the Labor Department said on Friday that the economy in July delivered a second consecutive month of robust hiring and rising wages in a signal that the expansion is strengthening, not ebbing, as it enters its eighth year. Stocks surged, experts expressed more confidence that the Federal Reserve was likely to raise interest rates before the end of the year, and it was clear that wages for ordinary workers were advancing at a healthier pace. “This was everything you could have asked for, maybe more,” said Michelle Meyer, head of United States economics at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “We’re seeing new entrants into the labor market, which implies a longer runway for the business cycle. ” With the political conventions completed, the buoyant jobs numbers also have major implications for the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. Not only does the new data undercut Republican arguments that the recovery is faltering, it also suggests that after years of paltry gains, deeply frustrated workers are finally seeing some benefits from the drop in unemployment, which was unchanged last month at a relatively low 4. 9 percent. Wages are up 2. 6 percent over the last 12 months, a faster pace than earlier in the recovery, and many economists expect that the gain in incomes, adjusted for inflation, will accelerate later this year and into 2017. “The idea that Republicans are touting, that the job market is a wreck, is clearly belied by the data,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist who served in the Obama administration. “What matters most to people isn’t G. D. P. growth, it’s jobs and wages. ” Longtime G. O. P. economic hands like Wayne Berman, a veteran of several Republican presidential campaigns, conceded Friday’s data was favorable for Democrats, but insisted it represented a snapshot of the economy, not necessarily the underlying trends. A major failing in the recovery, Republicans note, is that millions of Americans who dropped out of the work force during the recession have still not found jobs. July’s jobs number “is a good statistic for Clinton to pivot towards,” said Mr. Berman, who currently serves as a top official at the Blackstone Group and advised Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during the Republican primary. He noted, however, that the economy grew at an annual rate of just 1 percent in the first half of 2016, a sharp decrease from last year. “We’re in a very mixed economic picture now,” said Mr. Berman, recalling the presidential campaign of Senator Bob Dole two decades ago, when attacks on Bill Clinton’s economic record failed to resonate at a time of rising prosperity. “You can’t say this is like 1996, when there was no oxygen for Bob Dole’s arguments. ” The July increase in payrolls stands in sharp contrast to data released just last week showing disappointing economic growth in April, May and June. A reason for the difference is that parts of the economy are still suffering from the continuing fallout from low oil prices as energy companies cut back on investment. Government spending also has been weak and many companies, at least for now, prefer to hire more workers rather than invest in new equipment and increase their efficiency and output. If business and government investment continue to lag, that could undermine the ability of the American economy to be more productive and raise living standards for most workers. In late spring, the government reported that job creation in May was much weaker than economists had expected a big rebound in June similarly caught the experts off guard. The July data helps clear up some of the confusion. “This is a validator,” said Michael Gapen, chief United States economist at Barclays. “This is a report that indicates that the slowdown in hiring earlier in the year has been reversed. ” June’s gain was revised upward by 5, 000 jobs, and May’s by 13, 000. The combination of better gains in the spring and July’s increase in hiring means that the Federal Reserve is likely to have a more vigorous debate about raising interest rates when it meets in September. But most experts think the Fed will wait until December to be sure the economy remains on a solid track. The Fed said in July, after the most recent meeting of its committee, that the economy was growing more strongly and there were fewer clouds on the horizon, suggesting it was giving greater consideration to rate increases later this year. But on the front, William C. Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an influential adviser to Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, said on Sunday that current economic conditions still called for “caution in raising U. S. interest rates. ” Job openings are spreading. “It’s been a really good summer for hiring all across the country,” said Tom Gimbel, chief executive of LaSalle Network, a recruiting and staffing firm based in Chicago. “Business has been great. Kids coming out of college are getting hired, and we’re seeing a lot of activity in the $50, 000 to $150, 000 category. ” The upswing in jobs last month also coincided with a sharp drop in unemployment among the workers, a group that has missed out on nearly all the gains of the current recovery thus far. Other measures of the labor market suggest that underlying joblessness is higher than the official 4. 9 percent rate, although nowhere near the 42 percent level Mr. Trump suggested last fall. The broadest measure of unemployment calculated by the Labor Department, which includes workers who want positions but cannot find them, stood at 9. 7 percent in July. To arrive at his figure, Mr. Trump apparently compared the total civilian population aged 16 and up — about 253. 6 million people — with the 102 million Americans who are not in the labor force, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But in addition to the 7. 7 million currently counted as unemployed, that larger figure includes more than 50 million Americans above the age of 55 who say they don’t want to work and are, for the most part, retired. It also takes into account 13. 5 million Americans age 16 to 24, most of them in school, and millions of women who have chosen to stay home to care for their young children. None of those people are considered unemployed by the Labor Department. The payroll figures, which reflect hiring at companies and in the public sector, revealed job gains, not just in sectors like retail and leisure and hospitality, but in fields like professional and business services as well. The household survey, which has offered a mixed picture in the past, was also robust. The jobless rate for high school dropouts, which has been elevated throughout the recovery, fell more than a full percentage point to 6. 3 percent, suggesting that employers who had previously ignored these workers are now taking a second look. As the unemployment rate has fallen, some employers have raised salaries to retain their best workers and attract new ones. Increases in the minimum wage in many states recently, and increases in the salaries by big employers like Walmart, Target and Aetna, are also beginning to ripple through the broader work force. But a job market remains in place, with workers in the same region facing radically different conditions depending on their level of education and skills. In San Francisco, even the most junior software engineers hired at Sunverge, a maker of energy storage systems for solar electricity users, command starting salaries of just over $100, 000. A little more than 60 miles to the east, at Sunverge’s assembly plant in Stockton, Calif. where the unemployment rate is 9 percent, new workers can expect to earn about $14 an hour, or $29, 000 a year. Sunverge is bulking up in both cities. But hiring technical talent is much more said Stu Statman, Sunverge’s chief of engineering. “It doesn’t seem like it’s that hard to find good factory workers in Stockton,” Mr. Statman said. “In San Francisco, if you’re talking about software engineers or developers, it’s very hard. It takes a long time, and there’s a huge amount of hunger out there for people with these skills. ” | 1 |
Leave a reply Dylan Harper – The entire physical universe is made up of pure energy and vibration. When you have the insight to see everything as vibration, the nature of the universe is revealed to you. Light is vibration. The entire electromagnetic wave spectrum of visible light produces different colors. Colors are simply waves vibrating at different frequencies . On one end of the spectrum you have red, on the other end you have violet. Red has the longest wavelength and the lowest frequency, violet has the shortest wavelength and the highest frequency. There are two kinds of electrical lighting that you can find when you visit an electronic store. Warm light and cool light. Warm light contains a greater mixture of lower frequency color waves such as yellow and orange. Cool light contains a greater mixture of higher frequency color waves such as green and blue. Light is crucial in its environmental effect upon work, play, rest and other life activities. It controls stimulation, relaxation and energy level . Since warm light is more relaxing than cool light, you might decide to use it for the ambience it creates. Have you ever used only warm lights in a room and thought that you could make the place more relaxing or stimulating simply by increasing or decreasing the light intensity? But it doesn’t work that way. Increasing the light intensity of warm light does not make it a lot more stimulating. Higher energy levels require higher rate of vibration. It is not the magnitude but the frequency of the vibration that determines its energy level. Is it any wonder that blue flame is hotter than yellow flame? Health is vibration. Cold, damp and dark places with lack of airflow are breeding grounds for bacteria, whereas sunny places with abundance of airflow eliminate unhealthy micro organisms. The second type of environment is healthier than the first because it is high vibration while the other is low vibration. Although sunlight is biologically beneficial, too much of it causes heatstroke. The energy turns from being constructive to destructive. The key here is balance. Too much of something beyond the rightful amount causes instability. This is what all sickness and disease does. It seeks to weaken or destabilize vibration. The more vibrant and stable a person is, the more alive and constructive he/she are. The more lackluster and unstable he/she is, the less alive and/or the more (self)destructive. Ever wonder why you have always been told to drink warm water and not to drink cold one when you were sick? When the body is sick, there are things within that are clogging up the system and slowing down some functions. The body needs energy to move the sickness out of the body or to destroy it. That is why your doctor advices you to drink plenty of water. It is the medium that your blood cells use to mobilize their work. More water and oxygen gives your body the much needed resources it needs in getting rid of the sickness. Your impulse of coughing out phlegm and blowing out mucus is your bodies act of expelling the bad stuff from your body, which means you are on the road to recovery. Warm water is high vibration whereas cold water is low vibration. Cold water removes the precious energy needed for recovery, whereas warm water supplies it. One supports your recovery rate while the other sabotages it. Sound is vibration. Bassy music is low vibration and energetic music is high vibration. We enjoy listening to different types of music because we like to experience different ranges of emotion. The variety of feelings in life makes it fun and meaningful. High energy dance music appeal to younger people because they are highly energetic and expressive. Slower and emotional entrancing music is what we desire to hear when we want to be moved in a deep and sensual way. We want time to slow down and come to a standstill the experience to be like an eternal moment. Chemical is vibration. Alcohol and earl grey tea are opposite in terms of vibration. Although stress and anxiety is a form of high vibration, it is undesirable because the vibration is incoherent and disorderly. Alcohol lowers vibration. That’s why people drink to relax and distress. But drinking consumes more than the natural amount of alcohol that the body is supposed to take. Therefore it causes instability as well. Drivers who drink have impaired judgment and reaction rate are more susceptible to accidents. People who are above the need of alcohol to relax have chosen more intelligent means of doing so. Earl grey tea acts as a stimulant that counters the effects of alcohol to a certain extent to “sober” you up. The vibration of our “bodies” at every level, physical and non-physical, has a profound influence on our ability to attract positive experiences. The higher your vibration, the more of a “magnet” you become as a result of the thoughts you hold in your mind. By holding only thoughts of the “things” you wish to manifest into your experience, and keeping your vibrations high in the ways we discussed previously, you will find your wishes will manifest much more quickly. When you learn to see everything as vibration different in terms of rate and stability, you will understand what you need in order to obtain the desired effect in any situation. It is all about balancing vibrations. There are lots more aspects of physical reality than those mentioned here where this principle is applied to. Once you are aware of this principle and always think in terms of vibration, you can understand practically everything that happens in the physical world. This is one of the governing dynamics that allows you to make sense of everything. Having this awareness is like seeing the world in code, like the Matrix . Dylan Harper is a 32-year-old surfer from California. He traveled the world, rode the waves and learned the universal concept of oneness. He is a vegan for over a decade and, literally, wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was reunited with his twin soul in Greece, where they got married and settled… for now. Dylan is a staff writer for DreamcatcherReality.com and teaches surfing to children. SF Source Dreamcatcher Reality | 0 |
An Ohio woman allegedly raped a on January 4, police say. [India Kirksey, 20, of West Price Hill was arrested Monday and booked into the Hamilton County Jail, WXIX report. Investigators say she recorded herself performing a sex act on the child, according to WLWT. Someone in Texas saw the video and contacted authorities, prosecutors state. Cincinnati police say that Kirksey gave them a taped confession, according to the criminal complaint. A judge set her bond at $350, 000 Monday morning. | 1 |
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According to numerous reports and stories that have been published through the years, among the many alleged secrets the Vatican has, there is a device called the Chronovisor. The device enables its user to observe future as well as past events. Many believe this device is one of the greatest guarded secrets humanity has ever had.
Some even believe it is a crucial ‘tool’ which has allowed the Vatican to preserve its influence and power through the years.
Ever since H. G. Wells composed his novel ‘The Time Machine’ many people have been left fascinated by the idea of time travel. Even Theoretical Physics dreams of the possibility of making it work one day. Everything related to time travel today is related to science fiction, or so it seems at least. Interestingly, on May 2, 1972, an Italian newspaper shocked the world when they published an article with a provoking headline: A machine that photographs the past has finally been invented .
The news article indicated that dozens of scientists created an artifact that allowed them to photograph the past, and even witness important historical accounts directly connected with Jesus Christ.
The alleged device –which according to many is nothing more than science fiction— was built in the 1950’s by a team of scientists led by Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti, an Italian physicist who eventually became a priest.
It is believed that the team received important help from Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi and famous rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.
The Chronovisor is a relatively small object that is equipped with a number of antennas and is composed entirely of precious alloys, cathode tubes, some dials, and levers. Reports by Father Ernetti suggest that whoever uses the device is able to capture and record specific locations, important events and follow in history, noteworthy individuals. According to Father Ernetti, he had observed, among other historical events, Christ’s crucifixion and photographed it as well. View image The image to the left is the one obtained using the Chronovisor. On the right is a similar image located in a Church in Perugia.
It is even said that under the perfect conditions, the device offers its user the ability to foresee what was going to happen in the near future.
However, Father Ernetti remained secretive and stated he was not at liberty to reveal further details about the Chronovisor.
Father Ernetti did however reveal that the Chronovisor worked by ‘…processing residual electromagnetic radiation left over by numerous processes…’
According to numerous reports, Father Ernetti used the Chronovisor to witness important historical events, with the most notable being the crucifixion of Christ.
However, Father Ernetti revealed that thanks to this invention had managed to witness the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and other major historical events such as the founding of Rome in 753 B.C. Also, thanks to the Chronovisor, Father Ernetti was able to recompose the missing work “Thyestes” , written by Ennio Quinto and represented in Rome in 169 A.C. in its original version, and the original text of the the two stone tablets written by God (Exodus 24:12) which were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, apart from witnessing the likes of Napoleon, Roman philosopher Cicero and other great and momentous historical and biblical episodes.
French priest François Charles Antoine Brune was one of the first to hear about the Chronovisor. According to Father François, he met Father Ernetti in the 1960’s when the two were traveling across the Grand Canal of Venice. As the two were experts in ancient languages, they began to talk about the Bible and its interpretation through the years. Supposedly, these are the blueprints of the Chronoviso r [image]
Father Brune that was very intrigued when the Father Ernetti revealed that there was a machine that could answer all questions related to the Bible.
When Father François asked about the Machine, Father Ernetti described the Chronovisor, saying that it was device that functioned just like a T.V., but instead of receiving transmissions from local stations, the chronovisor was able to tune into the past and allow the viewer to “see and hear” events that had occurred centuries before.
Ernetti told Brune that the machine worked by detecting images and sounds that humanity had ‘created’ which were “floating” in space.
It is said that this intriguing device and the project behind it were canceled by the Vatican but not destroyed. Some believe the Chronovisor is located somewhere in the Vatican, hidden in one of the many chambers, hidden away from society.
However, there are other versions that suggest that father Ernetti and his team decided to voluntarily dismantle the device because, since it could tune anywhere and anytime in the past, if it were to fall into the wrong hands it could create the “scariest dictatorship the world has ever seen.”
Interestingly, before Father Ernetti died in April 1994, he wrote a letter in which he INSISTED that the device was real and was not a hoax as many believed.
Father Ernetti claimed that the alleged photograph the chronovisor had captured of Jesus Christ on the cross, showing the sorrowful face of a bearded man gazing towards the heavens was real, even though some critics argue that the image was a reproduction of a statue of Jesus located in a church in Perugia.
Critics also claim that the alleged text the device managed to observe of “Thyestes” included Latin words that did not exist at the time it was made.
In 1994, Father Ernetti also said that “Pope Pius XII forbade us to do disclose any details about this device because the machine was very dangerous. It can restrain the freedom of man…”
However, in 1988, the Vatican issued a decree in which it warned that “anyone using, an instrument of such characteristics would be excommunicated.” According to many, this was an unnecessary warning since according to them the Chronovisor never existed. So why issue a warning if it was just another hoax?
What do you think about the story behind the Chronovisor? Do you think it is another top secret ‘object’ kept away from society by the Vatican? SF Source Rise Earth | 0 |
It appears that sports cable network ESPN will finally address accusations that it has become far too political, and has now issued new guidelines to reign in talent by ensuring that political commentary is tied more directly to sports. [The new rules come after years of fans and customers complaining that ESPN has become a bastion of views delivered at the expense of sports, and to the utter exclusion of any conservative ideas. While in some cases it appears the new rules do offer a little wiggle room for talent, the rules seem to be aimed at tamping down the wild spouting on political topics its hosts have indulged for the last few years. It is also interesting that ESPN released these new guidelines right in the middle of the NCAA Championship game when fans were distracted by the tournament and might not have taken notice of the change. It is almost like the practice of dumping political news on a Friday evening in the hopes that it might make fewer waves because all the reporters have already gone home for the weekend. ESPN’s vice president of global digital content, Patrick Stiegman, noted that the rise of social media and the many controversies that talent recently stirred via Twitter and Facebook was a major reason for the new guidelines. “We have the convergence of a politically charged environment and all these new technologies coming together at once,” Stiegman told ESPN’s Jim Brady. “Based on that, we wanted the policy to reflect the reality of the world today. There are people talking about politics in ways we have not seen before, and we’re not immune from that. ” Brady, also ESPN’s ombudsman, addressed complaints from fans that the network has become too political in a long article published last November. Brady made to investigate the claims that his network had become infected with liberal politics, and at that time concluded that was not the case. Despite Brady’s obviously skewed “investigation” from November, it now appears that the network has accepted the charge that it has become too political. Some of the changes include a proscription against political advocacy, including the one that states, “Original news reports should not include statements of support, opposition or partisanship related to any social issue, political position, candidate or office holder. ” The rules also both directly and indirectly mention social media, stating, “Writers, reporters, producers and editors directly involved in ‘hard’ news reporting, investigative or enterprise assignments and related coverage should refrain in any forum from taking positions on political or social issues, candidates or office holders. ” By “ forum,” the network means social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Indeed, later in the new policy, it directly notes that the new rules apply to “ESPN, Twitter, Facebook and other media. ” The new guidelines also inform hosts that any interviews with candidates will have to be cleared by executives so that “balance” can be assessed. It also says that presentations must be balanced, stating “The presentation should be thoughtful and respectful. We should offer balance or recognize opposing views, as warranted. We should avoid personal attacks and inflammatory rhetoric. ” The new rules could act to temper the extreme liberalism in which hosts have routinely indulged. But, it remains to be seen if the network will stick to the policy if the commentary goes on unabated. After all, it should be noted that the network had rules similar to these before and it neither calmed the liberal outbursts nor did the rules form the basis for any punishment of violations of anyone spouting liberal political views. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Thirty years ago, amid the somber prayers of Judaism’s holiest day, Rabbi Kenneth Berger rose to deliver the Yom Kippur sermon. He spoke to his congregants about a tragedy many of them, including his daughter, had witnessed eight months earlier in the Florida sky: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Rabbi Berger focused on one particular detail, the revelation that Challenger’s seven astronauts had remained alive for the fall to the ocean. He called the homily “Five Minutes to Live,” and he likened the crew members to Jews, who are called during the High Holy Days to engage in the process of “heshbon ” Hebrew for taking stock of one’s soul. “Can you imagine knowing that in a few moments death was imminent?” Rabbi Berger said at the Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Tampa, Fla. “What would we think of if, God forbid, you and I were in such circumstances? What would go through our mind?” Not quite three years later, Rabbi Berger was on a flight to Chicago from Denver returning from a family vacation. The plane’s tail engine exploded en route, crippling the controls, and for 40 minutes, the passengers prepared for a crash landing. The rabbi’s wife, Aviva, fainted from the shock. Rabbi Berger reached across the seats and gathered the hands of his daughter Avigail, 16, and son Jonathan, 9, trying to reassure them, Avigail would later recall. The plane burst into flames after it hit the ground in Sioux City, Iowa, killing 112 people, including the rabbi and his wife, both in their early 40s. As Jews enter the Days of Awe, which begin at sundown on Sunday, Rabbi Berger’s sermon on the Challenger has achieved a piercing and eerie kind of immortality. Between its eloquence and its prophecy, “Five Minutes to Live” continues to be cited, written about and delivered as a tribute, especially during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Both the sermon’s theme and its presentiment of the rabbi’s death resonate with the theological essence of the High Holy Days. In his sermon, Rabbi Berger plucked several sentences of the liturgy, rearranging them for heightened effect: “Who shall live and who shall die? Who shall attain the measure of a man’s days and who shall not? On Rosh Hashana, it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur, it is sealed. ” “People are hungry for guidance in living a life that matters,” said Rabbi Edward Bernstein of Temple Torat Emet in Boynton Beach, Fla. “Rabbi Berger, in his words, inspired people to action. And his death made those words holy. ” Judaism is hardly unique among world religions in urging its believers to undertake a moral inventory. Catholics participate in confession, formally called the sacrament of reconciliation, while Muslims call the process of repentance by the Arabic word “tawbah,” which means “turning back. ” What is unusual in the American Jewish idiom is that heshbon is addressed by rabbis on the two holidays each year when synagogue attendance grows exponentially. Mindful of another autumn ritual, Rabbi Berger called it “the World Series. ” Kenneth Berger, who grew up in suburban Philadelphia, was ordained by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and took on the pulpit of Rodeph Sholom in 1983. There he made his reputation as a trusted confidant for congregants in crises who could also into donning a Big Bird costume to entertain the children. He boiled down Judaic erudition to aphorisms like “There’s no roof overhead unless you build it. ” Invariably chewing a straw and clutching a pen, he drafted his sermons on a yellow legal pad, and then read them over the phone to his father in Pennsylvania. When the rabbi’s words really connected to his synagogue audience, he would permit himself a brief moment of ego, telling his children, “I hit a home run. ” On Sept. 16, 1986, the day Rabbi Berger delivered “Five Minutes to Live,” the Challenger tragedy was fresh in the minds of his congregants. From that shared memory, Rabbi Berger extrapolated in both prosaic and profound directions. He touched on the ordinary ways that people forget to express love for their families, blithely assuming there will always be another day. He recounted the story of a Jewish father, facing imminent death during the Holocaust, who bestowed a final kiss on the young son he was sending away to safety. “That scene still haunts me,” Rabbi Berger said as the sermon closed, returning to the Challenger. “The explosion and then five minutes. If only I … If only I … And then the capsule hits the water, it’s all over. Then you realize it’s all the same — five minutes, five days, 50 years. It’s all the same, for it’s over before we realize. “‘If only I knew’ — yes, my friends, it may be the last time. ‘If only I realized’ — yes, stop, appreciate the blessings you have. ‘If only I could’ — you still can, you’ve got today. ” After Rabbi Berger and his wife died on July 19, 1989, his brother Samuel and Trisanne stepped in to take care of the family. The rabbi’s middle child, Ilana, then 13, had been at camp at the time of the crash. Avigail spent a month in a coma from her injuries, awakening to the absence of her mother or father at her bedside. Jonathan suffered lesser injuries. Samuel Berger found the text for “Five Minutes to Live” while cleaning out his brother’s office. The sermon made its way to Avigail, who laminated it and keeps it in her jewelry box. The sermon also took on its public life. Rabbi Michael Swarttz of Temple B’nai Shalom in Braintree, Mass. quoted large portions of it in his homily on Yom Kippur in 1989. Rabbi Larry Pinsker of Congregation Beit Tikvah in Baltimore assembled a “book of remembrance” about Rabbi Berger, in which many contributors mentioned the sermon. Rabbi Mel Glazer of Colorado Springs, Colo. included part of the sermon in his 2013 book, “A GPS for Grief and Healing. ” Twice in the last two years, Rabbi Bernstein in Florida has referred to “Five Minutes to Live” in online essays — one on the 30th anniversary of the Challenger tragedy, the other after the mysterious disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight in 2014 over the Indian Ocean. “I find it in hindsight even more moving than when I heard it,” said Marty Solomon, who was president of Rodeph Sholom in 1986. “As much as anything else, it’s a living legacy from Kenny. It’s universal and it will be forever. ” | 1 |
Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton allegedly spent “tens of millions of dollars” on digital youth outreach during her campaign, reportedly spending an extra $30 million on internet adverts just over a month before election day. [“Mrs. Clinton employed more than 100 people in her digital team and spent tens of millions of dollars targeting millennials with a series of messages on Facebook,” reported the Telegraph on Monday. “But experts said she might have been better off buying newspaper or local TV adverts in the handful of key states she unexpectedly lost. ” “Mrs. Clinton’s digital team, sitting in their Brooklyn headquarters under a ‘Swipe Right for Hillary’ banner, were told to think ‘out of the box’ and appeal to young voters on social media, using outlets including Snapchat and Pinterest,” it continued. “A total of 30 young staff members were assigned to film her on the campaign trail and post the slickly edited videos on Facebook. ” Other projects that Clinton’s campaign spent money on in an attempt to secure millennials included a comic book series based on what they predicted a Donald Trump presidency would look like, while Facebook adverts took the top priority. “Her big problem was not reaching working class voters in about three key states,” said Justin Holmes, assistant professor of political science at the University of Iowa. “With social media you can target specific groups, but they were focused on young women and Latinos. ” “If anything, if the Clinton campaign had bought a few more ads in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin newspapers she might have won,” added Holmes, who also claimed that the rate of social media adverts were “terrible” and were only a way of “preaching to the choir. ” “It’s a lot of people who have already made up their minds. There is some value in mobilising people who already support you, but those other people are harder to reach,” he concluded. “What’s a candidate supposed to do in the future? I don’t know. ” In their report, The Telegraph also claimed that digital advertising “made up 14. 4 per cent of the total spent in 2016 compared to only 1. 7 per cent in 2012,” adding around 40% of the budget, or $428 million, would have been spent on Facebook adverts. “That’s not to say Facebook doesn’t work,” said political consultant Neil Oxman. “I think it’s better to have them than not have them … But one of the reasons she didn’t win was because she spent almost no money on traditional advertising in Wisconsin and Michigan. ” “Hillary Clinton should get all her money back. It didn’t work,” proclaimed Vanderbilt University Political Science Professor John Geer. “Anyone who relies on as a group, unfortunately, what we would call those candidates are losers. Because they never turn out. ” “We are in a situation where we should really all the money they are pouring into these adverts because it seems crazy,” he concluded. During Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, a PAC in her favor also paid over $1 million for internet trolls to scour the web and “correct” negative things said about Clinton online. In September, the same PAC also offered a paid bounty to anyone who had dirt on Trump. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
No-Fly Zone Declared as Militarized Police Prep for Assault on ‘Front-Line Camp’ at Standing Rock Jay Syrmopoulos
Cannon Ball, ND – Pipeline opponents attempting to protect their water supply from the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL), as well as prevent the continued destruction of burial grounds and cultural sites, are anticipating a confrontation with police today. This news come after “water protectors” refused law enforcement requests to vacate reoccupied land in the pipeline’s path, owned by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners.
Last week, native activists took the bold action of declaring eminent domain over their traditional territory and set up a new camp “Front-Line” camp directly in the pipeline’s path. Pipeline opponents say they have simply reclaimed the land under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, clearly noting the Sioux never ceded that territory. The new encampment lies across Highway 1806, where pipeline security guards armed with guard dogs and pepper spray attacked protestors attempting to stop the bulldozing of cultural sites and burial grounds on September 3.
The impending crisis comes after nearly 200 water protectors set up the new camp on land that Energy Transfer Partners last month purchased from a local rancher in an effort to bolster strategic and tactical control of areas surrounding construction of the controversial pipeline.
According to the AP , however, the Native Americans claim the land is theirs by way of an “1851 treaty and they won’t leave until the pipeline is stopped.”“We never ceded this land,” said protester Joye Braun.
This latest flashpoint in the ongoing conflict is north of the larger and more permanent encampments, which have been constructed on federally owned land where over 200 Native American tribes have gathered to oppose the pipeline’s construction.
On Wednesday, a heavily militarized law enforcement presence began mobilizing heavy equipment, including Humvees, armored personnel carriers, buses and demanded the protestors leave the occupied area.
In an ominous sign, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has restricted flights , and banned the use of drones within a radius of about 4 ½ miles of Cannon Ball. The FAA declared that only aircraft affiliated with the North Dakota Tactical Operation Center are allowed within the restricted airspace. The flight restriction went into effect Wednesday and will last until November 5.
Indian Country Today reports :
What began with prayers and a single tipi alongside Highway 1806 quickly grew to more than a dozen tipis surrounded by tents, buses, cars and hundreds of water protectors. Some are calling it the “1851 Treaty Camp” to acknowledge their Treaty rights.
Across the road is the encroaching pipeline and a heavily militarized police force with armored vehicles, helicopters, planes, ATVs and busloads of officers. Tensions are growing as unarmed citizens worry that police will use unnecessarily harsh tactics.
In recent weeks, nearly 300 unarmed water protectors who were arrested have been subjected to pepper spray, strip-searches, delayed bail, exaggerated charges and physical violence, according to interviews with several who were taken into custody. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild recently sent attorneys to Standing Rock to help the Red Owl Collective, a team of volunteer lawyers headed by attorney Bruce Ellison, who are representing many of those arrested.
The massive law enforcement contingent, consisting of sheriff’s deputies and officers from numerous other states and counties, as well as National Guard, began staging near the encampment — with scores of Armored Personnel Carriers, buses and Humvees poised at the ready.
“At some point the rule of law has to be enforced,” Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said Wednesday. “We could go down there at any time. We’re trying not to.”
Dakota Access LLC, the pipeline developer released a statement encouraging trespassers to “vacate the land immediately” or be “removed from the land.”
“Alternatively and 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,” the company said. “Lawless behavior will not be tolerated.”
Just days ago, sheriff’s officials had said earlier they didn’t have the resources to immediately remove activists from the private land, about 50 miles south of Bismarck. Subsequently, law enforcement officials put out a call for reinforcements, with hundreds of officers from out of state responding.
On Wednesday, actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson went to the new camp to speak and pray with the water protectors. Ruffalo had arrived the night before to speak on an anti-DAPL panel with Native activists at the Prairie Knights Casino and Hotel, according to Indian Country Today.
After touring the camp Jackson spoke to the crowd, reminding people that nonviolence is key to winning the battle for justice.
“With promises broken, land stolen, and sacred lands desecrated, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is standing up for their right to clean water. They have lost land for settlers to farm, more land for gold in the Black Hills, and then again even more land for the damn (sic) that was built for flood control and hydro power,” Jackson said.
When will the taking stop? When will we start treating the first peoples of these lands with the respect and honor they deserve?
The rerouting of the pipeline away from Bismarck to its current route is “the ripest case of environmental racism I’ve seen in a long time,” Jackson said. “Bismarck residents don’t want their water threatened, so why is it okay for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”
The pipeline was originally scheduled to run north of Bismarck until local residents expressed displeasure with the plan, with the DAPL ultimately being rerouted to its current trajectory near the Oceti Sakowin Standing Rock Reservation.
With an impending militarized police raid of the camp, Mekasi Camp-Horinek, one of the camp coordinators, told officers the protesters planned to stand their ground, saying “Do what you’ve got to do,” according to the Bismarck Tribune
“I don’t have a crystal ball to know when it will happen, but we know it will happen,” said Mekasi Camp-Horinek, a member of the Ponca tribe in Oklahoma. “We’re going to hold this ground.”
Water protectors could be heard chanting, “Stand in peace against the beast.”
“I’m here to die if I have to. I don’t want to die but I will,” said Didi Banerji, who lives in Toronto but is originally from the Spirit Lake Sioux reservation in North Dakota.
The protesters are simply trying to keep law enforcement from preventing their efforts to stop the pipeline said David Red Bear Jr., 30, from the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
“If we don’t stop them here, they’re going to cut us off closer to the pipeline. We can’t let that happen,” Red Bear said. “We’re not trying to force anybody’s hand. We’re just trying to stand up for what we believe in.”
The reality is that the citizens of North Dakota are funding a protection force, in the form of police, for a multi-billion dollar corporate entity. North Dakota’s Emergency Commission previously approved $6 million in emergency funding for law enforcement costs related to the protest — with almost all of those funds having been used already. The Department of Emergency Services plans to ask for more, spokeswoman Cecily Fong said.
Do North Dakotans want their tax money spent on police acting as paid enforcers for Wall Street and big oil interests?
While law enforcement claims they are just doing their job and enforcing the law, in reality, they are acting as enforcers for an unjust corporate oligarchy that consistently puts money over people. The financial elite are the ones who the police are truly protecting and serving — not the American people. Share This Article... | 0 |
People on both sides of the aisle are concerned that this election might pose an existential threat to society. But did you know there’s one particularly dangerous time of day to vote? It has nothing to do with voter intimidation — but everything to do with how you get to the polls. Hear about the hazards of Election Day — and other types of “Strange Danger” — on the debut episode of Tell Me Something I Don’t Know with its host, Stephen J. Dubner. In everything he’s done, Mr. Dubner has made it his mission to tell people about things they thought they knew but didn’t, and things they didn’t think they wanted to know but do. This manifesto has informed his “Freakonomics” books (authored with Steven D. Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago) and his Freakonomics Radio podcast. Now Mr. Dubner has a new way to carry on that mission: hosting a New York Times podcast, Tell Me Something I Don’t Know. On each episode, contestants get up onstage, in front of a live audience, and present an “IDK” — “I don’t know” — which might be a strange fact, some groundbreaking research or a forgotten piece of history. Three celebrity panelists poke and prod the presenters, and ultimately choose a winner. It’s still factual and still journalism, but disguised as a game show. For our debut show, the theme is “Strange Danger,” with these panelists: Debora Spar, president of Barnard College of Columbia University and author of “Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection. ” She speaks faster backward than you do forward. Anthony Marx, president of the New York Public Library and former president of Amherst College, who, in his youth, crossed a border illegally. Andy Zaltzman, comedian, political satirist and host of The Bugle podcast, who moonlights as a midwife very occasionally. Our “ Human Fact Checker” is Jody Avirgan, who hosts FiveThirtyEight’s Elections podcast. Election Day is just one of the strange dangers featured on this episode. We also have a sleep specialist from Atlanta with a theory on why we need our zzzzs. Also: An emergency room doctor describes the (shall we say) unusual actions of people about to freeze to death. And a Princeton professor tells us why supermarket shelves went empty in the early 1970s. (Hint: This was around the time Johnny Carson made a joke that led to hoarding.) From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 1 |
STUART, Fla. — A rancid smell penetrated the front of Marisa and Duncan Baskin’s house, which rests less than 100 feet from an inlet of the St. Lucie River in this tourist hamlet just inside the Atlantic coastline that bills itself as “America’s Happiest Seaside Town. ” But the Baskins — whose daughter, like Ms. Baskin, suffers from asthma — and their neighbors are not so happy these days. In the water of the inlet of their subdivision in Northriver Shores, an layer of bubbling ooze and slime emits a stench so overwhelming that none of the neighbors go outside. In fact, the Baskins were preparing Friday to stay with friends across town for the weekend just to get away from the green and blue algae bloom that has overtaken their small neighborhood marina, from which most neighbors have moved their boats. “Our lives revolve around the water we have a boat, surfboards, and there’s nothing really to do here without the water,” Ms. Baskin, 31, a lifelong resident of Stuart who works as a social worker at a local hospital, said Friday. “And I think our governor and local politicians are to blame. This isn’t the first time this has happened, but it’s definitely the worst. ” At play are many of the forces that define modern Florida: competing environmental, residential and agricultural interests, a failure by state officials to invest in managing the demands of growth, finger pointing between state and federal officials. The result has been an environmental nightmare playing out here, about 35 miles from the source of the problem in Lake Okeechobee. There, an aging dike system forces the Army Corps of Engineers to release controlled discharges through channel locks east and west from the lake to protect nearby towns from flooding. However, those discharges, which carry pollutants from agricultural lands that flow into the lake from the north, pour into rivers and lagoons downstream, which eventually dump into the ocean. When too much polluted discharge from Okeechobee hits areas downstream like the St. Lucie River estuary in Stuart, for example, the blend of fresh and salt water creates giant phosphorescent plumes of algae, making the water unsafe for human and aquatic life alike. This week, Gov. Rick Scott declared states of emergency in Martin, St. Lucie, Palm Beach and Lee Counties, and Senators Bill Nelson, a Democrat, and Marco Rubio, a Republican, both visited the scene, expressing concern. The Corps of Engineers is dealing with a dike nearly 80 years old with structural problems. It was originally designed during a time when environmental preservation was not an issue. Engineers also have to balance the concerns of environmentalists with the need to safeguard area residents — more than eight million people are affected by the water system, according to a corps spokesman, John Campbell. “We’re constantly having to balance the potential of an environmental impact from releasing water against the very real public safety hazard of containing the water and the hazard that poses by putting pressure on the dike itself,” Mr. Campbell said by telephone Thursday from Jacksonville, Fla. “The system is so constrained that everything that was fruit has been done so far. We are left with few options or constraints to work with. ” He said the water levels the Army Corps gauges to determine how to react to discharges are between 12. 5 feet and 15. 5 feet. The lake is currently at 14. 9 feet, roughly a foot higher than it was during the last crisis at the same time of year in 2013, Mr. Campbell said. With hurricane season yet to come, the Army Corps still has to carefully determine how to release and plug the dikes. It takes roughly one month to release six inches of water from the lake, Mr. Campbell said, so if significant rains fell, the dike could have “performance issues” and the Army Corps would have to take precautions to prevent a disaster that would bring “widespread damage and problems, especially if the water goes south, which is where the water wants to go anyway. ” But residents along the coast are tired of the excuses. They say there is enough blame to go around at both the state and federal levels, with Big Agriculture playing a significant role. “Everybody’s known about this problem for years — that there’s a big algae bloom, and now it’s worse than 2013,” Richard Day, 51, who has lived in Stuart since 1973 and works as an auto mechanic at a downtown garage, said Friday. “I’ve got friends who captain boats and they’re moving south to Jupiter in Palm Beach County. It’s just sad. ” Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society, based in Stuart, said the state’s inability to close a deal to purchase thousands of acres of land south of Lake Okeechobee — to create a natural runoff from the lake into the Florida Everglades, where the diverse ecosystem could naturally filter toxins from the north — has been to blame for the problems being experienced by communities west and east of the lake like Stuart. But the area south of the lake has been controlled by sugar farmers for decades, and environmentalists like Mr. Perry say state legislators in Tallahassee kowtow to agricultural lobbyists who fund their campaigns. “The flow used to go south to the Everglades, and now this is a criminal disaster,” Mr. Perry said. “They, as in the state and federal government, say they can’t send the water south, but they can. This is an absolute atrocity that they are allowed to continue this in the name of agriculture. This is the worst I’ve ever seen it. ” The 2016 sugar harvest was the longest on record because of rain delays, making it also one of the most profitable on record, resulting in 2. 15 million tons of sugar. Under Mr. Scott, the board of the South Florida Water Management District failed in 2015 to carry out a plan to buy roughly 47, 000 acres of land from U. S. Sugar south of Lake Okeechobee that would have acted as a reservoir for the lake’s runoff. “The political leadership has not been putting the demand on the agencies to fix the problem,” Mr. Perry said. “This water was never meant to go east and west — it was meant to go south. ” Here in Stuart, where the algae lapped up on area shorelines, keeping public beaches closed — a first in the area — Ms. Baskin and her daughter stood outside in their front yard, wincing at the smell. She said she and her husband were considering whether to sell the home they purchased just two years ago. No one else was seen around the neighborhood. “Normally there are kids outside playing,” she said. “But not right now — it’s a ghost town. ” | 1 |
I concur.
Firing squad. The worst crimes are not committed against an individual, but of a nation of individuals.
In Hillary’s case- against the world. There is no more of a suitable punishment for her and her ilk.
As for facebook, zuckerburg deserves to be right next to hillary, blindfolded. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. One of the Islamic State’s most senior strategists, Abu Muhammad was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo. A founding member of ISIS, he was its chief propagandist and headed its efforts to instigate terror attacks in the West. _____ 2. The European Union’s antitrust enforcer ruled that huge tax breaks Ireland provided to Apple were illegal, ordering the country to collect about $14. 5 billion in back taxes. Apple described the record penalty as a “devastating blow” to the rule of law, and the U. S. despite its own frustrations with corporate schemes to avoid taxes, said it jeopardized “the important spirit of economic partnership between the U. S. and the E. U. ” _____ 3. races in Florida and Arizona made Tuesday one of the summer’s biggest congressional primary days. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, above, who was forced to step down as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee by an email leak, hung on to her South Florida House seat. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was nominated by Republican voters for a second term, and John McCain fought off a Republican challenger for his Senate seat. _____ 4. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are preparing for the first presidential debate, due in less than four weeks, in tellingly different ways. Mrs. Clinton’s advisers are consulting Mr. Trump’s ghostwriter on “The Art of the Deal” and psychology experts, reviewing his past performances and looking for trigger points. Mr. Trump has had freewheeling sessions with his debate team, but not mock debates with a Clinton . _____ 5. Brazil’s Senate could vote overnight on whether to convict President Dilma Rousseff of manipulating the federal budget to mask the extent of the country’s economic problems. “Don’t expect from me the obliging silence of cowards,” Ms. Rousseff said as she made a rebuttal on Monday. _____ 6. Israel has been quietly legalizing tiny outposts established by settlers in the West Bank over the past two decades. groups accuse the government of changing the map of the West Bank, now in its 50th year of Israeli occupation, and ruining any possibility of a solution. “We see it as a very gradual move toward annexation,” said an Israeli opponent. _____ 7. Reader appreciations for Gene Wilder are rolling in by the hundreds in comments on our obituary and on our Facebook post. Our critic mused on the genius of the comic actor, who died Monday at the age of 83: glimmering eyes, diction “as crisp as a potato chip” and a barely suppressed lunacy. “His Willy Wonka spent that chocolate factory tour quietly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. ” _____ 8. Our magazine has the back story of Oliver Stone’s herculean efforts to make “Snowden,” the biopic of Edward Snowden opening Sept. 16. Mr. Stone became preoccupied with warding off government surveillance and schemed to secure Mr. Snowden’s appearance in the movie’s finale. That passage required nine takes. “Ed is used to answering questions on a level of intelligence,” Mr. Stone said. “But I was interested in the emotional, which is difficult for him. ” _____ 9. An organization that tracks extremist groups in the U. S. has declared one of them, White Lives Matter, a hate group. Established in opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, the group argues that white Americans are being eradicated by immigration and intermarriage. “I wish Hitler were here alive and well today,” one of its founders wrote on a social networking site. _____ 10. Two years ago, turmoil swept over a New Hampshire prep school after a student accused a senior of raping her. He was convicted of misdemeanor charges. Now, the unnamed student has come forward. In an interview with NBC, Chessy Prout described the difficulties she faced, including being shunned by fellow students, and offered support for other victims: “I want other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say: ‘I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no.’ ” _____ 11. Finally, this is a scientifically proven good dog. It’s one of a group that Hungarian researchers trained to enter a magnetic resonance imaging machine and lie quietly in a harness while their brain activity was recorded. The study found that dogs react not only to the tone of your voice, but also to the words themselves. So, as with humans, both meaning and emotional content matter. _____ 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 |
A probable case of local transmission of the Zika virus has been reported in Texas, state health officials announced on Monday, making it the second state, after Florida, in which the infection is thought to have been carried from person to person by mosquitoes. The patient is a woman who is not pregnant and lives in Brownsville, on the Gulf Coast near the Mexican border. The state’s first case of chikungunya, a virus spread by the type of mosquito that carries Zika, was confirmed this year in Brownsville. Medical investigators must now determine whether the infection is spreading and, if so, how many people may have become infected. Officials have begun asking the woman’s neighbors for urine samples and trapping mosquitoes to test for the virus. State and county health officials are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the case. The state medical operations center has been activated to help with contact tracing, mosquito surveillance and public education. The C. D. C. sent a training team to Texas this year but has not yet been asked to send an emergency response team, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the agency’s director. No travel alert suggesting that pregnant women avoid the area will be issued now, Dr. Frieden said, because a single case does not constitute evidence of continuing local transmission. “Most local cases are isolated dead ends,” he said. Confirmation of several cases within a roughly area for more than about two weeks, despite aggressive mosquito control, would prompt an alert from federal authorities. In Florida this year, the C. D. C. first advised pregnant women to avoid Wynwood, the neighborhood where the first cases in Miami were discovered, and later suggested they avoid all of County. There have now been 4, 444 confirmed cases of Zika infection in the continental United States, including 1, 114 in pregnant women. Most of those infected had traveled to countries where the virus had been spreading, but 182 of the infections were contracted in Florida by people who had not visited such places. The Texas patient, who was not identified, told investigators that she had not traveled recently to anywhere the virus had been spreading. She had no other risk factors, such as having sex with someone who had visited an area with Zika transmission. “We knew it was only a matter of time before we saw a Zika case spread by a mosquito in Texas,” said Dr. John Hellerstedt, the state health commissioner. Residents of Brownsville, a city of 183, 000, are concerned but not fearful, Mayor Tony Martinez said on Monday. “I don’t think it’s something that people need to be alarmed about, but by the same token, they need to be cautious about it and report anything that needs to be reported to our health department,” Mr. Martinez said. “On the coast, we kind of hoped that it wouldn’t happen,” he added, “but the likelihood was pretty high. ” Dr. Carmen Rocco, a Brownsville pediatrician, said she had been checking her patients for Zika, but none so far had been infected. Most of her patients are poor enough to be on Medicaid, and she praised state health officials for reinstating a Medicaid benefit for mosquito repellent. “Families were taking advantage of that,” she said. While cold weather is arriving in other parts of the country, southern Texas has had an unusually hot autumn, making it more hospitable to the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that transmit Zika. Even in normal years, Aedes aegypti can persist in the Brownsville area well into December, so new cases may be confirmed in January or later. “I predicted last April that we would see cases along the Texas Gulf Coast this summer,” said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “This is now the one case we know about, but we don’t know if there are dozens or hundreds. ” “Because of the lack of funds from Congress, there has been no active surveillance along the Gulf Coast,” he added. “Those cases in Florida were found by serendipity. ” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the Department of State Health Services in Texas, said the new case was discovered because the woman fell ill and was tested for Zika infection by a local doctor, who alerted public health authorities. All such cases are investigated to see if a patient has a travel history or other risk factors that might explain the infection. “Pregnant women should continue to protect themselves from mosquito bites there and elsewhere in Texas,” Mr. Van Deusen said. Mosquito control measures will be stepped up, he said, but he did not know if they would involve aerial spraying of pesticides like Naled and larvicides like Bti. In the Wynwood section of Miami, mosquito swarms did not decrease enough to stop disease transmission until both types of aerial spraying were used. Thousands of Mexicans and Americans cross bridges over the Rio Grande each day in the Brownsville area it is possible that the virus has been spreading in Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border. In 2002, when there was a small outbreak of dengue in Brownsville, Dr. Hotez said, there turned out to be a much larger one in Matamoros. Both cities have poor neighborhoods where residents lack and window screens, he said, but many more Matamoros residents live in poverty. “We won’t know how widespread the virus really was until babies with microcephaly begin being born, probably in the spring,” Dr. Hotez said, referring to the Zika virus and its link to the birth defect. “And I expect it to return next year. ” The C. D. C. regularly collaborates with Mexican health authorities, and Mexico “has quite a strong mosquito control program,” Dr. Frieden said. Exactly how much Zika infection there may be in nearby parts of Mexico is unknown. “We know there is transmission in the border areas,” Dr. Frieden said. “But exactly where, we don’t know. ” | 1 |
Washington, DC 20071 Dear Mr. Harwood, Though the Washington Post does not over-extend itself in the pursuit of hard news, just let drop the faintest rumor of a government "conspiracy", and a klaxon horn goes off in the news room. Aroused from apathy in the daily routine of reporting assignations and various other political and social sports events, editors and reporters scramble to the phones. The klaxon screams its warning: the greatest single threat to herd-journalism, corporate profits, and government stability -- the dreaded "CONSPIRACY THEORY"!! It is not known whether anyone has actually been hassled or accosted by any of these frightful spectres, but their presence is announced to Post readers with a salvo of warnings to avoid the tricky, sticky webs spun by the wacko "CONSPIRACY THEORISTS". Recall how the Post saved us from the truth about Iran-Contra. Professional conspiracy exorcist Mark Hosenball was hired to ridicule the idea that Oliver North and his CIA-associated gangsters had conspired to do wrong (*1). And when, in their syndicated column, Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta discussed some of the conspirators, the Post sprang to protect its readers, and the conspirators, by censoring the Anderson column before printing it (*2). But for some time the lid had been coming off the Iran-Contra conspiracy. In 1986, the Christic Institute, an interfaith center for law and public policy, had filed a lawsuit alleging a U.S. arms-for-drugs trade that helped keep weapons flowing to the CIA-Contra army in Nicaragua, and cocaine flowing to U.S. markets (*3). In 1988 Leslie Cockburn published Out of Control, a seminal work on our bizarre, illegal war against Nicaragua (*4). The Post contributed to this discovery process by disparaging the charges of conspiracy and by publishing false information about the drug-smuggling evidence presented to the House Subcommittee on Narcotics Abuse and Control. When accused by Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY). of misleading reporting, the Post printed only a partial correction and declined to print a letter of complaint from Rangel (*5). Sworn testimony before Senator John Kerry's Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations confirmed U.S. Government complicity in the drug trade (*6). With its coverup of the arms/drug conspiracy evaporating, the ever-accommodating Post shifted gears and retained Hosenball to exorcise from our minds a newly emerging threat to domestic tranquility, the "October Surprise" conspiracy (*7). But close on the heels of Hosenball and the Post came Barbara Honegger and then Gary Sick who authored independently, two years apart, books with the same title, "October Surprise" (*8). Honegger was a member of the Reagan/Bush campaign and transition teams in 1980. Gary Sick, professor of Middle East Politics at Columbia University, was on the staff of the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. In 1989 and 1991 respectively, Honegger and Sick published their evidence of how the Republicans made a deal to supply arms to Iran if Iran would delay release of the 52 United States hostages until after the November 1980 election. The purpose of this deal was to quash the possibility of a pre-election release(an October surprise). which would have bolstered the reelection prospects for President Carter. Others published details of this alleged Reagan-Bush conspiracy. In October 1988, Playboy Magazine ran an expose "An Election Held Hostage"; FRONTLINE did another in April 1991 (*9). In June, 1991 a conference of distinguished journalists, joined by 8 of the former hostages, challenged the Congress to "make a full, impartial investigation" of the election/hostage allegations. The Post reported the statement of the hostages, but not a word of the conference itself which was held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Auditorium (*10). On February 5, 1992 a gun-shy, uninspired House of Representatives begrudgingly authorized an "October Surprise" investigation by a task force of 13 congressmen headed by Lee Hamilton (D-IN). who had chaired the House of Representatives Iran-Contra Committee. Hamilton has named as chief team counsel Larry Barcella, a lawyer who represented BCCI when the Bank was indicted in 1988 (*11). Like the Washington Post, Hamilton had not shown interest in pursuing the U.S. arms-for-drugs operation (*12). He had accepted Oliver North's lies,and as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee he derailed House Resolution 485 which had asked President Reagan to answer questions about Contra support activities of government officials and others (*13). After CIA operative John Hull (from Hamilton's home state). was charged in Costa Rica with "international drug trafficking and hostile acts against the nation's security", Hamilton and 18 fellow members of Congress tried to intimidate Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez into handling Hull's case "in a manner that will not complicate U.S.-Costa Rican relations" (*14). The Post did not report the Hamilton letter or the Costa Rican response that declared Hull's case to be "in as good hands as our 100 year old uninterrupted democracy can provide to all citizens" (*15). Though the Post does its best to guide our thinking away from conspiracy theories, it is difficult to avoid the fact that so much wrongdoing involves government or corporate conspiracies: In its COINTELPRO operation, the FBI used disinformation, forgery, surveillance, false arrests, and violence to illegally harass U.S.citizens in the 60's (*16). The CIA's Operation MONGOOSE illegally sabotaged Cuba by "destroying crops, brutalizing citizens, destabilizing the society, and conspiring with the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro and other leaders" (*17)."Standard Oil of New Jersey was found by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice to be conspiring with I.G.Farben...of Germany. ...By its cartel agreements with Standard Oil, the United States was effectively prevented from developing or producing [fo rWorld War-II] any substantial amount of synthetic rubber," said Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin (*18). U.S. Government agencies knowingly withheld information about dosages of radiation "almost certain to produce thyroid abnormalities or cancer" that contaminated people residing near the nuclear weapons factory at Hanford, Washington (*19). Various branches of Government deliberately drag their feet in getting around to cleaning up the Nation's dangerous nuclear weapons sites (*20). State and local governments back the nuclear industry's secret public relations strategy (*21)."The National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and some twenty comprehensive cancer centers, have misled and confused the public and Congress by repeated claims that we are winning the war against cancer. In fact, the cancer establishment has continually minimized the evidence for increasing cancer rates which it has largely attributed to smoking and dietary fat, while discounting or ignoring the causal role of avoidable eposures to industrial carcinogens in the air, food, water, and the workplace." (*22). The Bush Administration coverup of its pre-Gulf-War support of Iraq "is yet another example of the President's people conspiring to keep both Congress and the American people in the dark" (*23). If you think about it, conspiracy is a fundamental aspect of doing business in this country. Take the systematic and cooperative censorship of the Persian Gulf War by the Pentagon and much of the news media (*24). Or the widespread plans of business and government groups to spend $100 million in taxes to promote a distorted and truncated history of Columbus in America (*25). along the lines of the Smithsonian Institution's "fusion of the two worlds", (*26). rather than examining more realistic aspects of the Spanish invasion, like "anger, cruelty, gold, terror, and death" (*27). Or circumstances surrounding the U.S. Justice Department theft from the INSLAW company of sophisticated, law-enforcement computer software which "now point to a widespread conspiracy implicating lesser Government officials in the theft of INSLAW's technology", says former U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson (*28). Or Watergate. Or the "largest bank fraud in world financial history" (*29), where the White House knew of the criminal activities at "the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International" (BCCI) (*30), where U.S. intelligence agencies did their secret banking (*31), and where bribery of prominent American public officials "was a way of doing business" (*32). Or the 1949 conviction of "GM [General Motors], Standard Oil of California, Firestone, and E. Roy Fitzgerald, among others, for criminally conspiring to replace electric transportation with gas- and diesel-powered buses and to monopolize the sale of buses and related products to transportation companies throughout the country" [in, among others, the cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Oakland, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles] (*33). Or the collusion in 1973 between Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT). and the U.S. Department of Transportation to overlook safety defects in the 1.2 million Corvair automobiles manufactured by General Motors in the early 60's (*34). Or the A. H. Robins Company, which manufactured the Dalkon Shield intrauterine contraceptive, and which ignored repeated warnings of the Shield's hazards and which "stonewalled, deceived, covered up, and covered up the coverups...[thus inflicting] on women a worldwide epidemic of pelvic infections." (*35). Or that cooperation between McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company and the FAA resulted in failure to enforce regulations regarding the unsafe DC-10 cargo door which failed in flight killing all 364 passengers on Turkish Airlines Flight 981 on March 3, 1974 (*36). Or the now-banned, cancer-producing pregnancy drug Diethylstilbestrol (DES). that was sold by manufacturers who ignored tests which showed DES to be carcinogenic; and who acted "in concert with each other in the testing and marketing of DES for miscarriage purposes" (*37). Or the conspiracies among bankers and speculators, with the cooperation of a corrupted Congress, to relieve depositors of their savings. This "arrogant disregard from the White House, Congress and corporate world for the interests and rights of the American people" will cost U.S. tapayers many hundreds of billions of dollars (*38). Or the Westinghouse, Allis Chalmers,Federal Pacific, and General Electric executives who met surreptitiously in hotel rooms to fix prices and eliminate competition on heavy industrial equipment (*39). Or the convictions of Industrial Biotest Laboratories (IBT). officers for fabricating safety tests on prescription drugs (*40). Or the conspiracy by the asbestos industry to suppress knowledge of medical problemsrelating to asbestos (*41). Or the 1928 Achnacarry Agreement through which oil companies "agreed not to engage in any effective price competition" (*42). Or the conspiracy among U.S. Government agencies and the Congress to cover up the nature of our decades-old war against the people of Nicaragua a covert war that continues in 1992 with the U.S. Government applying pressure for the Nicaraguan police to reorganize into a more repressive force (*43). Or the conspiracy by the CIA and the U.S. Government to interfere in the Chilean election process with military aid, covert actions, and an economic boycott which culminated in the overthrow of the legitimately elected government and the assassination of President Salvador Allende in 1973 (*44). Or the conspiracy among U.S. officials including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and CIA Director William Colby to finance terrorism in Angola for the purpose of disrupting Angola's plans for peaceful elections in October 1975, and to lie about these actions to the Congress and the news media (*45). And CIA Director George Bush's subsequent cover up of this U.S.-sponsored terrorism (*46). Or President George Bush's consorting with the Pentagon to invade Panama in 1989 and thereby violate the Constitution of the United States, the U.N. Charter, the O.A.S. Charter, and the Panama Canal Treaties (*47). Or the "gross antitrust violations" (*48) and the conspiracy of American oil companies and the British and U.S. governments to strangle Iran economically after Iran nationalized the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951. And the subsequent overthrow by the CIA in 1953 of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammed Mossadegh (*49). Or the CIA-planned assassination of Congo head-of-state Patrice Lumumba (*50). Or the deliberate and wilful efforts of President George Bush, Senator Robert Dole, Senator George Mitchell, various U.S. Government agencies, and members of both Houses of the Congress to buy the 1990 Nicaraguan national elections for the presidential candidate supported by President Bush (*51). Or the collective approval by 64 U.S. Senators of Robert Gates to head the CIA, in the face of "unmistakable evidence that Gates lied about his role in the Iran-Contra scandal" (*52). Or "How Reagan and the Pope Conspired to Assist Poland's Solidarity Movement and Hasten the Demise of Communism" (*53). Or how the Reagan Administration connived with the Vatican to ban the use of USAID funds by any country "for the promotion of birth control or abortion" (*54). Or "the way the Vatican and Washington colluded to achieve common purpose in Central America" (*55). Or the collaboration of Guatemalan strong-man and mass murderer Hector Gramajo with the U.S. Army to design "programs to build civilian-military cooperation" at the U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Georgia; five of the nine soldiers accused in the 1989 Jesuit massacre in El Salvador are graduates of SOA which trains Latin/American military personnel (*56). Or the conspiracy of the Comanche Peak Nuclear Plant administration to harass and cause bodily harm to whistleblower Linda Porter who uncovered dangerous working conditions at the facility (*57). Or the conspiracy of President Richard Nxion and the Government of South Vietnam to delay the Paris Peace Talks until after the 1968 U.S. presidential election (*58). Or the pandemic coverups of police violence (*59). Or the always safe-to-cite worldwide communist conspiracy (*60). Or maybe the socially responsible, secret consortium to publish The Satanic Verses in paperback (*61). Conspiracies are obviously a way to get things done, and the Washington Post offers little comment unless conspiracy theorizing threatens to expose a really important conspiracy that, let's say, benefits big business or big government. Such a conspiracy would be like our benevolent CIA's 1953 overthrow of the Iranian government to help out U.S. oil companies; or like our illegal war against Panama to tighten U.S. control over Panama and the Canal; or like monopoly control of broadcasting that facilitates corporate censorship on issues of public importance (*62). When the camouflage of such conspiracies is stripped away, public confidence in the conspiring officials can erode -- depending on how seriously the citizenry perceives the conspiracy to have violated the public trust. Erosion of public trust in the status quo is what the Post seems to see as a real threat to its corporate security. Currently, the Post has mounted vituperative, frenzied attacks on Oliver Stone's movie "JFK", which reexamines the U.S. Government's official (Warren Commission. finding that a single gunman, acting alone, killed President John F. Kennedy. The movie also is the story of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's unsuccessful prosecution of Clay Shaw, the only person ever tried in connection with the assassination. And the movie proposes that the Kennedy assassination was the work of conspirators whose interests would not be served by a president who, had he lived, might have disengaged us from our war against Vietnam. The Post ridicules a reexamination of the Kennedy assassination along lines suggested by "JFK". Senior Post journalists like Charles Krauthammer, Ken Ringle, George Will, Phil McCombs, and Michael Isikoff, have been called up to man the bulwarks against public sentiment which has never supported the government's non-conspiratorial assassination thesis. In spite of the facts that the Senate Intelligence Committee of 1975 and 1976 found that "both the FBI and CIA had repeatedly lied to the Warren Commission" (*63) and that the 1979 Report of the House Select Committee on Assassinations found that President Kennedy was probably killed "as a result of a conspiracy" (*64), a truly astounding number of Post stories have been used as vehicles to discredit "JFK" as just another conspiracy (*65). Some of the more vicious attacks on the movie are by editor Stephen Rosenfeld, and journalists Richard Cohen, George Will, and George Lardner Jr (*66). They ridicule the idea that Kennedy could have had second thoughts about escalating the Vietnam War and declaim that there is no historical justification for this idea. Seasoned journalist Peter Dale Scott, former Pentagon/CIA liaison chief L. Fletcher Prouty, and investigators David Scheim and John Newman have each authored defense of the "JFK" thesis that Kennedy was not enthusiastic about staying in Vietnam (*67). But the Post team just continues ranting against the possibility of a high-level assassination conspiracy while offering little justification for its arguments. An example of particularly shabby scholarship and unacceptable behavior is George Lardner Jr's contribution to the Post's campaign against the movie. Lardner wrote three articles, two before the movie was completed, and the third upon its release. In May, six months before the movie came out, Lardner obtained a copy of the first draft of the script and, contrary to accepted standards, revealed in the Post the contents of this copyrighted movie (*68). Also in this article, (*69). Lardner discredits Jim Garrison with hostile statements from a former Garrison associate Pershing Gervais. Lardner does not tell the reader that subsequent to the Clay Shaw trial, in a U.S. Government criminal action brought against Garrison, Government witness Gervais, who helped set up Garrison for prosecution, admitted under oath that in a May 1972 interview with a New Orleans television reporter, he, Gervais, had said that the U.S. Government's case against Garrison was a fraud (*70). The Post's 1973 account of thebr> Garrison acquittal mentions this controversy, but when I recently asked Lardner about this, he was not clear as to whether he remembered it (*71). Two weeks after his first "JFK" article, Lardner blustered his way through a justification for his unauthorized possession of the early draft ofthe movie (*72). He also defended his reference to Pershing Gervais by lashing out at Garrison as a writer "of gothic fiction". When the movie was released in December, Lardner "reviewed" it (*73). He again ridiculed the film's thesis that following the Kennedy assassination, President Johnson reversed Kennedy's plans to de-escalate the Vietnam War. Lardner cited a memorandum issued by Johnson four days after Kennedy died. Lardner says this memorandum was written before the assassination, and that it "was a continuation of Kennedy's policy". In fact, the memorandum was drafted the day before the assassination by McGeorge Bundy (Kennedy's Assistant for National Security Affairs) Kennedy was in Texas, and may never have seen it. Following the assassination, it was rewritten; and the final version provided for escalating the war against Vietnam (*74) -- facts that Lardner avoided. The Post's crusade against exposing conspiracies is blatantly dishonest: The Warren Commission inquiry into the Kennedy Assassination was for the most part conducted in secret. This fact is buried in the Post (*75). Nor do current readers of this newspaper find meaningful discussion of the Warren Commission's secret doubts about both the FBI and the CIA (*76). Or of a dispatch from CIA headquarters instructing co-conspirators at field stations to counteract the "new wave of books and articles criticizing the [Warren] Commission's findings...[and] conspiracy theories ...[that] have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization" and to "discuss the publicity problem with liaison and friendly elite contacts, especially politicians and editors "and to"employ propaganda assets to answer and refute the attacks of the critics. ...Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. ...The aim of this dispatch is to provide material for countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists..." (*77). In 1979, Washington journalist Deborah Davis published Katharine The Great, the story of Post publisher Katharine Graham and her newspaper's close ties with Washington's powerful elite, a number of whom were with the CIA. Particularly irksome to Post editor Benjamin Bradlee was a Davis claim that Bradlee had "produced CIA material" (*78). Understandably sensitive about this kind of publicity, Bradlee told Davis' publisher Harcourt Brace Jovanovich ,"Miss Davis is lying ...I never produced CIA material ...what I can do is to brand Miss Davis as a fool and to put your company in that special little group of publishers who don't give a shit for the truth". The Post bullied HBJ into recalling the book; HBJ shredded 20,000 copies; Davis sued HBJ for breach of contract and damage to reputation; HBJ settled out of court; and Davis published her book elsewhere with an appendix that demonstrated Bradlee to have been deeply involved with producing cold-war/CIA propaganda (*79). Bradlee still says the allegations about his association with people in the CIA are false, but he has apparently taken no action to contest the xetensive documentation presented by Deborah Davis in the second and third editions of her book (*80). And it's not as if the Post were new to conspiracy work. Former Washington Post publisher Philip Graham "believing that the function of the press was more often than not to mobilize consent for the policies of the government, was one of the architects of what became a widespread practice: the use and manipulation of journalists by the CIA" (*81). This scandal was known by its code name Operation MOCKINGBIRD. Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein cites a former CIA deputy director as saying, "It was widely known that Phil Graham was someone you could get help from" (*82). More recently the Post provided cover for CIA personality Joseph Fernandez by "refusing to print his name for over a year up until the day his indictment was announced ...for crimes committed in his official capacity as CIA station chief in Costa Rica" (*83). Of the meetings between Graham and his CIA acquaintances at which the availability and prices of journalists were discussed, a former CIA man recalls, "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month" (*84). One may wish to consider Philip Graham's philosophy along with a more recent statement from his wife Katharine Graham, current Chairman of the Board of the Washington Post. In a lecture on terrorism and the news media, Mrs. Graham said: "A second challenge facing the media is how to prevent terrorists from using the media as a platform fortheir views. ... The point is that we generally know when we are being manipulated, and we've learned better how and where to draw the line, though the decisions are often difficult" (*85). Today, the Post and its world of big business are apparently terrified that our elite and our high-level public officials may be exposed as conspirators behind Contra drug-smuggling, October Surprise, or the assassination of President Kennedy. This fear is truly remarkable in that, like most of us and like most institutions, the Post runs its business as a conspiracy of like-minded entrepreneurs -- a conspiracy"to act or work together toward the same result or goal" (*86). But where the Post really parts company from just plain people is when it pretends that conspiracies associated with big business or government are "coincidence". Post reporter Lardner vents the frustration inherent in having to maintain this dichotomy. He lashes out at Oliver Stone and suggests that Stone may actually believe that the Post's opposition to Stone's movie is a "conspiracy". Lardner assures us that Stone's complaints are "groundless and paranoid and smack of McCarthyism" (*87). So how does the Post justify devoting so much energy to ridiculing those who investigate conspiracies? The Post has answers: people revert to conspiracy theories because they need something "neat and tidy" (*88) that "plugs a gap no other generally accepted theory fills', (*89. and "coincidence ...is always the safest and most likely explanation for any conjunction of curious circumstances ..." (*90). And what does this response mean? It means that "coincidence theory" is what the Post espouses when it would prefer not to admit to a conspiracy. In other words, some things just "happen". And, besides, conspiracy to do certain things would be a crime; "coincidence" is a safer bet. Post Ombudsman Richard Harwood, who, it is rumored, serves as Executive Director of the Benevolent Protective Order of Coincidence Theorists, (*91) recently issued a warning about presidential candidates "who have begun to mutter about a press conspiracy". Ordinarily, Harwood would simply dismiss these charges as "symptoms of the media paranoia that quadrennially engulfs members of the American political class" (*92). But a fatal mistake was made by the mutterers; they used the "C" word against the PRESS! And Harwood exploded his off-the-cuff comment into an entire column -- ending it with:"We are the new journalists, immersed too long, perhaps, in the cleansing waters of political conformity. But conspirators we ain't". Distinguished investigative journalist Morton Mintz, a 29-year veteran of the Washington Post, now chairs the Fund for Investigative Journalism. In the December issue of The Progressive, Mintz wrote "A Reporter Looks Back in Anger -- Why the Media Cover Up Corporate Crime". Therein he discussed the difficulties in convincing editors to accept important news stories. He illustrated the article with his own experiences at the Post, where he says he was known as "the biggest pain in the ass in the office" (*93). Would Harwood argue that grief endured by journalists at the hands of editors is a matter of random coincidence? And that such policy as Mintz described is made independently by editors without influence from fellow editors or from management? Would Harwood have us believe that at the countless office "meetings" in which news people are ever in attendance, there is no discussion of which stories will run and which ones will find inadequate space? That there is no advanced planning for stories or that there are no cooperative efforts among the staff? Or that in the face of our news-media "grayout" of presidential candidate Larry Agran, (*94) a Post journalist would be free to give news space to candidate Agran equal to that the Post lavishes on candidate Clinton? Let's face it: these possibilities are about as likely as Barbara Bush entertaining guests at a soup kitchen. Would Harwood have us believe that media critic and former Post Ombudsman Ben Bagdikian is telling less than the truth in his account of wire-service control over news: "The largely anonymous men who control the syndicate and wire service copy desks and the central wire photo machines determine at a single decision what millions will see and hear. ...there seems to be little doubt that these gatekeepers preside over an operation in which an appalling amount of press agentry sneaks in the back door of American journalism and marches untouched out the front door as 'news'" (*95). When he sat on the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, Judge Clarence Thomas violated U.S. law when he failed to remove himself from a case in which he then proceeded to reverse a $10 million judgment against the Ralston Purina Company (*96). Ralston Purina, the animal feed empire, is the family fortune of Thomas' mentor, Senator John Danforth. The Post limited its coverage of the Thomas malfeasance to 56 words buried in the middle of a 1200-word article (*97). Would Harwood have us believe that the almost complete blackout on this matter by the major news media and the U.S. Senate was a matter of coincidence? Could a Post reporter have written a story about Ralston Purina if she had wanted to? Can a brick swim? Or take the fine report produced last September by Ralph Nader's Public Citizen. Titled All the Vice President's Men, it documents "How the Quayle Council on Competitiveness Secretly Undermines Health, Safety, and Environmental Programs". Three months later, Post journalists David Broder and Bob Woodward published "The President's Understudy", a seven-part series on Vice President Quayle. Although this series does address Quayle's role with the Competitiveness Council, its handling of the Council's disastrous impact on America is inadequate. It is 40,000 words of mostly aimless chatter about Quayle memorabilia: youth, family, college record, Christianity, political aspirations, intellectual aspirations, wealthy friends, government associates, golf, travels, wife Marilyn, and net worth -- revealing little about Quayle's abilities, his understanding of society's problems, or his thoughts about justice and freedom, and never mentioning the comprehensive Nader study of Quayle's record in the Bush Administration (*98). Now, did Broder or did Woodward forget about the Nader study? Or did both of them forget? Or did one, or the other, or both decide not to mention it? Did these two celebrated, seasoned Post reporters ever discuss together their jointly authored stories? Did they decide to publish such a barren set of articles because it would enhance their reputations? How did management feel about the use of precious news space for such frivolity? Is it possible that so many pages were dedicated to this twaddle without people "acting or working together toward the same result or goal"? (*99) Do crocodiles fly? On March 20, front-page headlines in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post read respectively: TSONGAS DROPPED OUT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE CLEARING CLINTON'S PATH TSONGAS ABANDONS CAMPAIGN LEAVING CLINTON CLEAR PATH TOWARD SHOWDOWN WITH BUSH TSONGAS CLEARS WAY FOR CLINTON TSONGAS EXIT CLEARS WAY FOR CLINTON This display of editorial independence should at least raise questions of whether the news media collective mindset is really different from that of any other cartel -- like oil, diamond, energy, (*100) or manufacturing cartels, a cartel being "a combination of independent commercial enterprises designed to limit competition" (*101). The Washington Post editorial page carries the heading: AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER Is it? Of course not. There probably is no such thing. Does the Post"conspire" to keep its staff and its newspaper from wandering too far from the safety of mediocrity? The Post would respond that the question is absurd. In that I am not privy to the Post's telephone conversations, I can only speculate on how closely the media elite must monitor the staff. But we all know how few micro-seconds it takes a new reporter to learn what subjects are taboo and what are "safe", and that experienced reporters don't have to ask. What is more important, however, than speculating about how the Post communicates within its own corporate structure and with other members of the cartel, is to document and publicize what the Post does in public, namely, how it shapes and censors the news. Sincerely, Julian C. Holmes Copies to: Public-spirited citizens, both inside and outside the news media, And - maybe a few others. Notes to Letter of April 25, 1992: 1. Mark Hosenball, "The Ultimate Conspiracy", Washington Post, September 11, 1988, p.C1 2a. Julian Holmes, Letter to Washington Post Ombudsman Richard Harwood, June 4,1991. Notes that the Post censored, from the Anderson/Van Atta column, references to the Christic Institute and to Robert Gates. 2b. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, "Iran-Contra Figure Dodges Extradition", Washington Merry-Go-Round, United Feature Syndicate, May 26, 1991. This is the column submitted to the Post (see note 2a).. 2c. Jack Anderson and Dale Van Atta, "The Man Washington Doesn't Want to Extradite", Washington Post, May 26, 1991. The column (see note 2b). as it appeared in the Post (see note 2a).. 3a. Case No. 86-1146-CIV-KING, Amended Complaint for RICO Conspiracy, etc., United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, Tony Avirgan and Martha Honey v. John Hull et al., October 3, 1986. 3b. Vince Bielski and Dennis Bernstein, "Reports: Contras Send Drugs to U.S.", Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 16, 1986. 3c. Neal Matthews, "I Ran Drugs for Uncle Sam" (based on interviews with Robert Plumlee, contra resupply pilot)., San Diego Reader, April 5, 1990. 4. Leslie Cockburn, Out of Control. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987. 5a. Peter Dale Scott and Jonathan Marshall, Cocaine Politics, University ofCalifornia Press, 1991, p.179-181. 5b. David S. Hilzenrath, "Hill Panel Finds No Evidence Linking Contras to Drug Smuggling", Washington Post, July 22, 1987, p.A07. 5c. Partial correction to the Washington Post of July 22, Washington Post, July 24,1987, p.A3. 5d. The Washington Post declined to publish SubCommittee Chairman Rangel's Letter- to-the-Editor of July 22, 1987. It was printed in the Congressional Record on August 6, 1987, p.E3296-7. 6a. Michael Kranish, "Kerry Says US Turned Blind Eye to Contra-Drug Trail", Boston Globe, April 10, 1988. 6b. Mary McGrory, "The Contra-Drug Stink", Washington Post, April 10, 1988, p.B1. 6c. Robert Parry with Rod Nordland, "Guns for Drugs? Senate Probers Trace an Old Contra Connection to George Bush's Office", Newsweek, May 23, 1988, p.22. 6d. Dennis Bernstein, "Iran-Contra -- The Coverup Continues", The Progressive, November 1988, p.24. 6e. "Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy", A Report Prepared by the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, December 1988. 7a. Mark Hosenball, "If It's October ... Then It's Time for an Iranian Conspiracy Theory", Washington Post, October 9, 1988, p.D1. 7b. Mark Hosenball, "October Surprise! Redux! The Latest Version of the 1980 'Hostage- Deal' Story Is Still Full of Holes", Washington Post, April 21, 1991,p.B2. 8a. Barbara Honegger, October Surprise, New York: Tudor, 1989. 8b. Gary Sick, October Surprise, New York: Times Books, Random House, 1991. 9a. Abbie Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers, "An Election Held Hostage", Playboy, October 1988, p.73. 9b. Robert Parry and Robert Ross, "The Election Held Hostage", FRONTLINE, WGBH-TV,April 16, 1991. 10a. Reuter, "Ex-Hostages Seek Probe By Congress", Washington Post, June 14,1991,p.A4. 10b. "An Election Held Hostage?", Conference, Dirksen Senate Office Building Auditorium, Washington DC, June 13, 1991; Sponsored by The Fund For New Priorities in America, 171 Madison Avenue, New York, NY, 10016. 11a. David Brown and Guy Gugliotta, "House Approves Inquiry Into 'OctoberSurprise'", Washington Post, February 6, 1992, p.A11. 11b. Jack Colhoun, "Lawmakers Lose Nerve on October Surprise", The Guardian, December 11, 1991, p.7. 11c. Jack Colhoun, "October Surprise Probe Taps BCCI Lawyer", The Guardian, February 26, 1992, p.3. 12. See note 5a, p.180-1. 13a. See note 4, p.229, 240-1. 13b. Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, Senate Report No. 100-216, House Report No. 100-433, November 1987, p.139-141. 14a. Letter to His Excellency Oscar Arias Sanchez, President of the Republic of Costa Rica; from Members of the U.S. Congress David Dreier, Lee Hamilton, Dave McCurdy, Dan Burton, Mary Rose Oakar, Jim Bunning, Frank McCloskey, Cass Ballenger, Peter Kostmayer, Jim Bates, Douglas Bosco, James Inhofe, Thomas Foglietta, Rod Chandler, Ike Skelton, Howard Wolpe, Gary Ackerman, Robert Lagomarsino, and Bob McEwen; January 26, 1989. 14b. Peter Brennan, "Costa Rica Considers Seeking Contra Backer in U.S. -- Indiana Native Wanted on Murder Charge in 1984 Bomb Attack in Nicaragua", WashingtonPost, February 1, 1990. 14c. "Costa Rica Seeks Extradition of Indiana Farmer", Scripps-Howard News Service,April 25, 1991. 15. Press Release from the Costa Rican Embassy, Washington DC, On the Case of the Imprisonment of Costa Rican Citizen John Hull", February 6, 1989. 16. Brian Glick, War at Home, Boston: South End Press, 1989. 17. John Stockwell, The Praetorian Guard-- The U.S. Role in the New World Order, Boston: South End Press, 1991, p.121. 18. Hearings Before the Committee on Patents, United States Senate, 77th Cong., 2nd Session (1942)., part I, as cited in Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben, New York: The Free Press, Macmillan, 1978, p.93. 19. R. Jeffrey Smith, "Study of A-Plant Neighbors' Health Urged", Washington Post, July 13, 1990, p.A6. 20. Tom Horton, "A Cost Higher Than the Peace Dividend -- Price Tag Mounts to Clean Up Nuclear Weapons Sites", Baltimore Sun, February 23, 1992, p.1K. 21. "The Nuclear Industry's Secret PR Strategy", EXTRA!, March 1992, p.15. 22a. Samuel S. Epstein, MD et al, Losing the War Against Cancer: Need for PublicPolicy Reform", Congressional Record, April 2, 1992, p.E947-9. 22b. Samuel S. Epstein, "The Cancer Establishment", Washington Post, March 10, 1992. 23a. Hon. Henry B. Gonzalez, "Efforts to Thwart Investigation of the BNL Scandal", Congressional Record, March 30, 1992, p.H2005-2014. 23b. Hon. David E. Skaggs (CO)., White House Spin Control on Pre-War Iraq Policy", Congressional Record, April 2, 1992, p.H2285. 23c. Nicholas Rostow, Special Assistant to the President and Legal Adviser, Memorandum to Jeanne S. Archibald et al, "Meeting on congressional requests for information and documents", April 8, 1991; Congressional Record, April 2, 1992,p.H2285. 24a. Michio Kaku, "Operation Desert Lie: Pentagon Confesses", The Guardian, March11, 1992, p.4. 24b. J. Max Robins, "NBC's Unaired Iraq Tapes Not a Black and White Case", Variety Magazine, March 4, 1991, p.25. 25. Emory R. Searcy Jr., Clergy and Laity Concerned, Spring 1991 Letter to"Friends", p.1. 26. Jean Dimeo, "Selling Hispanics on Columbus -- Luis Vasquez-Ajmac Is Hired to Promote Smithsonian Project", Washington Post, November 18, 1991, p.Bus.8. 27. Hans Koning, "Teach the Truth About Columbus", Washington Post, September 3,1991, p.A19. 28a. James Kilpatrick, "Software-Piracy Case Emitting Big Stench", St. Louis Post/Dispatch, March 18, 1991, p.3B. Elliot L. Richardson, "A High-Tech Watergate", New York Times, October 21,1991. 29. "BCCI -- NBC Sunday Today", February 23, 1992, p.12; transcript prepared by Burrelle's Information Services. The quote is from New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau who is running his own independent investigation of BCCI. 30. Norman Bailey, former Reagan White House intelligence analyst; from an interview with Mark Rosenthal of NBC News. See note 29, p.5. 31. Jack Colhoun, "BCCI Skeletons Haunting Bush's Closet", The Guardian, September 18, 1991, p.9. 32. Robert Morgenthau. See note 29, p.10. 33. Russell Mokhiber, Corporate Crime and Violence, San Francisco: Sierra ClubBooks, 1989 paperback edition, p.227. 34. See note 33, p.136-7. 35. Morton Mintz, At Any Cost: Corporate Greed, Women, and the Dalkon Shield, NewYork: Pantheon, 1985. As cited in Mokhiber, see note 33, p.157. 36. See note 33, p.164-171. 37. See note 33, p.172-180. 38. Michael Waldman, Who Robbed America?, New York: Random House, 1990. The quote is from Ralph Nader's Introduction, p.iii. 39. See note 33, p.217. 40. See note 33, p.235. 41. See note 33, p.277-288. 42. See note 33, p.323. 43. Katherine Hoyt Gonzalez, Nicaragua Network Education Fund Newsletter, March1992, p.1. 44. William Blum, The CIA -- A Forgotten History, London: Zed Books Ltd., 1986,p.232-243. 45a. John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, New York: Norton, 1978. 45b. See note 44, p.284-291. 46. See note 17, p.18. 47a. Letter to President George Bush from The Ad Hoc Committee for Panama (James Abourezk et al)., January 10, 1990; published in The Nation, February 5, 1990, p.163. 47b. Philip E. Wheaton, Panama, Trenton NJ: Red Sea Press, 1992, p.145-7. 48a. Morton Mintz and Jerry S. Cohen, Power, Inc., New York: Bantam Books, 1977,p.521. 48b. "The International Oil Cartel", Federal Trade Commission, December 2, 1949. Cited in 48a, p.521. 49a. See note 44, p.67-76. 49b. See note 48a, p.530-1. 50. Ralph W. McGehee, Deadly Deceits, New York: Sheridan Square Publications, 1983,p.60. 51. HR-3385, "An Act to Provide Assistance for Free and Fair Elections in Nicaragua". Passed the U.S. House of Representatives on October 4, 1989 by avote of 263 to 136, and the Senate on October 17 by a vote of 64 to 35. 52. Jack Colhoun, "Gates Oozing Trail of Lies, Gets Top CIA Post", The Guardian,November 20, 1991, p.6. 53. Carl Bernstein, Time, February 24, 1992, Cover Story p.28-35. 54. "The U.S. and the Vatican on Birth Control", Time, February 24, 1992, p.35. 55. "Time's Missing Link: Poland to Latin America", National Catholic Reporter,February 28, 1992, p.24. 56a. Jim Lynn, "School of Americas Commander Hopes to Expand Mission", Benning Patriot, February 21, 1992, p.12. 56b. Vicky Imerman, "U.S. Army School of the Americas Plans Expansion", News Release from S.O.A. Watch, P.O. Bo 3330, Columbus, Georgia 31903. 57. 60 MINUTES, CBS, March 8, 1992. 58. Jack Colhoun, "Tricky Dick's Quick Election Fix", The Guardian, January 29,1992, p.18. 59a. Sean P. Murphy, "Several Probes May Have Ignored Evidence Against Police", Boston Globe, July 28, 1991, p.1. 59b. Christopher B. Daly, "Pattern of Police Abuses Reported in Boston Case", Washington Post, July 12, 1991, p.A3. 59c. Associated Press, "Dayton Police Probing Erasure of Arrest Video", WashingtonPost, May 26, 1991, p.A20. 59d. Gabriel Escobar, "Deaf Man's Death In Police Scuffle Called Homicide", Washington Post, May 18, 1991, p.B1. 59e. Jay Mathews, "L.A. Police Laughed at Beating", Washington Post, March 19, 1991, p.A1. 59f. David Maraniss, "One Cop's View of Police Violence", Washington Post, April 12,1991, p.A1. 59g. From News Services, "Police Abuse Detailed", Washington Post, February 8, 1992,p.A8. 60. Michael Dobbs, "Panhandling the Kremlin: How Gus Hall Got Millions", Washington Post, March 1, 1992, p.A1. 61. David Streitfeld, "Secret Consortium To Publish Rushdie In Paperback", Washington Post, March 14, 1992, p.D1. 62a. See notes 48 and 49. 62b. See note 47b, p.63-76. 62c. "Fairness In Broadcasting Act of 1987", U.S. Senate Bill S742. 62d. "Now Let That 'Fairness' Bill Die", Editorial, Washington Post, June 24, 1987. The Post opposed the Fairness in Broadcasting Act. 63. David E. Scheim, Contract on America -- The Mafia Murder of President John F.Kennedy, New York: Shapolsky Publishers, 1988, p.viii. 64. See note 63, p.28. 65a. Chuck Conconi, "Out and About", Washington Post, February 26, 1991, p.B3. 65b. George Lardner Jr., "On the Set: Dallas in Wonderland", Washington Post, May19, 1991, p.D1. 65c. George Lardner, "...Or Just a Sloppy Mess", Washington Post, June 2, 1991,p.D3. 65d. Charles Krauthammer, "A Rash of Conspiracy Theories -- When Do We Dig Up BillCasey?", Washington Post, July 5, 1991, p.A19. 65e. Eric Brace, "Personalities", Washington Post, October 31, 1991, p.C3. 65f. Associated Press, "'JFK' Director Condemned -- Warren Commission Attorney Calls Stone Film 'A Big Lie'", Washington Post, December 16, 1991, p.D14. 65g. Gerald R. Ford and David W. Belin, "Kennedy Assassination: How About the Truth?", Washington Post, December 17, 1991, p.A21. 65h. Rita Kemply, "'JFK': History Through A Prism", Washington Post, December 20,1991, p.D1. 65i. George Lardner Jr., "The Way it Wasn't -- In 'JFK', Stone Assassinates the Truth", Washington Post, December 20, 1991, p.D2. 65j. Desson Howe, "Dallas Mystery: Who Shot JFK?", Washington Post, December 20,1991, p.55. 65k. Phil McCombs, "Oliver Stone, Returning the Fire -- In Defending His 'JFK' Conspiracy Film, the Director Reveals His Rage and Reasoning", Washington Post, December 21, 1991, p.F1. 65l. George F. Will, "'JFK': Paranoid History", Washington Post, December 26, 1991,p.A23. 65m. "On Screen", 'JFK' movie review, Washington Post, Weekend, December 27, 1991. 65n. Stephen S. Rosenfeld, "Shadow Play", Washington Post, December 27, 1991, p.A21. 65o. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "The Paranoid Style", Washington Post, December 29,1991, p.C7. 65p. Michael Isikoff, "H-e-e-e-e-r-e's Conspiracy! -- Why Did Oliver Stone Omit (Or Suppress!). the Role of Johnny Carson?", Washington Post, December 29, 1991,p.C2. 65q. Robert O'Harrow Jr., "Conspiracy Theory Wins Converts -- Moviegoers Say 'JFK' Nourishes Doubts That Oswald Acted Alone", Washington Post, January 2, 1992, p.B1. 65r. Michael R. Beschloss, "Assassination and Obsession", Washington Post, January 5, 1992, p.C1. 65s. Charles Krauthammer, "'JFK': A Lie, But Harmless", Washington Post, January 10,1992, p.A19. 65t. Art Buchwald, "Bugged: The Flu Conspiracy", Washington Post, January 14, 1992,p.E1. 65u. Ken Ringle, "The Fallacy of Conspiracy Theories -- Good on Film, But the Motivation Is All Wrong", Washington Post, January 19, 1992, p.G1. 65v. Charles Paul Freund, "If History Is a Lie -- America's Resort to Conspiracy Thinking", Washington Post, January 19, 1992, p.C1. 65w. Richard Cohen, "Oliver's Twist", Washington Post Magazine, January 19, 1992, p.5. 65. Michael Isikoff, "Seeking JFK's Missing Brain", Washington Post, January 21,1992, p.A17. 65y. Don Oldenburg, "The Plots Thicken -- Conspiracy Theorists Are Everywhere", Washington Post, January 28, 1992, p.E5. 65z. Joel Achenbach, "JFK Conspiracy: Myth vs. the Facts", Washington Post, February 28, 1992, p.C5. 65A. List of books on the best-seller list: On the Trail of the Assassins is characterized as "conspiracy plot theories", Washington Post, March 8, 1992,Bookworld, p.12 66. See notes 65n, 65w, 65l, 65b, 65c, and 65i. 67a. Peter Dale Scott, "Vietnamization and the Drama of the Pentagon Papers". Published in The Senator Gravel Edition of The Pentagon Papers, Volume V,p.211-247. 67b. Peter Dale Scott, The War Conspiracy -- The Secret Road to the Second Indochina War, Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972, p. 215-224. 67c. L. Fletcher Prouty, The Secret Team, Copyright 1973. New printing, Costa Mesa CA: Institute for Historical Review, 1990, p.402-416. 67d. See note 63, p.58, 183, 187, 194, 273-4. 67e. John M. Newman, JFK and Vietnam, New York: Warner Books, 1992. 67f. Peter Dale Scott, Letter to the Editor, The Nation, March 9, 1992, p.290. 68a. See note 65b. 68b. Oliver Stone, "The Post, George Lardner, and My Version of the JFK Assassination", Washington Post, June 2, 1991, p.D3. 69. See note 65b. 70. Jim Garrison, On the Trail of The Assassins, New York: Warner Books, 1988, 315/318. 71. Associated Press, "Garrison, 2 Others, Found Not Guilty Of Bribery Charge", Washington Post, September 28, 1973, p.A3. 72. See note 65c. 74. See note 67e, p.438-450. 75. John G. Leyden, "Historians, Buffs, and Crackpots", Washington Post, Bookworld, January 26, 1992, p.8. 76a. Tad Szulc, "New Doubts, Fears in JFK Assassination Probe", Washington Star,September 19, 1975, p.A1. 76b. Tad Szulc, "Warren Commission's Self-Doubts Grew Day by Day -- 'This Bullet Business Leaves Me Confused'", Washington Star, September 20, 1975, p.A1. 76c. Tad Szulc, "Urgent and Secret Meeting of the Warren Commission -- Dulles Proposed that the Minutes be Destroyed", Washington Star, September 21, 1975,p.A1. 77. "Cable Sought to Discredit Critics of Warren Report", New York Times, December 26, 1977, p.A37. 78. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979,p.141-2. 79a. Eve Pell, "Private Censorship -- Killing 'Katharine The Great'", The Nation, November 12, 1983. 79b. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, Bethesda MD: National Press, 1987. Davis says, "...corporate documents that became available during my subsequent lawsuit against him [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich chairman, William Jovanovich] showed that 20,000 copies [of Katharine the Great] had been "processed and converted into waste paper"". 79c. Daniel Brandt, "All the Publisher's Men -- A Suppressed Book About Washington Post Publisher Katharine Graham Is On Sale Again" National Reporter, Fall 1987, p.60. 79d. Deborah Davis, Katharine The Great, New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991. "...publishers who don't give a shit", p.iv-v; bullying HBJ into recalling the book, p.iv-vi; lawsuit and settlement, p.. 80. Benjamin C. Bradlee, Letter to Deborah Davis, April 1, 1987. See note 79d, p.304. 81. See note 79d, p.119-132. 82. Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media -- How America's Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up", Rolling Stone, October 20, 1977, p.63. 83a. Daniel Brandt, Letter to Richard L. Harwood of The Washington Post, September 15, 1988. The letter asks for the Post's rationale for its policy of protecting government covert actions, and whether this policy is still in effect. 83b. Daniel Brandt, "Little Magazines May Come and Go", The National Reporter, Fall 1988, p.4. Notes the Post's protection of the identity of CIA agent Joseph F.Fernandez. Brandt says, "America needs to confront its own recent history as well as protect the interests of its citizens, and both can be accomplished by outlawing peacetime covert activity. This would contribute more to thesecurity of Americans than all the counterterrorist proposals and elite strike forces that ever found their way onto Pentagon wish-lists." 83c. Richard L. Harwood, Letter to Daniel Brandt, September 28, 1988. Harwood's two- sentence letter reads, "We have a long-standing policy of not naming covert agents of the C.I.A., except in unusual circumstances. We applied that policy to Fernandez." 84. See note 79d, p.131. 85. Katharine Graham, "Safeguarding Our Freedoms As We Cover Terrorist Acts", Washington Post, April 20, 1986, p.C1. 86. "conspire", �4�Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition Unabridged, 1987. 87. Howard Kurtz, "Media Notes", Washington Post, June 18, 1991, p.D1. 88. See note 65y. | 0 |
Theresa May refuses to withdraw support for Saudi Arabia Theresa May refuses to withdraw support for Saudi Arabia By 0 41
British Prime Minister Theresa May has refused to withdraw her support for UK weapons sales to Saudi Arabia as well as Riyadh’s membership at the UN Human Rights Council despite the regime’s atrocities in Yemen.
During a debate at the House of Commons in Parliament on Wednesday, May shunned answering the call of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to end the country’s weapons sales to Saudi Arabia.
“The issues are being investigated… We are very clear that the only solution that is going to work for Yemen is actually to make sure that we have the political solution that will give stability in Yemen,” May told Corbyn and the parliamentarians.
Instead of answering the direct question, May spoke about the UK government’s contribution to the humanitarian aid provided to the crisis-torn country.
Corbyn also questioned May’s support for Saudi Arabia’s membership in the UN Human Rights Council. A crucial vote on the membership of Riyadh in the council will… | 0 |
Buddy Ryan, pro football’s famously combative defensive innovator, who helped propel the Jets and the Chicago Bears to Super Bowl championships, died on Tuesday in Shelbyville, Ky. He was 85. His death was confirmed by the Buffalo Bills. His son Rex, the former Jets head coach, is now the Bills’ head coach, and Rex’s twin, Rob, is an assistant with the team. James Solano, Buddy Ryan’s agent, said that Ryan owned a ranch in Shelbyville. He had been treated for cancer in recent years. In his seven years as a head coach, with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Arizona Cardinals, Ryan never won a playoff game. But he had already solidified his legacy as an assistant coach with his shifting and blitzing defensive alignments, which confused and clobbered opposing quarterbacks. His bruising “46” defense, in particular, took the Bears to their Super Bowl victory in 1986. For all his football intellect, Ryan embraced pure aggression. “It got mean, cruel,” defensive end Gerry Philbin, who played under Ryan at the University at Buffalo and on the Jets, once told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve never seen anyone better at bringing the animal out of you. If you didn’t hit as hard as he wanted, he’d humiliate you in front of everyone. “Guys like me loved him, though. He was just so brutally honest. ” When Ryan became the Eagles’ head coach in 1986 and subjected his players to punishing drills in training camp, he spoke of his . “They probably think I’m a ” he told The New York Times. “But that’s all right. That breeds closeness as a team. That way they can all dislike the same guy. ” His son Rex, having earned a reputation for brashness in his own right while coaching the Jets from 2009 to 2014, wrote in a memoir, “Play Like You Mean It” (2011) that he grew up “wanting to be Buddy Ryan,” though he acknowledged that his father “was a little over the top from time to time. ” While he was the Bears’ defensive coordinator, Buddy Ryan largely ignored Mike Ditka, his presumed boss as the head coach, concluding that Ditka, once a brilliant tight end, knew nothing about defense. In 1985 they almost came to blows in the locker room during halftime of the Bears’ loss to the Miami Dolphins, the team’s only defeat that season. In 1989, the Cowboys accused Ryan of offering bounties of a few hundred dollars to any of his Eagles players who knocked the Dallas kicker, Luis Zendejas, and quarterback Troy Aikman out of the Thanksgiving Day game, which Philadelphia won, . Both players were roughed up in the game. Zendejas, who had previously been cut by the Eagles, called Ryan “the fat little guy” and denounced him as essentially a coward. Ryan, a bit paunchy and bespectacled, denied offering bounties, and a league investigation could not substantiate the accusations. When Ryan was the Houston Oilers’ defensive coordinator, he punched the team’s offensive coordinator, Kevin Gilbride, in the face during the final game of the 1993 regular season, against the Jets, incensed that Gilbride’s disdain for ball control kept Ryan’s defenders on the field too long. Ryan broke into professional football as the defensive line coach for the 1968 Jets, who shocked the football world and provided credibility for the American Football League by upsetting the N. F. L. ’s Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Working with Walt Michaels, the Jets’ defensive coordinator, Ryan developed the seeds of his “46” defense. That scheme flourished with the 1985 Bears, who went in the regular season, won two playoff games by shutouts and routed the New England Patriots, in the Super Bowl. Named for the and frequently blitzing safety Doug Plank, who wore No. 46 playing for the Bears in Ryan’s first few seasons as defensive coordinator, the plan put as many as eight men on the defensive line to foil the opponents’ blocking plays, and it sprang blitzes by just about anyone. The aim was to pressure the opposing quarterback or knock him out of the game. Ryan hoped to find out “who the quarterback was,” he said. N. F. L. teams eventually developed spread offenses to counter the “46,” which featured stars like Mike Singletary, Dan Hampton and Richard Dent, but the alignment survives in various forms. Ron Jaworski, a former N. F. L. quarterback and an ESPN commentator, wrote in his book “The Games That Changed the Game” (2010, with David Plaut and Greg Cosell) that Ryan’s “46” was “the single most influential factor in shaping modern N. F. L. blitz pressure packages. ” James David Ryan was born on Feb. 17, 1931, in Frederick, Okla. where his father was a house painter. (His birth year was often listed as 1934 as Rex Ryan said in his memoir, his father had subtracted a few years from his true age to come off as more youthful when first looking for an N. F. L. job.) Buddy Ryan served in combat as a master sergeant during the Korean War, then played guard at Oklahoma AM (now Oklahoma State) and coached high school football in Texas. He was an assistant coach at the University at Buffalo, Vanderbilt and the University of the Pacific before joining the Jets’ staff under Coach Weeb Ewbank. After eight years with the Jets, Ryan was an assistant to Coach Bud Grant for two seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, overseeing the Purple People Eaters defense that helped take the Vikings to the 1977 Super Bowl, where they lost to the Oakland Raiders. Ryan became the Bears’ defensive coordinator in 1978. When Ditka became head coach in 1982, Ryan stayed on with the backing of the owner, George Halas. It seemed that the Bears had two teams. When they won the 1986 Super Bowl, the offensive players lifted Ditka onto their shoulders while the defensive players hoisted Ryan. Ryan finally got a job when he was hired by the Eagles soon after. He was fired after the 1990 season, when the Eagles lost their playoff opener for a third consecutive year. He posted a record with Philadelphia. Ryan was named the Cardinals’ head coach in 1994, and he chose his sons Rex and Rob as assistants. He was over two seasons, was fired once more, and then retired. Besides Rex and Rob, Ryan’s survivors include another son, Jim, all from his marriage to his first wife, Doris, which ended in divorce, and six grandchildren. His second wife, Joanie, died in 2013. Ryan devoted himself to breeding thoroughbreds in Kentucky after his football years, but he hardly forgot the football days. One of his horses was named FortySixBlitz. Another one kept alive the anger he felt when the Eagles let him go. Its name was FiredForWinning. | 1 |
PARIS — The prosecutor in the trial against Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, raised the chance that she would be acquitted of criminal charges linked to the misuse of public funds, after he called the case “very weak” on Thursday. Ms. Lagarde stands accused of “negligence by a person in a position of public authority,” in a matter related to her time as French finance minister. The case stems from an arbitration hearing ordered by Ms. Lagarde that ultimately awarded a French tycoon more than 400 million euros, or $425 million. She has long dismissed the allegations — which have dogged her for nearly a decade — as politically motivated and without basis. But they have nevertheless captured the attention of the public, illustrating close ties between France’s powerful politicians and the country’s business elite. Wrapping up a trial, Marin, the public prosecutor, said the testimony presented did not appear to be sufficient to merit a conviction. It is a theme prosecutors have echoed previously. The case was halted in September 2015, when France’s top prosecutor said there was insufficient evidence. But a special court, which had been set up in 1993 to hear cases against the country’s politicians, overrode that recommendation. Ms. Lagarde, a former senior lawyer and executive with the international law firm Baker McKenzie, has taken time to defend herself in person, while remaining at the helm of the I. M. F. The I. M. F. has said that while the case was a private matter, it retained confidence in her. The case against Ms. Lagarde centers on Bernard Tapie, a former executive who has previously been jailed on corruption charges. Mr. Tapie had accused Crédit Lyonnais of cheating him out of money when he sold his stake in the sportswear company in 1993. At the time, the bank was still partially owned by the French state. Years of legal battles ensued, with Ms. Lagarde eventually sending the dispute to a private arbitration authority in 2007. The panel awarded Mr. Tapie damages and interest to be paid by the government, a ruling that angered the French public. Ms. Lagarde’s aides suggested she annul the decision. But she declined to do so because it could result in a slew of new lawsuits from Mr. Tapie and further costs to the state. After the ruling, questions emerged about the impartiality of one of the arbiters. That arbiter, Pierre Estoup, was accused of having ties to Mr. Tapie’s lawyer. The lawyer and Mr. Estoup are now expected to stand trial in France over whether they colluded during the arbitration proceedings. The payout itself has since been annulled, with Mr. Tapie ordered to repay €404 million with interest to the state. He is, however, currently under bankruptcy protection and has not yet repaid the sum. | 1 |
The Most Interesting Chart In The World - Part 1 By Lee Adler. The most important chart you may ever see on the current US market is one derived from data on the European banking system. Why would a chart of European banking data would have anything to do with the US markets? Because in this interconnected world, "liquidity anywhere is liquidity everywhere." And some of that liquidity flows to and through Wall Street sooner or later because US securities markets are the Last Ponzi Game Standing. | 0 |
Four taps of the microphone were all Michelle Obama needed to take down Donald J. Trump. “Hillary Clinton is tough,” Mrs. Obama, the first lady, told a crowd of several thousand in Charlotte, N. C. on Tuesday. “See,” she continued, “I’ve watched her when she gets knocked down — she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t cry foul. ” Tap, tap, tap, tap. It took a second for the audience to catch on: Mrs. Obama was mocking Mr. Trump’s complaint that a faulty microphone had hindered his performance in his first presidential debate with Mrs. Clinton. But as Mrs. Obama continued — “No, she gets right back up, comes back stronger” — the mostly young and heavily crowd let out a deafening howl. They called her “the closer” during Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, like a relief pitcher used sparingly but with devastating effect. Mrs. Obama preferred spending time with her daughters over attending political rallies. But when she was unleashed before a pivotal caucus or primary, her story of growing up on the South Side of Chicago and falling in love with a young community organizer had an unmatched, almost magical power to turn out voters, campaign officials discovered. Eight years later, Mrs. Obama is playing a similar role for the woman whom she helped her husband defeat in that race. To divine the places where the Clinton campaign’s turnout operation is under the greatest pressure, and the constituencies about which it is most concerned, look no further than where Clinton aides dispatch the popular first lady. She has appeared in North Carolina, at college campuses in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. — all areas where Mrs. Clinton needs to drive up turnout among blacks and younger voters. “She chooses her moments, and she has made clear to her staff and the Democratic Party that she wants to go places where she can make a difference,” said Peter Slevin, the author of “Michelle Obama: A Life. ” “If a candidate is up by 15 or down by 15, you’re not going to see Michelle Obama there. ” Mrs. Obama has made only about a campaign appearances for Mrs. Clinton in the general election, each carefully approved by the White House. Each has become something of an event — and her warm, spunky delivery has given rise to several of the kind of moments that rarely emerge from Mrs. Clinton’s rallies. President Obama, of course, has proved an immensely valuable surrogate for Mrs. Clinton, appealing frequently to the young, black and Latino voters who turned out in record numbers for him but who have proved lukewarm to Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. He has gone so far as to tell black voters he would consider it a “personal insult” if they did not help elect Mrs. Clinton. But the first lady’s reluctance to campaign means that the events she does attend speak volumes about the places Mrs. Clinton views as most critical in November. She is virtually tied with Mr. Trump in North Carolina, with its younger and diverse population. Enter Mrs. Obama. In Raleigh and Charlotte this week, where thousands of mostly younger voters turned out to hear her, Mrs. Obama came armed with data points about turnout from Mr. Obama’s narrow victory in North Carolina in 2008. (He lost the state in 2012.) “Barack won North Carolina by about 14, 000 votes,” she said in Charlotte on Tuesday. “That sounds like a lot, but when you break that number down, the difference between winning and losing this state was a little over two voters per precinct. ” Mrs. Obama paused and gave a stern look to her largely young crowd. “Do you hear that?” she continued. “If just two or three folks per precinct had gone the other way, or stayed home, Barack would have lost this state. ” Straight talk is a specialty. At La Salle University in Philadelphia last month, Mrs. Obama soberly warned college students not to support a candidate. “If you vote for someone other than Hillary, or if you don’t vote at all,” she said, “then you are helping to elect Hillary’s opponent. ” Mrs. Obama has also gone further than her husband in laying bare the emotional toll of the birther movement, including Mr. Trump’s campaign to sow doubts about whether Mr. Obama was born in the United States. “Back then, people had all kinds of questions about what kind of a president Barack would be,” Mrs. Obama said in Fairfax in September on the same day Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the birther claim. “Things like: Does he understand us? Will he protect us? And then, of course, there were those who questioned — and continue to question, for the past eight years, up through this very day — whether my husband was even born in this country. ” Mrs. Obama’s hard feelings from the 2008 campaign for a time extended to Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, after an acrimonious South Carolina primary battle in which Mr. Clinton dismissed Mr. Obama’s antiwar image as a “fairy tale. ” But Mrs. Obama has long since come around, and often refers to Mrs. Clinton now as “my friend Hillary. ” She brings undeniable advantages to Mrs. Clinton 64 percent of Americans view Mrs. Obama favorably, according to a Gallup poll in August. But Gallup polling this week found 54 percent of the public holds an unfavorable opinion of Mrs. Clinton. Jennifer Palmieri, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, called Mrs. Obama “one of the most popular public figures in America” and “a highly effective messenger both at our convention and throughout the campaign. ” Mrs. Obama appears in an ad for Mrs. Clinton, called “Watch,” being shown in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. “Our children watch everything we do,” the first lady says, as images of Mrs. Clinton working with children flash on screen. “The person we elect as president has the power to shape their lives for years to come. ” Before making the case for Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Obama often describes her mixed emotions about leaving the White House. “We are experiencing a great transition for me and Barack and Malia and Sasha and Bo and Sunny and Grandma,” she said in Charlotte on Tuesday. “I’m going to need a job, but it will be a job out of politics,” she said. “My husband’s got to get a job — somebody has got to hire that man. ” There were shouts of “Michelle for president!” and “Michelle for mayor!” — but the first lady was having none of it. “Can you believe I’m campaigning again?” she said. “But I’m happy to be out here. Because this is the last time. ” | 1 |
The second video (bottom one ) proves what Trump is sayng is true , corruption with the Clinton gang is rife , he could use this in his arguments . http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/ammon-bundy-verdict-oregon-standoff-malheur-court/ And lets not forget there were 15 undercover FBI infrmants doing the provications = set up . | 0 |
While Ellen Milz and her family were watching the Olympics last summer, their TV was watching them. Ms. Milz, 48, who lives with her husband and three children in Chicago, had agreed to be a panelist for a company called TVision Insights, which monitored her viewing habits — and whether her eyes flicked down to her phone during the commercials, whether she was smiling or frowning — through a device on top of her TV. “The marketing company said, ‘We’re going to ask you to put this device in your home, connect it to your TV and they’re going to watch you for the Olympics to see how you like it, what sports, your expression, who’s around,’” she said. “And I said, ‘Whatever, I have nothing to hide. ’” Ms. Milz acknowledged that she had initially found the idea odd, but that those qualms had quickly faded. “It’s out of sight, out of mind,” she said, comparing it to the Nest security cameras in her home. She said she had initially received $60 for participating and an additional $230 after four to six months. TVision — which has worked with the Weather Channel, NBC and the Disney ABC Television Group — is one of several companies that have entered living rooms in recent years, emerging with new, granular ways for marketers to understand how people are watching television and, in particular, commercials. The appeal of this information has soared as Americans rapidly change their viewing habits, streaming an increasing number of shows weeks or months after they first air, on devices as varied as smartphones, laptops and Roku boxes, not to mention TVs. Through the installation of a Microsoft Kinect device, normally used for Xbox video games, on top of participants’ TVs, TVision tracks the movement of people’s eyes in relation to the television. The device’s sensors can record minute shifts for all the people in the room. The company then matches those viewing patterns to shows and commercials using technology that listens to what is being broadcast on the TV. “The big thing for TV advertisers and the networks is: Are you actually looking at the screen or not?” said Dan Schiffman, the chief revenue officer of TVision (pronounced ). “What you looked at is interesting, but the fact that you looked away is arguably the most interesting. ” Mr. Schiffman founded TVision, a with a classmate from the Sloan School of Management at M. I. T. Companies spend around $69 billion a year on TV ads in the United States and are keen to find out how to best distribute that money in a fractured media landscape. Nielsen and its panel of 42, 500 households have long determined how money is spent on TV advertising in the United States. The higher a show’s ratings, the more networks can charge for advertising. But some industry executives have criticized Nielsen’s methods as outdated. Nielsen selects homes at random to represent the nation’s viewing audience, and measures who is watching what shows, mostly through meters connected to the sets, as well as diaries in select markets and digital tracking of certain programs on tablets and phones. The company recently delayed the rollout of a new system that will count viewing across platforms and devices. The capability to do just that is a core selling point for upstarts like TVision, which promote their ability to measure how people are shows on, say, Netflix and Amazon. “Nielsen will remain the currency for the time being because it is agreed upon as the thing everyone uses,” said Alan Wurtzel, an adviser at NBCUniversal and its former head of research. “But as the world becomes more complex, as it is, many more additional supplemental or complementary measures will come into play. ” Information gathered by companies like TVision can help advertisers steer marketing toward shows with the most engaged audiences, not just the largest ones. And for networks, it could make a show with a committed and loyal audience as valuable as one that attracts a larger but more casual set of viewers. TVision has recruited 2, 000 households, or roughly 7, 500 people, in the Boston, Chicago and Worth areas. The company said the information was transmitted without storing images or video and collected anonymously. Mr. Schiffman said the data would show, for example, “Person No. 124 in Household 6 was paying attention this second and not paying attention the next to a certain program or advertisement. ” Symphony Advanced Media has built a panel of 17, 500 people in the United States who have installed its Media Insiders mobile app, mostly on Android phones. In exchange for about $5 to $12 a month, the app passively tracks how people use their phones, uses the device’s microphone to hear what they are watching and asks them to complete surveys. The app can tell if someone streamed a show using headphones while on a bus or saw a commercial at a sports bar. Symphony and TVision both use technology that can recognize shows and ads through the audio or digital tags the content contains. Consumers are most likely familiar with this type of technology through the app Shazam. Another ratings company, RealityMine, has assembled a panel of 5, 000 people in the United States whom it said it paid less than $90 a year, who either have its app, a “home meter” plugged into their internet networks or both. In some instances, its meter may capture activity across 25 devices in a household, such as tablet, phone, Xbox, Wii, Apple TV and Google Chromecast. The aim is “understanding what is the media day and the life of the consumer today,” said Charlie Buchwalter, the chief executive of Symphony, which has worked with companies including NBCUniversal. Mr. Schiffman said that while some people were wary of TVision’s technology, they were often placated after learning that it was not storing images or videos. During the Olympics, Ms. Milz wore a Fitbit so that NBC could see how her heart rate changed while she watched certain events. “We’re just trying to understand where people really are and what they’re doing, what they’re watching, how are they interacting, and ideally after that, how is that changing their behavior or affecting their behavior,” said Jonathan Steuer, the chief research officer of Omnicom Media Group, which oversees media buying for advertisers. Still, privacy can be a concern. This month, Vizio, one of the biggest makers of televisions, said it would pay $2. 2 million to settle charges that it had been collecting and selling viewing data from millions of smart TVs without the knowledge or consent of the sets’ owners. By measuring the level of attention a person is paying to a given show, TVision believes it can help bolster niche programs and smaller networks. For example, Mr. Schiffman said the company had found that the series “Lucifer,” on Fox, commanded better attention metrics from viewers than “The Big Bang Theory,” on CBS, even though “Big Bang” is one of the TV shows rated highest by Nielsen. “People don’t just tune into ‘Lucifer.’ They DVR it and watch it when they come home,” he said, adding that viewers tend to be focused on the show and stay in the room when it is on. The Weather Channel used TVision’s data in the fall to give it an edge over the news and lifestyle shows it is normally compared against by advertisers. It showed its audience for weather news as “lean forward, viewers,” said Indira Venkat, who oversees research at the channel. “What is oftentimes missing is the quality of the audience,” Ms. Venkat said about Nielsen viewing data. “Yes, you’re getting audience, but what are they doing in today’s era of multitasking?” | 1 |
NTEB Ads Privacy Policy THE SMOKING GUN: WikiLeaks Emails Show Proof Positive Of Vast Clinton Foundation Corruption It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned. by Geoffrey Grider October 28, 2016 Grifters-in-Chief: The Clintons don’t draw lines between their ‘charity’ and personal enrichment.
In an election season that has been full of surprises , let’s hope the electorate understands that there is at least one thing of which it can be certain: A Hillary Clinton presidency will be built, from the ground up, on self-dealing, crony favors, and an utter disregard for the law.
This isn’t a guess. It is spelled out, in black and white, in the latest bombshell revelation from WikiLeaks . It comes in the form of a memo written in 2011 by longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band, who for years worked simultaneously at the Clinton Foundation and at the head of his lucrative consulting business, Teneo.
It is astonishingly detailed proof that the Clintons do not draw any lines between their “charitable” work, their political activity, their government jobs or (and most important) their personal enrichment. Every other American is expected to keep these pursuits separate, as required by tax law, anticorruption law and campaign-finance law. For the Clintons, it is all one and the same—the rules be damned. Trump: WikiLeaks Shows Clinton Foundation Corruption
The memo came near the end of a 2011 review by law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett into Clinton Foundation practices. Chelsea Clinton had grown concerned about the audacious mixing of public and private, and the review was designed to ensure that the foundation didn’t lose its charitable tax status. Mr. Band, Teneo boss and epicenter of what he calls “ Bill Clinton, Inc.,” clearly felt under assault and was eager to brag up the ways in which his business had concurrently benefited the foundation, Clinton political causes and the Clinton bank account. The memoed result is a remarkably candid look at the sleazy inner workings of the Clinton grifters-in-chief. Rep. Sessions: Clinton Foundation’s fundraising tactics are criminal
The cross-pollination is flagrant , and Mr. Band gives example after example of how it works. He and his partner Declan Kelly (a Hillary Clinton fundraiser whom Mrs. Clinton rewarded by making him the State Department’s special envoy to Northern Ireland) buttered up their clients with special visits to Bill’s home and tête-à-tête golf rounds with the former president. They then “cultivated” these marks ( Coca-Cola , Dow Chemical , UBS) for foundation dollars, and then again for high-dollar Bill Clinton speeches and other business payouts. Morning Joe Destroys Corrupt Clinton Foundation “Total Corruption”
Teneo’s incestuous behavior also included Mrs. Clinton’s State Department. The Band memo boasts that Mr. Kelly (while he was Mrs. Clinton’s State envoy) introduced the then-head of UBS Wealth Management, Bob McCann, to Bill Clinton at an American Ireland Fund event in 2009. “Mr. Kelly subsequently asked Mr. Mccann [sic] to support the Foundation, which he did . . . Mr. Kelly also encouraged Mr. Mccann [sic] to invite President Clinton to give several paid speeches, which he has done,” reads Mr. Band’s memo. UBS ultimately paid Bill $2 million.
American Ireland Fund meanwhile became a Teneo client, and made Mr. Kelly (of former State envoy fame) a trustee, where he “ensured that the AIF is a significant donor to the Foundation.” AIF then bestowed upon Mrs. Clinton a major award on her final trip to Northern Ireland in 2012, in an event partly sponsored by . . . Teneo.
Not that this is all one way. Mr. Band let slip just how useful all these arrangements were for Teneo, too, when he backhandedly apologized in the memo for hosting 15 client meetings in a hotel room rented by the Clinton Global Initiative.
The memo removes any doubt that the foundation is little more than an unregistered super PAC working on the Clintons’ behalf. Donors to the charity are simultaneously tapped to give Bill speech requests and other business arrangements, including the $3.5 million he was paid annually to serve as “honorary chairman” of Laureate International Universities. Mr. Band’s memo also notes his success at getting donors to “support candidates running for office that President Clinton was supporting.” It’s now 2016 and Bill’s most favorite candidate is running for the presidency. There’s no question foundation donors are being “leveraged” for Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Band wants credit in the memo for prodding existing foundation donors to pony up more money, though the donation statistics he provides paint a different picture. By and large, donations to the foundation begin to spike dramatically in 2009 and 2010. Mr. Band didn’t form Teneo until 2011. What was happening in 2009? Mrs. Clinton was sworn in as one of the most powerful politicians on the planet. The Clinton Foundation takes money from countries that deny rights to women:
The obvious question is where are the prosecutors? (For that matter, where is Lois Lernerwhen you need her?) Any nonprofit lawyer in America knows the ironclad rule of keeping private enrichment away from tax-exempt activity, for the simple reason that mixing the two involves ripping off taxpayers. Every election lawyer in the country lives in fear of stepping over the lines governing fundraising and election vehicles. The Clintons recognize no lines.
Here’s the lasting takeaway: The Clintons spent their White House years explaining endless sleazy financial deals, and even capping their exit with a scandal over whether Bill was paid to pardon financier Marc Rich. They know the risks. And yet they geared up the foundation and these seedy practices even as Mrs. Clinton was making her first bid for the presidency. They continued them as she sat as secretary of state. They continue them still, as she nears the White House.
This is how the Clintons operate. They don’t change. Any one who pulls the lever for Crooked Hillary Clinton takes responsibility for setting up the nation for all the blatant corruption that will follow. source SHARE THIS ARTICLE Geoffrey Grider NTEB is run by end times author and editor-in-chief Geoffrey Grider. Geoffrey runs a successful web design company, and is a full-time minister of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to running NOW THE END BEGINS, he has a dynamic street preaching outreach and tract ministry team in Saint Augustine, FL. NTEB #TRENDING | 0 |
This is a Daily News Brief for all of the civil servants out there who are just “doing their job”. I was (up until recently) one of those people.
I learned first hand that no matter how good you are at your job, how much you save the taxpayer, and how many times you’ve saved your boss or the “higher ups” from getting in trouble, when you need them to stick their neck out for you, they just hang you out to dry.
Huma Abedin is learning that firsthand now too… and Donna Brazile…The loyalty you feel in your heart to your country, or county is not reciprocated to you in your time of need. The Powers That Shouldn’t Be don’t give a rats patoot about you. I hope this Daily News Brief serves as a wake up call to all those who serve.
Watch on YouTube
Sources:
Now Huma Is Just ‘One of My Staffers’ After Close Aide Gets Left Behind on Ohio Campaign Trip While Hillary Keeps up Her War on the FBI in Defiance of White House Backing for Comey
CNN Cuts Ties With Donna Brazile After Hacked Emails Show She Gave Clinton Campaign Debate Questions
The Globalization Of Media: A Failing Strike Force
Media Deception: You Are Not Getting the Truth Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
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FBI Director threw the 2016 presidential (s)election into (yet more) chaos by delivering an October surprise: the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation. Are the string-pullers abandoning Hillary? Or would they prefer a lame-duck president to be the face of the declining American empire? Is chaos part of the plan? Today we talk to Michel Chossudovsky of GlobalResearch.ca about the Comey letter and its potential implications on the emerging world (dis)order. | 0 |
One of the three London schoolgirls who made headlines last year when they fled their homes to join the Islamic State extremist group in Syria is believed to have been killed by a Russian airstrike, a British television channel reported on Thursday. The ITV News channel also said that the girl, Kadiza Sultana, 17, had become “disillusioned with life in the medieval terror state” and had been planning to return to Britain. Kadiza is believed to have been in a residential building in Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in northeast Syria, when it was hit in May by a bomb thought to have been dropped by a Russian warplane, ITV said in an article on its website. ITV said its report was based on communications with her relatives in London, with unidentified contacts in Raqqa and with a lawyer for her family, Tasnime Akunjee, who the report said had been working on an escape plan for her. The report said her family had been “informed of Kadiza’s reported death by other people in Raqqa and confirmed details in a statement to ITV News. ” It quoted her sister, Halima, as saying: “We were expecting this, in a way. But at least we know she is in a better place. ” Kadiza’s relatives could not immediately be reached for comment. Mr. Akunjee, in a telephone interview, confirmed the substance of the ITV account but said he did not know with certainty whether she had been killed. “This did not come from any official sources,” he said. “I can’t tell you where the information came from. I suspect it’s true. But I don’t know for a fact that it’s true. Nobody knows for sure anything, because it’s a war zone. ” Kadiza and her companions, Amira Abase and Shamima Begum, who were both 15 when they joined the Islamic State in February 2015, became symbols of the organization’s ability to lure foreign women to its militant jihadist cause. Prohibited from engaging in combat, the women support the group’s goal of building a caliphate by becoming wives, mothers, recruiters and online cheerleaders of its violent acts. According to a May 2015 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a research group that studies extremism, the Islamic State had recruited an estimated 4, 000 Western foreign fighters and migrants, including more than 550 women. The disappearance of the girls, students who had kept secret their desire to join the Islamic State, took their families by surprise and stunned the nation. The three became known as the Bethnal Green schoolgirls, after the east London neighborhood where they grew up. Their relatives made desperate public pleas for help, and some traveled to Istanbul. They hoped to follow their trail for more information after it had become clear that the girls had flown to Turkey and caught a bus to the border with Syria, where they were smuggled into territory held by the Islamic State. ITV said it was believed all three had wed foreign recruits, not Syrian members. It said Kadiza’s husband was thought to have been an American citizen of Somali descent who died late in 2015. | 1 |
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AN ANGRY mob of Christmas shoppers descended on Grafton Street yesterday evening to protest what some are calling ‘the insultingly late’ date for the annual turning on of the Christmas lights, WWN can reveal.
What had at first appeared to be a warm crowd hoping to witness the event soon turned sinister in nature with many chanting for the firing of several council employees.
The 13th of November, a key date in the Christmas period, was chosen by Dublin City Council as the date on which they would usher in Christmas but the ceremony had to be shut down early as the crowd, enraged at how the council had left it so late in the year, turned violent.
“I think it’s a disgrace that as an Irish citizen I was walking in town on the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of November without Christmas lights on. It’s a fucking travesty is what it is,” shared local Alan Healy, who had taken to dressing head to toe in Christmas lights to counteract the lack of Christmas cheer in the city.
Dublin council defended their decision by pointing out the lights cannot be turned on until the first a person is driven insane by Christmas ads which now dominate TV.
“This year took a little longer, but I think it was a Laois woman who lost the plot after seeing the same Tesco ad for the 50th time that day,” shared council official Aine Kilbride.
The council confirmed that in an ideal world they would turn on the Christmas lights in an over the top ceremony once a week from the beginning of August.
“Some people forget that August, September, October and November are part of Christmas and it is our job to hammer people ove rthe head with it until they want commit acts of violence against us,” added Kilbride. | 0 |
posted by Eddie Has Hillary threatened her BFF & Aide? 10,000 new emails on Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s computer. They were in a file marked ‘Life Insurance’. Huma had the goods on Hillary and is now running for her life?! With the scandal/criminal/clincher emails now available to the authorities that were on Humas server, Huma’s days a numbered. The plot continues to thicken, and there seems to be no end to Hillarys corruption. From The Next News Network The plot thickens in the Hillary Clinton criminal FBI investigation as leaked information aledges Huma Abedin kept the thousands of newly discovered emails in a folder labeled ‘life insurance’ on her home computer. Some are calling it Huma’s own ‘Deadman Switch’ to be activated if Hillary ordered her death. Meanwhile Huma hasn’t been seen on the campaign trail, at Hillary’s side, all weekend.
BREAKING: WARRANT JUST ISSUED FOR HILLARY CLINTON’S TOP AIDE HUMA ABEDIN’S EMAILS
A warrant was just issued for Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin’s email after the Justice Department stonewalled initial requests by the FBI. Hillary’s days are numbered… And so are Huma’s. source: | 0 |
Gabby Douglas is a decorated Olympic gymnast who will bring home a gold medal from Rio. But her performance has not been enough to appease some observers on the internet. Douglas, 20, who won the women’s during the London Olympics in 2012, lamented on Sunday that she had been picked apart by people on social media for everything from her appearance — right down to her hair texture — to her behavior during a medal ceremony while the national anthem was being played. “When they talk about my hair or not putting my hand over my heart or being very salty in the stands, really criticizing me, for me it was really hurtful,” Douglas, who is said, according to The Associated Press. Even her mother, Natalie Hawkins, expressed frustration with the harsh attacks. “They said she had breast enhancements they said she wasn’t smiling enough, she’s unpatriotic,” Hawkins told Reuters. After some observers noticed that Douglas looked disappointed while watching her teammates succeed, “it went to not supporting your teammates,” her mother said. Hawkins added: “Now you’re ‘Crabby Gabby.’ You name it, and she got trampled. What did she ever do to anyone?” The Olympics have always been fertile ground for cutthroat competition and narratives about fallen heroes, but observers on social media can distort those stories and take them to extremes — while still expecting athletes to smile and act gracefully when they lose. In the pool, Lilly King of the United States made a point to emphasize her win over Yulia Efimova of Russia, who had served a doping suspension and was booed every time she entered the Olympic Aquatics Stadium. And there has been no shortage of scrutiny of the swimmer Missy Franklin, who won four gold medals in London only to fall short in Rio, prompting a slew of “What happened?” headlines. But the online criticism of Douglas has been relentless since her lackluster performance during the Olympic trials, she and her mother both said. After the United States women’s team took home the gold last Tuesday, Douglas’s failure to put her hand on her heart during the national anthem struck a nerve with viewers. Not everyone thought this was valid criticism. It is not as if Douglas has not been hard on herself, criticizing her performance in the uneven bars. “In my head, I pictured it a little bit differently,” she said. “You want to picture yourself being on top and doing amazing gymnastics. ” Athletes have never been as accessible as they are right now — especially those like Douglas and Franklin who rely on social media to build a fan base and share sponsored posts from brands they endorse, like United Airlines and Gillette razors. That accessibility becomes a sword when they do not perform as well as they should, or if fans catch a whiff of jealousy, bad behavior or team infighting. But if we have learned anything from social media’s power to tear down idols, it is that the same tools can be used to build someone back up. By Monday, #LOVE4GABBYUSA was being spread across Twitter by fans who wanted to help Douglas feel better despite the onslaught of abuse. It was an outpouring of support for an athlete that came days, if not years, too late. | 1 |
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The name Peter Kadzik probably doesn’t ring a bell for many of you, although it probably should. This guy is a real piece of work, as an excellent article published earlier today at the Daily Caller demonstrates.
Here’s some of what we learned:
The day after Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Select Committee on Benghazi last October, John Podesta, the Democrat’s campaign chairman, met for dinner with a small group of well-connected friends, including Peter Kadzik, a top official at the Justice Department.
The dinner arrangement, revealed in hacked Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks, is just the latest example of an apparent conflict of interest between the Clinton campaign and the federal agency charged with investigating the former secretary of state’s email practices.
Podesta and Kadzik, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, were in frequent contact, other emails show. In one email from January, Kadzik and Podesta, who were classmates at Georgetown Law School in the 1970s, discussed plans to celebrate Podesta’s birthday. And in another sent last May, Kadzik’s son emailed Podesta asking for a job on the Clinton campaign.
“The political appointees in the Obama administration, especially in the Department of Justice, appear to be very partisan in nature and I don’t think had clean hands when it comes to the investigation of the private email server,” says Matthew Whitaker, the executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a government watchdog group.
Kadzik, who started at the DOJ in 2013, helped spearhead the effort to nominate Lynch, who was heavily criticized for her secret meeting with the former president.
Kadzik represented Podesta during the Monica Lewinsky investigation. And in the waning days of the Bill Clinton administration, Kadzik lobbied Podesta on behalf of Marc Rich, the fugitive who Bill Clinton controversially pardoned on his last day in office.
In a Sept. 2008 email , which the Washington Free Beacon flagged last week, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign.
Podesta, who would later head up the Obama White House transition effort, wrote that Kadzik was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail.”
Podesta made false statements to a grand jury impaneled by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr for the investigation. But he defended the falsehoods, saying later that he was merely relaying false information from Clinton that he did not know was inaccurate at the time.
“He did lie to me,” Podesta said about Clinton in a National Public Radio interview in 1998. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in Feb. 1999 of perjury and obstruction of justice charges related to the Lewinsky probe.
Kadzik, then a lawyer with the firm Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, represented Podesta through the fiasco.
Podesta had been promoted to Clinton’s chief of staff when he and Kadzik became embroiled in another scandal.
Kadzik was then representing Marc Rich, a billionaire financier who was wanted by the U.S. government for evading a $48 million tax bill. The fugitive, who was also implicated in illegal trading activity with nations that sponsored terrorism, had been living in Switzerland for 17 years when he sought the pardon.
To help Rich, Kadzik lobbied Podesta heavily in the weeks before Clinton left office on Jan. 20, 2001.
A House Oversight Committee report released in May 2002 stated that “Kadzik was recruited into Marc Rich’s lobbying campaign because he was a long-time friend of White House Chief of Staff John Podesta.”
The report noted that Kadzik contacted Podesta at least seven times regarding Rich’s pardon.
On top of the all-hands-on-deck lobbying effort, Rich’s ex-wife, Denise Rich, had doled out more than $1 million to the Clintons and other Democrats prior to the pardon. She gave $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate campaign and another $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library.
The first mention of personal contact between Podesta and Kadzik in the WikiLeaks dump is in an Oct. 23, 2015 email sent out by Vincent Roberti, a lobbyist who is close to Podesta and his superlobbyist brother, Tony Podesta. In it, Roberti refers to a dinner reservation at Posto, a Washington D.C. restaurant.
The dinner was set for 7:30 that evening, just a day after Clinton gave 11 hours of testimony to the Benghazi Committee.
Podesta and Kadzik met several months later for dinner at Podesta’s home, another email shows . And in an email sent on May 5, 2015, Kadzik’s son asked Podesta for a job on the Clinton campaign.
I’ll have the lobster risotto with a side of cronyism and middle class destruction.
As head of the Office of Legislative Affairs, Kadzik handles inquiries from Congress on a variety of issues. In that role he was not in the direct chain of command on the Clinton investigation.
The Justice Department and FBI have insisted that career investigators oversaw the investigation, which concluded in July with no charges filed against Clinton.
But Kadzik worked on other Clinton email issues in his dealings with Congress.
Last November, he denied a request from Republican lawmakers to appoint a special counsel to lead the investigation.
Seems like a pretty important decision for a Clinton crony to make.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the record for this article.
Could the Department of Injustice have any less credibility?
For more on the shameless and shady FBI “investigation” into Hillary Clinton, see: | 0 |
Hillary Clinton is keeping her foot on the gas pedal by hammering Donald Trump for taking the day off to promote his hotel built with undocumented workers instead of campaigning.
Video:
Clinton said:
Hillary Clinton could probably spend 24 hours a day for the rest of the campaign doing nothing but targeting Trump’s hypocrisies.
While Trump was trying to drum up business for his struggling new DC hotel, Hillary Clinton was winning more early votes in the state of Florida. There are two competing messages in the media currently about the election. The first message is that Democrats are blowing out Republicans in early voting. The second message is that a few state polls have shown Trump leading by a little in Florida and gaining ground in New Hampshire.
It is possible that both of these stories are correct. Democrats are blowing out Republicans in early voting, and with no new sex assault stories dominating the news, some Republicans may be coming back to Trump.
The important thing for Hillary Clinton and Democrats is not to let up. Democrats are very close to generation defining win, but victory is not sealed yet. More polling will need to be done to see if the two state polls were outliers or if this is a trend, but the polls may not matter.
If most of the ballots in states like North Carolina and Florida are cast before election day, the polls may end up meaning very little.
Hillary Clinton is in a great position, but judging from her own remarks, she is still working hard to close the deal on November 8.
As Trump pimps his new hotel, Hillary Clinton is pushing even harder to win the White House. | 0 |
Donald J. Trump proposed another significant shift in American foreign policy on Tuesday, suggesting that as president he would be willing to hold direct negotiations with Kim the North Korean dictator. In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Trump said that the talks would be part of an effort to halt North Korea’s nuclear program, which the United States considers one of the most serious national security threats. “I would speak to him, I would have no problem speaking to him,” Mr. Trump said. North Korea is among the most isolated countries in the world and regularly defies the international community by launching test rockets and capturing political prisoners. The notion that Mr. Trump would hold direct talks with Mr. Kim could create backlash among Republicans and Democrats. In 2008, Hillary Clinton criticized Barack Obama for being naïve about foreign policy for expressing a willingness to speak directly with Iran. Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, offered similar criticism of him in the general election. Mr. Trump’s willingness to negotiate with a pariah state comes as he has been offering olive branches to countries such as Russia, which has had tense relations with the United States, while criticizing leaders of traditional allies such as Mexico and Britain. This is not the first time that Mr. Trump has expressed unconventional ideas when it comes to America’s interests in Northeast Asia. In a March interview with The New York Times he suggested that Japan and South Korea should have their own nuclear arsenals so that they would be less reliant on protection from the United States in the region. Direct talks were not the only solution that Mr. Trump proposed on Tuesday when it comes to North Korea. He also told Reuters that he would exert pressure on the Chinese, one of North Korea’s closest allies, to help curb its nuclear ambitions. “I would put a lot of pressure on China because economically we have tremendous power over China,” he said. | 1 |
VIDEOS Assange tells the sordid truth about the US elections There’s so much information that it’s difficult to see the large mosaic created by the tiny parts By Daisy Luther - November 8, 2016
When you put together everything we’ve learned about the corruption in our government and electoral system, it paints an ugly picture. There’s so much information that it’s difficult to see the large mosaic created by the tiny parts.
UPDATED: Today, Julian Assange made a statement about the election . In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President. On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have. The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed. This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work. The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have poured over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment. We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria , we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election. At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us. We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it. That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public. This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either. Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know. This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so. The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential. Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists. In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate. WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them. We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks’ motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work. WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism. Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public. Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned.
In this enlightening interview, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks , puts it all together in an easy-to-understand synopsis. Via Daisy Luther Featured Image: Joe Mesa/Flickr Daisy Luther is a single mom who lives in a small village in the mountains of Northern California, where she homeschools her youngest daughter and raises veggies, chickens, and a motley assortment of dogs and cats. She is a best-selling author who has written several books, including The Organic Canner , The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget , and The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide: Harvest, Treat, and Store Your Most Vital Resource . Daisy is a prolific blogger who has been widely republished throughout alternative media. On her website, The Organic Prepper , Daisy uses her background in alternative journalism to provide a unique perspective on health, self-reliance, personal liberty, and preparedness. You can follow her on Facebook , Pinterest , and Twitter . | 0 |
BREAKING : Most Accurate Poll in Last 3 Election Cycles Predicts Trump Victory #ElectionDay BREAKING : Most Accurate Poll in Last 3 Election Cycles Predicts Trump Victory #ElectionDay Breaking News By TruthFeedNews November 7, 2016
The final national poll from the IBD/TIPP, the pollster with the highest rated accuracy the last 3 election cycles predicts a Trump Victory.
2004, 2008 and 2012 IBD outranked Pew, ABC, NBC, Fox news, and Rasmussen among many other pollsters with the top ranking and average margin of error of less than one percent.
In their final poll prior to Election day, IBD/TIPP has Trump ahead 43% to 41% in a nail biter. While winning the popular vote would not in itself guarantee a Trump victory, if IBD / TIPP is once again accurate and Trump has a 2% or greater margin in the popular vote, it would far more likely than not he would also catapult above the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the Presidency.
IBD’s polling partner TechnoMetrica uses “traditional” telephone methodology using live interviewers for data collection for its public opinion surveys. Roughly 65% of interviews come from a cell phone sample and 35% from a Random Digit Dial (RDD) land line sample.
IBD’s result is a outlier if you compare it to polls conducted by network as CBS News, ABC, NBC and Fox News have Clinton up between 1 and 4% in their final pre-Election polls.
However, today’s LA Times / USC poll has Trump with an even larger 5% margin of victory.
We won’t have to wait long to see which national poll ends up being right. Trump supporters certainly hope the reigning king for accuracy will prevail once again.
For once in our lifetime, we the people have an opportunity to elect a President who was NOT chosen by Multinational Corporations, Big Banks, DC Elites, and the Globalist Lapdog Mainstream Media.
Please like and share if you are a TRUMP VOTER! | 0 |
No. | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — For many months, Twitter has been trying to reshape itself as a growing social media service. That attempt now includes reshaping the company’s top ranks. On Wednesday, Twitter said that Adam Bain, its chief operating officer, plans to leave the company. Mr. Bain was well liked by Wall Street for building up and running Twitter’s once advertising business. Many of Mr. Bain’s duties and his direct lieutenants, including those who manage ad sales and partnerships with marketers and broadcast media companies, will be under the purview of Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer. Mr. Noto will take on the chief operating officer title, and Twitter said it would begin a search for a new chief financial officer. “The past six years have been incredible, and I’m inspired by what Twitter has become and what it will be in the future,” Mr. Bain said in a statement. “Anthony and I have worked side by side since he joined Twitter in July 2014 and I have full faith in what he and the teams will accomplish in the future. ” Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, added: “Since joining Twitter in 2010, Adam has built an amazing team and a global business from the ground up. ” The changes are more than just the executive churn at Twitter, which has seen plenty of departures in the past. Together, they amount to the most significant under Mr. Dorsey, who was appointed chief executive in October 2015 after an interim stint. He has been struggling to turn Twitter into a moneymaking enterprise with a growing audience, but his efforts have largely stalled and the company recently flirted with selling itself. Mr. Bain, 43, had his anniversary at Twitter in August. Over his time at the company, he helped build Twitter’s ad efforts from the ground up, and was once considered a top candidate to be chief executive before Mr. Dorsey got the job. Inside Twitter, Mr. Bain was seen as a corporate cheerleader who was known for his positivity. Last year, employees circulated a hashtag, #AdamBainIsSoNice, after an article about him appeared online in Recode. In recent quarters, the growth of Twitter’s ad business has slowed and Mr. Bain has had to grapple with a more challenging digital advertising environment. Last month, Twitter said it would slash 350 jobs, or about 9 percent of its work force, as part of an attempt to move the company more quickly toward profitability in 2017. Many of those cuts are focused on restructuring Twitter’s sales and marketing efforts, which were under Mr. Bain. Mr. Noto, 48, who joined Twitter two years ago as chief financial officer, has been amassing more responsibilities. He has been instrumental in helping to orchestrate and execute Twitter’s plan to be more of a destination for live streaming video, including striking a partnership with the National Football League to stream Thursday night games. Internally, Mr. Noto is popular, frequently appearing onstage at companywide meetings cheering on Twitter’s efforts. Mr. Bain, who is regarded as a top executive prospect and has been approached by a number of companies during his tenure at Twitter, did not disclose his plans. Current and former Twitter executives describe the relationship among Mr. Bain, Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Noto as amiable. Three people who work with Mr. Bain, and who requested anonymity because their conversations with him were private, said he would not join a major Twitter competitor like Facebook, a move that other Twitter executives have made in the past. Instead, Mr. Bain will most likely pursue something outside the advertising industry, these people said. | 1 |
Juror explanation for Ammon Bundy verdict 11/03/2016 OREGONLIVE Juror 4 has so far provided the only public explanation of the behind-the-scenes discussions that led to t ... Doug Casey: A Civil War Could Be in the Cards After the Election 11/03/2016 LEW ROCKWELL (Source: The 2nd American Civil War by Richard Hubal, via MN Artists) Nick Giambruno: The US preside ... Putin grants Steven Seagal Russian citizenship 11/03/2016 DAILY MAIL President Vladimir Putin signed off Thursday on a decree granting Russian citizenship to American action her ... AMTV Archives | 0 |
On Sunday’s New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” Democratic pollster Doug Schoen reacted to former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Although Schoen told host John Catsimatidis that does not think Comey leaking memos is illegal, he did say it “smells to high heaven. ” “It’s perfectly clear that he did leak,” Schoen stated. “I am not sure what he did was illegal, I’m not sure it was inappropriate, but from a public relations point of view, it smells to high heaven. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Talk show hosts talk. After a mass murder, the pattern goes, they take a moment to talk more seriously. They talk about grief, love and hope. And then — this being their job — they move on to talk about something else. Monday night, as shows aired their first episodes after the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. there was a recurring theme: Talk is not enough anymore. From more freewheeling cable shows to the mainstream broadcasters, the prevailing message was that hosts had been here so many times, after so many mass murders, the sad comic’s display of apolitical grief response had become shtick. “You realize that you know what to say,” Stephen Colbert said on CBS, “because it’s been said too many times before. ” Samantha Bee, the host of “Full Frontal” on TBS, said that she was too angry to deliver some “ words about how we will get through this together, how love wins, how love conquers hate. ” She continued: “Love does not win unless we start loving each other enough to fix our [expletive] problems” — starting, she argued, with restricting access to guns like the semiautomatic that Omar Mateen used to kill dozens of clubgoers. Ms. Bee’s political comedy has been blistering from the second “Full Frontal” began in February, and taking sides is her mission, much as it was on her alma mater, “The Daily Show. ” (In his own commentary on the terrorist attack, Trevor Noah declared, “America needs to make it a lot harder for people who shouldn’t have guns to get guns. ”) What was new was the quaver in Ms. Bee’s voice — the barest suggestion that it was all she could do to keep it together even as she lashed the National Rifle Association and politicians who oppose gun regulations. Ms. Bee has been a punk band of rage, sarcasm and urgency Monday’s show added an acoustic note of heartbreak. Ms. Bee’s Conan O’Brien, made a bigger departure. Never a particularly political host, he told his audience, “I have really tried very hard over the years not to bore you with what I think. ” But on this night, he said, “I simply do not understand why anybody in this country is allowed to purchase and own a semiautomatic assault rifle. ” Hosts evolve over the years — David Letterman became more political in his later seasons — and Mr. O’Brien has been at this since 1993. But he also now has the latitude afforded by a smaller cable audience. It’s questionable whether, were he still hosting “The Tonight Show,” he would have been able to speak out the same way. Compare the emotional but conventional plea for peace and understanding offered by the current host of “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon: “Maybe there’s a lesson from all this, a lesson in tolerance. We need to support each other’s differences and worry less about our own opinions. ” On CBS’s “Late Show,” Mr. Colbert’s reaction captured his delicate effort over the past year to find a middle ground between the sharp point of view of “The Colbert Report” and the more typical neutrality of late night. His monologue wasn’t as prescriptive as Ms. Bee’s or Mr. O’Brien’s, but it tiptoed up to the edge of … something. Opening behind his desk — a departure for his show — Mr. Colbert talked about love fighting despair, but with the suggestion that feeling, in itself, wasn’t enough. “Love the families and the victims and the people of Orlando, but let’s remember that love is a verb. And to love means to do something. ” Mr. Colbert was saying not that love is itself an action, but that love requires acts to mean anything. It was an idea that wouldn’t be out of place in a church group, and indeed, the former Sunday school teacher seemed to be trying to bring that experience to late night. Not to punt on the moral question or preach about it, but to think through a problem with his congregation. He continued that approach with his first guest, Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly, who had been scheduled before the attack. The conservative host was more eager to talk about the angle of the killings, whereas it became clear that for Mr. Colbert, “do something” meant, in part, getting powerful guns off the streets. Conservatives will notice, correctly, that late night was not exactly an N. R. A. zone. In his “A Closer Look” segment, Seth Meyers touted a Harvard study that linked more gun availability to more gun deaths. “Which should be obvious,” Mr. Meyers continued. “That’s like saying, where there’s more white people, there’s more brunch. ” But the “Late Show” exchange was strikingly civil. Mr. O’Reilly signaled openness to restrict some guns Mr. Colbert gently shushed his less conservative audience when it grumbled at his guest: “Listen to what he has to say, please. ” Trying to come to some mutual understanding about guns and terrorism at any time, let alone in an election year, seems quaint and quixotic. And it symbolizes the tough job Mr. Colbert has had in synthesizing the Comedy Central and CBS audiences on his new show. He might be too political for the car crowd, too accommodating for partisans who want viral clips of their enemies being “totally destroyed. ” Whether he succeeds or not, there was a growing, exhausted sense Monday that the usual approach wasn’t cutting it. As Mr. O’Brien put it: “It’s time to grow up. ” | 1 |
Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward called out the media for “binge drinking the . ” Woodward said, “Stick to the reporting. Stick to the reporting. You have done a great job. Of course, one of the realities here is that we’ve got an old newspaper war going between The New York Times and The Washington Post. Some very powerful stories. At the same time, I think it’s time to dial back a little bit about because there are people around — certainly not you, certainly not the reporters at the Post — who are kind of binge drinking the . And that is not going to work in journalism. Let the politicians have that binge drinking. ” ( Daily Caller) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
The Last City has fallen before the Cabal Empire. Gather the surviving Guardians and fight back to retake Earth in Destiny 2. [Destiny 2’s reveal trailer doesn’t tell players much more than yesterday’s teaser trailer did, but it does confirm theories that the sequel will focus on an invasion of Earth by the Cabal Empire and reveal the identity of the game’s antagonist. It also explicitly explains why Destiny players won’t be able to carry over the weapons, armor, and other items they’ve been collecting for the past three years to the next installment: it was all destroyed when the city fell. Developer Bungie promises that a first look at Destiny 2’s actual gameplay will be revealed during a livestream on May 18. the game will also allow players access to a beta test “this summer. ” While this may not mean much to gamers who have grown wary of the page to do so reveals one more crucial bit of information: Destiny 2 will be coming to PC, not just Xbox One and Playstation 4. Activision confirmed the news of the franchise finally coming to PC in a statement accompanying the game’s announcement: “Destiny was the biggest launch of a new console video game franchise ever. Along with our incredibly talented partners at Bungie, we are focusing on making Destiny 2 even better, with state of the art action, an awesome new story, great characters, and thoughtful innovations that make the game more accessible to all different kinds of players,” said Activision CEO, Eric Hirshberg. “We’re also bringing Destiny 2 to the PC platform for the first time. Destiny 2 will make an already great game franchise better than ever. ” Destiny 2 launches September 8 on Xbox One, PS4, and PC. | 1 |
A large chunk of Saturday Night Live’s audience says they are tired of the punchlines aimed at President Donald Trump and his administration. [A poll conducted by Morning Consult reveals that more SNL viewers want the NBC show to move on from lampooning Trump than want the sketch comedy show to keep “ribbing” the president. While 33 percent of respondents say they “would like to see more” Trump skits on SNL, 19 percent say they “enjoyed” the jokes but “would like SNL to focus on something else. ” Another 16 percent say they have “not enjoyed the impersonations of the members of President Trump’s administration. ” Perhaps oddly, 31 percent of respondents did not have an opinion. In total, 35 percent of SNL viewers want to see new skits compared to the 33 percent who want more. The disparity is within the survey’s two percentage point margin of error. Ironically, Donald Trump’s political rise coincided with a surge in SNL’s ratings. After slumping in late November, the sketch comedy show’s ratings spiked in February to its highest level in six years. The rise in ratings came thanks to Melissa McCarthy’s impersonation as White House press secretary Sean Spicer, and Alec Baldwin’s record 17th outing as host. Baldwin first debuted his Trump impression during the 42nd season premiere of SNL and has continued to appear on the show to skewer the president. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
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