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David Duke Exults: This is the day we begin to take America Back! We are Confident but whatever the outcome tonight, Our people are awakened! November 8, 2016 at 11:10 am
David Duke Exults: This is the day we begin to take America Back! We are Confident but whatever the outcome tonight, Our people are awakened!
Today Dr. Duke expressed his confidence that he and Donald Trump were headed to electoral success, but that no matter what the outcome the people have been awakened and that we are now in a position to take back our society. Dr. Slattery then pointed out the monumental effort made by Dr. Duke and the enormous sacrifices he has made and the real physical risks he has endured in order to give us a voice, and offered his heartfelt thanks.
They then when on to discuss the possibilities that could emerge from today’s vote. While Hillary has been rattling the sabres for a war with Russia, the mass awakening that is occurring would hopefully lead those needed in the military to make a war happen to reject orders which could destroy civilization.
This is a historic show for a historic day. Now go out there and vote for Trump and Duke!
Our show is aired live at 11 am replayed at ET 4pm Eastern and 4am Eastern.
Click on Image to Donate!
And please spread this message to others. | 0 |
Carl Paladino, a western New York builder, Republican candidate for governor of New York and political ally of Donald J. Trump, came under fire on Friday for racially offensive comments about President Obama and the first lady, who Mr. Paladino said should be “let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe. ” Mr. Paladino’s comments were published in Artvoice, a weekly Buffalo newspaper. They came in response to an feature in which local figures were asked about their hopes for 2017. “Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford,” said Mr. Paladino, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010, making an apparent reference to the Hereford cattle breed. He said he hoped the disease killed the president. Asked what he most wanted to see “go away” in the new year, Mr. Paladino — who has a reputation in New York political and business circles for speaking in an unfiltered manner reminiscent of Mr. Trump’s — answered, “Michelle Obama. ” “I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said. Condemnation of the remarks was swift on social media and among elected officials around the state. The local county executive called for Mr. Paladino to immediately resign his post on the Buffalo school board. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who defeated Mr. Paladino in 2010, called the comments “racist, ugly and reprehensible. ” He said in a statement that Mr. Paladino had a “long history” of making similar comments and that he had “embarrassed the good people of the state with his latest rage. ” Mr. Trump did not personally step to the defense of Mr. Paladino, who served as a New York of the ’s campaign and describes himself as a personal friend of Mr. Trump’s. “Carl’s comments are absolutely reprehensible, and they serve no place in our public discourse,” Jessica Ditto, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said. Mr. Paladino conducted several media interviews, framing his comments about the Obamas as “ humor” in an interview with a Buffalo television news station and as an effort to draw attention to the president’s “transgressions” in a telephone interview with The New York Times. “I did it to wake people up I did it to get people’s attention,” he said in the telephone interview. He pointed to a statement, published after the comments were made, in which he outlined his grievances with the Obama administration. “He couldn’t care less about the people,” he said of the president in the statement. In an interview with The Buffalo News, he berated editors there for focusing on what he had said. “Tell that Rod Watson I made that comment just for him,” Mr. Paladino told the newspaper, in what the paper said was a reference to an editor and columnist for The News who is black. Mr. Paladino, in the interview with The Times, said he was “not politically correct,” though he disputed the notion that his comments were racist. Asked why he wanted to see the first lady live with a gorilla in Africa, he paused for a long time, then said: “What’s wrong with that?” An email and phone call to Artvoice were not immediately returned. Mr. Paladino was not the only respondent to the Buffalo paper’s survey to infuse their hopes for the coming year with politics, though most kept clearer of controversy, offering wishes for world peace and for the disappearance of such things as high taxes and State Route 198. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — President Trump sought to turn attention away from the Russia investigation on Monday, saying that “the real story” was what he called a “crooked scheme against us” by President Barack Obama’s team to mine American intelligence reports for information about him during last year’s presidential campaign. The president’s broadside against his predecessor coincided with a string of reports in conservative news media outlets that Susan E. Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, requested the identities of Americans who were cited in intelligence reports about surveillance of foreign officials, and who were connected with Mr. Trump’s campaign or transition. Former national security officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the requests as normal and said they were justified by the need for the president’s top security adviser to understand the context of reports sent to her by the nation’s intelligence agencies. The process of “unmasking” Americans whose names are redacted in intelligence reports, they said, is not the same thing as leaking them publicly. But Mr. Trump and his allies seized on the news media reports to bolster his case that he was targeted by the departing administration for political reasons. As the F. B. I. and congressional committees investigate contacts that associates of Mr. Trump had with Russian officials and business figures, the president argued that he was the victim of dirty tricks and that, if anything, it was associates of his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton, who were doing the bidding of Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. “Such amazing reporting on unmasking and the crooked scheme against us by @foxandfriends,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter early Monday morning in the opening burst of four messages aimed at Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats. “‘Spied on before nomination.’ The real story. ” In another post on Twitter later in the morning, he added: “@FoxNews from multiple sources: ‘There was electronic surveillance of Trump, and people close to Trump. This is unprecedented.’ @FBI” At his daily briefing later in the day, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said he would not discuss the reports about Ms. Rice specifically. “There’s a troubling direction that some of this is going in, but we’re going to let this review go on before we jump to it,” he said. He chided reporters for showing more interest in the investigation into contacts between Mr. Trump’s team and Russia than in the conduct of Mr. Obama’s White House. Mr. Trump first accused Mr. Obama a month ago of tapping his phones at Trump Tower during the campaign last year. He has refused to back down, even though Mr. Obama and his top aides have adamantly denied it. The F. B. I. director and the former director of national intelligence have said the phone tapping charge is not true, and congressional leaders of both parties have said they have seen no evidence of it. In an interview broadcast on BBC on Monday evening, John O. Brennan, the C. I. A. director under Mr. Obama, chided Mr. Trump for making an unsubstantiated allegation against the former president. Mr. Trump, he said, has “a solemn obligation” to provide information “that is accurate, that is measured and that is not just a spontaneous or impulsive number of words. ” While other officials have said there is no convincing evidence so far of collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russian officials who meddled in last year’s election, Mr. Brennan said that “it would be premature at this time to make any determination, or rule anything out. ” At the same time, he agreed with Mr. Trump about the seriousness of leaks to the news media in recent weeks. “These leaks are appalling,” he said. “They need to stop. ” In trying to combat what Mr. Trump’s aides see as a concerted campaign of leaks to undermine his legitimacy, the White House last month provided intelligence to Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, showing that the president or his associates may have been “incidentally” swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies last year. Since Mr. Nunes made that public, Mr. Trump’s team has focused on whether Mr. Obama’s White House improperly used that information. Republicans pointed to the reports about Ms. Rice on Monday. “Smoking gun found!” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, wrote on Twitter. “Obama pal and noted dissembler Susan Rice said to have been spying on Trump campaign. ” Intelligence officials are supposed to guard the privacy of Americans caught up in routine eavesdropping of foreign officials. In daily intelligence reports to officials like Ms. Rice, they typically refer to Americans who came up in recorded conversations as U. S. Person One or U. S. Person Two. But officials, as Ms. Rice was, can ask intelligence briefers to provide names to better understand the meaning of the report. It remains unclear how many names were unmasked by Ms. Rice. But several former officials said she did so for legitimate reasons: The Obama White House was concerned during the election about continuing attempts by the Russian government to hack Democratic email accounts and interfere in the campaign. Ms. Rice, they said, needed to understand if Americans were involved in that. They also said Mr. Obama’s advisers worried during the transition — as he imposed sanctions on Russia for its election meddling — that the Trump transition team was trying to undermine American policy before coming to office. The content of the intelligence reports at issue remains unclear. Some officials have said the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Mr. Trump’s family and inner circle before his inauguration. The former national security officials’ description of the intelligence is in line with Mr. Nunes’s characterization of the material, which he said was not related to the Russia investigations when he disclosed its existence. The White House and Mr. Nunes have not made clear whether they are concerned that actual names had been unmasked in reports, or whether one could tell who the person being discussed was from their context. But at least one name is known to have been unmasked: Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. He was selected for that post during American surveillance of Russia’s ambassador in December, when the two talked about the sanctions Mr. Obama had just imposed on Moscow. Mr. Flynn was forced out in February after it emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of the calls. But Mr. Trump and other White House officials have suggested that the real problem in the Flynn case involved the leaks about his calls with the Russian envoy, not the content of the calls themselves — or what Mr. Flynn did or did not tell colleagues about his communications. Intelligence agencies are permitted to record calls even if they involve Americans, and any American citizen who talks with, messages or emails a foreign official under surveillance would be picked up by intelligence agencies. During the transition, this would have included Trump associates and even Obama administration officials. | 1 |
Seattle Seahawks assistant head coach for defense Rocky Seto has decided to leave the NFL for a “higher calling. ”[The Seattle Times reports that Seto will leave the Seahawks and enter the ministry. Sources made it clear that Seto has always wanted to become a minister. Seto has a long history with Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. The two have coached together since 2001, when Carroll first took over at USC. According to the Sporting News, “Seto’s role the past two seasons was to help defensive coordinator Kris Richard with devising weekly game plans. Seto was promoted into that position after coordinator Dan Quinn left to become the head coach of the Falcons. “Working primarily with the defensive backs since coming to Seattle with Carroll in 2010, Seto received “significant credit” for helping groom the Seahawks’ “Legion of Boom” secondary, the Times noted. ” It really says a lot about Seto’s dedication to faith, that he would leave a profession like NFL coaching. Either way, looks like Sunday will remain a workday for Seto. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
What If Consciousness Is a State of Matter, Just Like a Solid, a Liquid or a Gas? Nov 5, 2016 0 0
As a young child, I would randomly pause in my daily activities to thumb through my perception of the world. Not only could I think about things, I could reason, decide and analyze things. Events in life left me with feelings of confusion, which caused me to dig further into the meaning of what I had witnessed.
All this sounds pretty normal and obvious, right? Well, to a child, realizing the existence of the conscious is a major thing. A child comes to the conclusion that they are an intelligent being living inside a meat shell. While thinking on this over and over, it becomes disturbing, so the child devises a way to understand what this means.
I guess this is the best way I can explain it, but basically, I want to know what the conscious is . Could our conscious be more than a set of thoughts? Could this part of our psyche be a completely separate form of existence? The conscious, a state of matter?
Another way to understand the conscious is by seeing it as the part of us that gives individuality , it separates us from other beings and gives us a sense of self.
All these explanations are interesting, but they still don’t tell us what the conscious really is. Neuroscientists like Max Tegmark of MIT believe the conscious is a state of matter. Could this be? What’s the matter?
Matter doesn’t necessarily mean liquid or sloshing substances. Matter, in this case, probably means mathematical conditions with varying degrees of consciousness.
As water, ice and vapor need conditions to exist, so does our conscious. After all, if the conscious is indeed a state of matter, it helps us understand why the world works in the way it does. It’s hard to understand the conscious, but it helps to see this being as the tool that gives us the ability to reason, process and retrieve information – this is how the brain is compared to a computer. A fact that we know about the conscious is that it cannot be broken down into smaller parts , unlike the computer. But like the computer, being pushed by artificial intelligence , the conscious can work independently from its neighboring processes. Perceptronium
Conscious as a state of matter is called perceptronium. It is seen as what gives us the ability to be self-aware . Our awareness is worked out exclusively within, offering no outside influence, at times. Perceptronium also has the ability to see parts as a whole as well as independent objects or entities. We take this ability for granted, but with a little work of our conscious, we can understand the mechanics of our own thought processes.
Tegmark said ,
“The problem is why we perceive the universe as the semi-classical three-dimensional world that is so familiar. When we look at a glass of iced water, we perceive the liquid and the solid ice cubes as independent things even though they are intimately linked as part of the same system.”
Quantum mechanics reminds us that the world we live in is just one of many possible planes of existence . Tegmark cannot explain why this is so but suggests that there is an incredibly close relationship between the conscious and other states of matter.
Could what we know, reveal the meaning of everything we already know? Could our sole purpose for living simply be the realization of self?
As a matter of fact, it really could be that simple. Vote Up Anna LeMind Anna is the owner and lead editor of the websites Learning-mind.com and Lifeadvancer.com , and staff writer for The Mind Unleashed . She is passionate about learning new things and reflecting on thought-provoking ideas. She writes about technology, science, psychology and other related topics. She is particularly interested in topics regarding introversion, consciousness and subconscious, perception, human mind's potential, as well as the nature of reality and the universe. | 0 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — A prison riot involving gangs vying for supremacy over the cocaine trade in the Brazilian Amazon left at least 56 people dead, the authorities in the city of Manaus said on Monday. Riots at Brazil’s prisons are common, but the episode in Manaus, which involved decapitated bodies being thrown over the walls of the penitentiary, ranks among the bloodiest in recent decades. Officials expressed dismay over the scenes of slaughter in the Compaj prison, which held more than 1, 200 inmates, about triple its official capacity. “I never saw anything like this in my life,” Judge Luís Carlos Valois, who helped negotiate an end to the riot, said in a Facebook post. He said that dozens of people had been killed, but that it was challenging to arrive at a precise count: “There were lots of bodies. Many of them were dismembered. ” The riot flared on Sunday and lasted about 17 hours, raising fears of even greater violence on the streets of Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon basin with a population of about 2. 1 million. Manaus has emerged as a brutal battleground between two prison gangs that are contesting control of the drug trade in the region. The authorities said that one of the gangs, Familia do Norte (Family of the North) which operates from the Manaus prisons, was responsible for the vast majority of the killings during the riot. The targets were from First Capital Command, a much larger rival gang commonly known by its Portuguese initials, P. C. C. which has its roots in the prisons of São Paulo in southeast Brazil. “There were deaths only on one side,” Sérgio Fontes, the top security official in Amazonas State, told reporters. “The Familia do Norte massacred members of the First Capital Command, and one or another guys who weren’t on their good side at the moment. ” The riot drew comparisons with the 1992 uprising at the Carandiru prison in São Paulo, when police forces stormed the building and 111 inmates were killed. An appeals court recently voided the convictions of 73 police officers for their participation in the killings, raising criticism from human rights groups. Since that episode, the Brazilian authorities have vowed to alleviate overcrowding in the country’s prisons and combat prison gangs. But soaring numbers of convictions for relatively minor drug offenses have pushed prison populations upward, the gangs’ clout is growing, and riots continue to erupt frequently all over the country. In the riot in Manaus, inmates took dozens of fellow prisoners hostage. They also seized 12 employees of Umanizzare, a private contractor that operates prisons in the Amazon. Negotiators eventually won the release of the hostages by assuring the inmates that they would not be harmed or transferred to other prisons. Security specialists say that Brazil could experience more riots like the one in Manaus as P. C. C. the São Paulo gang, extends its reach around the country. Familia do Norte, the Manaus gang, recently formed an alliance with Red Command, a gang that has been losing ground to P. C. C. in parts of Rio de Janeiro. | 1 |
You are here: Home / *Articles of the Bound* / Media Dig the Grave for Self-Government Media Dig the Grave for Self-Government November 9, 2016, 9:06 am by Cliff Kincaid Leave a Comment 0
By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
At this time in history, organizations like Accuracy in Media are needed more than ever. The bias in the media has been exposed as a poison that undermines the public’s right to know and threatens the future of democratic self-government.
Our duty is to tell the American people what has happened to their once-great country.
In his letter to Donald J. Trump, New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said, “Congratulations on a tremendous campaign. You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media and have come out beautifully.”
Belichick is not alone. Poll after poll has confirmed that the American people understand and recognize the problem of liberal media bias. In fact, the bias is just one aspect of the corruption that surrounds us and infects the government.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 55 percent of voters told pollsters that Trump was right when he charged the media were biased against him. An Associated Press-GfK poll found that “Overall, 56 percent of likely voters say the media is biased against Trump…”
One cannot say with certainty that the media bias in the 2016 campaign was worse than, say, the elections of 2008 or 2012. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton enjoyed extraordinary media bias in their favor. One difference this time around is that the media bias has been extremely well-documented by the emails released from the account of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. We have seen the evidence of how the collusion and collaboration occur. The evidence shows that “journalists” work secretly with one major political party, the Democrats, against conservatives and Republicans.
Needless to say, all of this is a blatant violation of the ethical standards that journalists profess to uphold.
The preamble of the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists says they “believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.”
Instead, they have compromised their integrity in order to elect a woman whose record as a security risk should make her ineligible to seek the presidency.
But it’s worse than being unethical.
We see in one of the emails that Washington Post “journalist” Dana Milbank was in touch with the Democrats about crafting one of his anti-Trump columns.
This email proves that Milbank has been functioning as an operative of the Democratic Party. Of course, those of us who have watched his appearances at conservative events over the years had suspected what was going on. Now we have the proof of the actual collaboration. The email portrays help for Milbank as a “research request” from the columnist.
In other words, he couldn’t even write his own columns. He was lazy and liberal.
What this suggests is that Milbank’s function was to write (or put his name on) certain articles in order to divert attention away from scandals involving Democrats. In the latest case , in order to justify a Post black-out of Danney Williams’ charges that he was Bill Clinton’s black son, Milbank would cover his news conference and make fun of the event.
Such an attack serves two purposes. One, it justifies the Post’s decision not to cover the event as a legitimate news story. Second, it scares others away from covering it. How many conservatives in the media shied away from the story?
In his landmark book, The Corrupt Society , Robert Payne wrote, “There are many weapons that can be used to prevent the corruption of societies. The most powerful of these weapons are vigilance and knowledge. Hence the importance of the press, radio, and television to break through all imposed restrictions to discover how the government works, how it arrives at its decisions, how it manages its defenses, how it deals with traitors, especially the traitors in its midst.”
Payne dedicated his book to Richard Nixon. That was a joke, of course, because Payne found Nixon and his administration to be utterly corrupt. Nixon was forced from office for covering up a burglary into the offices of the opposition political party, the Democrats. Stories in The Washington Post sparked his resignation in the Watergate scandal. Victor Lasky’s book, It Didn’t Start With Watergate , proved that Democrats had done similar things.
In 2016, the Democrats nominated a candidate whose corruption made Nixon look like a choir boy. Nixon was ruthless, but he was determined to promote American interests in the world. He was critical in exposing State Department official Alger Hiss as a Soviet spy.
By contrast, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is one of those “traitors” Payne had warned about. Her illegal private server, full of classified information, was open to hacking by foreign governments. Her top aide, Huma Abedin, arranged for some of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to be stored on a computer shared with her pervert husband. The Clinton Foundation laundered money to her husband on behalf of foreign governments seeking favors from the State Department. And the FBI, at this late date, refuses to hold any of them responsible for undermining the security of our nation.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post facilitates this corruption in government by failing to expose it. And one Post “journalist” has been exposed as a lazy liberal pawn of those who were in charge of getting Mrs. Clinton into the White House.
The Christian existentialist philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote about the corruption in the church and how church and state had become one. In his critique of the Danish State Church, he said everyone knew privately that the system was rotten and corrupt but they would not say so publicly. “Just as one says that death has marked a man, so we recognize the symptoms which demand to be attacked. It is a battle against lies,” he said.
The problem we face today is not just media bias, but corruption in government and the media that runs so deep that it is uncomfortable for some to even talk about it publicly. Cliff Kincaid
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . 0 | 0 |
IRAQI Christians will pray for Donald Trump’s election victory after they condemned US Government for “abandoning” them to the barbaric terror of Islamic State.
The Christian community in the latest Iraqi town to be freed from ISIS have opened up about how they were terrorised at the hands of the twisted jihadi militants.
The once-bustling Qaraqosh, which boasted of more than 50,000 Christian residents, was recaptured from the jihadis last week.
Residents who stayed in the town have described how ISIS told every Christian to pay a massive tax, convert to Islam or face execution.
Those who survived the terror have now voiced their outrage that President Obama refused to protect them when Iraq’s largest Christian city fell to ISIS more than two years ago.
A man in the village said he hopes Donald Trump – a widely favoured candidate in the town – will bring a different approach to Iraqi Christians.
He told the camera: “Obama has never helped the Christians. In fact, he despises them. In the last 26 months, he has shown he despises all of them.
“But we have hope in the new president, Trump.”
Donald Trump has previously spoken up about how Christians have been left to fend for themselves by the US government.
A Catholic priest in the town said: “The US government led by President Obama could have protected us – or at least helped us to protect ourselves.
“But unfortunately Obama abandoned us, and chose not to get involved.”
A young girl wearing a crucifix then added: “We hope this new guy called Trump will help us more than Obama did.”
Last Sunday, Father Ammar took mass in a shelled-out Church of the Immaculate Conception for the first time in two years.
He said: “Yes, they destroyed and burned some houses and churches, but we can rebuild them.
“After being away for exactly 811 days, after being attacked by the forces of evil, we have come back to worship in freedom.
“What counts is that we can pray here again”
The church, still largely in rubble from the chaotic war, is Iraq’s largest and used to regularly host more than 3,000 people a week to its Sunday mass
The liberation comes as Kurdish-led forces fight to free both of ISIS’ largest remaining strongholds – Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.
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Rep. Rod Blum ( ) ended an interview with a reporter on Monday in which he was questioned about requiring identification for people taking part in his town hall meetings. activists across the country have systematically disrupted these events — sometimes people who are not constituents. [Josh Scheinblum, a reporter with the TV9 in Cedar Rapids, asked Blum “why the decision was made” to require identification. “Because we want people from the first district to be at our town halls,” Blum said. “We don’t want people from outside of the first district. ” “We don’t need people from Chicago there or Des Moines there or Minneapolis there,” Blum said. “I don’t represent them. “They should go talk to their representatives at their town hall meetings,” Blum said. “I don’t know why they would want to be at my town hall meetings to start with. ” Instead of moving on to issues that face Iowans in Blum’s first district, the reporter said the Congressman “represents all Iowans” and shouldn’t they have a “voice at the table?” After Blum explained that, like voting, people should participate in town halls based on where they live, the reporter asked him if he would take a donation from a Republican in Iowa City, which is not in Blum’s district. At that point, Blum ended the interview, calling the questions “ridiculous” and saying that the he wouldn’t stand by and let the reporter “badger” him. As Blum left the room, children who accompanied him seemed to punctuate his departure with funny moves as the reporter tried to continue the interview. “Let’s talk about the issues here,” the reporter said to the empty chair. | 1 |
Turkish Government Arrests Opposition Parliament Members in Further Descent Into Dictatorship Posted on Nov 4, 2016
By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
The Turkish government has detained 11 members of parliament from the leftist, feminist and pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), including the party’s co-chairs. This step is intended to give Erdogan the majority in parliament he needs to make himself president for life, and to give Turkey (currently a parliamentary government) an imperial presidency on the Egyptian model. The pretext was that these MPs declined to testify in a witch-hunt inquiry. I.e., this is precisely McCarthyism.
Since the failed July 15 coup, the Turkish government of President Tayyip Erdogan has fired 110,000 people–10,000 of them just last weekend– from the police, judiciary and other government offices. He has had 12,000 professors fired. Some 15 private universities have been summarily shut down on the grounds that they have some Gulen link. If all of them were involved in the coup, that action might be understandable. But manifestly, all were not. It is true that the rightwing religious Gulen cult has seeded covert agents throughout the Turkish government and business sector. But surely there are hundreds of them, not 110,000. Among the authoritarian steps he has taken is the lifting of parliamentary immunity, setting the stage or his current coup d’etat.
Erdogan has also closed down 45 newspapers , 16 television channels and all told, 130 media organizations. Some were accused of having Gulen tendencies. Others are pro-Kurdish. Still others are secular. Many are just sometimes critical of Erdogan, which apparently is no longer going to be allowed.
In modern democratic law, you can’t fire or arrest someone for thought crimes. The arrestees need to have actually done something wrong. Erdogan is trying to criminalize entire groups, and suspiciously enough the only group left that is not taboo is followers of Erdogan–i.e. right of center, at least somewhat religious Sunni Muslim Turks, who make up about 40 percent of the population. Secularists are likely at least 25%, Kurds are 20% and Alevi Shiites are 20 percent (many Alevis are also secularists, and some religious Kurds vote for Erdogan, so you can’t just add these groups up–they overlap). So Erdogan is engineering a dictatorship on behalf of a minority.
Erdogan moreover isn’t understanding when the rest of the world won’t arrest people for thought crimes. He had demanded that PKK members and Gulenists be extradited from Germany, but the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel declined. Erdogan then went on a rant accusing Germany of giving material aid to terrorism. I mean, this behavior is unhinged.
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Erdogan now has three big domestic political struggles going on: 1) against the old secular Kemalist movement, now a shadow of its former self with only a quarter of the seats in parliament; 2) against all the major Kurdish political groupings; and 3) against the rival “Gulen” Muslim fundamentalist movement.
Saturday’s arrests targeted the moderate pro-Kurdish HDP, which has stood for feminism, gay rights, and a multi-cultural Turkey with a place for both Kurds and Turks (hence it is the Democratic Peoples’ Party, with peoples in the plural).
In June of 2015, the HDP won 13% of seats in parliament and left the ruling AKP or Justice and Development Party, Erdogan’s party, with only about 40 percent. This development threw a spanner in the works as far as Erdogan’s aspirations to become a powerful president for life went. He needed an absolute majority for his party in parliament. Whether he deliberately engineered a renewal of the war with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that in the past has been radical and separatist but that had said it was moderating, is a matter of dispute. What is clear is that the polarization resulting from new hostilities hurt the HDP. Erdogan’s party refused to make a coalition with any of the other three major parties, causing snap elections. On Nov. 1, 2015, the AKP got a little over 50% of seats in parliament and the HDP shrank to only 10%. That outcome allowed Erdogan’s AKP to form a government without a coalition partner, but did not allow it to amend the constitution by fiat.
If the HDP members of parliament are permanently removed, perhaps even jailed, then Erdogan may argue that he has a majority of the remaining MPs and can move forward with his coronation as dictator in chief.
Unfortunately for Turkey, Erdogan’s erratic behavior is likely to tank the economy. The tourism sector has collapsed. Foreign Direct Investment depends on confidence, which is slipping away.
Every new assault that Erdogan launches on democracy in Turkey has brought queries as to whether Turkish democracy is now definitively dead. The answer each time is yes. TAGS: | 0 |
TULUM, Mexico — By the time Renaud Jacquet arrived at his compound of rental beach villas, invaders were crawling all over the place. They were storming through the buildings, emptying out rooms and dumping furnishings and supplies in piles outside. One of the men was wandering around clutching a bottle of Mr. Jacquet’s wine. Similar scenes unfolded up and down the coveted stretch of Caribbean coastline in Tulum, Mexico, in June. Hundreds of men working for a security firm — carrying sticks, metal pipes and machetes, witnesses said — raided 17 properties, including hotels, private homes, boutiques and a beach club. They evicted everyone on the premises, including tourists, some of whom had been roused from their sleep. “It was like the mob,” Mr. Jacquet recalled. “It’s the French Revolution!” Yet the takeovers, which seemed to catch the property owners by surprise, were apparently legal, authorized by a judge’s order. Several police officers stood by and watched they were there only, it seemed, to protect the court officers who had delivered the bad news. The evictions were the most recent, and by far the largest, in a series of expropriations that have shaken this tourist town and stained its image as a retreat that has become wildly popular among tourists, particularly those from the United States and Western Europe. Some here, including many of the business owners directly affected by the property seizures, say the evictions and their bitter fallout have exposed an ominous truth about Tulum: that this seemingly Edenic stretch of coastline on the Yucatán Peninsula is hardly immune to the kind of troubles bedeviling the rest of Mexico. Corruption, inconsistent government regulation and an opaque legal system, these residents argue, are threatening to ruin a Mexican paradise. At the heart of the dispute are competing land claims that go back decades. Business owners who have been evicted say they are being robbed of their beachfront property through an elaborate system of fraud involving forged land deeds, fake contracts and violations of due process, facilitated by corrupt government officials and judges. The paucity of public records, the business owners say, has made defending their property claims even more difficult. “American tourists need to really know what’s going on down here,” said Ken Wolf, an American entrepreneur who lost his hotel in Tulum in a similar raid several years ago. “There’s no rule of law. ” When Mr. Jacquet, who is French, bought his first parcel of land here in 2004, along beachfront known as Punta Piedra, he was vaguely aware that his ownership might not be airtight. “It was amazing to find a place like that: so undeveloped, so close to New York,” Mr. Jacquet, 52, said in a recent interview he was wearing a and pink cotton pants styled after pajama bottoms. He and his wife had been considering buying an apartment in New York, but decided to instead build a house on the beach. “It was a ” he said. In the early 2000s, Tulum’s beachfront was largely undeveloped, with no public utilities and no cellphone service, but it drew entrepreneurs and rewarded their spontaneity. Simple hotels — some inspired by the palapas, the traditional huts fashioned out of tree limbs and palm thatch — started emerging from the dunes. Boutiques and restaurants opened. The vibe was relaxed, carefree and fun. “It was primitive luxury,” said Nicolás Malleville, an Argentine model who in 2003 opened Coqui Coqui, a hotel that became a favored destination for the fashion world and was seized in the June raids. “We got to play Robinson Crusoe. ” There was also a loose adherence to the rules, which at the time worked in the favor of the pioneers. New homes and hotels were often going up without all of the necessary government permits. And when permission was secured, it was sometimes through bribes. “Today, if the federal government comes with the law in hand and analyzes the ecological situation, I don’t think anybody would remain,” said Matías González, one of Mr. Malleville’s business partners. Tulum was able to maintain its iconoclastic sensibility partly because of the legal uncertainties surrounding land ownership, which kept the big hotel chains at bay. When he bought his first parcel of land, Mr. Jacquet’s understanding was that it had been part of a tract that had been set aside in the early 1970s for members of a farming collective, or ejido, as part of a government effort to formalize property rights for landless farmers and encourage settlement in underpopulated areas. Yet he soon learned that a family from the distant northern state of Nuevo León claimed to have a title to part of the ejido land, a conflict that had percolated for years. Mr. Jacquet did not let it deter him. “I looked at everyone else, and we weren’t worried because nobody had lost their land,” he said. By the late 2000s, though, Tulum had taken off as a vacation destination. Room rates soared, making beachfront properties more attractive as takeover targets. One of the first significant warning signs for business owners came on Nov. 30, 2009. That morning, two dozen police officers and a judge descended on Ocho Tulum, a hotel belonging to Mr. Wolf, the American entrepreneur. It sat on beachfront land that he had rented since 2005 under a lease. In 2006, before he started building, he had learned there was a competing claim to part of the land, but decided to move ahead with the project. “I heard that it would probably not amount to anything,” he said. “I never thought that I was at risk of losing it. ” He challenged his loss in court, but was defeated after years of litigation. The seizure of Mr. Wolf’s property stunned Tulum, but people kept building and the tourists kept coming. For Mr. Jacquet, fear lurked in the back of his mind. “It’s like crossing from France to England swimming and you’re halfway across and you think: Maybe you shouldn’t have gone there. But what are you going to do? You’re going to go back? You keep swimming!” The evictions continued. There were some in 2011, and another round in 2013. In May 2014, four more hotels were seized on a judge’s order in a labor case. Two men had sued the estate of a former landowner, claiming they were owed millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and a judge awarded them the four properties as payment. The Tulum Hotel Association found no record of the two men having worked in Tulum. Furthermore, the hotel owners said they had never been notified that their properties were the subject of legal action. At that point, Mr. Jacquet said, “I knew anything was possible. ” Shaken by the evictions, many business owners began negotiating with the Nuevo León families to buy off their titles. (The current asking price is around $1, 000 per square meter, business operators said.) As in the previous rounds of evictions, the sweep in June appeared to catch the targets by surprise. And as in 2014, a court ruling — in a case that the evicted parties said they had no knowledge of — prompted the property seizures. Last month, the embassies of four European nations — France, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal — sent a joint letter to the Mexico foreign secretary expressing their “great concern” about the evictions and asking the authorities to conduct “a deep and serious investigation. ” (A spokesman for Gov. Roberto Borge of Quintana Roo, the state where Tulum is, did not respond to requests for comment.) Mario Cruz Rodríguez, the director general of tourism for Tulum, said the legal challenges had accelerated in recent years because Tulum is “a jewel — it’s a gold mine. ” The 17 properties seized in June are now guarded by the same group of men who participated in the evictions, some of whom are armed with machetes. Business signs have been torn down, gates padlocked, entrances walled off with cinder blocks. On a recent afternoon, Mr. Jacquet strolled down the beachfront and stopped in front of his property. “This is all us,” he said, gesturing beyond the dune vegetation and palms to the cluster of villas that he and his wife had built. Suddenly, a man in a and shorts emerged from the shade of a tree on the property, mumbling into a . Other men began streaming out of several of the shuttered properties. One was carrying a large branch. Young couples strolling along the beach in bathing suits slalomed through the swarm of tense men, looking perplexed. Mr. Jacquet was encircled and pelted with questions: Who are you? What are you doing here? That night, rumors swirled of a plot among aggrieved Tulum residents to start a counterinvasion and drive out the guards. There was talk of a paramilitary force of 300 to 400 people. The following day, protesters blocked two critical Tulum roads for more than an hour, paralyzing traffic, including the road along the beachfront. They carried fluorescent poster boards with handwritten messages denouncing the evictions and government corruption. At one point, a group of men dropped from a truck and hopped over the fence of one of the properties. Witnesses said they heard sounds that suggested clashing machetes and perhaps gunshots. The attackers were repelled, jumped back over the fence, climbed into their truck and took off. Soon after, the pickets dissipated and, as evening fell, the usual, lazy rhythms of beach life resumed, as if nothing had happened. | 1 |
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21st Century Wire says…
This should be the biggest revelation yet from WikiLeaks already epic email trove. Will the US media cover this story?
Last night, in an RT Exclusive interview conducted by award-winning filmmaker John Pilger, WikiLeaks editor and founder Julian Assange described what he believes is “the most significant email in the whole collection.”
WikiLeaks reveals an early 2014 email where the outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was urging John Podesta , then advisor to President Barack Obama, to “bring pressure” on Gulf states Saudi Arabia and Qatar, “which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [Islamic State, IS, ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups.”
This constitutes proof that the Clinton Foundation knowingly accepting millions of dollars in ‘charitable’ donations from the same Gulf states which both Secretary Clinton and President Obama knew were funding ISIS, Al Nusra Front (al Qaeda in Syria) and known takfiri terrorist fighting organizations.
In addition, the Clinton’s Foundation took money from a number of other gulf monarchies:
(Infographic: Conservative Post )
This latest news validates what 21WIRE has been saying since the ‘ISIS crisis’ began in June 2014.
According to FOX News , FBI sources have said that ‘indictments are likely’ for the Clinton Foundation investigation. One only wonders how this latest Assange revelation will factor into the wider investigation – as it goes right to the heart of the national security and foreign policy – two things which Clinton trades heavily on in her campaigning.
Assange went on to explain the deep ramifications of this latest criminal allegation against Clinton and her family foundation:
“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”
During their 25-minute interview filmed at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange and Pilger discussed the obvious conflict of interest between Clinton as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation and Gulf monarchies who financed them. The following is an excerpt from the interview transcript:
John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.
JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
JA: Yes.
Watch a brief preview of the interview here:
The interview will air in full on RT International this Saturday Nov 5th.
READ MORE CLINTON NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Clinton Files
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At least 22 prisoners from the 18th Street Gang — otherwise known as Barrio 18 — escaped a prison in Honduras. [Prison officials at the Marco Aurelio Soto prison were not exactly sure when the escape happened, but believed it to be sometime during the week of May 8, TeleSUR reported. “Prisoners were locked up in the special ‘Scorpion’ unit for members of the notorious Barrio 18 gang, one of the strongest organized crime groups in Central America,” TeleSUR noted. Officials did not realize that the prisoners had escaped until days later when custodians noticed they were gone. Rosa Gudiel, the head of the National Penitentiary Institute, said in a news conference that the escape happened because the prisoners wanted to avoid going to a new facility. “The prisoners fled because arrangements are being made to transfer them to new, jails and they don’t want to go to those places,” Gudiel said. Due to previous prison breaks, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez ordered the military to guard the country’s largest prisons. Marco Aurelio Soto prison, located just north of Honduras’ capital city of Tegucigalpa, is reportedly the country’s most prison with 17, 000 inmates occupying a space designed to house 8, 000. Prison officials keep Barrio 18 gang members in special facilities that are equipped to handle violence and criminal activities common among prison gangs. Ryan Saavedra is a contributor for Breitbart Texas and can be found on Twitter at @RealSaavedra. | 1 |
NEAR CANNON BALL, N. D. — Verna Bailey stared into the silvery ripples of a lake, looking for the spot where she had been born. “Out there,” she said, pointing to the water. “I lived down there with my grandmother and grandfather. We had a community there. Now it’s all gone. ” Fifty years ago, hers was one of hundreds of Native American families whose homes and land were inundated by rising waters after the Army Corps of Engineers built the Oahe Dam along the Missouri River, part of a huge midcentury project approved by Congress to provide electricity and tame the river’s floods. To Ms. Bailey, 76, and thousands of other tribal members who lived along the river’s length, the project was a cultural catastrophe, residents and historians say. It displaced families, uprooted cemeteries and swamped lands where tribes grazed cattle, drove wagons and gathered wild grapes and medicinal tea. That past has now become a poignant backdrop to protests over a $3. 7 billion oil pipeline project that would cross a rancher’s land just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation and plunge under a dammed section of the Missouri River. The company building the Dakota Access pipeline across four states and 1, 170 miles says it will transport oil safely and reliably. Opponents say a spill or break could poison the river. The protests have drawn thousands here to the Plains, stirring a new environmental movement for dozens of Native American tribes across the country who are supporting the Standing Rock Sioux’s efforts here to block the pipeline. The fight is nearing a pivotal moment as a federal judge in Washington prepares to rule by Friday on whether to allow or block construction of a section of the pipeline near the tribe’s land. History, like a river, runs deep here. And residents like Ms. Bailey say the pipeline battle has dredged up old memories and feelings about lost lands and broken treaties with the United States government, as well as their worries about the future of land and water they hold sacred. “The trauma we deal with today is a residual effect of 1958, when the floods came,” said David Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The federal government has paid millions in compensation over the years to tribes affected by the dam project, including more than $90 million held for the Standing Rock Sioux. But people here say they are still haunted by the memories of being told to leave their homes and seeing families drift apart. The tribe has spent more than 20 years trying to gain control of 19, 000 acres of waterfront land that was taken through eminent domain during dam construction. “Even though it’s been more than half a century, they still feel this loss,” said Michael L. Lawson, the author of “Dammed Indians,” a history of the government’s dam projects along the Missouri. He said about 56, 000 acres of Standing Rock Sioux land had been condemned for the dams and 190 families relocated. Theirs was one of 23 reservations affected by the project. “Just about every part of their economy and living situation was impacted,” Mr. Lawson said. “They lost their most important resources in the bottom lands. ” For years, the legacy of the dam was perhaps the headline struggle for the Standing Rock Sioux. Now the pipeline has brought widespread attention, intense news media coverage and thousands of environmental pilgrims to this serene stretch of North Dakota. The Standing Rock Sioux have sued the Army Corps of Engineers, which approved an important permit for the pipeline, saying that building the pipeline would destroy sacred cultural and burial sites and raising concerns that a leak or spill would poison their water supply. The tribe has asked for a preliminary injunction. The Corps says it reached out extensively to tribes before it gave approval for the Dakota Access pipeline to cross bodies of water, including the Missouri. The Standing Rock Sioux, it says, canceled a meeting to visit the pipeline’s proposed crossing across Lake Oahe. The tribe says it was not properly consulted. In legal filings, the Corps said the Standing Rock Sioux also could not point to specific sites that would be harmed by the pipeline. A tribal history expert later walked the route of the pipeline, and said he had found stone cairns and rocks arrayed in circles, spirals and other patterns that he said probably marked burial sites. As the judge’s decision nears, tensions and fears of violence are rising. Last weekend, protesters upset that pipeline work crews were bulldozing what the tribe calls sacred ceremonial sites broke down a wire fence and surged onto a construction site. The sheriff’s office here in Morton County called it a “riot,” and said protesters had kicked workers, hit them with sticks and sent one to the hospital. Tribal officials say that the demonstrators were provoked, and that six were bitten by guard dogs brought in by the pipeline company’s security guards. On Thursday, Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced that he was sending about a dozen National Guard troops to help state troopers at a traffic checkpoint about 30 miles up the road from the protest, and that he was putting others on standby. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier of Morton County said his officers would increase their patrols and their visibility around the demonstration itself. “The worst fear is that this gets escalated in some way and someone gets hurt,” Sheriff Kirchmeier said in an interview this week. “At some point, there has to be an end game. This can’t be going on for long periods of time. ” A total of 37 people have been arrested on trespassing and other charges, but no one has been charged in connection with the clashes on Saturday. Sheriff Kirchmeier said his office was still investigating. The protests have attracted activists, actors and politicians. This week, Jill Stein, the Green Party’s presidential nominee, camped out with protesters and was seen on videos a bulldozer that sat at a pipeline construction site. On Wednesday, Morton County officials said they had filed misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and trespassing against Ms. Stein and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka. The Texas company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said that it was operating entirely within the law and its agreements with landowners, and that it had all the necessary state and federal permits to build the pipeline. The company sued the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribal members, accusing them of illegally disrupting the pipeline’s construction. Theresa Pleets, 81, said she had a deep personal stake in coming out to the protest camp, a field speckled with teepees, campers, tents and fire rings. She grew up in a log house along the Missouri River, where her parents would fill barrels with drinking water. After the river was dammed, she said, her parents were relocated to a small, house. “I want to beat the Corps,” she said. “I want to win someday. ” The house where Ms. Bailey was born had just one room, she said. She arrived during a January blizzard in 1940, and her grandfather, Albert No Heart Sr. took a sleigh eight miles south to the town of Fort Yates to fetch a midwife, she said. She went away to boarding school, and worked for decades in tribal administrative offices. Now, she said, she tells stories of gathering firewood and wild berries in land that is covered by water. “My kids don’t believe it,” she said, “when I tell them how things were. ” | 1 |
New York City police officers in plain clothes shot and killed a man in Brooklyn early on Sunday when he pointed a pellet gun at them after robbing a bodega, the police said. Investigators recovered a black imitation pistol from the scene of the shooting, which occurred shortly after 12:40 a. m. on Starr Street near Irving Avenue in the Bushwick neighborhood, said Terence A. Monahan, the chief of patrol. The police officers involved were not identified. The man, whom officials identified as Sergio Reyes, 18, had used the pellet gun to rob the Garden Deli and Grill at 185 Starr Street, the police said. Officials released a surveillance video image of a man — dressed in a dark hooded sweatshirt and pants with a mask covering part of his face — pointing the gun at a bodega clerk. The clerk, Mohamed Ali, said Mr. Reyes had entered the bodega and broken a of beer on the floor. He then grabbed two more beers from the cooler and brought them to the counter, where he pulled out a gun and put it in Mr. Ali’s face, Mr. Ali said. “He said, ‘Bag it up,’” Mr. Ali recalled. “‘Bag it up, or I’m going to kill you. And shut the camera off. ’” Mr. Ali called 911 and a few minutes later heard gunshots down the block. Chief Monahan said the police responded to Mr. Ali’s 911 call around 12:40 a. m. A sergeant and two officers from an unit in the 83rd Precinct went to the bodega, he said. As they talked to witnesses, the officers spotted Mr. Reyes, who was walking west on Starr Street, alongside Maria Hernandez Park. Chief Monahan said the officers gave Mr. Reyes verbal commands and confronted him in front of 169 Starr Street. “The suspect had a black firearm in his hand and raised it toward the officers,” Chief Monahan said. “The officers fired at the suspect and struck him multiple times. ” Jovan, 22, who lives on Starr Street and did not want his last name used out of concern for his safety, said he heard at least six gunshots and saw a chaotic scene unfold outside his window: people running, a van racing backward along the street — he said he thought it might have been an undercover police vehicle — and, soon after, a officer with his gun drawn and briefly pointed at bystanders. Jovan said his first thought was that a gang confrontation had just erupted. He said he remained indoors for fear of being caught in crossfire. Outside, Mr. Reyes had been wounded in the torso, and he was pronounced dead at Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center, the police said. The three officers involved in the shooting were not hurt. The police said on Sunday evening that they were investigating the shooting and the robbery that preceded it. Mr. Reyes lived a few blocks from the bodega, in a small, apartment building on Wilson Avenue. On Sunday evening, Mr. Reyes’s father, Antonio Tlapanco, 48, wept as he stood next to a memorial to his slain son: a framed photograph of Mr. Reyes placed on a kitchen table alongside two floral bouquets in vases, candles and an illustration of the Madonna. Mr. Tlapanco, speaking through a Spanish interpreter, said that his son had never been in trouble with the police and that he never carried firearms or weapons of any kind. “I would have known,” said Mr. Tlapanco, who said he regularly checked the contents of all of his children’s backpacks. “The truth is, I don’t know where that came from,” Mr. Tlapanco said of the black pellet gun. “I never saw it around the house. If I would have seen something like that, I would have taken it away from him. ” Mr. Tlapanco said he had questions about the circumstances surrounding his son’s death and the Police Department’s account of it. He showed a photograph that he took at the hospital of bruising on his son’s neck. Mr. Reyes was one of six children, ages 15 to 23, born in the United States to Mr. Tlapanco and his wife, who are immigrants from Mexico. Mr. Tlapanco said Mr. Reyes was a student at Leadership Public Service High School in Lower Manhattan and was studying to become a social worker. For hours on Sunday, police tape blocked off Starr Street from Irving Avenue to Knickerbocker Avenue, and no one was allowed in Maria Hernandez Park. The park is bordered by small grocers and restaurants, a Pentecostal church, a public school and rows of apartment buildings. Signs of the neighborhood’s gentrification are evident, including a coffee shop with a youthful clientele directly across Irving Avenue from the scene of the shooting. Noah LePage, 21, said that he had lived on the Suydam Street side of the park since the summer and had seen the police conduct a few drug busts along Starr Street. “We see them a few times in their black vans and everything, but nothing like this,” he said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration moved on Friday to sweep away most of the remaining vestiges of Obama administration prosecutors at the Justice Department, ordering 46 holdover United States attorneys to tender their resignations immediately — including Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan. The firings were a surprise — especially for Mr. Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting public corruption cases and for investigating insider trading. In November, Mr. Bharara met with then Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan and told reporters afterward that both Mr. Trump and Jeff Sessions, who is now the attorney general, had asked him about staying on, which the prosecutor said he expected to do. But on Friday, Mr. Bharara was among federal prosecutors who received a call from Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, instructing him to resign, according to a person familiar with the matter. As of Friday evening, though some of the prosecutors had publicly announced their resignations, Mr. Bharara had not. A spokesman for Mr. Bharara declined to comment. Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an email that all remaining holdover United States attorneys had been asked to resign, leaving their deputy United States attorneys, who are career officials, in place in an acting capacity. “As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States Attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice,” she said in the email. “The Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U. S. Attorneys to tender their resignations in order to ensure a uniform transition. ” The abrupt order came after two weeks of increasing calls from Mr. Trump’s allies outside the government to oust appointees from President Barack Obama’s administration. Mr. Trump has been angered by a series of reports based on leaked information from a sprawling bureaucracy, as well as from his own West Wing. Several officials said the firings had been planned before Friday. But the calls from the acting deputy attorney general arose a day after Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator who is a strong supporter of President Trump, said on his evening show that Mr. Trump needed to “purge” Obama holdovers from the federal government. Mr. Hannity portrayed them as “saboteurs” from the “deep state” who were leaking secrets to hurt Mr. Trump. It also came the same week that government watchdogs wrote to Mr. Bharara and urged him to investigate whether Mr. Trump had violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which bars federal officials from taking payments from foreign governments. In Mr. Hannity’s monologue, he highlighted the fact that the Clinton administration had told all 93 United States attorneys to resign soon after he took office in 1993, and that “nobody blinked an eye,” but he said it became a scandal when the George W. Bush administration fired several top prosecutors midway through his second term. Several Democratic members of Congress said they only heard that the United States attorneys from their states were being immediately let go shortly before the Friday afternoon statement from the Justice Department. One senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of the United States attorney in that state, said that an prosecutor had been instructed to vacate the office by the end of the day. Although it was not clear whether all were given the same instructions, that United States attorney was not the only one told to clear out by the close of business. The abrupt nature of the dismissals distinguished Mr. Trump’s mass firing from Mr. Clinton’s, because the prosecutors in 1993 were not summarily told to clear out their offices. Michael D. McKay, who was the United States attorney in Seattle under the George Bush administration, recalled that even though he had already made plans to leave, he nevertheless stayed on for about three weeks beyond a request by General Janet Reno for all of the holdover prosecutors to resign. He also recalled at least one colleague who was in the midst of a major investigation and was kept on to finish it. “I’m confident it wasn’t on the same day,” he said, adding: “While there was a wholesale ‘Good to see you, thanks for your service, and now please leave,’ people were kept on on a basis depending on the situation. ” Two United States attorneys survived the firings: Mr. Boente, the top prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is serving as acting deputy attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein, the top prosecutor in Baltimore, whom Mr. Trump has nominated to be deputy attorney general. “The president called Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein tonight to inform them that he has declined to accept their resignation, and they will remain in their current positions,” said Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman. It remains possible that Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions could put others on that list later. It is not unusual for a new president to replace United States attorneys appointed by a predecessor, especially when there has been a change in which party controls the White House. Still, other presidents have done it gradually in order to minimize disruption, giving those asked to resign more time to make the transition while keeping some inherited prosecutors in place, as it had appeared Mr. Trump would do with Mr. Bharara. Mr. Obama, for example, kept Mr. Rosenstein, who had been appointed by George W. Bush. The abrupt mass firing appeared to be a change in plans for the administration, according to a statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “In January, I met with Vice President Pence and White House Counsel Donald McGahn and asked specifically whether all U. S. attorneys would be fired at once,” she said. “Mr. McGahn told me that the transition would be done in an orderly fashion to preserve continuity. Clearly this is not the case. I’m very concerned about the effect of this sudden and unexpected decision on federal law enforcement. ” Still, the cases the various federal prosecutors were overseeing will continue, with their career deputies becoming acting United States attorneys in their place for the time being. Mr. Bharara has been among the United States attorneys, with a purview that includes Wall Street and public corruption prosecutions, including of both Democratic and Republican officials and other influential figures. His office, for example, has prosecuted top police officials in New York and the powerful leader of the city correction officers’ union they have pleaded not guilty. It is preparing to try a major public corruption case involving former aides and associates of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and is looking into allegations of around Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York. But Mr. Bharara is also closely associated with the Senate minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. Mr. Bharara was formerly a counsel to Mr. Schumer, who pushed Mr. Obama to nominate Mr. Bharara to be the top federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. At the time of the November meeting at Trump Tower, Mr. Schumer was saying publicly that Democrats should try to find common ground and work with the . But relations between Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer have since soured. Mr. Trump has called Mr. Schumer the Democrats’ “head clown” and accused him of shedding “fake tears” over the president’s efforts to bar refugees from entering the United States. For his part, Mr. Schumer has called for an independent investigation into contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and demanded that Mr. Sessions resign for having testified that he had no contacts with Russians even though he had met with the Russian ambassador. The White House officials ascribed the reversal over Mr. Bharara as emblematic of a chaotic transition process. One official said it was tied to Mr. Trump’s belief in November that he and Mr. Schumer would be able to work together. | 1 |
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took aim at the media for its extensive coverage of last week’s women’s march on Washington, while largely ignoring the March for Life that occurred earlier in the day. Gingrich blasted the press, saying they were not reporter, but instead “propagandists. ” Partial transcript as follows: ERIC BOLLING, HOST OF “THE O’REILLY FACTOR”: Despite the march is big turnout, the mainstream media appearing to do its best to downplay it today, especially compared to the nonstop coverage given to last weekend’s march. Joining us now to analyze from Arlington, Virginia. Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. Look at the coverage. You look at the coverage. It’s nonstop, it’s last week for the march, yet you hardly heard very much about this one even though Vice President Pence made an appearance, NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, this is just pretty natural. I think, you know, Callista is singing at the basilica last night in the mass for life. And when they announced that Vice President Pence was going to be there, it was 90 seconds along broken applause. I think all across America, people of faith, people who care for life, people who are concerned about stopping abortion are thrilled that the Vice President of the United States for the first time ever, came to the march. And let’s be honest, this is exactly what Steve Bannon was saying to “The New York Times. ” Left wing, news media are going to do everything they can to hide from the reality that there are vastly more Americans who care about life then there are who care about weird people wearing strange hats with kitty cat ears and talking about bombing the White House. I mean, the grotesque difference between the hard left that we saw on Saturday and the Americans who came together today, the difference in attitude, the difference in tone, the difference in language, I think a lot more Americans are comfortable with Vice President Pence’s speech than with Madonna’s speech. BOLLING: . And also, the difference is the media coverage as well. GINGRICH: Well, look, the media is 80 percent or 90 percent of the media is the opposition party. I mean, let’s be honest about it. These aren’t reporters, these are propagandist. There was one panel on journalism in the age of Trump in which I don’t think a single member of the panel voted for Trump. They’ve learned nothing, they were wrong during the primaries, he won. They were wrong in the general election, he won. They’ve been wrong about his cabinet, it’s a great cabinet. They were wrong about covering the inaugural, which is truly a historic inaugural, hearkening back to Lincoln’s first inaugural in 1861. They miss it every time because they’re so far to the left and of so out of touch with every day Americans. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
A former Secret Service agent who served in the security details of both Presidents Bush and Obama warned on Saturday that President Donald Trump “is not secure in the White House right now as it stands. ”[Dan Bongino, who was also an instructor at the training academy of the Secret Service, was commenting on Friday night’s reported breach of the White House complex, at least the seventh such incident in recent years. Bongino stated: “If one guy with a backpack and Omar Gonzales with a bad knee could get near the residence of the White House, can you tell me with a straight face that a tactical assault team with heavy weapons wouldn’t take that place down?” Bongino was referring to a 2014 incident in which Gonzales penetrated the north portico doors of the White House, reportedly brandishing a folding knife in a back pocket. “This is inexcusable,” Bongino said of the latest incident. “How many of these are we, as the citizenry, going to tolerate, whether under Barack Obama or now President Trump, before there is enough citizen outrage that the Secret Service actually does something?” Bongino is the author of the bestselling 2013 book Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All. He also previously ran as a Republican for Congress and the Senate. He was speaking in an interview set to air Sunday on this reporter’s talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and NewsTalk 990 AM in Philadelphia. “The secret service is not ready right now to defend the White House,” he charged. “They’re not. I know that may make people uncomfortable. And frankly, Aaron, I am really getting tired of some of the talking heads on cable news who have never done one minute in the shoes a secret service agent. ” “They have no idea what the security plan of the White House actually looks like on the ground. They’re all sitting here brushing it under the rug, going, ‘Oh no.’ ‘They were prepared.’ ‘This was a manageable incident.’ ‘This was how it was supposed to work.’ You really believe this is how it was supposed to work?” Regarding Friday night’s breach, Bongino warned, “Do you think that what happened today is not being beamed into every terrorists’ head, going, ‘Look at this fellows.’ I am sounding the alarm hoping and praying with fingers crossed that somebody wakes up and finally does what needs to be done. ” Bongino offered some security upgrade suggestions: “They need to fix the fence. Reinforce the manpower on the north and the south grounds. Add special weapons teams. Get the best technology in there right now. Clearly the technology sensors and cameras are not working as planned. Get them in there yesterday. There’s no other solution. ” Bongino outlined what he says are three major problems facing the Secret Service and the White House security plan. Problem number one, according to Bongino, involves staffing: They have had a brain drain of catastrophic portions in the Secret Service. They lost some of the best agents. If this wasn’t a public radio show that people could hear, I could tell you the names of ten or twenty tier one guys who left the president’s detail just in the last 5 years who I still communicate with … They have had an even worse brain drain in the uniformed division side. They are responsible for the perimeter of the White House. … You can’t run a security agency without security officers who know what they’re doing. You just can’t. Problem number two, Bongino contended, is a lack of political will to address the purported security flaws: The management of the Secret Service right now is grossly unprepared for the evolving threats. Grossly. They say they are but they have no political will because a lot of them are out there — not all — but a lot are looking for their next consulting job. They are just praying that nothing happens on their next watch. They don’t want to be the ones to go on Capitol Hill to say this whole security plan around the White House needs to be fixed. And problem number three involves the actual security plan, he says: They are way too concerned right now, the management, with the optics of White House security. That we can’t make this look like an armed camp. The prior staff didn’t like that. There other entities around the White House that want to preserve the historic look of it. But do you want a secure White House grounds or do you want it to look pretty? CNN reported on Friday night’s breach: A man carrying a backpack was arrested Friday night after breaching security at the White House complex and was discovered by a Secret Service officer by the south entrance to the executive residence, officials said. The incident happened just before midnight while President Donald Trump was at the White House. The suspect, who had a California driver’s license, told Secret Service officers that he was there to see the president. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 1 |
Gobbles addresses an angry crowd
In a shock election result, turkeys have voted in favour of Christmas for the first time since they gained the right to hold elections in 1845. In every year since then, turkeys have voted firmly against the Yuletide feast. However, this year a populist right-wing turkey called Steve "Paxo" has managed the impossible, and persuaded turkeys to vote for Christmas.
During the campaign, Paxo was helped by his sinister propaganda adviser, Gobbles, and made a series of promises to the other turkeys. He said that he would take back control of Christmas, and make it great again. He promised to ban the eating of turkeys at Christmas, although he has no power to enforce this. He also said that all the money spent on killing turkeys at Christmas could instead be used to provide free chocolate and HDTV to all turkeys.
The win seems to have surprised even Gobbles and Paxo, and they began to backtrack on their pledges almost immediately."Of course when we said we would take back control of Christmas we meant in a non-literal sense," said Gobbles. "It is likely that many turkeys will be slaughtered this year anyway."
Some turkeys were disappointed with the result. Mr Clucky voted for Christmas but is beginning to regret it. "I've had a rough year," he said. "My cage is a mess and I thought voting for Christmas would fix it all. They promised so much."
No turkey farmers are thought to be considering taking the result seriously. In any case, the turkeys voted in favour of Christmas, so there is actually less controversy this year than when the birds have voted against it. Farmer Arse of Norwich said, "Them turkeys is as dumb as chickens. They deserve everything they get." Make Sir Geoffroy Cockface's | 0 |
Two senior White House officials suggested on Monday that President Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama had tapped his telephone was not meant to be taken literally, arguing that Mr. Trump had been referring more broadly to a variety of surveillance efforts during the 2016 campaign when he made the incendiary accusation. “He doesn’t really think that President Obama went up and tapped his phone personally,” said Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary. In fact, Mr. Spicer said, when Mr. Trump charged in a Twitter post last weekend that Mr. Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” he was referring generally to surveillance activities during the 2016 race — not to an actual telephone wiretap. “The president was very clear in his tweet that it was, you know, ‘wiretapping,’” Mr. Spicer said, using his fingers to make a gesture suggesting quotation marks. “That spans a whole host of surveillance types of options. ” Mr. Spicer said there have been “numerous reports from a variety of outlets over the last couple months that seemed to indicate that there has been different types of surveillance that occurred during the 2016 election. ” The remarks were the first time the White House sought to explain the accusation Mr. Trump made in a series of posts on Twitter saying Mr. Obama “was tapping my phones” and calling the former president a “bad (or sick) guy. ” The explanations came as the Justice Department asked the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, who had given a Monday deadline to produce proof of Mr. Trump’s claim, for more time “to determine what if any responsive documents exist. ” Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, said in an interview on Sunday that Mr. Obama could have employed any number of devices other than a traditional telephone wiretap, even including a microwave oven. Ms. Conway clarified on Monday that she was not accusing the former president of snooping via a kitchen appliance, arguing that her comments had been taken out of context. “I’m not Inspector Gadget,” she said Monday on CNN. “I don’t believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. ” But in an interview with a columnist for The Record of Bergen County, N. J. the day before, she said Mr. Obama’s alleged spying efforts against Mr. Trump could have been far more extensive than a telephone wiretap. “What I can say is there are many ways to surveil each other,” Ms. Conway told the paper. “You can surveil someone through their phones, certainly through their television sets — any number of ways. ” Surveillance can even be carried out with “microwaves that turn into cameras,” she added. “We know this is a fact of modern life. ” The unusual and shifting explanations from Mr. Spicer and Ms. Conway reflected the contortions that members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle have employed to explain the president’s explosive accusation, which he has yet to address personally. Neither Mr. Trump nor anyone at the White House has presented any evidence for the claim, instead asking Congress to investigate it as part of its inquiry into Russia’s interference in the presidential election. Both the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee have requested that the Department of Justice provide evidence it may have for Mr. Trump’s charge, but Mr. Spicer said on Monday that the president had not instructed the department to furnish any. He suggested that Mr. Trump had relied on multiple news reports, including in The New York Times, to make his charge. “It is interesting how many news outlets reported that this activity was taking place during the 2016 election cycle, and now are wondering where the proof is,” Mr. Spicer said. The Times and other news outlets have reported extensively on surveillance in the United States during the 2016 presidential campaign, particularly related to Russia’s efforts to influence the election. But The Times has never reported that intelligence or officials were themselves spying on Mr. Trump. What The Times and other news organizations have reported is that American intelligence agencies have communication intercepts that officials believe show contacts between associates of Mr. Trump and Russian officials during the campaign. Still, several websites, including Infowars, which traffics in conspiracy theories and whose eccentric operator, Alex Jones, has interviewed Mr. Trump, have erroneously asserted that The Times and others had reported that the president was under surveillance. In a story dated March 6, Infowars cited a Jan. 19 article in The Times detailing how American law enforcement and intelligence agencies were examining intercepted communications as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and Trump associates. “Flashback: NYT admits wiretaps used against Trump,” the headline read. The story noted that The Times “didn’t specifically mention that Trump himself, or Trump Tower, was bugged,” but the caveat has not stopped Mr. Trump’s supporters from insisting that The Times was a source for the president’s tweet. Ms. Conway told CNN that in her interview, she had not been referring to the president’s charges when she talked about microwave surveillance, nor could she offer any proof of his allegations. “I’m not in the job of having evidence,” she said. “That’s what investigations are for. ” Ms. Conway said she had never meant to imply that Mr. Obama had used a microwave to spy on Mr. Trump. | 1 |
November 13, 2016 Joe Rogan on coffee and cigarettes
( INTELLIHUB ) — Physical addiction is “like a demon,” UFC Commentator Joe Rogan explained on a recent broadcast.
During the broadcast Rogan pointed out just what the ‘demon of physical addiction’ likely sounds and looks like, going into character.
Rogan’s guest said that he sometimes dreams about having a cigarette even though he has quit smoking.
“I’ve had dreams about cigarettes and I wake up with a negative feeling and you’re like fuck, I’m god damn smoking again — it takes like twenty or thirty minutes to get the feeling out of me.” ©2016. INTELLIHUB.COM. All Rights Reserved. | 0 |
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — A Falcon 9 rocket roared into the sky on Saturday carrying 10 communications satellites — a return by SpaceX and its billionaire leader, Elon Musk, to the business of launching satellites to orbit. But financial details disclosed this past week about the company overshadowed the successful liftoff, raising questions about the viability of Mr. Musk’s plans for SpaceX and his vision of sending people to Mars. SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif. has been set back since September, when a different Falcon 9 caught fire and exploded on a launchpad in Florida, destroying the rocket and its payload, a $200 million Israeli satellite that Facebook had planned to lease to expand global internet services. The company’s rockets had been grounded since then. An internal investigation concluded that a failure of a helium vessel in the second stage liquid oxygen tank had led to the conflagration. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates commercial space launches, accepted SpaceX’s report on the explosion’s causes on Jan. 6 and issued a launch license, clearing the way for Saturday’s liftoff here, on the other side of the country. To prevent a recurrence, SpaceX adjusted its fueling procedures to avoid overcooling of the helium. Saturday’s countdown proceeded smoothly, with the liftoff occurring within a window that would send the rocket on a trajectory to line up with the orbit of a group of current Iridium Communications satellites. The new satellites are more powerful than the original ones, which have been in orbit nearly two decades and have outlived their designed lifetimes. SpaceX also repeated its feat of recovering the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket, landing it on a floating platform named “Just Read the Instructions” in the Pacific. Less than 90 minutes later, mission control received confirmation that all 10 satellites had been successfully deployed. Over the next 14 months, the company plans six additional Falcon 9 launches to deploy 60 more Iridium satellites that will completely replace the constellation. In the the successful launch helps put SpaceX back on track. The explosion and subsequent grounding created a backlog of launches, including cargo missions for NASA to the International Space Station. September’s explosion was SpaceX’s second failure in 15 months a Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA cargo disintegrated in flight in June 2015. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that SpaceX had lost $260 million in 2015 after the earlier accident, and revenue dropped 6 percent to $945 million. In earlier years, SpaceX officials including Mr. Musk described the company as consistently profitable that claim has been removed from SpaceX’s website. Company officials did not dispute the numbers reported in The Wall Street Journal article, but portrayed a rosy future. “Since 2002, we have been at the forefront of revolutionizing space technology, with a solid track record of success, strong customer relationships and more than 70 future launches on our manifest, representing over $10 billion in contracts,” Bret Johnsen, SpaceX’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “Furthermore, with over $1 billion in cash reserves and no debt, the company is in a financially strong position and is well positioned for future growth. ” SpaceX hopes to launch its larger Falcon Heavy this spring. The Heavy, years behind schedule, would become the world’s most powerful rocket since NASA retired the Saturn 5 more than 40 years ago. SpaceX also plans to refly one of its recovered boosters this spring. By reusing instead of throwing away rocket boosters, SpaceX hopes to significantly reduce the cost of launches. Also on the schedule is an abort test of SpaceX’s Dragon 2 capsule, a crucial safety prerequisite that it must conduct before the company can begin ferrying NASA astronauts to the space station next year. By applying Silicon Valley entrepreneurial practices to aerospace, SpaceX has undercut prices and disrupted the rocket launch business. That brought in many customers like Iridium, which is paying more than $450 million for the seven launches. The bid from one of SpaceX’s competitors was $1. 2 billion, said Matthew J. Desch, Iridium’s chief executive. Without SpaceX’s lower costs, Iridium could not have afforded to replace its group of satellites, Mr. Desch said. “The Falcon 9 is perfect for what we want to do,” he said. But the lower costs make it difficult to see how SpaceX could earn enough profit to finance its grand ambitions. In September, Mr. Musk unveiled his vision for what he called the Interplanetary Transport System — a gigantic rocket with 42 engines that could take 100 passengers to Mars as early as 2024. SpaceX has described plans to offer satellite internet services with more than 4, 000 satellites. The forecasts described by The Wall Street Journal, which were produced in early 2016, show how much the company is depending on this new business. SpaceX projected that current rocket launching business would quintuple in revenue, to $5 billion, in 2025. Satellite internet services, still in the early planning stages, were projected to bring in more than $30 billion in revenue and generate the bulk of more than $20 billion in profit for the company. During the September announcement, Mr. Musk spoke of “a huge partnership” to get to Mars, but did not describe what kind of partnership he foresaw. The incoming Trump administration has not outlined in detail its plans for NASA, although some of the ’s advisers, including Newt Gingrich, are pushing for a greater reliance on commercial companies like SpaceX. Other Republicans, however, have been strong defenders of the Space Launch System, the big, expensive rocket that NASA is developing for a Mars mission. | 1 |
Monday night in front of the Supreme Court at a Democratic leadership news conference about President Donald Trump’s immigration executive order, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi ( ) was heard on a hot mic encouraging Rep. Andre Carson ( ) to tell the crowd he is a Muslim. Partial transcript as follows: CARSON: Greetings from the great state of Indiana. I’m Congressman Andre Carson. PELOSI (OFF MIC): Tell them you’re a Muslim. Tell them you’re a Muslim. CARSON: Not only do I represent Indiana’s seventh congressional district very proudly, but I happen to be a Muslim and a former police officer. ( Free Beacon) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Fight to take back the Earth as android 2B in a desperate bid to reclaim a home for humanity in Nier: Automata. [Nier: Automata is a spiritual sequel to JRPG Neir directed by Yoko Taro and developer PlatinumGames, the studio that made Bayonetta, Vanquish, and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. In the far future, mechanical alien invaders have overrun Earth, forcing mankind to flee to the moon. Now, the last remnants of humanity have launched a using androids to fight their battles for them and attempt to retake the world from machines. Players take on the role of 2B, a deadly combat android accompanied by fellow android 9S in her war against the machines. Nier: Automata blends intense melee and ranged combat with elements of bullet hell shooters and beat ’em ups for a unique and evolving gameplay experience in an adventure. Nier: Automata is available now on Playstation 4 and releases March 17 on Steam for PC. | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right When you print out your boarding pass on A1 paper…
@_aimeeconnolly over on Twitter writes, “Hannah’s printed Claire’s boarding pass out on A1 am sobbing hahahaha state a that”
That’s 8 times the size it should be. Look. Here’s a diagram:
At least it wasn’t A0 we guess. | 0 |
The Corruption of the Clinton’s is like an endless dark pit of lies and manipulation.
I am so sick of Clinton’s and I can’t believe anyone would vote for her. This FBI that is lying and trying to change documentation should be held to a legal standard and people who have tried to hide documentation and have lied should be thrown in prison for treason!
As far as how the media treats Hillary Clinton, if you’ve noticed, they treat her like a queen. The liberal media likes to pamper, lie, and make sure America knows she is the best option. We, however, know better. So does Jason Chaffetz.
For those of you who do it know who Chaffetz is, he is the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman who famously told the guy who destroyed Hillary’s email server that he was served on live TV. Now he just served up a brutal threat to Hillary Clinton and she is running scared.
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM CHAIRMAN JASON CHAFFETZ CONFIRMED IT WILL HOLD ADDITIONAL HEARINGS ON DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER WHEN MEMBERS RETURN FROM RECESS.
NEW FBI DOCUMENTS RELEASED MONDAY SHOW UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE PATRICK KENNEDY PUSHING THE FBI TO DECLASSIFY EMAILS IN EXCHANGE FOR A “QUID PRO QUO” DEAL — A MOVE CHAFFETZ AND HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN DEVIN NUNES FOUND DEEPLY TROUBLING.
“Undoubtedly there will be, based on the documents the FBI released today there are new facts that need to be investigated. I’m very concerned about the quid pro quo that was in negotiation between the State Department and the FBI,” Chaffetz told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Chairman Nunes and I believe Patrick Kennedy should be relieved of his duties immediately pending an investigation. This is a manipulation if not an outright crime and so we’re gonna drive into that.”
While the downgrade discussed between the agency officials didn’t come into fruition, the congressmen were clear they believe the proposal was inappropriate. | 0 |
LONDON — Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence agent who prepared the dossier on Donald J. Trump’s supposed activities in Russia, has gone underground. The strange story of the dossier, which United States intelligence agencies, the F. B. I. Senator John McCain and many journalists have had for weeks, if not months, and which Mr. Trump presumably must have known about, appears to have had personal consequences for Mr. Steele. According to neighbors and news reports, Mr. Steele hurriedly left his home in Surrey, a county southwest of London, on Wednesday to avoid attention or possible retribution once his identity as the author of the dossier was revealed, first by The Wall Street Journal. The Journal reported that Mr. Steele had declined its interview requests because the subject was “too hot. ” Mr. Steele, 52, was a longstanding officer with MI6, the British equivalent of the C. I. A. serving in Paris and Moscow in the 1990s before retiring. In 2009, he started a private research firm, Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd. with Christopher Burrows, now 58. Mr. Burrows has refused to confirm or deny that Mr. Steele and Orbis wrote the memos that made up the dossier, initially under contract to a Washington firm paid to dig into harmful matters from Mr. Trump’s past. Mr. Burrows’s profile page on LinkedIn describes him as a former counselor in the Foreign Office, with postings in Brussels and New Delhi in the early 2000s. Diplomatic postings are sometimes used to provide cover for intelligence agents. Mr. Steele’s profile on LinkedIn gives no specifics about his career. He is known in British intelligence circles for his knowledge of the intricate web of companies and associates that control Russia. Mr. Steele, as a known former MI6 agent, was thought not to have gone to Russia in his investigations but to have used contacts inside and outside the country to prepare the dossier, which United States intelligence agencies have said they cannot substantiate. But the file was used to prepare a appendix to the intelligence presentation American officials gave to Mr. Trump last Friday. Mr. Trump has denied the allegations in the dossier in the sharpest terms, and called them “fake news. ” Russia has denied that it holds any compromising material on Mr. Trump. John Sipher, who retired from the C. I. A. in 2014 after 28 years with the agency, described Mr. Steele as having a good reputation and “some credibility. ” Mr. Sipher was stationed in Moscow in the 1990s, and then ran the C. I. A. ’s Russia program for three years, according to an interview he gave to PBS NewsHour. He now works at CrossLead, a technology company. “I have confidence that the F. B. I. is going to follow this through,” Mr. Sipher said. “My nervousness is that these kind of things are going to dribble and drabble out for the next several years and cause a real problem for this administration going forward. ” An investigator for a business research firm in London similar to Orbis, who knows the work of the company but who has met Mr. Steele only briefly, said he was not impressed by the dossier. “I have a lot of experience in this world,” he said. “If I were the client, I would throw it back and say, ‘Where’s the evidence guys? I can’t use this.’ ” The investigator, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to discuss publicly the work of a competitor, said that “all intel has to be caveated. ” “Maybe they went to a usually reliable source,” he added, “but there’s no explanation about the credibility of these sources. ” He continued, “Maybe sometimes sources want to tell the investigators what their clients want to hear. ” Referring to companies like Orbis and his own, he said: “Usually your job would be to stop clients from dealing with corrupt, questionable counterparts in a country like Russia, but this same network could be put to use” to compile reports like the one on Mr. Trump. “There’s a risk that maybe the sources fed questionable intelligence, knowing that it would do more damage to Trump’s enemies than to Trump,” the investigator suggested. Orbis’s website says that it was “founded by former British intelligence professionals. ” Based in Grosvenor Gardens, near Victoria Station in London, the company says it has a “sophisticated investigative capability” and mounts “ operations” and “complex, often investigations. ” According to the website, it also offers “ source reporting on business and politics at all levels,” and “draws on extensive experience at boardroom level in government, multilateral diplomacy and international business to develop bespoke solutions for clients. ” Mr. Steele and Orbis have previously investigated corruption at FIFA, the governing body of world soccer. In October, David Corn of Mother Jones magazine wrote about the dossier and described his conversations with Mr. Steele, whom he did not identify by name or nationality. According to the British newspaper The Telegraph, a friend of Mr. Steele’s said that after his name and nationality were revealed, he had become “terrified for his and his family’s safety. ” Mr. Steele’s wife and children also were not at home. | 1 |
ATLANTA — The most arresting vista in town comes into view around a curve on westbound Freedom Parkway, on the periphery of downtown. The road crests just before it intersects Boulevard, at a traffic light that always seems to glow red, as if to allow motorists a minute to savor the panorama before them. The striking thing is not the majesty of the skyline but its accessibility — here I am, the city beckons, come and gawk. For from that vantage point, Atlanta just is: a mecca, the cradle of the civil rights movement, a magnet for transplants, a college football locus, the shimmering capital of the South, and more. All of which are accurate but still do not capture the city’s nuances. “I don’t think people understand Atlanta,” Doug Hertz said. Aside from his schooling at Tulane, in New Orleans, Hertz, 64, has lived here his entire life, which makes him a rarity. The city teems with people who moved here for work, school, family, or just to live nearer to the spinach and sausage meatloaf at Murphy’s. They have contributed to a booming growth — the metropolitan area’s diverse population has swelled to more than 5. 7 million, an increase of more than 1. 46 million since 2000 — that over the past few decades has also shaped Atlanta’s layered relationship with its sports teams. Hertz is a limited partner of the Falcons, who on Sunday will play the New England Patriots in the team’s second Super Bowl appearance since its inception in 1966. They last reached the championship game in the 1998 season, losing to the Denver Broncos, when I was a freshman at Emory University here and, more to the point, was one of those people Hertz was talking about, struggling to understand Atlanta. That September, I joined surprising brigades of Philadelphia Eagles fans invading the Georgia Dome for the Falcons’ home opener. Not even three weeks later, a group of us arrived at Turner Field, maybe two hours before Game 1 of the Atlanta Braves’ baseball playoff series against the Chicago Cubs, and still managed to buy tickets. Six of them. In the same row. My frame of reference was Philadelphia, whose zealous fans in analogous circumstances would never accept such apathy. Season after season, the Braves won their division, destroying the Phillies, and this is how their fans responded? “Are we as rabid and overtly like Boston or New York? No, we could be better,” Gavin Godfrey, a native Atlanta journalist who chronicles culture and sports said over lunch in Castleberry Hill, a historic arts district by the Georgia Dome. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t care, and not every town has to be held to that standard. Not every city’s built the same. ” In the Northeast, for instance, with a deep and abiding sports culture that spans generations, and in some cases centuries, there is less competition for sports fans’ loyalty. The emotional connection with college football, for instance, is not as strong as it is with some professional sports. For years, the opposite has been — and to a degree, still is — true of Atlanta, where on autumn Saturdays fans pack bars and living rooms, or flee for Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, South Carolina, Tennessee, all within a drive. “Most of us, that D. N. A. is not there for professional sports franchises,” Hertz said. The Falcons have built a base of loyalists — the City Council president, Ceasar Mitchell, said he drove down to Miami for the Falcons’ last Super Bowl appearance despite not having a ticket — but so struggled to pack the Dome that home games were not shown on local television because of the N. F. L. ’s old blackout rule. The team’s middling history has also failed to entice the local residents and persuade the newcomers to come out. The arrival of the quarterback Michael Vick, in 2001, mirrored the city’s spirit at the time — ascending, vibrant and forward — and his downfall, for his involvement in an interstate dogfighting ring, created tension, on a racial and cultural level, that lingered for years. Vick’s successor, Matt Ryan, is his antithesis in nearly every possible way — be it race, playing style, pedigree or personality. “Some of our fans will always be proud that an quarterback succeeded,” Hertz said. “What I think has happened over a period of time is a growing appreciation and acceptance in Matt Ryan, and that his style is every bit as spectacular on and off the field. ” The city’s evolution, coupled with an effort by the owner of the Falcons, Arthur Blank, to promote a sense of community around the team, has strengthened its bond with the Falcons. Since 2012, when the Falcons lost in the conference championship game, the Georgia Dome, which seats 71, 250, has achieved at least 98 percent of its capacity every year. This season’s mark of 98. 2 percent, 15th among the 32 teams and the lowest since 2011, bested that of, among others, the venues for the Giants, Jets, Chiefs and Patriots. As the Braves bolt northwest for a new stadium in Cobb County, a move that has left many fans feeling betrayed, the Falcons remain moored to Atlanta. Next season they move into a new home, Stadium. “There’s something about the nature of fans here that makes them take pride,” said Molly Slavin, 29, who moved here in 2012 from Illinois. “Although it might not be in a way that translates to sports fandom as seen in other cities. ” Ryan Cameron, 47, an Atlanta radio personality and a holder since 1998, explained that phenomenon like this: “There are people who will fight you about these Falcons,” he said. “But we’re not trying to prove to you that we’re so crazy. For us, it’s just being loud. We don’t have to brag. It’s Southern charm. ” Still, Atlanta’s gentility, a core virtue, would give way to utter delirium on Sunday — and for weeks and months thereafter — if the Falcons were to win. This city has been teased before, by those Braves behemoths of the ’90s, by the Falcons in 1998, even by the Hawks, who went two seasons ago before losing in the conference finals. Counting the futility of its two departed N. H. L. franchises, the Flames and Thrashers, Atlanta can claim only one championship — Braves, 1995 — across a combined 167 completed seasons. Pellom McDaniels, who played the final two of his eight N. F. L. seasons with the Falcons, suggested that a victory would register a psychological impact — an acknowledgment of the city’s trajectory, from aspirational to and mature. During the 1996 Olympics, and in the years that followed, Atlanta seemed eager to convince others that it was cosmopolitan, sophisticated, worth exploring. Even as it grapples with its identity now, reckoning with gentrification and redevelopment forces that are at once eroding and improving neighborhoods, Atlanta projects a different image — of comfort and confidence in its direction, whatever that is. “It would be almost like a beacon,” said McDaniels, now the curator of collections at Emory, said of a potential title. “That we’re working together as a community, and the success the Falcons have experienced is our success — that we’re doing something right. ” The term Mitchell used was runway, a point of departure for a nascent sports city that has added a Major League Soccer franchise set to begin play next season. The Falcons are thriving, interest is soaring, and from Mitchell’s perspective, he sure likes the view. | 1 |
Don’t worry. It’s totally natural. There’s no mother ship hovering above the earth, waiting to carry you away, and no demon shooting light from beneath, signaling to pull you below. It’s a light pillar — or a few of them — a colorful column of sparkling light that appears to beam up toward the sky. It’s all just an icy illusion. And now, during winter, when nights are long and cold, you have a good chance to spot one as long as conditions are right. If you’re lucky enough to spot a light pillar, what you’re seeing is actually artificial light from a ground source reflecting off millions of floating ice crystals. “It’s not an upward beam of light,” said Les Cowley, a physicist who runs a website on atmospheric optics, or the way light travels through the atmosphere. “Although they look pretty, they’re also a sign that someone, somewhere could do better with their lighting. You might call them light pollution pillars if you wanted to be environmental about it. ” Light pillars occur when clouds — normally miles high in the atmosphere — cling closer to the Earth’s surface, just a hundred or a few thousand feet above it. These thin clouds contain millions of flat, hexagonal crystals of ice that float horizontally in the air Each ice crystal acts like a mirror pointed downward, reflecting the artificial light back to your eyes — as long as the cloud is about halfway between you and the light source. Together, the crystals form a cluster of mirrors floating at different heights, which allows you to see the light as a column if they all were at the same level, you’d see only a spot of light. The pillars can be quite colorful at times because each reflected beam is the same color as its source. To find a good source — one bright, close to the ground, and just far enough away — your best bet is to travel a few miles outside your city or town on a dark night. The weather doesn’t have to be frigid, but it helps. Light pillars are frequently spotted in Scandinavia, upstate New York, Canada and other cold spots in the winter. But Dr. Cowley said that this week he received a photo of light pillars from about 30 miles outside of a town in Iran — perhaps because the desert can get cold at night. If leaving the city is not an option, look up at streetlights on a freezing cold night. You may spot the sparkly, ghostly blur of diamond dust. This illusion is created by the same flat ice crystals that produce light pillars, but this time, they’re so low to the ground you can feel them prickling your skin. “When that happens, you see other nearby halos, and it’s quite a spectacular sight,” Dr. Cowley said. | 1 |
Let’s see. Last thing she remembered was their beautiful bodies grinding up in that club. Drunk — as she sang in 2013 of a gritty tryst with her husband — in love. Oh well. On Saturday night, Beyoncé walked the streets of a soundstage with a baseball bat, treating parked cars and police surveillance cameras like piñatas, “jealous and crazy,” but in an elaborate dress fit for Fat Tuesday. It didn’t feel any more disjunctive than seeing Suzanne Lenglen rush the net in a dress in say, 1916. Except the woman at this net also has a bone to pick with her spouse, Jay Z. This was “Lemonade,” a “visual album” and array of salvos, which tells the story of woman in a marriage she didn’t know was bad, until, of course, she knew. Beyoncé, and HBO, were shrewd about keeping a lid on what this thing was going to be. Based on the only available image — someone in cornrows, face disguised by a big fur coat — I assumed drag queen prison drama. But it was bolder and deeper and more uncomfortable than anything I could have predicted. “Lemonade” is less a dramatization than a daydream, infused with black magic, embracing — if only notionally — African tribalism, science fiction, menstruation and witchcraft. The music’s emotional odyssey is conjugal. (The song chapters are presented as stages — “intuition,” “denial,” “forgiveness,” “hope,” etc.) Most of the corresponding images commune with the psyche and with history. The Deep South — New Orleans, mostly — occupies the landscape. Throughout, black women are standing, sitting, phalanxed on the porches of what feel like plantations and antiquated houses, rich with pain. The cameras get in close on beautiful faces that lack pigment, that bear scars, burns and sorrow. The mothers of slain young men exude regal stoicism, holding photographs of their sons. Visually, “Lemonade” invokes a lot — Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita,” “Carrie,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and the at the end of Michael Jackson’s “Black or White. ” But what its spiritualism calls to mind is “Daughters of the Dust,” Julie Dash’s landmark tone poem from 1991, loosely — very loosely — about three generations, descended from slavery, and their migration north in 1902. The juicy immediacy of “Lemonade” is what this one man did to this one woman. Not far in, Beyoncé looks tearfully into the camera and, with her own song playing around her (“I pray you catch me,” she sings to a higher power) lets herself fall from a roof. The street below becomes a body of water. It complements the submerged churning all over the soundtrack. It has the effect of a leviathan astir. That interlude with a baseball bat begins with Beyoncé, in that yellow dress, throwing open the enormous doors of an old, building and a deluge pouring out. “Are you cheating on me?” she asks in the running offscreen narration that’s credited to the young poet Warsan Shire. It’s like something out of Toni Morrison. The water on her rage just broke. “Ring the alarm,” Beyoncé once sang of being before enumerating the stuff of hers this other woman would never touch. On a different occasion, she sang: “To the left, to the left. Everything you own in the box to the left. ” That all feels pedestrian now. Beyoncé’s prized possessions here are her trust, love and dignity. But she’s daring to think beyond herself. The heavy hangover of the piece involves what lots of men have done to lots of women, black women in particular. Between songs, we hear Malcolm X intone that no one has had it rougher than they have. Think about what it takes to make lemonade. You have to split open a lot of citrus, remove the seeds, strain for pulp and add a lot of sugar. It’s a process. Black women are good at lemonade. I watched this thing in a state of exhilarated shock. At first, I thought: How is this not a work of pretentious ? How isn’t this the mistake of the year? This is a woman who, in 2011, seemed incapable of gauging both the marketplace and what it wanted from her. She couldn’t choose a good single from her uniformly superb album “4. ” The surprise release of “Beyoncé,” at the end of 2013, was a major course correction. It cratered the Internet in a way that seemed to unify a pop universe. Carnal, reflective, almost platitude free: It was the best and most creatively adventurous of her albums. The arrival of that record, the debut of a video for “Formation” last Super Bowl eve and the premiere of “Lemonade” have put her atop the complex in a way that rivals Madonna, Janet and Michael Jackson. “Lemonade” has all of the formal coherence that kept “Formation” from being as good a video as it was a cultural bombshell. Its seven credited directors — Jonas Akerlund, Kahlil Joseph, Melina Matsoukas, Dikayl Rimmasch, Mark Romanek, Todd Tourso and Beyoncé — give this project texture, mystery and life. Restraint, too. The only memorable dancing is by the world’s greatest living female athlete: Serena Williams, a tennis player. And all of that opacity — the sense from her previous special that no matter how much Beyoncé talks, she isn’t telling you anything? That doesn’t exist here. Feelings gush like water. The piece opens with Beyoncé kneeling on a stage, a curtain behind her. She’s getting out in front of the drama. Her so doing puts everybody in a compromising position. Beyoncé and Jay Z have made room for a different third party: us. Last week, HBO showed “Confirmation,” which a different fight between a black woman and a black man. In one corner, Anita Hill in the other, Clarence Thomas. It was never a fair fight. He manages to wrest all the power from her side of the story. “Lemonade” feels like a cultural rebuke on behalf of lots of aching women, whether they’re standing on that plantation porch, watching from their living rooms, or running for president. The queasiest part of “Drunk in Love” comes when Jay Z raps, “Eat the cake, Anna Mae,” invoking a diner scene from “What’s Love Got to Do With It” when Ike (using Tina’s birth name) shoves dessert in her face. Is “Lemonade” a rebuke of that, too? Why not? Any wife who outs her husband on an album and in an hourlong video as a cheater, then makes him release that album on his streaming platform — exclusively — is having her cake and making him eat it, too. That feels only partially triumphant since we’re left in a moral murk. He might be paying for his sins. But we’re still paying him. | 1 |
Mary Rodwell's New Book The New Human page: 1 link Go ahead and spout this is Project Camelot it's BS. You'll be wrong. Go ahead and call Mary Rodwell a liar she's just doing this for the money. You'll be wrong. This is what I have to say to open-minded individuals reading this: Put your seat belt on! In this interview, hypnotherapist and regressionist Mary Rodwell talks about the contents of her new book, The New Human , which apparently is soon to be released: For experiencers looking for a resource where you'll be treated with respect and have a chance to communicate, the organization Mary talked about in the interview is FREE, for Foundation for Research into Extra-terrestrial Encounters. link a reply to: ConnectDots No offense but these people just sound completely full of sh*t. They present no evidence of anything but talk wildly about stuff that I don't even think they understand and use words that just sound interesting but are totally made up BS. They just talk to other crazies and kids and believe anything they hear and then repeat it. Gee, some little kids tell you they don't like school or don't get along with other kids so that makes them multidimensional space kids with mental powers???? Come on They love to drop cool sounding phrases built from psudo scientific jargon but I don't think they even understand what the words mean. They talk about telepathy and mental powers and stuff but do they have any evidence of it or just a bunch of stories made up from kids and crazies??? | 0 |
If this is the budget deal we get when Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, there’s no point in ever voting for a Republican again. [Not only is there no funding for a wall, but — thanks to the deft negotiating skills of House Speaker Paul Ryan — the bill actually prohibits money from being spent on a wall. At a CYA press conference on Tuesday, Trump’s ridiculously chipper budget director, Mick Mulvaney, described the bill’s prohibition on building a wall as a MAJOR win. (At least Mulvaney said it in English, unlike his 2014 townhall.) True, there will be no wall. But the Democrats graciously agreed to allow the administration to fix broken parts of any existing fences on up to 40 miles of our 3, 000 mile border. The other big wins, according to Mulvaney, are: 1) more defense spending, which is fantastic news, because I was worried Boeing and Lockheed Martin CEOs were falling behind Mark Zuckerberg with their gluttonous salaries and, 2) school choice, an obsession of Washington wonks that is hated out in America, where parents move to towns for the express purpose of avoiding schools full of disaffected urban youth, and the disaffected urban youth don’t want to spend two hours on a bus every day. But Mulvaney assures us that this monstrosity of a spending bill has set things up beautifully for the next budget negotiation in October. That has become the GOP’s official motto: “Next time!” We can never win this time. Instead, Republicans’ idea is always to surrender this time, in hopes that their gentlemanliness will be rewarded by their mortal enemies next time. Then, next time comes, and Republicans again surrender in hopes of currying favor with the Democrats and the media for the next time. Mulvaney’s most disturbing comment was to say that what upset Trump the most was the Democrats’ “spiking the football” on this deal. Apparently, Trump’s fine with no wall — and everything else in a bill straight out of George Soros’ dream journal — if only the Democrats hadn’t been so rude as to tell the public about it. When your main complaint is that the other side is gloating too much, maybe you’re not that great a negotiator. Yeah, sure, it’s only 100 days in, it’s an artificial deadline, the media is dying to say Trump has failed and so on. Except: Planning for the wall should have begun on Nov. 9, and a spade should have been put into the earth to begin building it the day after Trump’s inauguration. Now, it’s 100 days later, and we still don’t have the whisper of a prospect of a wall. Moreover, this isn’t one random bill funding Planned Parenthood (which this bill does). This is the budget deal. There won’t be another one like it until next October. That’s a spectacular failure. Democrats have got to be pinching themselves, thinking, Am I dreaming this? It’s theoretically possible that Trump could still build a wall, but he’s just massively lengthened the odds of ever prevailing. Sure, you can let the other team build a lead in first half and still come back to beat them, but it’s a lot easier if you don’t go into halftime 20 points down. Trump entered the presidency with the only kind of power that matters. He didn’t owe Wall Street a thing. He didn’t owe anyone — not donors, lobbyists nor any political party. What he had was the people, passionately on his side. But as soon as he got into office, Trump started giving away his miraculous, unprecedented power. Hey, Wall Street! Even though you didn’t give me any money, is it too late to be your friend? No amount of abandoning his supporters will get Trump anywhere with Wall Street, Hollywood or the media. Their ferocity will simply shift to ridicule. Admittedly, Trump has the enormous handicap of having to work through congressional Republicans, who are feckless cowards. If Speaker Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell had been around for Reagan’s firing of the air traffic controllers, they would have been hysterically screaming, No! You can’t do that — the planes will crash! This isn’t new information. We knew Washington Republicans were useless. That’s why we elected such a comically improbable president as Donald J. Trump. The deal was that we were getting the Hollywood version of a New York businessman: an uncouth, incurious rube — who would be ruthless in getting whatever he wanted. In addition to being the only candidate for president in either party taking America’s side on trade, immigration, jobs and crime, what set Trump apart was his promise that we would finally win. Remember? There would be so much winning, we were going to get “sick and tired of winning,” and beg him, “Please, please, we can’t win anymore. … It’s too much. It’s not fair to everybody else. ” We’re not winning. We’re losing, and we’re losing on the central promise of Trump’s campaign. How would Trump, the businessman, react if an underling charged with developing a new golf course could never break ground? What if the subordinate’s progress reports sounded like this: I have given 21 speeches to various chambers of commerce and neighborhood groups, assuring them that there’s going to be a golf course. Everywhere I go, I say, “Don’t worry about it. It’s going to be built!” I have started a commission to study developing a golf course. I have put up a sign saying, “Golf course coming!” And I have caved, and caved, and caved — so now our opponents know what good guys we are. Trump would fire that employee so fast your head would spin. We want the ruthless businessman we were promised. | 1 |
BALTIMORE — A judge here on Monday asked pointed questions of prosecutors who are seeking to prove that the death of Freddie Gray, the black man who died of a spinal injury while in police custody, was murder, underscoring the difficulties for a team that has already tried two officers on other charges without getting a conviction. “The state said to the world it was a rough ride,” Judge Barry G. Williams of Baltimore City Circuit Court said as he pressed a prosecutor, Michael Schatzow, to explain whether his team had proved that Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr. showed willful disregard for Mr. Gray’s life by driving a police van dangerously through West Baltimore on a sunny April morning last year. Monday’s closing arguments wrapped up a trial that has conjured vastly different pictures of Mr. Gray’s ride in the police van and the exact timing of the injury, and left prosecutors treading carefully around the “rough ride,” once a central piece of their case. “When I said rough ride, I didn’t talk about driving 100 miles per hour,” Mr. Schatzow told the judge, who will render a decision on Thursday. “I said he wasn’t secured for the conditions in which the defendant drove. ” There were other questions. Could Mr. Gray have suffered his injuries in an accident? Was there evidence of elevated speed? And what, specifically, had Officer Goodson, who is also black, done to risk Mr. Gray’s life? Mr. Schatzow said that Officer Goodson, 46, knew Mr. Gray was shackled, handcuffed but not seatbelted that the officer made a wide right turn and an unannounced stop and that he then failed to get medical care. “The intent is to bang him around,” Mr. Schatzow said. “The consequences to the prisoner were worse than what he anticipated. ” Officer Goodson’s lawyer, Matthew Fraling, argued that the officer did not intentionally endanger Mr. Gray. Instead, “Mr. Gray created a high degree of risk by removing himself from the prone position in which he had been placed to secure his transport,” Mr. Fraling said, dismaying some activists watching in the courtroom. Most days, Officer Goodson, a veteran of the Police Department, came to court in a suit with a gold tie clip and sat quietly without expression. He did not testify in his defense. His fate is now in the hands of Judge Williams. The death of Mr. Gray, 25, set off violent protest, looting and arson here and put the city at the center of the national debate over race, policing and the use of force. The city’s top prosecutor, Marilyn J. Mosby, charged six officers with Mr. Gray’s arrest and death, and she reserved the steepest charge — “depraved heart” murder — for Officer Goodson. He faces six other charges, three of which are counts of manslaughter. The first trial, of Officer William G. Porter, ended with a hung jury in December. The second trial, of Officer Edward M. Nero, ended in an acquittal in May. Mr. Gray was arrested on April 12, 2015, after fleeing officers in the Sandtown neighborhood. He was eventually loaded, shackled and handcuffed, onto the floor of Officer Goodson’s police wagon, which made several stops before it arrived at the Western District police station, where Mr. Gray was found unresponsive. His neck was broken and his spinal cord compressed he died a week later. Prosecutors introduced the rough ride theory during their opening statements, but it ran into hurdles when one of their witnesses said he had not seen the van make abrupt starts, stops or turns in his review of the evidence. Another witness, a policing expert, said he could not say whether a rough ride had occurred. In delivering her closing argument, a prosecutor, Jan Bledsoe, argued that Mr. Gray was injured between the second and fourth of six stops. She focused on what she said was Officer Goodson’s duty to place a seatbelt on Mr. Gray and to seek medical attention after he asked for it at the van’s fourth stop. “Officer Goodson never calls for a medic. He never takes Freddie Gray to the hospital,” Ms. Bledsoe said. But she did not use the term “rough ride,” and Mr. Fraling argued in his closing argument that prosecutors had tried to reshuffle their case when the evidence did not cut their way. Officer Goodson was justified in not putting a seatbelt on Mr. Gray because he had been “combative,” Mr. Fraling said, although Judge Williams questioned whether the officer had a duty to reassess such a characterization over the course of the ride. “At no point in time did he present as being in medical distress or in need of medical treatment,” Mr. Fraling said of Mr. Gray. He added that Mr. Gray was injured between the fifth and sixth stops of the ride and that medical help was immediately summoned when Mr. Gray was discovered unconscious at the sixth stop. David Jaros, an associate professor of law at the University of Baltimore, said the case had raised important questions about policing in the city. “I think it’s a mistake for people to focus entirely on whether or not there’s a criminal conviction here,” Professor Jaros said, “rather than on whether or not we have ample proof of serious problems with police in Baltimore that require that we explore: How are we going to prevent these in the future?” | 1 |
Date: 2015-03-08 15:49 Subject: Fwd: Lanny Davis We gotta zap Lanny out of our universe. Can't believe he committed her to a private review of her hard drive on TV. On March 4, 2015, two days after the e-mail in which Podesta wrote, “we are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later,” the House Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed Clinton demanding “any and all documents and communications in your possession, and/or sent from or received by the email adresses [sic] ‘ ,’ ‘ ,’ or any other email adress [sic] or communications device used by you or another on your behalf, referring or relating to” the committee’s investigation into Benghazi. The subpoena specifically demanded all such “communications” “for the time period of January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012.” Clinton — in a possible move to buy more time to “dump all those emails” — falsely claimed that she had not been subpoenaed. The committee responded by making the subpoena public. Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy wrote, “I would not make this [subpoena] public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy.” The press release , dated July 18, 2015 says, in part: “The committee has issued several subpoenas, but I have not sought to make them public," said committee Chairman Trey Gowdy. “I would not make this one public now, but after Secretary Clinton falsely claimed the committee did not subpoena her, I have no choice in order to correct the inaccuracy. The committee immediately subpoenaed Clinton personally after learning the full extent of her unusual email arrangement with herself, and would have done so earlier if the State Department or Clinton had been forthcoming that State did not maintain custody of her records and only Secretary Clinton herself had her records when Congress first requested them.” “The fact remains, despite when this subpoena was issued, Secretary Clinton had a statutory duty to preserve records from her entire time in office, and she had a legal duty to cooperate with and tell the truth to congressional investigators requesting her records going back to September of 2012. Yet despite direct congressional inquiry, she refused to inform the public of her unusual email arrangement. This information only came to light because of a Select Committee request, not a voluntary decision to turn over records almost two years after leaving office, records which always should have been in State’s custody." "Moreover, the timing of the Secretary's decision to delete and attempt to permanently destroy emails is curious at best. The Secretary left office in February of 2013. By her own admission she did not delete or destroy emails until the fall of 2014, well after this Committee had been actively engaged in securing her emails from the Department of State. For 20 months, it was not too burdensome or cumbersome for the Secretary to house records on her personal server but mysteriously in the fall of 2014 she decided to delete and attempt to permanently destroy those same records." The press release contains a link to the actual subpoena . As the press release makes clear, “By her own admission” Hillary Clinton “did not delete or destroy emails until the fall of 2014.” What is left unclear is this: If those e-mails had already been deleted (as she claimed), then what e-mails was Podesta referring to when he said they were “going to have to dump” them “sooner” rather than “later”? And if the e-mails had been deleted in 2014, why did Hillary have her server wiped using BleachBit before turning it over to investigators? It is hopeful that two things will happen following this most recent disclosure. The first is that this will find its way into the newly reopened investigation into Clinton’s use of the private, unsecured server. The second is that WikiLeaks will release additional pieces of the puzzle to clarify what is still unclear. With less than a week left until the election, it is likely to be an exciting few days. Photo of John Podesta: AP Images Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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By Eric Blair We recently moved back to the mainland United States after ten years of traveling and living abroad. Our homeschooled kids are getting... | 0 |
US Airstrikes on Iraqi Army Slowing Advance on Mosul ‹ › GPD is our General Posting Department whereby we share posts from other sources along with general information with our readers. It is managed by our Editorial Board Time for FBI director Comey to go By GPD on October 29, 2016 Just an idiot or "on the pad? Either way, Comey should go...and if some are right, it will be prison. Dupe, idiot or another Hoover wannabe? Paul Callan says that the FBI director, by foolishly making a public announcement that the agency is reviewing newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton’s personal server, has inserted himself yet again into the campaign He says his clumsy handling of the probe is reason for Comey to resign In truth, investigations open and close routinely and secretly when new evidence comes to light. Each new scrap in a pile of useful or useless evidence is not announced in real time, like a scandal in a scripted reality TV Show. Perhaps it’s time for the embattled FBI director who seems to have forgotten how to conduct a proper investigation to resign. Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former NYC homicide prosecutor and currently is “of counsel” to the New York law firm of Edelman and Edelman, PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him @paulcallan (CNN) Donald Trump’s oft-repeated claim that the FBI’s investigation of “Crooked Hillary” and the presidential election itself were and are “rigged,” seems to have thrown FBI Director James Comey into a state of panic. In foolishly making a public announcement that the bureau is reviewing newly discovered emails related to Hillary Clinton’s personal server, he has inserted himself yet again into the presidential campaign. The FBI virtually never announces the commencement or termination of ongoing criminal investigations or the discovery of new evidence. Such inquiries are often conducted in relative secrecy, enabling a more efficient investigation. The old, sensible FBI rule book apparently has been thrown on the trash heap this year. Read more at CNN Related Posts: | 0 |
A member of the Oakland Raiders Super Bowl winning team told Breitbart News at the Conservative Political Action Conference that it is time for to reclaim their traditional conservatism. [“Today’s generation has been trained to think differently from my generation. We would stand for the flag in a heartbeat — because we realized the opportunities we had,” said Burgess Owens on Thursday. Owens was an safety at the University of Miami, who was drafted by the New York Jets in 1973 and played for the Jets until joining the Raiders for their run at Super Bowl XV. Owens was at CPAC to discuss with people his new book “Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps” and attend a book signing. “Today’s generation came from BET group — the BET has been talking down our country for the longest time. ” Black Entertainment Television is the top cable channel focused on the community. Today’s young have been twisted up by BET, he said. “They tend to be more racist. They tend to be more ” he said. “I was the third black American to be recruited by the University of Miami and I remember going down there — my goal was not to fail,” he said. “That was really what allowed our community to think,” he said. “We didn’t want to leave our families down. We didn’t want to let our race down. We would work as hard as we could, so we would not fail. ” Owens said that when he was coming of age in the late 1960s, there was always a racial consciousness that was trying to break through and disrupt the traditional ways of life. In those times in his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, the black community was stronger than most other communities, black or white, he said. “The community as that time was totally committed to the family,” he said. “We had the highest percentage of men committed to marriage. We had the fastest growing in the country. ” Conservatism, with its emphasis on work, entrepreneurship, and faith traditions, is a natural fit for but somehow the narrative got switched up. Owens said he wrote his book because politics and policies have destroyed thriving black communities, but no one else seemed to want to talk about it. “Back in 1910, the NAACP, started by 21 white Marxist, socialist, atheist Democrats, began to intertwine the thought of liberalism into my community,” he said. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the most prominent of the civil rights organizations. “We started to pull away from the pillars that always made our country great and towards being and feeling like victims,” he said. “They taught our race that the real value was in being with the white race, instead of what we were doing at the time,” the father of six said. “I would say to a young man: Recognize who you are, let’s . Take the rolls you are supposed to take. Take care of your family. Respect women — big time — and we will be a great country again,” he said. His message to white Americans: “Don’t apologize anymore for who they are. We have a great society with great ancestors, who did their best. ” | 1 |
In less than two weeks, the U.S. Presidential election will take place. According to the polls, only 9% of the populace is looking forward to casting their vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald... | 0 |
Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Cleveland Indians Worried Team Cursed After Building Franchise On Old Native American Stereotype CLEVELAND—Having watched in horror as their team crumbled after a 3-1 World Series lead, members of the Cleveland Indians expressed concern Thursday that the organization has been cursed for building their franchise on an incredibly old Native American stereotype. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Nurse Reminds Elderly Man She’s Just Down The Hall If He Starts To Die DES PLAINES, IL—Assuring him that she’d be at his side in a jiffy, local nurse Wendy Kaufman reminded an elderly resident at the Briarwood Assisted Living Community that she was just down the hall if he started to die, sources reported Tuesday. | 0 |
Top 10 amazing, indigenous, all-natural cures from around the world
S. D. Wells Tags: natural cures , indigenous medicine , healing plants (NaturalNews) Before World War II, very few Americans suffered from cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, arthritis, osteoporosis, food allergies, psoriasis, eczema, autism, Asperger's syndrome or even fibromyalgia. There were no processed foods, no genetically modified organisms, no chemical pesticides, no toxic vaccines loaded with mercury and aluminum, no over-the-counter medications loaded with artificial food dyes and heavy metal toxins, no artificial sweeteners, no fluoride in the tap water, no leaking nuclear reactors, and of course, there were no insidious oncologists giving people lethal chemical drugs (chemotherapy) to fight off cell disorder (cancer) that's caused by chemical consumption in the first place.None of that was going on, because the American Medical Association had yet to figure out that if all mainstream medicine was simply made of chemicals, everybody who got sick would stay sick, and the medicine industry would become one of the biggest money makers in the history of the world.Yes, that was the time of amazing indigenous medicine , when natural healers were doing wonders for sick folks using natural remedies . And when people did get sick, they took medicine that had worked for millennia, not some lab-concocted chemicals that crooked science journals swore would work. The Chinese and the American Indians didn't get lucky; they used food as medicine , and it worked.Have you had enough of medicine that's so poisonous that they have to inform you about side effects more dangerous than the condition being "treated?" Are you sick of paying an arm and a leg for symptom-cover-up chemicals that make you fat, dumb, sicker and closer to death? So is everybody else. Join the club. End the insanity. Try the top 10 amazing, indigenous, all-natural cures from around the world, and never suffer another side effect, never perpetuate illness, and never, ever eat cancer again. All-natural, indigenous cures from around the world #1. Hemp Seed Oil : Ready for the most complete amino acid profile in the world? Hemp seed oil has a 3:1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids that best supports heart health and promotes proper cardiovascular function, thus preventing degenerative diseases . The oil even has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties that protect against the aging process! The oil from the seeds also contains essential fatty acids (mercury-free) that are crucial for brain and eye health, especially during the first years of life.#2. Cannabidiol (CBD) : Made from the roots and stems of the cannabis plant, cannabidiol yields none of the psychoactive compound THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) that marijuana contains. Also known as the "ultimate preventative medicine," "the miracle herb," and even referred to as "the forbidden medicine," CBD is a medical wonder, having anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties , including the support of mitochondrial function at the cellular level.#3. Oil of oregano : Pharmaceutical companies wish they could patent it. Produced from the perennial herb oregano, the oil is loaded with antioxidants that annihilate the free radicals that cause cancer . One of the most potent remedies in the world, oregano oil beats down viruses and knocks back allergies to pollen.#4. Chlorella : Stressed about keeping your blood sugar levels in a healthy range? A recent clinical study proved that superfood chlorella helps maintain healthy blood sugar metabolism, even at the genetic level! Be sure to buy organic chlorella (but not from China, because it's contaminated with heavy metals).#5. Aloe : Wars have been waged to control areas where aloe flourishes. The Aloe vera plant has been used for thousands of years to heal all kinds of health conditions, including wounds, burns, skin irritations, sunburn and even constipation. Grown in mostly tropical locations, this succulent plant has more than 300 species with over 75 nutrients in the gel, including vitamins A, C, E, B1, B2, B3 (niacin), B6, choline, folic acid, alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene. Plus, aloe extracts improve absorption of both vitamin C and vitamin E.#6. Maca : A member of the cruciferous family, maca root is an adaptive superfood grown high in the mountains of South America. Maca is very rich in nutrients and supports increased libido, hormone balance, immune boosting effects and increased energy!#7. Garlic cloves : Garlic contains a compound called allicin that's a potent medicine that was used by the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks and Chinese to combat sicknesses, including the common cold.#8. Licorice root : Dating back as far as 190 AD, this Chinese herbal remedy is used in over 5,000 formulas for clinical purposes, including in aiding digestion.#9. Elderberry : Sambucol, a black elderberry extract, short-circuits the flu! Medical doctors will never tell you about this because it's cheap and it works.#10. Medicinal mushrooms : Check out Reishi, Turkey Tail, Maitake, Shiitake and Chaga to boost immunity and brain power, and to fight cancer cells, for everything from brain cancer to breast cancer. Sources for this article include: | 0 |
Регион: Азиатско-Тихоокеанский регион 5 октября 2016 г. вступило в силу Соглашение о зоне свободной торговли между Социалистической Республикой Вьетнам (СРВ) и Евразийским экономическим союзом (ЕАЭС). Оно было подписано главами правительств СРВ и всех стран ЕАЭС – Армении, Белоруссии, Казахстана, Киргизии и России в мае 2015 г., однако вступить в силу смогло лишь после ратификации парламентами указанных стран. Уже много лет ЕАЭС активно торгует с Вьетнамом. Только за 2010-2014 гг. объем торговли увеличился более чем на 60%, превысив $4 млрд. Создание ЗСТ – закономерный итог этого сотрудничества. По прогнозам Евразийской комиссии, оно может привести к более чем двукратному росту товарооборота к 2020 г., причем не менее 80% объема придется на Россию. Совокупное население ЕАЭС – 183 млн человек, а общий объем ВВП превышает $2 трлн. Льготный доступ на такой обширный рынок – это, несомненно, большой успех для вьетнамской экономики. ЕАЭС также не в обиде: ведь население СРВ превышает 95 млн человек, а ВВП составляет $192 млрд. По данным за последние годы, экономика страны стремительно развивается. Таким образом, Соглашение о ЗСТ весьма выгодно обеим сторонам. В соответствии с документом, в ближайшее десятилетие большую часть товаров как СРВ, так и ЕАЭС ожидает полное или частичное освобождение от ввозных таможенных пошлин, что должно привести к снижению их стоимости и быстрому развитию торговли. Кроме того, в Соглашении уделяется внимание защите интеллектуальной собственности, сотрудничеству в сфере электронной коммерции и в области государственных закупок. Также оговариваются вопросы защиты конкуренции. Помимо импорта и экспорта, договор о ЗСТ облегчит взаимные инвестиции. Вьетнамское руководство видит большое будущее в отношении торгового партнерства как с ЕАЭС, так и непосредственно с Россией. По данным 2016 г., российско-вьетнамский товарооборот достигает $3,7 млрд. Ожидается, что к 2020 г. благодаря созданию ЗСТ он может превысить $10 млрд. Помимо положений, общих для всех участвующих стран, Соглашение о ЗСТ изначально включало разделы, касающиеся только СРВ и России. В них оговариваются дополнительные условия, облегчающие торговлю, инвестиции и перемещения физических лиц между двумя странами. После подписания Соглашения начал действовать российско-вьетнамский «Межправительственный протокол о поддержке производства моторных транспортных средств на территории Социалистической Республики Вьетнам». Этот документ был подписан в марте 2016 г. вьетнамским министром промышленности и торговли Ву Хи Хоангом во время визита в Россию. С российской стороны протокол подписал Д. Мантуров, министр промышленности и торговли РФ. В соответствии с документом, в СРВ будут созданы совместные предприятия вьетнамских фирм с российскими компаниями «Группа ГАЗ», «КамАЗ», «Соллерс», которые будут производить различные виды автомобильной техники. Заключение договора о свободной торговле с Вьетнамом – приятное событие для ЕАЭС и для России в частности. Однако его значение больше, чем просто приобретение хорошего торгового партнера. Можно сказать, что это выход российской экономики на новый уровень, ведь раньше у РФ не было подобных соглашений со странами дальнего зарубежья. Кроме того, это начало масштабного продвижения ЕАЭС и России в Азиатско-Тихоокеанском регионе. С самого своего появления в 2015 г. ЕАЭС пытается наладить торговые связи со странами АТР. Как известно, Вьетнам – важный член Ассоциации стран Юго-Восточной Азии, которая объединяет многие государства АТР. Не исключено, что ЗСТ с Вьетнамом – это шаг на пути к созданию ЗСТ со всеми странами-участницами АСЕАН. Многие члены АСЕАН благосклонно относятся к такой идее. Переговоры уже ведутся с Индонезией, Королевством Камбоджа, Малайзией и Сингапуром. Кроме того, рассматриваются возможности создания ЗСТ с государствами АТР, не входящими в АСЕАН, такими как Индия, Китай, Новая Зеландия. Так что, можно сказать, что позиции ЕАЭС в АТР постепенно укрепляются. Еще одним подтверждением этого стало заявление Монголии о желании присоединиться к ЕАЭС, сделанное в ноябре 2016 г. На первый взгляд может показаться, что приход ЕАЭС в АТР приведет к конкуренции с Китаем, который сейчас, на фоне ослабления США, является одним из главных игроков в регионе. Однако на самом деле рост влияния ЕАЭС скорее выгоден Поднебесной. Как известно, наиболее заметный процесс в АТР в наше время – противостояние между Китаем и США. Экономическое и политическое влияние США в регионе заметно ослабло в последние годы, однако оно по-прежнему велико. Америка по мере сил старается сохранить свое могущество, притянуть на свою сторону как можно больше стран. Так, в феврале 2016 г. было подписано соглашение о создании Транстихоокеанского партнерства (ТТП). В ТТП вошли Австралия, Бруней, Вьетнам, Канада, Малайзия, Мексика, Новая Зеландия, Перу, Сингапур, США, Чили и Япония. Все эти страны объединила зона свободной торговли и ряд общих правил. Несомненно, с таким союзом конкурировать сложно, ведь на долю стран-участниц Партнерства приходится около 30% мировой торговли. При этом сейчас ведутся переговоры о создании ТТИП – Трансатлантического торгового и инвестиционного партнерства, в которое США хотят вовлечь Евросоюз. Вероятность, что эти переговоры увенчаются успехом, невелика: проект слишком невыгоден для Европы. Однако если это все же случится, то по обеим сторонам Евразии могут возникнуть крупные и богатые экономические объединения, на долю которых придется около 80% мировой торговли. При этом каждое из них будет контролироваться США. В этой связи страны, вошедшие в состав ТТП и ТТИП, могут значительно снизить объемы торговли со всем остальным миром, в том числе и с КНР, которая является сейчас крупнейшим торговым партнером многих из них. Более того, ставится под удар один из главных проектов Китая, на который он возлагает огромные надежды – «Новый Шелковый путь», который должен соединить Европу и Азию и сам стать со временем зоной свободной торговли. Несомненно, такое развитие событий не может устроить ни КНР, ни множество других стран Евразии и АТР. Чтобы успешно конкурировать с ТТП и ТТИП, страны ЕАЭС и АТР должны приложить как можно больше усилий к взаимной интеграции. Объединившись Россия, Китай, Индия, АСЕАН и Центральная Азия смогут не опасаться никаких конкурентов. Однако многие государства, не желающие сотрудничать с США, опасаются мощного и экспансивного Китая. Это препятствует объединению региона. Возможно, появление третьей силы, такой, как ЕАЭС, станет для них выходом и поможет наладить успешное сотрудничество. Дмитрий Бокарев, политический обозреватель, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи | 0 |
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In the half-burned church of St Mary al-Tahira in Qaraqosh, several dozen Syriac Catholics are holding a mass in Aramaic amid the wreckage left by Isis . The upper part of the stone columns and the nave are scorched black by fire and the only artificial light comes from three or four candles flickering on an improvised altar. Isis fighters used the courtyard outside as a firing range and metal targets set at one end of it are riddled with bullets.
In his sermon, the Syriac Catholic Bishop of Baghdad Yusuf Abba calls for the congregation to show cooperation and goodwill to all. But the people of Qaraqosh, an overwhelmingly Christian town 20 miles south east of Mosul , wonder just how much goodwill and cooperation they can expect in return. .
The Christians are still traumatised by the disasters of the last two-and-a-half years. When Isis took Qaraqosh on 8 August 2014 it had a population of 44,000, almost all Syriac Catholics, who fled for their lives to Irbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Some 40 per cent of these have since migrated further to countries like Australia and France or, within the Middle East, to Istanbul and Lebanon.
But the 28,000 people from Qaraqosh who stayed inside Iraq have understandable doubts about going home, even if Isis is fully defeated and loses Mosul. “There is no security while Isis is still in Mosul,” says Yohanna Towara, a farmer, teacher and community leader in the town, but even when Isis is gone the Christians will be vulnerable. He says that “the priority is for us to control our local affairs and to know who will rule the area in which we live.” He adds that the need for permanent security outweighs the need to repair the destruction wrought primarily by Isis but also by US-led air strikes.
This destruction is bad enough, though it is not total. Isis fighters set fire to many ordinary houses in addition to the churches in the days before they left, but – possibly because there was no furniture left to burn since it all had been looted – most of these houses look as if they could be made habitable after extensive repairs. It will take time because not only has the furniture gone, but cookers and fridges so, even if light fittings or taps are still in place, there is no water or electricity.
Isis did not fight for Qaraqosh and there are no booby traps or improvised explosive devices. But they must at one time have thought of doing so because they dug networks of tunnels in the nearby Christian village of Karemlash as if they intended to wage an underground guerrilla war against the Iraqi army. In the event, there are few signs of Isis resistance, except the rather pathetic remains of burned out tyres which they set fire to in order to create a smoke haze to impede the visibility of the aircraft of the US-led coalition. There were not many air strikes, but where they did take place the results devastated whole buildings reducing them to heaps of rubble.
Visiting Qaraqosh from Irbil 40 miles away, it is easy to understand why people displaced from Qaraqosh and in the rest of the Nineveh Plain feel insecure and dubious about returning to their old homes, even where they are still standing. They know that if they do they will be at the mercy of Arab and Kurdish authorities eager to fill the vacuum left by the fall of Isis and wishing to stake new claims to territory and power.
Arriving at a Kurdish Peshmerga checkpoint on the main road from the Kurdish region to Mosul at 9am, we make our way through crowds of people originally from Qaraqosh waiting to pass through. “See how they are treating people,” says a critical Christian observer. “People have been waiting here since 5 or 6am, but the Peshmerga say they need a senior officer to give permission for them to pass.”
After another two Peshmerga checkpoints, we reach an Iraqi army checkpoint with whom the Christians have better relations. The Nineveh Plain east of Mosul was home to a mosaic of minorities and its abandoned villages show various levels of destruction, depending on their sectarian and ethnic complexion. For instance, some had once contained Sunni and Shia Shabak (a heterodox sect speaking a dialect of Kurdish), but Isis had destroyed the houses of the Shia but left the Sunni.
Closer to Qaraqosh the checkpoints are manned by soldiers of the Iraqi Army and local Christian members of the Nineveh Protection Units (NPU) with their multi-coloured red, white and blue flags. Relations between the NPU and the army appear good, but the soldiers are Shia and at one checkpoint they had laid out a table and were serving sweet tea and biscuits as part of the Shia Arbaeen commemoration. The diversity of officially-sanctioned armed groups appears never-ending: at some checkpoints there were also visible the dark uniforms of federal police, whom locals say are recruited from the Shabak and Turkmen communities.
Fear of Isis had united diverse groupings and communities, but that unity is showing signs of fraying. The Peshmerga are excluded from fighting inside Mosul city, but are building a rampart and ditch to denote their front line. The Kurds may be pleased to see Isis defeated in Mosul, but if it is defeated by a reconstituted and effective Iraqi army – very different from the large but ill-commanded and corrupt army that fled from Isis in 2014 – then the balance of power in northern Iraq will change against the Kurds.
The outcome of the war all over Iraq and Syria has ensured that minorities that were once spread throughout the two countries, now only feel secure if they can rule their own territory. But in Iraq the Christians do not have the numbers to defend themselves. (Reprinted from The Independent by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
In an unnamed, city in the Muslim world, two young lovers face a wrenching choice. They can stay in their barricaded apartment as their country descends into sectarian bloodshed and chaos, or entrust their lives and fortunes to a human smuggler who promises to spirit them to safety through a magic portal in an abandoned dentist’s office. The couple choose the mysterious doorway and are instantly transported to a Greek island, where they find themselves among hundreds of other desperate refugees. With its surreal premise, “Exit West,” an acclaimed new novel by Mohsin Hamid, might feel hallucinatory and distant had it arrived at a different moment. Instead, the novel — which fuses magical realism with a harrowingly vivid story of global migration and displacement — feels ominously relevant. Mr. Hamid, a cultural chameleon and polyglot who was born in Pakistan and spent more than half his life in the United States and London, didn’t intend to write a dystopian parable about the current refugee crisis. When he began working on “Exit West” four years ago, he started with an abstract idea: a global network of passageways that circumvent borders, allowing migrants to immediately cross oceans and continents and erasing the already porous barriers between nations and cultures. “The idea of these doors, which I feel already exist, unlocked the form of this novel,” Mr. Hamid, 45, said in a Skype interview from his home in Lahore, Pakistan. “I wanted to write a very large book about the entire world on a very small scale, so I needed to find some way of covering a lot of ground. ” Mr. Hamid’s literary profile has been growing ever since he dazzled critics with his 2000 debut novel, “Moth Smoke,” which explored the lives of Pakistani youth and was a finalist for the Award. Since then, his three novels have collectively sold a million copies and been translated into 35 languages. But “Exit West” is likely to draw a much broader audience, and seems poised to become one of this year’s most significant literary works. To meet demand from booksellers, Mr. Hamid’s publisher, Riverhead, had already ordered four printings before the book’s release on Tuesday. Prominent novelists like Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Joyce Carol Oates and Kiran Desai have praised the novel as an urgent and essential story, particularly at a moment when immigrants and Muslims have been demonized. Mr. Hamid, who lived in the United States for 17 years and describes himself as “culturally and emotionally at least half American,” said the last few months have left him frightened and depressed. He wonders whether he will still feel welcome in an America that appears increasingly hostile to foreigners and Muslims. His native country, where he is raising his two young children, has suffered a wave of terrorist attacks by the Islamic State and the Taliban. The world seems to be veering toward the upheaval and entrenched polarization that Mr. Hamid envisioned in the novel. He never imagined “Exit West” would become so grimly prescient, with the crisis in Syria displacing millions, and nationalist movements gaining ground in the West. He started writing the story long before rising nativist sentiment led to ‘Brexit’ and Donald J. Trump signed executive orders targeting illegal immigrants and barring refugees from entering the country. “The basic impulse, this growing need for so many people to move because of political calamity and environmental catastrophe, and the rise of nativism and tribalism — those things were quite clearly happening,” he said. “While I hadn’t imagined we’d be where we are now, I guess I’m not surprised. ” But while “Exit West” seems like a dark reflection of our tumultuous times, Mr. Hamid said the novel grew out of a hopeful impulse. “What if we look at a very difficult future — can we still find hope and beauty and love and things that we want?” he said. “For me, this is not a novel about dystopia actually it’s about looking for signs of hope and optimism in the future. ” The novel represents bold new territory for Mr. Hamid, whose earlier works, including “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” and “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia,” were formally innovative and experimental but firmly grounded in reality. “I’ve tried to abide by the laws of physics up until now,” he said. He drew inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges, and from children’s literature, one of his favorite genres. He grew up devouring books by J . R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, and lately has been reading Harry Potter to his daughter. The spare prose in “Exit West” feels almost biblical at times. The magic doors give the story a mythical sweep, as the refugee couple, Nadia and Saeed, escape to Mykonos, then London, then finally the Bay Area, encountering angry nationalist mobs but also benefiting from the unexpected generosity of strangers. Mr. Chabon said that the surreal elements of the novel allowed Mr. Hamid to write about the refugee experience in ways that “few writers would have the courage or chutzpah to get to. ” “What makes this book special is that it takes on a subject that a lot of readers are going to wish they could avert their eyes from,” he said. “Magical realism is about getting you to look at something with fresh eyes and see something marvelous in the everyday, and there’s something radical about treating the refugee experience as something with the potential to be marvelous. ” Like his protagonists, Mr. Hamid has spent much of his life feeling displaced, rootless and alienated. “Grappling with movement, and the wrenching and painful nature of that, has been very central to my life,” he said. Born in Lahore in 1971, Mr. Hamid moved at age 3 to Northern California, where his father was studying for a Ph. D. at Stanford. A chatty child, he suddenly found himself cut off from language, unable to communicate with other children. He assimilated, only to be uprooted again at 9, when his family returned to Pakistan. By then, he had forgotten how to speak Urdu, his first language. “When I was younger I used to imagine I was some kind of a freak, I’m not really anything,” he said. “I became a very good chameleon. ” At 18, he returned to the United States to attend Princeton, where he took writing workshops with Ms. Oates and Toni Morrison. Ms. Oates recalled him as “quietly well spoken, though forceful in his critiques of others’ work. ” He later went to Harvard Law School, and continued to write fiction, working on a draft of “Moth Smoke. ” He worked as a consultant at McKinsey Company in New York, and convinced the company to give him three to four months off a year to write. He later moved to London, where he met his wife, a classically trained singer and musician who is also from Lahore. After the birth of their daughter, Mr. Hamid felt a pang of homesickness, and convinced his wife to move back to Lahore to be near their parents. (He is a dual citizen of Pakistan and Britain.) “I remember him saying, ‘I have to go back, it’s a waste of happiness to be away from them,’” said the filmmaker Mira Nair, who directed a film adaptation of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist. ” Mr. Hamid has lived in Lahore for the past seven years. He writes while his two children are at school — pacing around his office and reading passages out loud — and works as a consultant for the branding agency Wolff Olins. His wife runs a restaurant. He’s deeply attached to Lahore. But Mr. Hamid feels conflicted about whether he belongs there. “The life of a writer is more fraught here than it might be in other places,” he said. Sometimes, he considers leaving again, but worries about the emotional toll on his family. “It’s not so easy to pick up and leave,” he said. “As is the case in the novel, leaving home is an emotionally violent act. ” | 1 |
We Are Change
A Virginia principal has outraged humorless parents after he and his secretary dressed up like Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton — with the former First Lady in an orange prison jumpsuit.
The well-executed costumes were worn by Robert E. Lee High School’s Principal Mark Rowicki — who dressed as Trump, and the school’s secretary Stephanie Corbett — who dressed as Clinton. A photo of the duo was posted to the school’s website in a playful album of costumes worn by students and staff.
Principal Mark Rowicki and secretary Stephanie Corbet
Political figures have long been fodder for satirical Halloween costumes, and Clinton masks with the orange jumpsuits were an extremely popular choice this year — as the holiday falls just before the election. On the other side of the political aisle, many people dressed as cats with “don’t grab my p*ssy” signs, “bad hombres,” or “nasty women.”
After the photos were posted, a parent reportedly complained about the “politically charged costumes” on Facebook, leading to the photos being removed from the website.
“I don’t care who you are or are not voting for. You are professionals, who work with children. Some more impressionable then others. The fact that any school official would think it’s okay to dress like this leaves me appalled and floored,” Emberly Lynn Martin, who has two daughters, wrote on a Facebook post, WTVR reports. “What message are you sending to any of them when their high school principal dresses up like a man who wants to deport them, says things like “she’s a nasty woman”, or “grab em by the p—–?”
Judging by the last portion of her comment, it isn’t the fact that the school administration dressed up in politically relevant costumes, but rather the fact that they appear to support a candidate that she doesn’t.
Outrage over Halloween was once associated with the religious right — but these days, complaints about the holiday from liberals are as predictable as trick or treaters. Nearly every costume can be deemed offensive by someone, and colleges have even offered counseling for students upset over what peers are wearing for this year’s celebrations.
Though its arguable about whether or not it was necessary, Principal Rowicki has apologized to anyone he may have offended.
“It is a longstanding tradition of Staunton City Schools—and of many school divisions across the United States—to allow students and staff to engage in festive activities and dress in costume for Halloween,” Dr. Linda Reviea, Superintendent of Staunton City Schools said in a statement on the school’s website . “That said, the particular costumes worn by two employees at R.E. Lee High School were in poor judgment, given the current political climate and the extraordinarily strong sentiments for the 2016 presidential candidates. I became aware of the situation on Tuesday night and instructed our staff to remove the images in question from Lee High School’s website today (Nov. 2). We are handling the situation as a personnel matter and addressing the issue with relevant staff.”
It is unclear if Rowicki or Corbett were disciplined over the harmless costumes.
The post School Principal Dresses Up as Trump For Halloween, Triggers Parents appeared first on We Are Change .
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ATLANTA — Thomas Harris slid into the cool, salty water of a 6. tank at the Georgia Aquarium here and let himself float limp as kelp. Mr. Harris, a former Army medic, gazed through a diving mask at a manta ray the size of a hang glider doing slow somersaults above shifting schools of silver fish. A whale shark brushed silently by, inches from his face, its broad, spotted back taking up his entire view. Immersed in the moment, he forgot about the world. This is not a weekend hobby. It is part of his therapy for the stress disorder he has been grappling with after his tours in Iraq. And like Mr. Harris, more veterans are turning to these sorts of treatment. The broad acceptance of PTSD after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has posed an unexpected challenge. Acknowledging PTSD has only spurred a debate over the best way to treat it. Traditional medical approaches generally rely on drugs and controlled of trauma, called exposure therapy. But this combination has proved so unpopular that many veterans quit before finishing or avoid it altogether. This has given rise to hundreds of small nonprofits across the country that offer alternatives: therapeutic fishing, rafting and backpacking trips, horse riding, combat yoga, dogs, art collectives, dolphin swims, sweat lodge vision quests and parrot husbandry centers, among many, many others. A decade ago, mainstream psychiatry often dismissed these therapies. But now, as new studies suggest that things like yoga and interacting with animals can be as beneficial as drugs in reducing depression and anxiety without side effects or stigma, a growing number of psychotherapists are building them into treatment plans. It is not hard to find veterans who had bad experiences with traditional treatment. Mike Hilliard, the dive master who leads swims in the Georgia Aquarium’s huge tank, fought depression and anger after two combat tours, including a stint in Iraq in which he was shot in the head. “Treatment had always been someone telling me I was dysfunctional and giving me a bunch of pills. I became more withdrawn to the point where I was considering ending it all,” said Mr. Hilliard, a former Army sergeant. He repeatedly dropped out of care, and found nothing that really helped until he tried scuba diving. “As soon as I was underwater, everything went quiet. Seeing the fish, hearing the ocean — there is a complete innocence about it. There are no bad memories in the water. Everything just wants to live. It made me want to live again. ” He now guides groups sent by the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs on a similar journey in the aquarium several times a week. “It’s not just a ‘thank you for your service’ thing,” he told a group on a recent morning, moments before plunging in with the sea life. “This is a real tool you can use to rebuild your life. ” The crush of veterans seeking treatment beyond drugs and exposure therapy has pushed psychologists to try to scientifically evaluate programs that were once largely dismissed as field trips. But many psychiatrists are troubled by a lack of hard evidence supporting alternative therapies. “Interest has just exploded,” Lt. Col. Gary Wynn, a psychiatrist who teaches at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the military’s medical school. “I work with the V. A. and the military. There is no one who thinks this is just silly alternative medicine stuff anymore. ” But, he cautioned, evidence of real benefit is in many cases still often slim or nonexistent, in part because of a lack of funding for studies, and in part because alternative therapies are harder to assess than drugs. “If I’m studying the benefits of fly fishing, do I control for the number of fish people caught? Or for the weather?” he said. “There is still a lot of work to be done on this. ” PTSD was not formally recognized until 1980. In the relatively young field, people are still figuring out the best ways to treat it, said Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist and a author, who helped get the disorder recognized. The consensus seems to be shifting away from reflexively medicating patients, and toward complementing psychotherapy with things like yoga, he said. “In the beginning I was very on drugs. I did a lot of the early studies for drugs for PTSD. But we very quickly realized they don’t work very well,” he said. “Every veteran since Homer has been doping himself up to keep his issues under wraps, but it doesn’t help process the trauma. ” In the 2000s Dr. van der Kolk published one of the first studies about the effects of yoga on PTSD. “It had very good results. After eight weeks, six months, the positive effects are still there,” he said. He has since made yoga a core part of his practice. Long before medical researchers began trying to document benefits, veterans sought out the healing potential of the world beyond the doctor’s office. The first person to walk the entire Appalachian Trail, Earl Shaffer, had just come home from World War II and told friends he needed to “walk the Army out of my system, both mentally and physically. ” After Vietnam, hundreds of veterans sought refuge in the wilderness. “Most of my work is being driven by the veterans,” said Daniel Libby, a psychologist who teaches yoga at a veterans center in Oakland, Calif. run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. “They don’t want to be on medications. Yoga offers a therapy that is . You don’t have to rely on the medical system. ” In 2010, Mr. Libby surveyed the department’s health system and found that 28 percent of hospitals offered yoga. Now he estimates that it is more than 60 percent. Dr. Barbara Rothbaum, a psychologist at Emory University who runs an intensive PTSD treatment program, complements her traditional therapies with alternative ones. She recently helped compile a National Academy of Sciences report on therapies for PTSD. “We met a lot of clinicians around the country creating programs with equine therapy or wilderness therapy or whatever, and there was no way to know if any of it worked,” she said. “Because of that, we couldn’t recommend it. ” Dr. Rothbaum relies on exposure therapy in her clinic. At the same time, though, she has added yoga and meditation to help patients relax. “It’s not a core treatment, but it’s a life skill that helps maintain the gains,” she said. She also sends patients to places like the Georgia Aquarium to challenge them to overcome fears and build new experiences that put traumatic memories in perspective. After 30 minutes, Mr. Harris, the former Army medic, emerged from the water with a broad grin. “Amazing,” he said. When Mr. Harris got out of the Army, he went to the Department of Veterans Affairs several times for therapy and medication, but always dropped out in frustration and threw his pills away. “I didn’t want to have to take meds. I’ve always been a cornerstone, helping other people,” he said. “I guess I was mad at myself. ” But nightmares and violent outbursts grew worse. One day he blew up at his sister over a vacuum cleaner cord left out in a hallway and slapped her. Shocked at his actions, he vowed to give therapy another try. He now does a combination of traditional exposure therapy and medication, but also meditation and yoga, which, he said, “makes you feel better all day. ” Swimming with the sharks, to him, was more than a field trip. “It’s relaxing, sure. It made me feel great. But it’s also kind of scary, with those big sharks,” he said. “And part of therapy is doing what you have been avoiding, overcoming your fears. ” | 1 |
“Political Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly Zone” [ War on the Rocks ].
The Voters
“This market barometer says Trump still has a chance at the White House” [ MarketWatch ]. “The slump [of the Mexican peso, a] key barometer of Trump’s chances represents ‘recognition that the election may be closer than polls suggest and growing fears U.S. political uncertainty may be on the rise,’ [Colin] Cieszynski says.”
Downballot
“‘There’s a danger the dike could break for Republicans,’ says Tim Storey, who analyzes politics for the National Conference of State Legislatures. He found that there has been a sea change in expectations on both sides since Oct. 7 when The Washington Post reported on the existence of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes… Republicans have become increasingly concerned that they could lose statehouse majorities in as many as 10 states, Storey said” [ RealClearPolitics ].
The Trail
“Clinton lead shrinks, even as nearly 6 in 10 expect her to win, Post-ABC tracking poll finds” [ WaPo ]. Only one poll, so FWIW. “Trump saw his biggest gains among political independents, favoring Trump by a 12-point margin in the latest tracking poll, 49 to 37 percent, after giving Clinton a narrow edge in late last week.” Now that’s volatile!
Funny:
“Clinton campaign manager John Podesta apparently thinks Eric Garner’s death was justified” [ Mic ].
Erica Garner reacts: I'm troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed "using" Eric Garner … Why would you want to "use" my dad?
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
Check the responses…
And then this happened: Clinton staff wanted to use #EricGarner in oped about gun violence. But he wasn't shot — as @es_snipes points out https://t.co/SBqDV4eXEm pic.twitter.com/SdIm8p2H4F
— Julia Craven (@juliacraven) October 28, 2016
Oopsie.
UPDATES Good heavens!
“FBI to take new ‘investigative steps’ on Clinton emails” [ WaPo ]. “The FBI will investigate whether additional classified material is contained in emails sent using Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state, FBI Director James B. Comey informed congressional leaders Friday. The announcement appears to restart the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s server, which previously ended in July with no charges…”
“New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Anthony Weiner’s Electronic Devices” [ New York Times ]. “Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner… The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands.” Then again, if Weiner runs true to form, classification won’t be an issue. But that most definitely does not mean Clinton’s home free .
Quite the Friday afternoon news dump. And not a good week for the Clinton campaign, despite the triumphalism.
Stats Watch
GDP, Q3 2016 (Advance Estimate): “The consumer and the nation’s exports are the headliners in third-quarter GDP which topped expectations at an annualized 2.9 percent. Personal consumption expenditures rose at a solid 2.1 percent annualized rate led by the all important durables component which surged at a 9.5 percent rate. Personal consumption was the largest contributor in the quarter, adding 1.5 percentage points to the quarter’s rate.” [ Econoday ]. “Another important positive in the report is a second straight quarter of improvement in what has been the long lagging business investment component. Contributing 0.2 percentage points to GDP, nonresidential fixed investment rose at a 1.2 percent rate on top of the second-quarter’s 1.0 percent rate.” But: “Yes of course, this is an improvement. But the consumer went limp [?], and GDP is gamed with inventory hocus-pocus and export-import adjustments. I am not a fan of quarter-over-quarter exaggerated method of measuring GDP – but my year-over-year preferred method showed moderate improvement from last quarter” [ Econintersect ]. And: “The Federal Reserve has been notably uneasy surrounding investment levels in the economy with a prolonged series of weak releases, although the second-quarter data was revised higher. The third-quarter data will offer some limited relief over investment trends” [ Economic Calendar ].
Consumer Sentiment, October 2016: “[W]eakened substantially” [ Econoday ]. “[I]t was one year further back, September 2014, that the expectations component, at 76.8 this month, was this weak. Weakness here points to lack of confidence in the jobs outlook.”
Employment Cost Index, Q3 2016: “Year-on-year, total costs held steady at a moderate plus 2.3 percent with wages & salaries dipping 1 tenth to 2.4 percent and benefits up 3 tenths to 2.3 percent” Econoday ]. “This report, which isn’t raising any red flags, is closely watched by Federal Reserve policy makers who, given the strength of the labor market, are on the look out for early signs of wage-related inflation.”
Hotels: “On the one hand, plenty data from STR , HNN’s parent company, shows that things in the United States hotel industry are slowing down. Other the other hand, we have a report that September RevPAR ;was up 5.6%. And, yes, both are true” [ Hotel News Notes ]. “The great performance—this was the highest RevPAR growth this year—really reminded me of the better days we have seen in the past few up cycles. Of course, the results are not actually a sign of anything but a calendar shift of the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur out of September into October. So I would strongly caution against reading anything, good or bad, into these monthly numbers.”
Rail: “This week the one year rolling average did not worsen – but it remains in contraction” [ Econintersect ].
Rail: “Two [CSX] trains collided head-on on a stretch of track south of Philadelphia around 8:25 a.m. Friday, leaving four people injured, according to officials” (with classic photo) [ NBC Philadelphia ]. “It was not immediately clear what caused the trains to be on the same track.”
Shipping: “Shippers, Consignees, Exporters, Importers must take heed to the packing and container transport requirements at both ends of the supply chain” [ Shipping and Freight Resource ]. “[I]t is clear that in this case, no one considered or was aware of the road weight limitation at the [Point of Departure] or along the route to the final destination… There would have been 2 containers that doesn’t subscribe to the country’s road weight limitation loose on the road.. Such instances could even result in loss of lives. this is ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS a lot of the big importers employ the services of a local freight forwarder who are au fait with these transport and documentary requirements, rules, regulations etc etc in each of their countries.”
Shipping: “United Parcel Service Inc. is forecasting record holiday shipments after traffic surged in the third quarter, spurred by rising e-commerce in the U.S. and robust growth in Asia and Europe” [ Wall Street Journal , “Package-delivery company expects record shipments during holiday season as it boosts capital spending, orders new Boeing jumbo jets”]. And: ” United Parcel Service Inc. is placing a big bet on growth in shipping demand” [ Wall Street Journal ]. “UPS is backing up its bullish outlook by buying 14 Boeing Co. 747-8 freighters, the company’s first aircraft order since 2008. The deal pushes UPS more deeply into jumbo-jet operations at a time when international shipping demand has been soft for many companies and populist anti-trade currents seem to present new barriers to global goods movement. The company is pressing lawmakers to support new trade agreements that are drawing scorn in the presidential campaign but would bring new freight volume for its new, bigger planes. In the meantime, UPS says cross-border e-commerce is surging six times faster than the broader economy, growth that helped the company show big gains across its business lines in the third quarter.”
Shipping: “The tale of two canals – game theory in action” [ Splash 247 ]. Panama and Suez canals play tit-for-tat on infrastructure and pricing.
IT: “The latest data breach count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 809 data breaches recorded this year through October 25, 2016, and that nearly 30 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year” [ 247 Wall Street ]. ” The 809 data breaches reported so far for 2016 are nearly 22% above the number reported (666) for the same period last year.” Won’t be a problem when we go cashless, though.
IT: “Apple demolished by Microsoft at their respective PC events” [ MarketWatch ]. Among other minor changes, Apple introduced a programmable “Touch Bar” which replaced the row of function keys at the top of the keyboard — including the ESC key. Fortunately, there’s a solution. For only $69.95 :
IT: “New MacBook Pro is not a Laptop for Developers Anymore” [ DevTeamSpace Blog ].“[D]evelopers are drawn towards Apple products primarily for software reasons: the Unix-like operating system and the proprietary development ecosystem. But developers need to have a functional keyboard to make use of that software and now they don’t. Why Tim Cook, why?” And: “The 2016 MacBook Pro ships with RAM and processor specs that are nearly identical to the 2010 model. Deja vu?”
IT: “Apple, it seems, is angling for the ‘amateur creative’ and isn’t interested in anything else anymore. It wants the market that sits in coffee shops with its brand and only buys Apple, but doesn’t mind so much if the core demographic disappears. Maybe that’s OK — there’s probably good money in it — but it’s a real shame” [ Medium ]. Massive takedown, and fun to read.
The Bezzle: “A grown-up Airbnb now has to face regulation” and “New bill could further delay Airbnb IPO, strategist says” [ MarketWatch ]. “In a sense, recently passed New York regulations on Airbnb Inc. return it to its community roots of sharing homes. The regulation, signed into law Friday, levies a fine of up to $7,500 on advertising short-term rentals of less than 30 days. This means users can still list a room in their home, but cannot advertise entire apartments.”
The Bezzle: “Ruling finds U.K. Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed” [ MarketWatch ]. “The ruling by the London Central Tribunal will affect tens of thousands of drivers for the ride-sharing company, said law firm Leigh Day, which represented drivers from the GMB Union, in a statement. ‘This judgment acknowledges the central contribution that Uber’s drivers have made to Uber’s success by confirming that its drivers are not self-employed but that they work for Uber as part of the company’s business,’ the law firm said.”
The Bezzle: “Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick” [ Los Angeles Times ]. “Backed by more than $20 million in venture capital, Soylent has emerged as one of several popular start-ups hoping to change what and how people eat…. People looking for a quick fix, such as software programmers in Silicon Valley, have become devotees.”
Corruption: “The DOJ’s Pilot Program to encourage companies to self report bribery and cooperate with prosecutors doesn’t fix some problems with FCPA investigations and enforcement actions, [vice chair of Covington & Burling] Lanny Breuer said Wednesday” [ FCPA Blog ]. Lanny Breuer. That’s almost too rich. For readers who may not have savored this:
The Fed: “The next FOMC meeting is next week, on November 1st and 2nd and it seems very unlikely there will be a change in policy at this meeting” [ Calculated Risk ].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 39 Neutral (previous close: 46, Fear) [ CNN ]. One week ago: 43 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 28 at 11:23am. Big swing to fear!
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
“Say goodbye to the fingerprint. It’s your digital footprint the FBI wants” [ McClatchy ].
Militia Watch
“Jury acquits Ammon Bundy, six others for standoff at Oregon wildlife refuge” [ WaPo ].
Gaia
“Almost exactly 20 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill creating an interstate agreement for emergency management. That inconspicuous law has opened the door for the current flood of out-of-state law enforcement agents present at the continuing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota” [ DeSmogBlog ].
Class Warfare
“Uber unveiled the IDG in New York this spring in partnership with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), a union that has organized other black-car drivers” [ Bloomberg ]. “The IDG isn’t a traditional union. Drivers didn’t vote for it. It has no formal collective-bargaining rights…. The guild has helped bring Uber management to the table, says driver and IDG organizer Muhammad Barlas. “When they are more comfortable, it’s easier to try and negotiate with them,” he says. In return, the IDG won’t instigate strikes or try to get the government to treat drivers as employees with the right to unionize.” Novel theory.
“[N]ot all anticompetitive behavior shows up as monopoly—a seller that utilizes its dominant market position to raise prices to customers. Sometimes, it shows up as ‘monopsony,’ when a buyer uses its dominance to underpay suppliers, such as employees. The classic example is a town where most of the residents work for a single factory or mine. The lack of competition from other employers enables the factory or mine owner to pay workers less than otherwise” [ Wall Street Journal , “How Noncompete Agreements Recreate the ‘Company Town'”]. “Actual company towns are dying off, but virtual company towns are on the rise as shifts in the labor market may have given companies more leverage over their workers. One such factor is the rise of the noncompete agreement.”
“Why do we hear so much about the racism of the white working class and so little about the racism of the ruling class?” [ Stumbling and Mumbling ].
News of the Wired
“The history of emoji” [ Vice ]. Wonderful, especially if your a fan of fonts, but also worrying: How sustainable is an iconic language? Will text gradually become a thing for the 10% only?
* * *
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here . And here’s today’s plant (Philip Pitha):
Philip writes: “Mulching the black raspberries with spent coffee grounds. Reusing the plastic bags the grounds come in, but I don’t think they’re recyclable.” 0 0 0 0 0 0 This entry was posted in Water Cooler on by Lambert Strether . About Lambert Strether
Lambert Strether has been blogging, managing online communities, and doing system administration 24/7 since 2003, in Drupal and WordPress. Besides political economy and the political scene, he blogs about rhetoric, software engineering, permaculture, history, literature, local politics, international travel, food, and fixing stuff around the house. The nom de plume “Lambert Strether” comes from Henry James’s The Ambassadors: “Live all you can. It’s a mistake not to.” You can follow him on Twitter at @lambertstrether. http://www.correntewire.com | 0 |
Pinterest
There isn’t a question that the Clintons are the most corrupt politicians in United States history. There also isn’t a question that Bill Clinton is a womanizing, philandering piece of filth. Apparently, one of the women Bill had an affair with while Governor of Arkansas, Gennifer Flowers, has released a series of taped conversations with Bubba from that time.
According to Breitbart :
On October 1991, Clinton announced his bid for the Oval Office, with rumors of extramarital affairs threatening to derail his campaign.
Flowers recently provided this reporter with complete original cassette recordings of her taped conversations with Clinton, recordings that take on renewed significance as the issue of Clinton’s alleged treatment of women has reemerged during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The sections of the audio recordings related to the state job are not exclusive to Breitbart News. Those excerpts were played for the news media in 1992, one day after Bill and Hillary Clinton appeared side by side on 60 Minutes , where Bill denied a relationship with Flowers.
Clinton later admitted to one sexual encounter with Flowers in a 1998 deposition for the Paula Jones lawsuit.
You can hear the recordings here:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/289947630″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]
It’s not just that Clinton had an affair, he was also trying to help his lover get a job with the state. Pay to play on her part or his? Maybe a little of both. Why not take advantage of screwing the married governor of a state and getting something other than an STD from it? Flowers just had to make sure she didn’t tell anyone the governor, her married lover, was helping her to get the job.
This is just one other aspect of the corruption and despicableness that is the Clintons. They care little for actually governing, care absolutely nothing about the people they actually represent or govern, and care nothing about the consequences, because other than fines for their criminal activity or behavior, they have PAID NO consequences for their lifetime of corruption.
Unfortunately, it won’t matter what comes out about Bill and Hillary Clinton. The main stream media won’t report it and even if it’s a criminal act, Obama’s Department of Justice won’t prosecute them.
That’s the reality of the Clintons. They aren’t representatives of the people, they are representatives for themselves and the moral bankruptcy that has invaded our country. | 0 |
Look, Mom, there I am in WikiLeaks. Right there among the rest of the media sellouts, Clinton shills and biased tools of the MSM who are apparently bent on destroying Donald J. Trump. Sarah Palin tweeted about me, Trump himself derided my actions in a stump speech and I’m pretty sure Bill O’Reilly just called on me to resign, if I’m reading the barrage of Twitter mentions correctly — and it is a barrage (or was before I stopped reading Twitter). This is all because of those “damn emails,” as Bernie Sanders would say, although he was referring to a different bunch of damn emails. These belonged to John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman whose hacked emails WikiLeaks has been releasing in daily batches over the last few days. In all, the emails offer a glimpse into the Clinton campaign as the crucible of you would expect. Pretty much any reporter who has covered this enterprise can attest to its stinginess with information and access to the candidate. Official interviews between reporters and campaign aides tend to be aggressively monitored and . Clinton recently broke an ignominious streak of 275 consecutive days without holding a formal news conference. As I detail in an article in this Sunday’s magazine, an argument actually broke out aboard the Clinton plane between campaign aides and the traveling press corps over whether it was O. K. for reporters to tweet the candidate’s apparent preference for Vladimir Putin as a dinner companion over Donald Trump (as revealed in a note scrawled on a clementine — it’s complicated, just read the article). But the leaked emails make for instructive reading nonetheless, though they can be somewhat uncomfortable, if you happen to be the author and recipient of a few of them. By way of background: In July of last year, I embarked on a profile of the former secretary of state a few months after she began seeking the Democratic nomination. True to form, her campaign was nervous and hypercontrolling from the outset, a point that I fleshed out in the story. I described, among other things, the experience of visiting Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters and receiving, before I arrived, an email request from a press aide requesting that I keep “the office itself” off the record. In other words, they wanted me not to relay anything that I saw inside the entire space, as if I were being granted access to a Pentagon bunker or something. It was a ridiculous request that I refused. I also said no initially when the campaign said I could interview Secretary Clinton but only on the condition that we do it off the record. Reporters speak off the record to politicians all the time, but this was an unusual provision and felt slightly weird: a major candidate for president’s agreeing to speak to a reporter on the condition that readers not be privy? It would be one thing if the campaign had also agreed to an discussion, but it had not. I pleaded my case over a few weeks, but Clinton’s staff was not budging. I discussed the dilemma with my bosses — the principle at stake versus the payoff of what I could learn in an setting. Finally, I agreed to an interview. At the very least, I figured I could pitch Clinton directly on doing an actual interview without any mediation from her army of agonizers. Clinton and I spoke for about 45 minutes in a conference room of the Omni Mount Washington resort in Bretton Woods, N. H. She is, as advertised, “funny and thoughtful in and settings” (even the Clinton clichés are clichés at this point). Donors pay top dollar for the opportunity to experience this “funny and thoughtful Hillary in and settings. ” I paid only with annoyance and a few pounds of dignity. Nonetheless, it was a good discussion, and I learned some things. Clinton touched on a number of topics, from the psychological effects of the internet on young people, to the challenges of running for president as a woman, to how her experience seeking the presidency this time differed from 2008. After our conversation, I asked her aides if they would allow me to put any of our discussion on the record. It was their prerogative to decide, given the provision to which I had agreed. I sent large portions of the Clinton transcript in an email to Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign communications director. “These exchanges were pretty interesting,” I wrote. “Would love the option to use. ” Ideally Palmieri would have reviewed portions of the interview — about 2, 000 words — and come back with a simple “Fine, use what you want. ” There was nothing damning or embarrassing in there, at least that I could tell. I heard nothing for a few days. Palmieri shared my email with others in the campaign, including Podesta, apparently. Finally, after consulting with Clinton herself, Palmieri said they would agree to put two sections of the interview on the record. One of them was an icebreaker exchange between Clinton and me in which I mentioned that I had just seen a moose on the side of the New Hampshire road. This elicited an animated response from Clinton about how she herself had encountered lots of moose when she worked in Alaska one summer during college. Simple enough, right? Well, not quite. Palmieri demanded that I not include an aside that Clinton made in the midst of her moose monologue — about Sarah Palin. Now it can be told. “I always got a big kick out of Sarah Palin with all of her ‘We’re cooking up some moose stew here,’ ” Clinton told me. She did not seem to be belittling the former Alaska governor in any way, though I should also point out — and this does not come through in the transcript — that Clinton uttered her “we’re cooking up some moose stew here” line with a passable Palin impersonation. I have no idea why Clinton would not want this Palin aside in the article, though I’m guessing she did not want to invite a public with Palin, as can happen. As it turns out, one of the “newsier” takeaways from this week’s WikiLeaks trove involved the Palin remark. “NY Times’ Mark Leibovich Obeyed Request to Cut Palin Joke From Hillary Interview,” said a headline Tuesday in Breitbart, the adamantly news site. Putting aside that it wasn’t really a joke, the word “obeyed” here goes to the essence of the criticism, mockery and vitriol I’ve been receiving from the right in recent days. “Hillary, let’s make a deal!” Palin tweeted on Wednesday. “I’ll swap ya — my special moose chili recipe for your trick that lets you edit media coverage of yourself. ” Or as Trump put it Wednesday night at a rally in Florida, The Times granted Clinton “veto power over her quotes in a story,” he said. “Nobody ever called and said, ‘Mr. Trump, we’ve written this story, would you give us a little feedback?’ ” This is obviously not what happened in my case, but given the revealed in the leaked I can see how the uninitiated might get that impression. Politicians in fact go “off the record” with reporters with some frequency. As soon as the reporter grants the provision, he is effectively allowing “veto power” over that material. That part of the conversation remains private unless he or she says otherwise. That’s the “ trick” Palin was referring to. Trump, for his part, goes off the record with reporters all the time. Last September, I spent several hours over a period of a few weeks with the Donald himself for an article in this magazine. On several occasions, in the midst of our conversations, Trump would go off the record — usually with good reason. This was fine, understandable and, yes, the price of “doing business,” to adapt an unfortunate phrase that Palmieri used to sign off on our last email (“Pleasure doing business! ”). I wish Palmieri had not used those exact words, but there are in fact collusive aspects to these relationships. Political profiles are, by definition, an awkward dance that involves competing agendas, mutual cynicism and, in many cases, negotiation. It can involve great levels of trust and distrust at the same time. I’ve written a few hundred of these profiles over the years, and each dynamic is complicated for its own particular reasons. Looking back, I realize that Trump’s campaign was a relative pleasure to deal with compared with the coiled thicket of Clintonia. His was a simple and nimble operation, consisting at the time of just himself and his communications director, Hope Hicks. Decisions came fast and without obvious usually from the candidate himself. Trump was more than generous with his time, access and willingness to say provocative things. He was the in this regard, just as Clinton is the in other regards. But Trump was hardly unplugged or unaware. A lot of the stuff he said to me that he declared to be “off the record” was potentially harmful to him. He was fully conscious of where lines were, whom he did not want to be disparaging publicly and of what could bring needless offense. He trusted me to honor this agreement, and of course I did, and will continue to. If I had asked Trump, after the fact, whether I could put some of that material “on the record,” it would have been his right to say no, to exercise his veto power. As it turned out, there might have been one or two things I asked him if I could use in our final conversations, but I don’t recall exactly. Another advantage of writing about Trump: He does give you plenty to work with. For as as he was, Trump has been equally hostile to the “unfair” and “dishonest” press — increasingly so, and to a point where it’s reaching an unnervingly fevered pitch. “Without the press, Hillary Clinton would be nothing,” Trump railed Thursday at a rally in Florida. The Times and The Washington Post are mere “cogs for a corrupt political machine,” he said. These are days of many cogs in Trump’s America — everything from the Republican officials who Trump says have abandoned him to the United States Justice Department to the women accusing him of sexual harassment. But the media is first among cogs, probably the first entity Trump will blame if he doesn’t win. “The corrupt establishment knows we are a great threat to their criminal enterprise,” Trump said Thursday. We are all part of the enterprise, “doing business” together. We know all the secret handshakes and tricks. The darkest of days could lie ahead for America, Trump warns, and only he has veto power to stop them. | 1 |
ISIS Thinks They Took Christian Village, Then Look Around & See Terrifying Surprise
You can watch the video right here, but be forewarned that it contains some graphic content :
It is unclear at this point whether the bodies were strapped to the hoods to serve as a warning to the rest of their fellow Islamic radicals, or merely as trophies to serve as encouragement to other Kurdish fighters.
Regardless, it was a clear sign that the bloody battle to retake Mosul was underway in earnest, a battle that will most certainly result in incredible bloodshed and loss of life on all sides.
It is possible that the Kurds deliberately chose to strap the dead bodies of their foes on the hood of their vehicles as something of a “one-up” on the Islamic State group thugs, considering that those jihadists have used this tactic before with dead Kurdish fighters and captured Yazidi sex slaves who no longer served their purpose.
This is sadistic and brutal and utterly atrocious, but war often is. | 0 |
Freedom Center Urges College Presidents to End Aid to Campus Supporters of Terror “We ask that you withdraw all university privileges granted to SJP.” October 31, 2016 Frontpagemag.com
Editor’s Note: The following letter was sent to the presidents of the ten campuses named in the Freedom Center’s report on the “Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists.” In alphabetical order, the ten campuses are: Brooklyn College (CUNY), San Diego State University, San Francisco State University, Tufts University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Irvine, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Chicago, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Vassar College.
October 27, 2016
University of California
Dear Dr. Napolitano,
Your school purports to promote the values of diversity, inclusiveness and tolerance yet provides resources, funding and legitimacy to Students for Justice in Palestine. Students for Justice in Palestine is a campus organization whose sole purpose is to conduct hateful propaganda against Jews and the Jewish state for the terrorist organization Hamas. The explicit goals of Hamas are the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state and genocide against its Jewish population. For these reasons, among others, three campuses of the University of California—Irvine, Los Angeles, and Berkeley—have been named among the “Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists” by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. You may read the full report here: http://www.stopthejewhatredoncampus.org/news/top-ten-schools-supporting-terrorists-fall-2016-report
While it masquerades as a typical campus cultural group, SJP is an integral part of Hamas’s efforts to annihilate Israel through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. This is an insidious effort that attempts to delegitimize Israel, and smear it as a rogue “apartheid” nation. These claims are ludicrous. More than a million Palestinians enjoy Israeli citizenship including the rights to vote and to sit on the Israeli courts and parliament. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz has said of the BDS movement, “It is anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist, anti-human rights, anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-negotiation, anti-peace, anti-compromise, and anti-Palestinian workers when they are denied opportunities to work.” Both Larry Summers and Hillary Clinton have denounced BDS as anti-Semitic Jew hatred. Yet your school provides a platform and funding for its sponsors.
With university support, SJP also conducts “Israeli apartheid” hate weeks on campus quads. These events feature pro-Hamas advocates, the construction of “apartheid walls” featuring pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic propaganda, and the creation of mock checkpoints and die-ins that disrupt student movements on campus. SJP actively disrupts pro-Israel campus events—a threat to free speech and a violation of your university’s stated values and rules of conduct.
In addition to being scripted by Hamas terrorists, SJPs pro-terror campaign is funded and guided through a Hamas front called American Muslims for Palestine. In recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Jonathan Schanzer, who worked as a terrorism finance analyst for the United States Department of the Treasury from 2004-2007, described how Hamas funnels large sums of money and provides material assistance to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) through the Hamas front group American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) for the purpose of promoting BDS campaigns on American campuses. AMP was created by SJP co-founder Hatem Bazian, a pro-terrorist lecturer at UC Berkeley who called for a suicide bombing “Intifada” inside the United States. It employs high-ranking officials from other Muslim “charities” that were previously shut down for providing material assistance to terrorists.
Schanzer described AMP as “arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which is the most visible arm of the BDS campaign on campuses in the United States.” He detailed how AMP “provides speakers, training, printed materials, a so-called ‘Apartheid Wall,’ and grants to SJP activists” and “even has a campus coordinator on staff whose job is to work directly with SJP and other pro-BDS campus groups across the country.” Furthermore, “according to an email it sent to subscribers, AMP spent $100,000 on campus activities in 2014 alone.”
Students for Justice in Palestine continues to accept funding and aid through the Hamas front group American Muslims for Palestine. Despite its links to terrorist organizations and agendas, Students for Justice in Palestine continues to receive campus funds and campus privileges, including university offices, and the right to hold events preaching the genocidal values of Hamas on university property. These privileges would normally be denied to groups that preach hatred of any other ethnic group, let alone one that supports barbaric terrorists who slaughter men, women and children with the goal of cleansing the earth of people who disagree with them.
In light of these facts, we ask that you withdraw all university privileges granted to SJP and other campus groups who promote the genocidal Hamas agenda, and that you put an end to the terrorist influences which have infiltrated your campus and which threaten the security not only of Jewish students on your campus, but of all Americans.
David Horowitz ceo The David Horowitz Freedom Center Sherman Oaks, California | 0 |
Let's see - #1 liar denies knowledge of #2 liar's server. Do I have that correct? | 0 |
Janet L. Yellen, the Federal Reserve chairwoman, made it clear Wednesday that she believes that the American economy is pretty much back on track. And that, in turn, sets the stage for a potential conflict with the incoming Trump administration in the months and years ahead. Congress assigns the Fed two goals: seek maximum employment and maintain stable prices. Ms. Yellen, in a speech in San Francisco, rather explicitly made clear that the nation isn’t far from attaining those goals. “Now, it’s fair to say, the economy is near maximum employment, and inflation is moving toward our goal,” she said. The unemployment rate, 4. 7 percent, is back near where it was before the 2008 recession. And “although inflation has been running below our 2 percent objective for quite some time, we have seen it start inching back toward 2 percent last year. ” It is Ms. Yellen’s clearest indication to date that the era of extraordinary efforts by the central bank to get the economy back in shape is nearing its end. The Fed has raised interest rates in each of the last two Decembers, and it is looking likely that there will be more than one rate increase this year. She said in her speech that she and her colleagues were expecting to increase the federal funds rate “a few times a year. ” As central bankers are wont to do, Ms. Yellen emphasized that those plans were contingent on the economy’s behaving as the Fed expected. If inflation starts to slip again, or improvements in the job market recede, the Fed will presumably hold off. But she spoke clearly of the risks of moving too slowly toward the neutral interest rate that neither stimulates nor slows the economy. “Waiting too long to begin moving toward the neutral rate could risk a nasty surprise down the road,” she said. “Either too much inflation, financial instability or both. ” But if things go as planned, there is a clear risk that the Fed’s goals could be on a collision course with the Trump administration’s goals. The and his advisers have often spoken of seeking stronger economic growth than the United States has experienced the last several years, perhaps seeking 3. 5 percent to 4 percent instead of the percent growth that has been the standard since 2009. A white paper by advisers to Mr. Trump released in the fall assessed the view that this lower growth rate reflected demographics and that it amounted to a “new normal,” and declared it “incomplete — and unnecessarily defeatist. ” That view is at odds with both Ms. Yellen’s comments Wednesday and economic projects that Fed officials have released. For example, the median Fed policy maker viewed the economy’s rate of G. D. P. growth as only 1. 8 percent a year, very much in the ballpark that Trump advisers would view as unnecessarily defeatist. So here’s one way things could go: The Fed steadily raises rates, to the degree that employment and inflation data cooperate with their forecasts, with faster rate increases the higher growth rises. It’s possible that what people in Mr. Trump’s orbit view as a desirable boom will look to Ms. Yellen and her colleagues as overheating, and prompt equal and opposite interest rate increases. There are a couple of potential twists in this story. The first would involve potential Trump appointments to the Fed the second could involve big moves in the dollar. Ms. Yellen’s term as chairwoman expires in about a year. Mr. Trump could appoint a new leader to the Fed who is more hospitable to his view (though she would have the option of continuing her time as a Fed governor, one of seven policy makers who are appointed to terms). There are two governor vacancies available now, so Mr. Trump could quickly influence the direction of the Fed with new appointees. But it’s not clear whether any new Trump appointees would steer the bank toward higher interest rates and greater concern about inflation or let a potential Trump boom advance unconstrained. Big fluctuations in the dollar could also shape a potential tension between Trumponomics and Fed policy. Economists believe a key element of a corporate income tax overhaul advanced by House Republicans, known as a border adjustment tax, would have the effect of creating a huge rally in the value of the dollar compared with other major currencies, perhaps 20 percent or more. The Fed has been more focused than ever in the last few years on how its decisions ripple through the global economy. It held off on rate increases in 2015 and early 2016 in significant part because a rally in the dollar seemed to be destabilizing many emerging markets and fueling risks of a global slowdown. A stronger dollar also reduces inflation in the United States, which in turn makes the Fed more inclined toward caution on rate increases. Mr. Trump has sent mixed messages on his views of a border adjustment tax, seeming to slap down the idea in a Wall Street Journal interview published this week. But if it looks as if policies on Capitol Hill are going to push the dollar up significantly. Of course, that too could cut in the other direction. A stronger dollar doesn’t help with Mr. Trump’s goals of reducing the trade deficit, and just this week he has seemed to try to talk the dollar down. Add up a week of new signals from incoming Trump administration officials and now Ms. Yellen’s speech, and it is looking like a distinct possibility that Ms. Yellen could wake up one morning in the year ahead to tweets directed her way, originating from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. | 1 |
Hate Rising with Jorge Ramos Fusion, October 28, 2016
From the Ku Klux Klan to the so called alt-right movement, white supremacist groups are growing in numbers and influence. In “Hate Rising,” Jorge Ramos shows us how their ideas, usually confined to private and secretive gatherings, are becoming mainstream thanks in part to the rhetoric on the campaign trail this election cycle. [Editor’s Note: An extended version of the interview with Jared Taylor is available here .] | 0 |
An American college student sentenced by North Korea to 15 years of hard labor on charges that he tried to steal a political poster has been granted only one consular visit in nearly six months, the State Department said Tuesday. The prisoner, Otto F. Warmbier of Cincinnati, a honors student at the University of Virginia, has been held in North Korea since January. He was seized by North Korean security officials on the day he was to depart the country at the end of an organized tour. Mr. Warmbier’s incarceration, against the backdrop of North Korea’s growing isolation over the country’s nuclear and missile tests, is widely viewed as tool of leverage by the North Korean authorities against the United States. Over the past several years, North Korea has periodically seized roughly a dozen Americans who have visited the country, which has considered the United States its most dangerous enemy since the Korean War. Most of the Americans have either been expelled or eventually released. Mr. Warmbier was shown on North Korean television tearfully apologizing for the attempted theft of a political propaganda poster in his hotel in Pyongyang, the capital, a seemingly minor offense that the government regarded as a major crime. In he was punished with a term in the North Korean penal system, angering the United States government and drawing rebukes elsewhere for what was seen as a disproportionately harsh sentence. People in contact with the Warmbier family, which has declined to give interviews, said Mr. Warmbier had received only one consular visit, in March, from the embassy of Sweden, which looks after American interests in North Korea. The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, confirmed that information on Tuesday. “A representative from the Swedish Embassy last visited Mr. Warmbier on March 2, 2016,” Mr. Kirby said in a statement. Despite requests by the Swedish Embassy, he said, the North Korean government “still routinely delays or denies consular access to U. S. citizens. ” It is considered unusual for prisoners to get only one consular visit over such a long period. The State Department has warned Americans not to travel to North Korea because of the risk of arbitrary arrest. But that has not dissuaded people curious about the country’s hermetic society and the population’s fealty to the Kim family, which has ruled North Korea since its founding. Mr. Warmbier traveled there with Young Pioneer Tours, a group that specializes in visits to North Korea. There has been no indication from the North Korean authorities of when they might be prepared to release Mr. Warmbier. He received the harshest punishment of any American detained there since November 2012, when Kenneth Bae, an American missionary of Korean descent, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. Mr. Bae and another imprisoned American, Matthew Todd Miller, were freed by the North Koreans in November 2014 during a visit to North Korea by James R. Clapper Jr. the Obama administration’s national intelligence director, who brought them home aboard his plane after secret negotiations. | 1 |
Tuesday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Sen. Tom Cotton ( ) commented on a report that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice for President Barack Obama was behind the unmasking of the identities of members of Donald Trump’s transition team. Cotton noted Rice’s involvement in this story and her involvement in what he suggested were other Obama administration foreign policy missteps and likened her to “Typhoid Mary. ” “Susan Rice is the Typhoid Mary of the Obama administration foreign policy,” Cotton said. “Every time something went wrong, she seemed to turn up in the middle of it, whether it was these allegations of improper unmasking, intentional or improper surveillance, whether it’s Benghazi or the other fiascos over the eight years of the Obama administration. ” “If Eli Lake’s reporting is correct, it is hard to square what Susan Rice said in that PBS interview,” he added. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
A father who allegedly brought his son along for a home invasion was shot and killed Friday by a female homeowner. [The incident occurred around 1:40 pm in San Antonio, Texas. According to the San Antonio the suspect allegedly tried to break in through a window in the very room where the homeowner happened to be asleep. The female homeowner heard the suspect trying to make entry into her home, armed herself, and fired at least two rounds. Police arrived in time to transport the alleged intruder to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The woman was in her and the alleged intruder was his . Police also discovered the alleged intruder’s son at the scene. San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said of the young boy, “We’re gonna get help for him. ” AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Republican leaders and election officials from both parties on Sunday sought to combat claims by Donald J. Trump that the election is rigged against him, amid signs that Mr. Trump’s contention is eroding confidence in the vote and setting off talk of rebellion among his supporters. In a vivid illustration of how Mr. Trump is shattering American political norms, the Republican nominee is alleging that a conspiracy is underway between the news media and the Democratic Party to commit vast election fraud. He has offered no evidence to support his claim. “The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary — but also at many polling places — SAD,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Mr. Trump made the incendiary assertion hours after his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, tried to play down Mr. Trump’s questioning of the fairness of the election. Mr. Pence said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he and Mr. Trump “will absolutely accept the result of the election. ” Mr. Trump’s words, though, appear to be having an effect on his supporters, and are setting off deep concern among civil rights groups. According to an Associated Press poll last month, only of Republicans said they had a great deal of confidence their votes would be counted fairly. And election officials are worried that Mr. Trump’s continued pressing of the issue could dampen turnout or cause his supporters to deny the legitimacy of the results if he loses. Last week, Mr. Trump called the presidential election “one big fix” and “one big, ugly lie. ” Jon A. Husted, the secretary of state of Ohio, said it was “wrong and engaging in irresponsible rhetoric” for any candidate to question the integrity of elections without evidence. Mr. Husted, a Republican, said he would have no reason to hesitate to certify the results of the election. “We have made it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” Mr. Husted said Sunday in an interview. “We are going to run a good, clean election in Ohio, like we always do. ” American elections are, unlike those in many democracies, largely decentralized, rendering the possibility of fraud extraordinarily unlikely. Further, the balloting in many of the states will be overseen by Republican officials, individuals who would be highly unlikely to consent to helping Mrs. Clinton rig the vote. Chris Ashby, a Republican election lawyer, said Mr. Trump’s attacks on the electoral process were unprecedented and risked creating a fiasco on Election Day. Mr. Ashby also said that Mr. Trump was “destabilizing” the election by encouraging his supporters to deputize themselves as amateur poll monitors, outside the bounds of the law. “That’s going to create a disturbance and, played out in polling places across the country, it has the potential to destabilize the election,” Mr. Ashby said, “which is very, very dangerous. ” Mr. Trump’s claims, a little more than three weeks before the election, are once again forcing elected Republicans into a difficult spot as they try to balance offering assurances of the integrity of the election while not undercutting a many of their voters fervently support. “Our secretary of state, Ken Detzner, has been very focused on making sure we have a smooth election,” said Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, noting that Mr. Scott’s “goal is 100 percent participation and zero percent fraud. ” Representatives of other Republican governors offered only a terse “yes” when asked if their state’s balloting would be conducted fairly. Yet other Republicans are appalled at Mr. Trump’s claims of widespread fraud, which are now a staple of his stump speech. “It is so irresponsible because what he’s doing really goes to the heart of our democracy,” said Trey Grayson, a Republican and former secretary of state of Kentucky. “What is great about America is that we change our leaders at the ballot box, not by bullets,” Mr. Grayson said. Still, some of Mr. Trump’s loyal backers are rousing one another with talk of insurrection should Mr. Trump be defeated. In Wisconsin, David A. Clarke Jr. the sheriff of Milwaukee County, posted on Twitter on Saturday that it was “pitchforks and torches time,” along with a photograph of an angry mob wielding weapons. Mr. Clarke addressed the Republican National Convention in July and appears regularly on television as a Trump campaign surrogate. Also, elements of Mr. Trump’s crowds have turned violent. At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, in which he alleged a conspiracy against him, one supporter lashed out physically at a protester in the crowd. And a CBS affiliate in Virginia reported over the weekend that demonstrators had flashed firearms outside the office of a Democratic congressional candidate near Charlottesville, in a threatening signal. Republicans are also facing signs of menace: A party office in North Carolina was set on fire and over the weekend, an act Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter was the act of “animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina. ” Still, Mr. Trump’s campaign surrogates have not hesitated to join him in questioning the fairness of the electoral process: Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, both advisers to Mr. Trump, used TV interviews on Sunday to suggest that Democrats tended to cheat in elections, accusing them of counting votes from dead people. And Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Mr. Trump’s closest congressional supporter and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has warned that “they are attempting to rig this election. ” Civil rights groups have begun to express alarm at remarks from Mr. Trump that they see as goading his supporters to intimidate minorities at the polls. Arturo Vargas, the executive director of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials Education Fund, said he planned to formally contact the Justice Department as soon as this week, to ask that it guard against the kind of voting disruptions Mr. Trump has encouraged. “It is a major concern that we have this candidate promoting vigilante poll watching,” Mr. Vargas said. And Michael Podhorzer, the political director of the A. F. L. . I. O. said that progressive groups were deeply concerned about the possibility of disruptions at the polls on Election Day. Mr. Podhorzer said that Mr. Trump’s recent comments about a rigged election had the potential to “incite violence and bloodshed. ” Mr. Podhorzer said that Democrats would be closely monitoring polling places for signs of interference in states where voters can cast their ballots before Election Day. “We will start to see whether folks are out intimidating voters in predominantly communities, and at least get a sense of what direction that might be going in,” Mr. Podhorzer said, adding of Mr. Trump’s speech, “This is beyond the pale. ” Other Democrats were just as bothered but also amused about the unlikely prospect of a vast fraud plot unfolding at thousands of disparate polling places. “He’s fine with the system when he wins the primary, but now he’s claiming fraud?” said Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, calling Mr. Trump’s language “unambiguously racist, but also absurd, ludicrous and pathetic. ” Even Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, who just last week all but removed himself from the presidential campaign, was forced to issue a statement. “Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” said Mr. Ryan’s spokeswoman, AshLee Strong. Mr. Pence is trying to walk a fine line. The governor, in a series of Sunday television interviews, sought to portray Mr. Trump’s criticism of the electoral process as relating entirely to what he described as unfair news media coverage. | 1 |
An executive order signed by former President Barack Obama in 2014 protecting federal employees from discrimination will continue to be enforced under the Trump administration, the White House announced Tuesday. [“President Donald J. Trump is determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community,” the White House said in a statement. “The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump. ” The executive order signed by Obama in July 2014 prevents federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity. “Donald Trump campaigned promising to be a ‘real friend’ to the LGBT community, and now President Trump is delivering on that commitment,” Log Cabin Republicans president Gregory Angelo told CNN. “Log Cabin Republicans is proud to have directly lobbied for this important preservation of LGBT equality in the federal workforce. ” Bloomberg News reported that President Trump might include an exemption for those affiliated with religious groups, but the White House has not made an official statement about exemptions to the executive order. | 1 |
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Donald Trump is desperate, so he propped his supermodel wife up on stage again and made her give another campaign speech. Apparently, he learned nothing from the last time. Not only did Melania Trump plagiarize her speech again , this time borrowing the words of Donald’s second wife, Marla Maples, but she also seemed to forget who the heck she is married to.
Speaking to the crowd at a campaign rally in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, Melania expanded on her plan to fight online bullying as First Lady.
“I will be an advocate for women and for children,” she said. “Children and teenagers can be fragile. They are hurt when they are made fun of or made to feel less in looks or intelligence.”
She then said that many comments, which are “mean and too rough,” come from people with “no name hiding on the Internet.”
“We have to find a better way to talk to each other, to disagree with each other, to respect each other,” she said.
“We must come together together as Americans,” she added. “We must treat each other with respect and kindness even when we disagree.”
Ummm, lady, have you looked at the orange guy that put a ring on your finger? You have a child with him, so you have obviously met the man, right? How do you not seem to realize that you are married to the biggest cyber bully around? Do you not follow him on Twitter? Seriously, WTF?
Melania needs to take a look at the list of almost 300 people, places, and things Donald has insulted on Twitter since he announced his candidacy.
Watch Melania forget she’s married to the biggest cyber bully around, here :
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The problem with emerging naked from a flaming temple is that it’s hard to top. It’s hard to top, that is, unless you happen to have a dragon with a flair for dramatic timing. So it went on Sunday, as Daenerys Targaryen wrapped up this week’s “Game of Thrones” with a stump speech for the ages. Populist rhetoric? Check. I know most khals prefer an elite inner circle of bloodriders, Dany told the assembled, but I want you all. Relatable local reference? Check. I remember like it was yesterday, Khal Drogo promising me the Seven Kingdoms at the Mother of Mountains, easily my favorite mountain in Essos. Demonization of outsiders? You better believe it. Look at them over there, with their iron suits and stone houses. They think they’re better than you, but we’re going to show them different. Oh and by the way, did you happen to notice that I’m sitting on an actual dragon right now and let me hear you say it: Are you with me? Now and always? They were. It’s hard to blame them — it was quite the performance. I was ready to air out some iron suits and tear down a stone house or two myself, and I don’t even own an arakh. Dany’s dragon rally wrapped up an episode titled “Blood of My Blood,” which you may recall is how Dothraki leaders and bloodriders address one another. The phrase also applied neatly to nearly every other story of the night. There was the excruciating in Horn Hill, as well as the loathsome Walder Frey’s harsh treatment of his own . (Welcome back, Tobias Menzies.) In King’s Landing, the marriage of Tommen and Margaery and their ongoing issues create all sorts of awkward ties between the Lannisters and Tyrells. That whole thing’s not going to end well. Finally there was Uncle Benjen, the brother of Ned Stark, who made a heroic return to the story, saving Bran and Meera from their Wight pursuers with some sort of flaming mace. (I guess all the other Wights got lost?) But first back to Dany. The speech, a near copy of the one Khal Drogo made in Season 1, was fiery enough to almost make me overlook a couple of things. One was the convenience of Drogon’s arrival, as alluded to above. You’ll recall that he was the one who kicked off this whole Dothraki revival tour at the end of last season by dumping Dany in a field and apparently disappearing. Now he’s back at her beck and call? Or are we to believe that Drogon knew all along that Dany’s capture was for the best in the long run? (Can dragons have greensight?) I guess another possibility is that this was the plan all along — that once Dany realized where she was, she hatched a plan to be captured and assume command of the Dothraki forces. But if that was the case, why not just use the dragon to do it? (Or why leave the ring for Daario and Jorah to find?) It’s not a huge thing, but I hope the writers clarify at some point rather than continuing to rely on the Drogon ex machina route. The other thing: Dany didn’t exactly refute Daario’s point that she was a conqueror, not a did she? Rather, he almost seemed to remind her oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to rile up everyone with my dragon … My colleague James Poniewozik recently wrote about Dany’s inclination toward “permanent revolution,” contrasting it with Tyrion’s belief in realpolitik solutions. Will Tyrion’s steadying hand be enough to offset Dany’s proclivities, or at least keep her from burning everything up the way her mad father did? She certainly seems to have a knack for it. I assume that was him, the Mad King Aerys II, in Bran’s visions. He seemed just as charming as advertised. It was interesting that the show chose to include him in the same episode that found Dany reaffirming her toppling intentions — could it have been a warning? Which is to say: Are we sure we want Dany to be successful in her attempt to retake Westeros? She’s been a sympathetic character largely because she’s been a liberator of the oppressed, but isn’t that also an expedient way to build an army? Have we been backing someone who would actually be a disastrous ruler? For the record, I would love it if the mother of dragons turned out to be a villain in this story, though I don’t really expect it to go that way. (The dragons seem destined to be the fire opposing the White Walkers’ ice.) But there could be a fascinating reckoning coming, though it likely won’t be anytime soon. This is Dany we’re talking about — so far she’s more prone to spinning wheels than breaking them. It could take her another season and a half just to get back to Meereen. Speaking of leisurely arcs, Benjen’s been missing for a while — it turns out he was killed by White Walkers but saved by a strategic dragonglass stab by some forest children. (Read that sentence again this show is so nutty sometimes.) Bran spent much of the escape trying to boot up like a cable box, downloading seemingly the entire story, including some intriguing things we haven’t seen yet. (Troubling thought: What if this whole show ends with Bran staring at a snow globe?) The good news for Bran is that he traded a Hodor for a ranger, an upgrade in ability if not in heart. (No offense, big guy, wherever you are.) The previous Raven brought in Benjen to watch Bran’s back, and he also suggested that they’d all be returning to the main story soon, hopefully, by heading to the Wall to wait for the Night King. I’m sure Jon Snow will appreciate having another formerly dead guy around, too — maybe they can start a support group. Back in King’s Landing, the High Sparrow is proving cagier than many of us probably expected (or wanted). The joint offensive came to naught because the Sparrow and Margaery brought Tommen into the fold. What just happened? Mace the lovable doofus asked his mother in King’s Landing. “He’s beaten us,” she replied. Of course, it’s easy to look smart when your opponent is an inbred a few swords shy of a throne. (If Joffrey’s penalty for Jaime and Cersei’s sins was psychopathy, Tommen’s would seem to be imbecility.) Not only did Tommen thwart the planned overthrow of the Faith Militant by embracing it, he shunted Jaime off to deal with the Blackfish situation at Riverrun. That’s fine with me: I like Jaime better on the road, anyway, especially if he takes Bronn with him. (The preview of next week’s episode seemed to suggest as much.) Cersei was good with it, too. “Stand at the head of our army where you belong,” she told him. “Show them what Lannisters are … ” And then they both got so fired up with all the revenge talk, they collapsed into each other’s arms. Don’t ever change, you crazy kids. I don’t think for a second that Margaery is buying any of the Sparrow rhetoric — if you had any doubt that she was a formidable operator, notice how slickly she avoided her own walk of shame. But I’m actually more intrigued by the person we’ve seen hardly at all: her brother Loras. When we last saw him, he was coming apart, groveling in the dirt and ready to do anything to make it all stop. I can’t help thinking the show is setting him up for some sort of shocking kamikaze act. Tommen is too valuable to Margaery — she controls him and if he goes, she’ll be left looking for another heir to hook up with. (I don’t even know who would be next, aside from the eternally rowing Gendry.) Jaime is heading out to Riverrun. So that leaves … Cersei? Would the show go there? She has a trial by combat coming up, as she reminded us Sunday. And when’s the last time anything went wrong at one of those? Sorry — I meant “right. ” When’s the last time anything went right at one of those? Finally, over at Tarly Acres, Sam’s big reunion with his family combined the real twin pillars of “Game of Thrones”: Awful fathers and terrible dinner parties. Meeting the prospective is always tense, even if you don’t belong to a loathed people and your significant other isn’t hated by one of his parents. Which is to say: Gilly never really stood a chance of being accepted. And Sam knew it, strategically withholding all potentially inflammatory information from his letter. “It wasn’t a very large piece of parchment,” he explained pathetically, which I enjoyed. But hey, at least they got a nice sword out of it. I’m not totally sure why the show’s spending so much time on Sam and Gilly, aside from perhaps using them to stand in for all the humble family units at risk of getting ground up by these clashes between more powerful clans. That said, you saw Sam’s house. He’s not exactly the salt of the earth. I imagine the whole point of the homecoming was to put that Valyrian steel sword in Sam’s hands for future use. You will never wield that sword, his father told him, which I imagine most of us heard as “you will definitely be wielding that sword before long. ” It happened quicker than I thought, but good for him. With a dad like that, he deserves it. • It looks like our long, faceless nightmare may almost be over: Arya has effectively cut her ties with the House of Black and White. We thought she seemed unlikely to kill the Meryl Streep of Braavos and she did not, which no doubt delighted the horrible Waif. (Jaqen’s “don’t let her suffer” absolutely went in one ear and out the other.) I’m happy for Arya to introduce the Waif to Needle and then move on, perhaps as a new understudy to replace the troupe’s resident Eve Harrington. I’m not sure we’ve seen the last of those guys, based on the warmth between Arya and the actress, and the casting of Richard E. Grant as the temperamental playwright. • I don’t think we’re through with Jaqen either, or he with Arya. I suspect all the apparent exceptions he’s made for her — overlooking her nobility, giving her another chance after she killed Meryn Trant — signal an agenda he hasn’t revealed yet. I do think we’re done with stick beatings though, and for that, a man is glad. • “I think our father could learn a thing or two from your father,” Sam’s sister told Gilly, which made me laugh, and then made me feel guilty for laughing. Craster was the worst, which is saying something on this show. • You need at least 1, 000 ships, Daario told Dany. Hmm, if only there were a couple of renegade siblings with a bunch of ships … • Hodor. (Never forget.) • What did you think? Was dinner at the Tarlys the worst one yet? What did you make of Bran’s visions? Who’s naming these swords, anyway? (Heartsbane?) Who’s been the most reprehensible father on this show? Please let us know in the comments. | 1 |
Our new country: Women and minorities hit hardest Ann Coulter: Dems import 'cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable' Published: 24 mins ago × Receive Ann Coulter's alerts in your email
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Every ethnic group except whites bloc-votes for the Democrats. Coincidentally, the Democrats have brought in another 30 to 40 million nonwhite immigrants in the last few decades.
It doesn’t help that white voters can’t agree on what constitutes an acceptable candidate. In 2012, working-class whites sat out the election, rather than vote for the out-of-touch rich guy they saw in Mitt Romney. This year, the out-of-touch rich guys say they’ll vote for Hillary because Trump is tacky and gross.
The sad irony is that the only people who will be better off in our new country are mostly white plutocrats – the top .01 percent. The rest of us will be their servants.
The people who will be worse off are everybody else – the working class, the middle class (who will soon be working class) and, most of all, women, minorities, children, the elderly, the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Look to Mexico for your future – or any Third World country. Or to Univision’s Jorge Ramos. The ruling class in Mexico is composed of European-looking, white descendants of Spanish conquistadors who raped the native population, giving them only their Spanish names in return. (British settlers in America brought women with them.)
Explaining Latino culture’s acceptance of incest and child rape, criminal justice researcher Shana Maier writes in a book about rape that “the male is the head of the household, and women are subordinate to men. … Hispanics and Latinos are more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to blame the victim. The victim, not the perpetrator, is blamed for bringing dishonor to the family.”
One American detective said that, today, police are being taught to keep an “open mind” about child rape because “it’s a cultural thing.”
When it comes to multiculturalism, you can’t say, We love the empanadas – but we don’t want 40-year-old men raping their nieces . This isn’t an a la carte menu. We get ALL the attributes of the cultures we’re importing.
As described in excruciating detail in “Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole,” our media already have a totally “open mind” about incest and child rape – and murder! – when it’s committed by immigrants.
Thus, for example, where I would have chosen the headline: “Illegal Alien Convicted of Incest, Child Rape,” the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press went with the less catchy: “Man guilty in case of human smuggling.”
And where I would have used the headline, “Illegal Alien Repeatedly Raped 14-year-old Girl at Job Site,” the Commercial Dispatch in Columbus, Mississippi, went with the more subtle, “Columbus resident charged with molestation.”
Immigrant women arrive in America, thrilled to have escaped cultures where rape, incest and spousal murder are acceptable, only to discover that those crimes are perfectly acceptable in this country, too – provided the perpetrator is from the very culture they fled.
In 1989, Brooklyn Judge Edward Pincus sentenced a Chinese immigrant to probation for a premeditated murder of his wife, on the grounds that the murder flowed from “traditional Chinese values about adultery and loss of manhood.” The female head of the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Margaret Fung, applauded the ruling.
Somewhat amazingly, newspapers are more likely to report black crime than immigrant crime. (Anything to keep the Third World immigration flowing!)
In 2013, a 13-year-old girl was gang-raped by about a dozen illegal aliens, who cheered and videoed the attack.
When the news first broke, Shaneequa Jupiter, who lived with her children in the apartment building where the gang rape occurred, complained that neither the police nor apartment security had warned residents about the danger. (That could reflect poorly on illegal immigrants!)
Even if Shaneequa had scoured the headlines, she would have been on the lookout for “Austin men.” Or “Two.”
Compare these headlines about the same brutal sexual attack:
– “Two held in attack on child” – Austin American-Statesman (Texas), July 19, 2013
– “Two Mexicans placed on immigration detainers as third man is arrested over five-day gang rape hell of teenage runaway during which she smoked crack” – Daily Mail Online, July 24, 2013
Needless to say, the New York Times did not cover the Mexican illegal-alien gang rape at all.
The ultimate primer on the “blue-collar billionaire”— order Ann Coulter’s book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!”
By contrast, the Times, and every major American news outlet, extensively covered another gang rape – of a girl about the same age, at about the same time, in about the same place.
The second case only was “rape” because of the girl’s young age – she was 11. But she was an enthusiastic participant, sneaking out of her house at night to meet the men for sex.
Those rapes, just a few years earlier, got a full-court press. The defendants were African-American. The victim was Mexican.
That time, there were articles in the Huffington Post, GQ, Slate, Salon and Mother Jones. It even made the New York Times, despite no connection to a college fraternity or lacrosse team.
Similarly, within a few months of one another in 2013, two men were arrested in separate child rape cases in Decatur, Alabama, for assaults on 9-year-old girls. One suspect was African-American, the other was a Hispanic immigrant. Only one made the newspaper. Guess which one?
When excitable Muslims raped American reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square (another one of Hillary’s foreign policy successes!), journalists immediately set to work to find the shortest line from the Muslim rapists to white American men.
Conclusion: The real problem was the female reporters’ American bosses and colleagues. (Definitely not Islam!)
Sampling of New York Times commentary on Logan’s rape:
– “Why We Need Women in War Zones” (“I would never tell my bosses for fear that they might keep me at home the next time something major happened. … This attack also had nothing to do with Islam.”)
– “Reporting While Female” (“Women reporters face another set of challenges. We are often harassed in ways that male colleagues are not. … In my experience, Muslim countries were not the worst places for sexual harassment.”)
Perhaps American men could do better, but, as American women may soon discover: They never had it so good.
Manifestly, the purpose of our immigration policies is not to help Americans – or the immigrants who wanted to live in a place like America. They are designed to funnel welfare-dependent voters to the Democrats and cheap labor to the rich. (The Chinese immigrant who got probation for murdering his wife, for example, came to America based on his specialized skill of being a dishwasher.)
Our country will be Zimbabwe, but – if all goes according to the Democrats’ plan – they’ll get to be Mugabe!
That’s Hillary’s dream. If she wins, Joe Sobran’s parody of the typical New York Times headline (about anything) will come true: “Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.” Receive Ann Coulter's weekly commentaries in your email BONUS: By signing up for Ann Coulter’s alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email. Name * | 0 |
Activist Post
A month after the last ceasefire in Syria fell apart as a result of the failure of the United States and its terrorist proxies to adhere to just one of their obligations under the agreement, the United States government is still claiming that the reason there is no ceasefire ongoing in Syria is entirely the fault of President Bashar al-Assad and, of course, the scary Russians.
In fact, on October 20, infamous narcissist, State Department Spokesman John Kirby openly stated that the “only thing” standing in the way of a “permanent ceasefire” in Syria is the “regime” of Bashar al-Assad.
“The only thing that stands between where we are now and a permanent and enduring ceasefire in Syria is Bashar al-Assad and his supporters,” he said.
In other words, “If Assad would just step down and let us have our way with his country, we wouldn’t have to keep killing civilians, funding proxy terrorists, and bombing Syrian infrastructure.” Doesn’t Assad understand that the U.S. owns his country and that he is supposed to follow the dictates of Washington regardless of what the Syrian people desire? The nerve of Assad, trying to defeat terrorists and maintain the sovereignty of his nation!
Kirby did, at least, acknowledge the presence of al-Nusra, but only tepidly. “We recognize Al-Nusra as a spoiler, we have concerns about co-mingling, I’ve talked about this ad nauseam,” he said.
Of course, al-Nusra is more than just a mere “spoiler,” it is open terrorist organization that the United States armed, funded, and trained to act as a proxy force that is no ideologically (or even physically) different than ISIS, Ahrar al-Sham, or the “moderates” of the Free Syrian Army. It is also an organization that the United States was supposed to separate from the groups of these shadowy “moderates” we have heard so much about over the course of the last five years but who are apparently phantoms lurking about in the rafters of the Syrian theatre.
The very fact that the United States blamed Russia (along with Assad) for the collapse of the ceasefire and argued that the U.S. was not supposed to separate the “moderates” from the “extremists” until after seven days is thus an admission that, without the requirements of the ceasefire in place, the U.S. would never have separated them at all. But this was the crux of the U.S. position; essentially that it knew who the “moderate” cannibals were and that they were different from the extremist cannibals. If that is the case, then wouldn’t separating the two be the goal all along? Why did the United States need to be required by a ceasefire agreement (as a concession no less) to separate the two different elements of the “opposition” if it was truly in support of defeating the “extremists?”
As Joseph Thomas writes for New Eastern Outlook ,
It also appears to be no coincidence that this scenario now openly unfolding in Syria fulfils warnings published by Western journalists as early as 2007 ( Seymour Hersh, The Redirection ) in which it was revealed that the US was already at that time providing material support to extremist organisations “sympathetic to Al Qaeda” toward the end goal of overthrowing the governments of both Iran and Syria.
While the US now claims Russia has sabotaged US efforts to bring an end to hostilities in Syria, Washington is also illogically attempting to argue that the failure of its feigned “peace talks” has also somehow prevented the US from targeting terrorists organisations in Syria, the alleged pretext of America’s presence in Syria to begin with.
Despite strained relations with Russia, the US is still cooperating with Moscow regarding the use of Syrian airspace to avoid unintentional confrontations. While the cessation of hostilities may have collapsed, is there really any excuse as to why separating designated terrorist organisations from militant groups the US and its allies are providing billions in weapons and equipment to is still not an absolute and urgent priority?
The answer is, no — there is no excuse. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, it is simply an excuse for the US to continue funnelling men and materiel into Syria Washington knows with absolute certainty will end up in the ranks of Al Qaeda, whom the US admittedly intended to use as early as 2007 to overthrow the Syrian government with.
As a result, the State Department’s ridiculous leveling of the blame for the failure of the ceasefire on Assad can be chalked up to yet another statement based in absolute falsehood and intentional deception. Indeed, this is the type of statement the U.S. State Department is becoming renowned for the world over, from blaming Russia for bombing a convoy even if it didn’t bomb the convoy , claiming Russian aggression in Ukraine, asserting that Assad is “killing his own people,” “barrel bombing civilians,” and attacking hospitals, what little shred of credibility the State Department may have left outside of American borders is rapidly disappearing.
Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom , 7 Real Conspiracies , Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2 , The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President . Turbeville has published over 850 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV . His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com .
This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link . This entry was posted in propaganda . Bookmark the permalink . The U.S. National Bird Is Now a Drone → MyWikiDisQus
Kirby the human Furby communicates in Furbish to confuse and deflect the reporters’ questions in the press secretary briefing room. He stated that, ‘the “only thing” standing in the way of a “permanent ceasefire” in Syria is the “regime” of Bashar al-Assad.’
Yes, the well worn political science propaganda phrase, “the only thing standing in the way of a permanent ceasefire is …” has been used across the centuries to twist the truth in favor of the aggressor. Imagine England’s King George III proclaiming this to the American colonists or the Nazi’s dictating it to the French Maquis, or in more modern times, the Israelis persuading the Hamas resistance in Zionist occupied Palestine.
“Surrender to U.S. hegemony and relinquish all sovereign rights to Syrian land and its natural resources so our corporations can exploit it,” is what the stark message really means.
At the end of the session, Kirby left the journalists dumbfounded with his favorite Furbish goodbye, “u-nye-way-loh-nee-way” which translates to, “You go sleep now”. The whole world is in a slumber, insouciant to the ground swell of evil slime that flows out of the Potomac’s foggy bottom to spread tyranny everywhere. madrino
Mr. Swanson’s research of America’s history of coups, wars and similar acts identifies to me, not to expect change to come from the power structure that has been in place since the country’s inception. Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and countless others are under the boot of the war of terror. Those of us that want peace must wage peace since all other organizations that claim to be such have proven otherwise. Since the creation UN, the wealth gap between rich and poor nations has gotten much greater, and the movement of wealth within rich nations is concentrated at the top .01% as so aptly described by Carl Herman. Charles Hugh Smith has promoted ideas and solutions to change the current system of privlage of the few, to opportunities for all willing to put in the effort to succeed socially and economically. twinfishfour .
The US has left Iraq and Libya in chaos, and it intends to leave Syria in chaos, with portions of the spoils promised to Israel and other portions promised to the Kurds. The chaos inflicted on Syria by US policy with help from the Saudis and others will not resolve immediately, but it will resolve a lot sooner if the US ceases to attempt regime change in Syria. Which is more “convert to failed state” than regime change if you look at the pattern established in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. Even Ukraine, in spite of the conversion of property and power to the Fortune 500 and crony capitalists from the west, is worse off than it was before US attempts (through proxies) at regime change. So, now, when it comes to foreign policy, if Uncle Sam’s lips are moving, they are telling lies. Irony of ironies. skygroup
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Petition to remove Megyn Kelly over 30k in just a few hours Tweet
Megyn Kelly is a news person with an agenda. Instead of reporting the news, she attempts to distort and manipulate facts to support her own agenda. Her latest victim is Donald Trump. A news source should not be trying to influence the American Voter. FOX professes to be fair and balance but Kelly loads her panels with those that support her views. This has become a typical FOX News ploy during these elections. Kelly needs to be removed from her position until she has learned the mantra “The facts, ma’am, just the facts.” | 0 |
In the hall of fame of comic characters, between wax works of W. C. Fields and Larry David, there ought to be a monument to Billy Bob Thornton’s work as Willie, the alcoholic safecracker of “Bad Santa. ” As much as Terry Zwigoff’s 2003 film relied on the spectacle of Mr. Thornton soiling himself in a Santa suit or saying unspeakable things to children, the performance was a master class in timing and sly reaction shots. Only Mr. Thornton could have played the role. Now comes a belated sequel, “Bad Santa 2,” directed by Mark Waters (already a connoisseur of bad behavior from “Mean Girls”) whose pitch meeting seems to have proceeded from two unnecessary questions: What if bad Santa weren’t as bad as all that? And what if he had an estranged mother whose conduct is at least as foul as his? Yet even the profanity has lost its zing in this retread, which mostly prompts admiration for how far Mr. Zwigoff ran with one joke. When we Willie (Mr. Thornton, looking resigned to his task) he is working as a valet parking attendant, a job that goes south after he is distracted by a mother. Following our reunion with Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly) — Willie has promised to get the kid deflowered for his 21st birthday, which leads to a mortifying interlude with a prostitute (Octavia Spencer) — Willie accompanies his former partner (Tony Cox) to a prospective robbery in Chicago. (Shots of the city may be entirely stock footage, as if the movie crew knew tagging along might be a bad idea.) The target is a charity run by Diane (Christina Hendricks) and by her unfaithful husband (Ryan Hansen) who pockets most of the revenue. Dismayed about ripping off — mawkishness is the only aspect in which “Bad Santa 2” outpaces its predecessor — Willie is not above beating up a street Santa (Mike Starr) who gets into a dispute with him over a spot to stand. Diane, a target for Willie’s lewd advances, takes up the function of Lauren Graham’s character in the first film. If “Bad Santa 2” has anything new to offer, it’s the spectacle of Kathy Bates as Willie’s mom, whom Willie resents. (He offhandedly mentions having taken the fall for her at age 11.) Her remarks about her careless parenting (“Hell, I didn’t even know I’d given birth until I’d tripped over him”) constitute the movie’s best effort at a running joke, and while Ms. Bates can be a nimble scene stealer, decking her out in tattoos and punk jewelry is not enough to spark an uninspired script. “Bad Santa 2” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for Bad S’antics. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. | 1 |
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Joseph P Anthony – It’s presidential week in the United States, and although the job of being president has proven to be incredibly stressful, two candidates vying for this position are willing to take on this responsibility.
On Election Day, Tuesday, November 8th, Mars is on schedule to leave Capricorn and enter Aquarius. This sign’s switch for Mars is an unmistakable signal that whoever is elected will move things in a new (and, given the nature of Aquarius, possibly surprising) direction.
On Wednesday we should know whether the first female is elected or someone who is not a politician will break the glass ceiling, or simply that something unusual and surprising could be in store.
On Friday, to November 11th, it’s time for Venus to rein in the wilder side of its nature in Sagittarius and buckle down as it enters practical Capricorn, focusing her attention on realistic aspirations regarding love and money for the next month. On Saturday, November 12th, Mercury emerges out of the depths of Scorpio and begins to bask in the Sagittarian worldview of cheerful and optimistic communication.
This sign likes to focus it energy on the future of sports, travel, religion, politics, education, and philosophy. Mercury paints with a very large brush in Sagittarius, so for the next three weeks, be on the lookout for embellishments and exaggerations (the fish was this big), especially from the newly elected president.
I made a prediction (based solely on Astrology) on who will win this election. SF Source Joseph P Anthony | 0 |
The following is an open letter from conservative radio and television host Mark Levin to CNN host Brian Stelter, in response to Stelter’s article Monday at CNN. com, “Birth of a conspiracy theory: How Trump’s wiretap claim got started. ”[Did you listen to my show on Thursday, before President Trump tweeted? Did you watch my appearance on Fox and Friends Sunday morning? I know you are ticked I did not appear on your show, despite your numerous requests. Your ad hominem attacks about “right wing” radio host and conspiracy theory stuff … incredible. I simply put together the stories that YOUR profession reported, on the public record. Do you deny there were two FISA applications? Do you deny the first was turned down? Do you deny the second was approved? It’s called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It is about surveillance. The fact that we cannot discern all the details because of the secrecy, except for what the media have revealed and selective leaks by the government, should cause you to want to know more, not to trash those who point it out. And yes, we can make several logical implications based on events and experience. A FISA application is a big deal. One, or two in this case, that involve campaign surrogates, or a server or computer related to a candidate or campaign, etc. is a big deal. President Obama’s statement is not a definitive statement of anything, other than he, personally, did not order a wiretap, which I never claimed. But that does not mean he was unaware of surveillance activity by several of his departments, even through routine reports to the president, such as the Daily Intel Briefing or information conveyed to him or his staff via the Justice Department re the FBI activities. As for Clapper, despite his past dissembling before Congress, he may not have been aware of what was taking place since the FBI operation reportedly sought the warrant. The Daily Intel Briefing might provide useful information in that regard as well. Of course, the release of the FISA applications would also shed a lot of light on events, assuming YOU believe reports that they were filed. Furthermore, Clapper has said, as recently as yesterday, that no connections between the Russians and the Trump campaign have been found. I am extremely critical of Russia, Putin, and the efforts to influence our election, although I do not believe they succeeded. That said, how would Clapper know of no connections if he, as former Director of National Intelligence, didn’t look? On what is that based? Your lack of curiosity and dishonesty about such matters and in dealing with me demean you and your profession. You are free to circulate this communication to whomever you wish, as I am making it public. | 1 |
The Knicks, who were already raising dysfunction to an art form with bad basketball and Twitter posts from their famous team president, moved further into the surreal on Friday when the team’s owner announced that he was indefinitely barring one of the most popular players in franchise history from Madison Square Garden. The owner, James L. Dolan, can go years without engaging with the news media. But on Friday, he went on the radio to say that Charles Oakley, a stalwart member of some outstanding Knicks teams from the 1990s, would not be let into the Garden as a result of an altercation on Wednesday night that ended with Oakley being led from the arena in handcuffs while fans chanted his name. It was hard to find precedent for the Knicks’ decision — former players are normally treated like celebrities, not told they will not be allowed into a game even if they buy their own ticket — but it fit the almost bizarre image the franchise now seems to be busy creating for itself. Dolan, who announced the decision on Michael Kay’s afternoon program on ESPN Radio, said he was taking the step to bar Oakley out of concern for the safety of the team’s other paying customers. “We need to keep the Garden a place that’s comfortable and safe for everybody who goes there,” Dolan said. “So anybody who comes to the Garden — whether they’ve been drinking too much alcohol, they’re looking for a fight, they’re abusive, disrespectful to the staff and then fans — they’re going to be ejected and they’re going to be banned. ” Several times over the course of the interview, Dolan described Oakley’s behavior on Wednesday night as out of line. Dolan also said that Oakley “may have a problem with alcohol” and that Oakley needed to seek help to control his anger. If Oakley were to address his behavioral issues, Dolan said, the Garden would most likely welcome him back. Oakley, 53, has long been estranged from the Knicks and has had an adversarial relationship with Dolan. But he has insisted he was not acting inappropriately on Wednesday night when he sat down not far from Dolan to watch the Knicks play the Los Angeles Clippers. A number of fans who were sitting near Oakley said they had not seen or heard him being belligerent. Other fans suggested that he seemed somewhat combative. In any case, after security guards approached him, a shoving match ensued, and that was followed by the sight of Oakley being grabbed and led away. But many things with the Knicks are not easy to fathom. Their starting point guard, Derrick Rose, went AWOL for a day. The team itself has lost 20 of its past 26 games, continuing a run of futility that has dominated Dolan’s two decades as owner. And the team president, Phil Jackson, mimicking Dolan, has not spoken with reporters who cover the team since September. Jackson’s few communications have come via an isolated interview or two and occasional Twitter posts, some of them cryptic. But despite the little that he has said, he has still managed, at various moments, to anger both LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony. And although he seems intent on trading away Anthony, the Knicks’ only star, Jackson has a problem: Anthony’s clause. Asked about Jackson during the radio interview, Dolan asserted that he would stay out of his way despite the dismal results Jackson has produced in his nearly three years as team president. He said he would honor Jackson’s contract “all the way to the end. ” But while Dolan has long been unpopular in New York and Jackson does not have many admirers these days, Oakley has plenty of support. The incident on Wednesday led to an outpouring of acclaim for him, not only from the team’s frustrated fans but also from current and former N. B. A. players, who have long admired the tough work ethic that Oakley displayed on the court. Given all the negative fallout from Oakley’s ejection, Dolan was asked in the interview whether the organization now felt embarrassed. “Well, I certainly think Charles should be embarrassed,” he said. Oakley, who was reached by telephone after Dolan’s radio interview concluded, said that he had not listened to the broadcast but had already heard about some of Dolan’s comments. “Nothing they’re doing makes sense,” Oakley said. “I mean, this man, something’s wrong with him. He crossed a bridge the first night, and then he’s been crossing another bridge every day since. ” Oakley, who has acknowledged that he had a couple of drinks before he arrived at Wednesday’s game, declined to address Dolan’s statement that he might have problems with alcohol. “I don’t talk about that stuff,” he said. “I have no comment on that. I don’t have to defend myself on that. The people around me know if I have a drinking problem or not. ” Asked if he planned to pursue legal action against Dolan or the organization, Oakley said, “We’ll see what happens. ’’ Oakley later wrote on Twitter that he was planning to hold a news conference next week. Meanwhile, neither Oakley nor those backing him are liable to take kindly to repeated suggestions by the Knicks — the first came in a statement on Wednesday night — that Oakley needs some kind of “help” for his behavior. Instead, there was more support for Oakley, with Michele Roberts, the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, weighing in after Dolan’s interview. “Painful to believe that my last image of Oak at MSG is him dragged out of the arena,” Roberts wrote on Twitter. “Is that how we remember our Legends? #NoBan. ” Dolan said he hoped that Oakley would not be barred forever. He said he would love to honor Oakley at midcourt along with several of his former teammates — again, provided that he seeks help. “But his behavior, it just doesn’t work with that,” Dolan said. “Until he can address it and get it under control, then we probably won’t be able to do it. ’’ Dolan said it was clear to him that Oakley had gone to Wednesday’s game with an “agenda” to be disruptive. Oakley never should have been allowed to take his seat, Dolan said, which he cited as one of his reasons for firing Frank Benedetto, the Garden’s senior vice president for security, on Friday morning. Benedetto, who previously served with the United States Secret Service, could not be reached for comment. Dolan recalled how, during the first quarter of Wednesday’s game, a security guard approached him to relate that he and his were having difficulties with Oakley. Dolan said he had asked if they could wait to deal with the problem between quarters to avoid a big scene on national television. The security guard agreed with him, Dolan said, but the situation escalated. “And I said, ‘You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do,’” Dolan said. “It wasn’t until it was pointed out to me that he was behind us, I sort of opened my ear and started to hear and what I heard was terrible,’’ Dolan added. At one point during the radio interview, Dolan was reminded that he does not give many interviews. “No,” he said, “this isn’t my favorite thing. ” Nor, no doubt, is watching his team lose again, which the Knicks did on Friday night at the Garden, falling to the Denver Nuggets, . Dolan sat in his customary seat near the court. Oakley, meanwhile, was absent, except for the chants bearing his name. | 1 |
By Jason Easley on Sun, Oct 30th, 2016 at 10:52 am Republicans hoped that FBI Director James Comey's letter about new Clinton related emails would swing the election for them, but a new series of CBS News Battleground polls shows Clinton keeping her lead and within 2 points of Trump in Arizona. Share on Twitter Print This Post
The CBS News Republicans hoped that FBI Director James Comey’s letter about new Clinton related emails would swing the election for them, but a new series of CBS News Battleground polls shows Clinton keeping her lead and within 2 points of Trump in Arizona.
Battleground tracker found that by a small margin Comey’s letter made Democrats more likely (net +7) to support Clinton.
In the individual battleground states, Clinton leads by eight points in Pennsylvania 48%-40%, North Carolina (48%-45%), and in Colorado (42%-39%). The only state of the four polled where Trump has a small two point lead in Arizona (44%-42%).
According to CBS News , “And the larger demographic difference defining the race between Clinton and Donald Trump has been a gender gap – slightly larger now than the last time in these states – that offsets a smaller movement of Republicans to Trump.”
To put it another way, Hillary Clinton’s support with women is going up at a larger rate than Republican movement towards Trump.
These are the first swing state polls to be taken since FBI Director Comey released his now infamous letter on Friday. The email story isn’t moving voters. It is reinforcing the partisanship of the election. Democrats are going to vote Clinton. Republicans are going to vote for Trump, and there aren’t enough undecided voters to swing the election to Trump.
Republicans were hoping for a Hail Mary touchdown to save Trump, but Clinton continues to lead in critical states with a little more than a week to go before election day. If the Comey letter is the big October surprise, it isn’t working on voters.
Hillary Clinton Maintains Swing State Leads As Comey Email Letter Flops added by Jason Easley on Sun, Oct 30th, 2016 | 0 |
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An internal letter to FBI employees from Director James Comey has just been leaked.
The memo reveals some startling information that Democrats, and the liberal media, certainly would have preferred to keep hidden from the public.
Among other things, we’ve learned that Comey believed the election required full disclosure regarding the ongoing investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
Here is the full text:
To all:
This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.
Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.
Jim Comey
We’ve really got to hand it to Comey in this case. By all appearances, he decided to move quickly on this matter not in spite of , but because of the election.
Now, the truth might turn out to be quite different from this take on things, but for right now, our judgments should be based on the reliable information at hand.
And as it stands, Comey seems by all appearances to be genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of this Hillary email mess BEFORE the election, if at all possible.
That’s admirable, especially coming from a public official.
We’ll just have to wait to see what comes from it, and if Director Comey will stick with his guns.
The survival of American democracy may depend on it. | 0 |
Talk show host Chelsea Handler is set to lead a “Women’s March” at the Sundance Film Festival in January to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump. [The march, set for January 21, will reportedly be held as part of a nationwide series of simultaneous marches set for the same day in all 50 states. The flagship march, set to occur in Washington D. C. is expected to draw more than 100, 000 participants and has drawn endorsements from some celebrities, including Amy Schumer. The Park City, Utah march is not sponsored by the Sundance Film Festival, which runs from January 19 to the 29 this year. Variety reports that Handler will also host a rally following what’s being dubbed “The Women’s March on Main. ” “Sundance has always been a platform for change, not only for filmmakers and filmmaking but also for big ideas for the future,” Handler said in a statement. “If there’s anything I learned in the last year, it’s that we need to be louder and stronger than ever about what we believe in, so I joined some incredible women from around the country to bring our voices together in the streets of Park City. The Women’s March on Main will be an opportunity for the creative community and those in Utah to stand beside those in D. C. ” Handler has been an outspoken critic of Trump since well before Election Day. She previously posed with an message scrawled on her back, and has also posed with a piñata bearing Trump’s likeness. In an interview at Variety‘s Entertainment and Tech Summit in September, the talk show host said that Trump “represents everything that’s wrong in the world. ” “It’s always a good thing to be able to look at somebody and be like, ‘That’s the worst thing that could happen,’” she said. “And I think we should keep him in the spotlight. Not as president, obviously, but, you know, as The Apprentice or whatever that show is called. ” After Trump defeated former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton in November, Handler penned an essay in which she criticized white women for voting for the Republican. “We don’t just have a problem with men supporting women in this country we have a problem with women supporting women,” she wrote in the essay for Arianna Huffington’s new company Thrive Global. “We can wake up America and American women to do a better job going forward to create an activist fire under women to start treating other women and our America with more respect than we have obsequiously shown for our traditional male dominators. ” Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Here Is The Most Dangerous iPhone Case You Can Own By Joe Clark on July 9, 2015 Subscribe
There are some things in life that humans create that are just plain stupid and dangerous.?Underwear embedded with fireworks, glass motorcycle helmets, and the current Republican Party — just to name a few.
But this new brilliantly stupid invention may just win this year’s Darwin Award.?Someone’s created an iPhone case?that looks like a handgun.
Here’s what Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, had to say about this new product. ?The first thing a police officer is going to see as it’s coming up is the trigger guard and the butt of the gun. This doesn’t seem like a good idea at all to me.?
Ocean County issued a statement via Facebook.
Please folks – this cell phone case is not a cool product or a good idea. A police officers job is hard enough, without…
Posted by Ocean County Prosecutor's Office on Monday, June 29, 2015
The case is being sold online at prices ranging from $5 to $49. We are not sure who manufactures the iPhone case.
Authorities are cautioning people against buying this product, although legally there is nothing saying that they can’t.?Fave had this to say: ?If someone reaches for it, in my mind they’re reaching for a gun.?
NYPD tweeted this: I would NOT suggest purchasing this cell phone case, which was designed to look like a firearm. #BeSmart #BeSafe pic.twitter.com/swsWzD1sdY
— NYPD 112th Precinct (@NYPD112Pct) June 30, 2015
I would urge all parents to not let your kids buy or wear this deadly accessory.
Here’s a video story about this deadly iPhone case. | 0 |
President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday as his administration imposed sanctions on separatists in the country. [Trump said the two had “very, very good discussions,” calling Ukraine “a place that we’ve all been very much involved in. ” Behind the scenes, the White House revealed that Trump and Poroshenko discussed support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced sanctions on two Russian officials and several separatists in Eastern Ukraine to support the Ukrainian amidst ongoing conflicts in the region. “This administration is committed to a diplomatic process that guarantees Ukrainian sovereignty, and there should be no sanctions relief until Russia meets its obligations under the Minsk agreements,” Mnuchin said Tuesday. Poroshenko said it was a “great pleasure” to meet with Trump to discuss issues important to Ukraine and called the president a “supporter and strategic partner” of the country. “We’re really fighting for freedom and democracy,” he said. | 1 |
By Hrafnkell Haraldsson on Wed, Nov 2nd, 2016 at 9:02 am “You know, I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior from people who support Donald Trump." Share on Twitter Print This Post
Speaking at Reverend Samuel Delevoe Memorial Park in Fort Lauderdale, Tuesday night, Hillary Clinton was interrupted by a Donald Trump supporter who shouted: “Bill Clinton is a rapist!” He was no doubt working for the $5,000 reward offered by InfoWars. But Clinton was having none of it. Rather than ignoring the man, she issued a stern rebuke. Stabbing her finger at the man, she said:
“You know, I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior from people who support Donald Trump.”
The man continued to shout, waving his sign, and the crowd countered with cries of “Hillary! Hillary!” as she said,
“It is time for us to say no, we are not going backwards, we’re going forward into a brighter future.”
The protester was escorted out by security, and Clinton told the man, and everyone like him, “You may be angry about something, but anger is not a plan. Don’t be used. Don’t be exploited.”
See the protester’s antics here. Note that he was neither roughed up nor attacked by Clinton supporters:
Sadly, all too many angry white Christians are allowing themselves to be exploited by Donald Trump, who represents the very forces that have deprived them of the American dream, a man whom, as Clinton says, has taken everything, and given nothing.
Last night, in Florida, Hillary Clinton was taking nothing, and giving everything.
Photo: Screen capture | 0 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Hamid Karzai, the former Afghan president and current antagonist to his successor’s government, likes to describe Afghan politics as a marathon. To the long roll call of visitors he meets each day — regional power brokers and elders, government officials, religious leaders, who reminisce longingly about his years in power — the metaphor is clear. Mr. Karzai has never stopped running, never stopped maneuvering, and he won’t. Mr. Karzai’s critics, especially those close to President Ashraf Ghani, accuse him of working from the wings to destabilize the government and exploit a moment of national crisis to try to return to power — or at least to force some concessions. They say Mr. Karzai is actively undermining a vulnerable president, maintaining an alternate pole of political influence and patronage, and stoking protest movements that some fear could turn violent. So what is Mr. Karzai’s answer? He flatly denies that he is trying to harm the government. But then there’s the hint of a wry smile: “If there are some people running faster, those who are falling behind should not complain. ” Following Mr. Karzai through days of meetings — dozens of discussions, and interviews on and off camera — it becomes clear that he is still operating like a man in power. His many visitors come to seek his leverage in the government, and he is happy to pick up the telephone to call a minister, a governor or an ambassador. He still communicates with world leaders, signing letters to them on a weekly basis. Much of Mr. Karzai’s politics happens around noon, when a larger crowd gathers for a group prayer on the grass outside and then follows him upstairs to a sunlit dining table for lunch. On a given day, there are former and current government officials, generals, judges, bankers, tribal elders, former members of the Taliban and preachers from Kabul’s major mosques. A master storyteller and conversationalist, Mr. Karzai takes his seat at the head of the table. “Who is raising this question out there, that I am returning?” Mr. Karzai began one recent conversation over stuffed peppers, vegetable rice, and chicken cooked with carrots. “I have made it clear I don’t want to. ” But that was good enough to stir a spirited conversation, full of anecdotes about his days in power and how people do not trust the current government. One former cabinet minister, who still serves as an adviser to Mr. Ghani, insisted that Mr. Karzai was the only natural alternative, and a great hope to the 90 percent of the country disenchanted with the current government. Mr. Karzai listened attentively. He took another bite. He seems to invite the question hanging over him: If Mr. Karzai does not want to return to power, just what is he trying to achieve by increasing pressure on a government already on the brink? And it is on the brink. In private conversations, Afghan and Western officials alike worry that Mr. Ghani’s administration may be facing an existential crisis that could peak as soon as next month. The end of September is the deadline for the government to meet the commitments of a political deal brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry after the catastrophic 2014 election dispute. By then, Afghanistan is supposed to hold parliamentary elections, enact sweeping electoral reforms, and amend the Constitution to create the position of prime minister for Mr. Ghani’s election rival and current governing partner, Abdullah Abdullah. But staying on schedule was already impossible many months ago, and Mr. Kerry has publicly insisted that Mr. Ghani’s government will remain through the end of its term, regardless. That is just the beginning. The country’s security situation is worsening, despite the American military’s increased involvement in the fighting. The Taliban have seized many districts, and they threaten to take many more. Mr. Ghani, the constant technocrat, has been forced to focus on security, and his economic initiatives have stalled. And suddenly he has also been challenged by a street protest movement in which ethnic Hazaras are accusing his government of systematic discrimination. The most recent of the demonstrations was struck by a suicide bombing, claimed by the Islamic State, that left at least 80 people dead. Now the demonstrators accuse the government of purposely leaving them vulnerable to attack, and they have given Mr. Ghani an ultimatum to meet their demands — another September deadline, as it turns out. On top of all that, a new protest movement, potentially more dangerous, is growing just north of Kabul, the capital, calling for the government to rebury with dignity a northern bandit king who has been dead for nearly a century, shot by a firing squad. Among the people calling for the reburial, and threatening protests, are northern militia commanders who have long been skeptical of Mr. Ghani, and they have also given him a September ultimatum. Government officials accuse Mr. Karzai and his allies of having a hand in the recent protests. But he says he is after neither the collapse of the government nor a return to power. “I have absolutely no doubt about that,” he said. He just wants the government’s legitimacy affirmed after the September deadline, he said, and the only way left is to call a traditional loya jirga — a grand assembly of tribal elders from across the country. Mr. Karzai’s push for a loya jirga is the move most widely seen as a game plan for returning to power, or at least for negotiating more leverage. His strength is with the tribes and the power brokers he has maintained at his side, while Mr. Ghani has alienated many of them. It helps to understand that Mr. Karzai represents an entire network of power — national as well as local — accumulated over 13 years and beyond. That network feels that it is slowly being uprooted under Mr. Ghani’s presidency, and that it could be vastly weakened if the current government survives the September deadline intact. In Kandahar, powerful strongmen who owe their rise to Mr. Karzai’s protection have had standoffs recently with officials sent by Mr. Ghani over lucrative custom taxes and where the money goes. A northern lawmaker who stopped by to see Mr. Karzai complained that the government was cutting her off and working “so beautifully and systematically” to weaken their mutual support base. She might not return from vacation abroad, she said, if the situation continued and Mr. Karzai did not signal his plan clearly. If it came to an open political struggle, it is unclear whether Mr. Ghani would be able to score points with what would be perhaps his best case to make against Mr. Karzai: that the seeds of the current security and political crises were sown on Mr. Karzai’s watch, and that the former president left him a system suffocating in corruption and patronage. That is in part because Mr. Karzai has been busy using his social acumen to try to shed a more favorable light on his legacy after 13 years in power. Mr. Karzai, who lives a stone’s throw from the presidential palace, says his routine has changed little since he was president. He has more free time to relax in the afternoons, but his mornings are busier. He meets more people than he did when he was in power. On average, his office estimated, Mr. Karzai sees more than 400 people a month. Every Eid, Muslim celebrations that come twice a year, Mr. Karzai opens his gates to a flow of visitors, reaching up to 6, 000 people. From the moment he leaves his residence in the morning, his two young daughters tugging at his trousers, he is a man on the move, trailed by secret service agents. Mr. Karzai, 58, describes himself as hyperactive, and he is . He drinks four or five espressos a day. He still moves with ease among drastically different groups of people, from Oruzgan elders who interrupt him with passionate diatribes, to groups of youths coming to present him with their latest research. Mr. Karzai makes them laugh, and when they shed tears, as one group visiting from central Afghanistan did during a recent audience, he offers tissues. As for what he might be seeking from all of this, Western officials in Kabul acknowledge that Mr. Karzai, a masterful tactician and politician, does not necessarily need to have a clear concept of what he wants. He can mount pressure on the government in ways big and small, throw many irons in the fire, and perhaps force a critical blunder from Mr. Ghani. But Mr. Ghani is not without resources. Much will depend on how many opposition figures the president can to keep Mr. Karzai at least partly on the margins. Mr. Karzai reserves his sharpest criticism of the government for what he considers its biggest sin: cozying up, “immensely, sadly,” to the United States and relying on it for its survival. Mr. Karzai, who sent flowers to the American ambassador for the Fourth of July and then signed a note to the ambassador for thanking him, said in an interview with The New York Times last week that “the Americans, whose primary slogan is democracy, are making a sham of democracy in Afghanistan. ” He is not fundamentally against the American presence, he says: He just wants them to stop bombing his country and interfering in the political process, which he accused Mr. Kerry of doing in the spring when he insisted on a Ghani government. “This is a blatant interference to undermine the sovereignty of Afghanistan,” Mr. Karzai said in the interview. “Look at this country: What do we have other than our pride and sovereignty? Then someone comes — from a good place, America — stands here in our country to determine the duration of our government as he sees fit? That is an insult. ” Meanwhile, the streams of visitors continue, and Mr. Karzai regales them with parables that at times seem like bids for redemption, and at others like foresight. During one lunch, he told a story of a group of tired travelers in a desert who see a fire in the distance and hear drums. Men are dancing the called Attan. The travelers decide to spend the night there, and to make their hosts feel comfortable, they join in the dance. But the dance stretches on and on. “One of the travelers is wise, he realizes it is the devil’s dance and it will go on all night,” Mr. Karzai told the guests. “When the morning comes, there would be no sign of a dance or the devils. ” He paused, then drove the point home: “We are stuck in the dance of the devil,” he said, to chuckles. “When the sun rises, the devils will be gone, but we will be left in this dry land. ” | 1 |
Written by Ron Paul Sunday November 13, 2016 In a disturbing indication of how difficult it would be to bring military spending in line with actual threats overseas, House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX) told President Obama last week that his war funding request of $11.6 billion for the rest of the year was far too low. That figure for the last two months of 2016 is larger than Spain’s budget for the entire year! And this is just a “war-fighting” supplemental, not actual “defense” spending! More US troops are being sent to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere and the supplemental request is a way to pay for them without falling afoul of the “sequestration” limits.The question is whether this increase in US military activity and spending overseas actually keeps us safer, or whether it simply keeps the deep state and the military-industrial complex alive and well-funded.Unfortunately many Americans confuse defense spending with military spending. The two terms are used almost interchangeably. But there is a huge difference. I have always said that I wouldn’t cut anything from the defense budget. We need a robust defense of the United States and it would be foolish to believe that we have no enemies or potential enemies.The military budget is something very different from the defense budget. The military budget is the money spent each year not to defend the United States, but to enrich the military-industrial complex, benefit special interests, regime-change countries overseas, maintain a global US military empire, and provide defense to favored allies. The military budget for the United States is larger than the combined military spending budget of the next seven or so countries down the line.To get the military budget in line with our real defense needs would require a focus on our actual interests and a dramatic decrease in spending. The spending follows the policy, and the policy right now reflects the neocon and media propaganda that we must run the rest of the world or there will be total chaos. This is sometimes called “American exceptionalism,” but it is far from a “pro-American” approach.Do we really need to continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars manipulating elections overseas? Destabilizing governments that do not do as Washington tells them? Rewarding those who follow Washington’s orders with massive aid and weapons sales? Do we need to continue the endless war in Afghanistan even as we discover that Saudi Arabia had far more to do with 9/11 than the Taliban we have been fighting for a decade and a half? Do we really need 800 US military bases in more than 70 countries overseas? Do we need to continue to serve as the military protection force for our wealthy NATO partners even though they are more than capable of defending themselves? Do we need our CIA to continue to provoke revolutions like in Ukraine or armed insurgencies like in Syria?If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then I am afraid we should prepare for economic collapse in very short order. Then, with our economy in ruins, we will face the wrath of those countries overseas which have been in the crosshairs of our interventionist foreign policy. If the answer is no, then we must work to convince our countrymen to reject the idea of Empire and embrace the United States as a constitutional republic that no longer goes abroad seeking monsters to slay. The choice is ours. Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 0 |
BAGHDAD (AFP) — The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near Mosul it said was carried out by a British suicide bomber, the SITE Intelligence Group reported. [“The brother Abu Zakariya — may Allah accept him — detonated his vehicle on a headquarters of the Rafidhi army and its militias in Tal Kisum village, southwest of Mosul,” the claim quoted by SITE said. The IS statement did not say when the bombing occurred. The jihadist group uses the word “rafidha” which means “rejectionists” to refer to Shiite Muslims in a derogatory way because it considers them heretics. Forces from the Hashed (Popular Mobilisation) a paramilitary umbrella dominated by Shiite militias backed by Tehran, are active in the area mentioned in the statement. They are fighting alongside other Iraqi forces — including the army and the federal police — as part of a push that started on Sunday to retake the west bank of Mosul. Tens of thousands of Iraqi forces launched a massive offensive on October 17 to retake the city, which is Iraq’s second largest and the only remaining major stronghold of the jihadists in the country. They retook control of the eastern side of Mosul last month. IS fighters of a variety of nationalities, including Britons, have carried out suicide attacks on many occasions in Iraq and Syria in the past three years. The IS statement said that the British fighter’s attack, and that of another suicide bomber of Iraqi nationality, caused many casualties but AFP could not immediately verify the claim. | 1 |
Region: Central Asia In November 2016, the Majilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan approved the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Low-Enriched Uranium Bank on its territory. Low-enriched uranium (LEU) is a material used for making fuel for nuclear power plants (NPP). The International Atomic Energy Agency decided to create a strategic LEU warehouse in 2006. The project’s aim is to secure an uninterrupted supply of fuel to the NPPs of the IAEA Member States. However, the Bank will not be used for regular LEU supply. This will be an emergency reserve, which will only be used in exceptional circumstances. The IAEA will own the official LEU reserves. It was decided to place the Bank in one of the Agency’s Member States. The location of choice might be a state with no nuclear weapons but with the technologies and infrastructure to work with LEU. In addition, the country should enjoy a good reputation in the IAEA. Kazakhstan complied with all these requirements. The Republic of Kazakhstan is a large-scale producer of uranium with the relevant technologies and experience, which includes processing high-enriched uranium into LEU (which is important for nuclear disarmament). Kazakhstan decided to participate in the development of peaceful atomic energy and filed an application to the IAEA in summer 2011. Kazakhstan proposed two locations for the Bank: a plot at the former Semipalatinsk test site and the Ulba Metallurgical Plant (Ust-Kamenogorsk). After inspection of both sites by the Agency’s experts, the second site was chosen. The Ulba Metallurgical Plant has almost a half a century of experience in working with radioactive materials and high-skilled experts – a legacy of the Soviet school. In addition, the enterprise has been greatly upgraded and it meets the highest safety requirements. In April 2015, a decree of the Kazakhstan Parliament approved a treaty with the IAEA on the creation of the LEU Bank in Kazakhstan. In August 2015, this Treaty was signed by the Foreign Affairs Minister of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov and the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. The preparation works involving IAEA experts are in full swing. Prior to the placement of the LEU Bank in Kazakhstan, its government will have to improve both the infrastructure and legislation in order to comply with international safety criteria. The foundation has already been laid: the law On the Use of Nuclear Power was adopted in January 2016. IAEA experts participated in the preparation of some amendments to the new law. There is a lot still to be done to make the new warehouse as safe as possible for the local citizens and the environment. All the material will be stored in containers that comply with European standards. According to IAEA data, the uranium reserves will be enough to provide electricity to a big city for 3 years. The IAEA will bear all the expenses related to uranium transportation, taxes, and guarantees in respect of the LEU Bank. Kazakhstan will have to run the warehouse at its own expense – provide it with electricity, pay salaries to the employees (citizens of Kazakhstan), etc. In acknowledgement of the placement and maintenance of the LEU Bank on its territory, Kazakhstan expects that the IAEA will assist it in the development of the nuclear industry. Right now, the IAEA Commission is working in Kazakhstan and conducting general research of the nuclear infrastructure. Upon completion of its work, the Commission will prepare a report with recommendations for the development of Kazakhstan’s nuclear industry. The Republic possesses huge reserves of uranium and ranks first in the world in terms of its production. Uranium from Kazakhstan forms a large part of the world uranium market. Moreover, Kazakhstan has long dreamed of supplying more than just raw materials or semi-finished products to other countries. It hopes to independently carry out all the stages of the nuclear fuel cycle right up to uranium conversion into nuclear fuel for the nuclear power plants. The export of nuclear fuel is greatly more profitable. The President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev mentioned this objective during a meeting with the Chairman of the Board of Kazatomprom Askar Zhumagaliyev that took place in early November 2016. He noted that to reach this goal, Kazakhstan should intensify cooperation with other states and international organizations in the nuclear industry. It should be noted that one of the major partners of Kazakhstan in the nuclear industry is Russia. Owing to its interaction with Russia, Kazakhstan has made progress in the independent production of nuclear fuel. This cooperation continues: in October 2016, Astana hosted the Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum with the participation of the Presidents of the two countries – Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev. As a result, Russia and Kazakhstan adopted a plan of collaboration until 2018 and signed a Memorandum on expanding strategic partnership in the field of the nuclear fuel cycle. The Memorandum confirms all the previous agreements between the two countries in respect of the collaboration in the nuclear industry, including uranium production and processing. In addition, the document mentions the opportunity of Russia and Kazakhstan’s mutual participation in IAEA projects. The placement of the LEU Bank in the territory of the Republic is a grand gesture towards the IAEA, which will raise the profile of Kazakhstan in the eyes of other states. The LEU bank will prevent existing nuclear reactors from experiencing fuel deficit and it will promote the non-proliferation of the nuclear weapons. In fact, countries wishing to develop peaceful atomic energy often have to enrich uranium on their own in order to make fuel from it. Meanwhile, the IAEA fears that some of them may exceed the enrichment level for peaceful purposes and obtain material for the creation of nuclear weapons. The LEU Bank, which any of the IAEA Member States may turn to, will mean they no longer have to enrich uranium independently thus reducing the threat of the nuclear weapon proliferation. Thus, Kazakhstan may become a strategically important member of the IAEA and participate in ensuring global security. Apart from a reputation boost and assistance in the nuclear projects, this may attract the attention of foreign investors. According to the government of Kazakhstan, the volume of foreign investment in the country’s economy increased 5 times in the first half of 2016 and amounted to almost 6 billion US dollars. This growth is undoubtedly linked to Kazakhstan’s improved international standing, which has partially resulted from its cooperation with the IAEA. Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook. ”
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A stunning Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today reveals that the Security Council (SC), this morning, authorized the sending to the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of an emergency communiquĂŠ requesting an immediate explanation as to why Hillary Clinton’s money laundering organization, known as the Clinton Foundation, this past week, purchased over $137 million of illegal arms and ammunition—and whose destination is to be the United States, with delivery being marked as “mid-November 2016â€. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, SVR analysts began expressing “urgent concern†earlier this year when the main “elements/factions†of the feared Viktor Bout’s international arms smuggling crime organization began arriving in the Republic of Albania—that is the only Muslim nation in Europe.
Viktor Bout, this report explains, is most popularly known in the West as the “Lord of War†for his workings with the CIA to smuggle illegal weapons throughout the world to further the maniacal interests of the United States—until 2011 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had him jailed.
Though a citizen of the Federation, this report continues, the SVR had no “complaint/concern†with Hillary Clinton having Bout jailed for 25 years as it was an internal matter of the CIA—but whose intelligence analysts expressed “worry/confusion†this past May (2016) when US Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin said he should have had a reduced sentence—and that led, yesterday, to Bout “suddenly/magically†being transferred out of maximum security to the “country club atmosphere†of the general ward of the US Federal Prison he’s been confined to.
CIA illegal arms smuggler Viktor Bout
Coinciding with Bout’s “mysterious/magical†prison transfer yesterday, this report notes, was Hillary Clinton’s money laundering Clinton Foundation transferring $137.7 million to the Socialist Party of Albania (SPA) controlled by that nations Prime Minister Edi Rama—who is not only the head of the Xhakja Clan (known in the West as the Albanian Mafia) but who was, also, and shockingly, put into power by the Obama-Clinton regime over the protests of the Albanian people who did not want a “mafia government†controlling them.
Hillary Clinton (left) and Albanian Xhakja Clan mafia crime leader Edi Rama (right)
With Hillary Clinton’s international arms merchant Prime Minister Rama having turned the entire Balkan region into one of the world’s largest areas for arms smuggling that now threatens its very security, this report warns, she has been aided in this effort by what many are calling her “puppet masterâ€â€”the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros that recently released, and shocking, secret emails show him ordering Hillary Clinton to install this mafia criminal as the leader of Albania.
To fully understand why Hillary Clinton made this massive arms purchase, and no doubt was aided in doing so by the CIA’s arms smuggler Viktor Bout, SVR analysts in this report explain, is her adherence to George Soros’s radical vision of open borders—and that he singlehandedly began implementing by creating the European refugee crisis that will, likewise, engulf the United States should Hillary Clinton become president, and as exactly as her secret emails reveals she plans on doing.
Also, this report continues, and as the Federation knows all to well, the Soros-Clinton “master plan†to take down a nation begins with the establishment of what are called Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) to act as a “shadow government†ready to take power once the established order is thrown into chaos by massive protests—and why, in 2013, President Putin banned them from operating in Russia.
In the United States, however, this report grimly states, the American people have no defense against these “shadow government†NGO’s—and that SVR intelligence assests have documented in this report as being the “receiving parties†of Hillary Clinton’s massive arms purchase and include the George Soros created NGO’s called: Open Society Foundations, Media Matters, American Institute for Social Justice, The New America Foundation, The Migration Policy Institute, Tides Foundation, Center for American Progress, and the Democracy Alliance—every single one of which stands violently opposed to the US Constitution and the American people.
Once these weapons are in the hands of Hillary Clinton’s “new revolutionariesâ€, this report continues, they will then be used to unleash a “terror wave†across America protesting Donald Trump’s landslide victory—thus enabling President Obama to declare martial law to disarm all of these people, and once doing so, allow the US Electors to place Hillary Clinton in power. [Note: American presidents are NOT elected by the voting of citizens, but by the vote of the Electors selected from each of that nations 50 States.]
This report sadly concludes, though, by noting that the massive vote fraud already being committed by Hillary Clinton’s “new revolutionaries†throughout the United States, and that led this past week to former US Congressman Joe Walsh stunningly stating “If Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musketâ€â€”a reference to one of the darkest times in American history when that nation’s ordinary citizens banded together to fight the British Empire for their freedom—should strike fear into all Americans of what Hillary Clinton’s “new revolutionaries†are doing right now—and if not, nothing will.
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The cruelty of factory farms is a daily nightmare for billions of animals, but that might soon start to change thanks to a forward-thinking initiative by one of the biggest names in the meat industry. In a humane act of compassion for their livestock, the Oscar Mayer Company now requires its pork suppliers to give their pigs one thrilling sexual experience before sending them to slaughter.
It’s pretty difficult to overstate what a huge leap forward this is for animal rights.
The details of the new policy are extremely promising: Once a pig reaches sexual maturity, factory workers must lather it in a warming lubricant and place it in an outdoor pen, where it will encounter dozens of sows in heat and boars specially bred to produce voluptuously potent pheromone levels. The pigs will then be encouraged to partake in any variety of sow-on-boar, sow-on-sow, boar-on-boar, or autoerotic swineplay they prefer. Only after they’ve bellowed long, guttural squeals of satisfaction will these pigs be killed, processed, and separated into their desirable parts for human consumption.
Conscious consumers can rest assured: Oscar Mayer pork will have been treated to full prostate and teat stimulation via double-prodded toys, clamps, and strategically placed ice cubes before being sent to the slaughterhouse. Farmers will even have to install sprinklers emitting warm hog urine for any pig who might be into that.
Wow. It seems like Oscar Mayer is truly dedicated to setting a new bar for ethical animal treatment.
To put this in perspective, not even free-range operations keep pig behavior specialists on-site to spot hogs nearing ejaculation and pull them away in order to temporarily evade orgasm, thereby extending the hog’s arousal and making their eventual climaxes that much more explosive. For a household meat brand like Oscar Mayer to endorse this kind of practice is a really, really big deal.
“Before slaughter, we intend to treat our pigs to nothing less than the absolute highest order of hoof-shattering orgasms,” said Oscar Mayer President Mark Magnesen in a press release. “Our commitment to the well-being of animals means ensuring that no pig reaches an abbatoir without first experiencing a flesh romp so sensational it causes their numbing limbs to buckle under full-bodied tail-to-snout pleasure.”
Just yes. Even PETA has to admit that this is a great new direction for pork producers.
Taste tests held by the company revealed that customers unanimously preferred meat from sexually gratified pigs over meat from pigs raised under typical factory-farm stresses. Interested in trying some yourself, or just want to support the cause? Look for the special label they’ve created to specify that their products came from a pig they made squeal in wanton rapture.
Well, it looks like Oscar Mayer is finally getting on the right side of animal rights history. This is exactly the thoughtful kind of action consumers want to see food companies enact. They could have easily just asked suppliers to masturbate a few pigs to completion and called it change, but the level of care they’re pouring into these bacchanalian thrills shows that they’re truly making animal welfare a priority.
Any progress for farm animals is welcome progress, and hopefully this is a sign of even better living conditions to come. One blowout circus of carnal delights is the least they can do for these pigs. | 0 |
Stoicism is a philosophy for your mind that helps you deal with suffering and misfortune. In this podcast, I review stoicism’s strongest points as presented by three powerful thinkers (Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius) by using direct quotes from their most important works. I also share how I’ve used stoicism to reduce pain in my own life and how you can do the same through an effectively four-point strategy.
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Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka has called for the European Union (EU) to seal the Mediterranean route after 9, 000 migrants were ferried from Africa during Easter weekend. [The minister told local media that closing the route and securing Europe’s external borders “is the only way to end the tragic and senseless dying in the Mediterranean. “A rescue in the open sea cannot be a ticket to Europe, because it gives criminal gangs every argument to persuade people to escape their countries for economic reasons. ” Asked about measures Austria has in place to cope with a sudden influx of migrants over its border with Italy, Sobotka said the nation is now “equipped and able to ramp up controls within hours”. Last year, Austria backed closing the Western Balkan route used by migrants seeking to enter the more wealthy nations in Europe. Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil said the country was one of 16 around the Balkan route, used by more than a million migrants to journey from Greece into Europe, who are working together to defend the borders. According to United Nations (UN) aid agencies, nearly 9, 000 migrants were picked up by European vessels and private charity ships in the Mediterranean over the Easter weekend. Despite the numbers last year, Italy has seen a 30 per cent rise in immigration in the first quarter of 2017 over the same period in 2016. With the Easter weekend arrivals, the year’s total immigration into Italy now exceeds 37, 000. Last month, the European agency in charge of border control, Frontex, released a report accusing NGOs and “aid” organisations operating in the Mediterranean of complicity in human trafficking by lowering their costs and improving their “business model”. “Migrants and refugees — encouraged by the stories of those who had successfully made it in the past — attempt the dangerous crossing since they are aware of and rely on humanitarian assistance to reach the EU,” the report said. | 1 |
Wednesday on MSNBC, Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( ) discussed being reprimanded on the Senate floor Tuesday for her comments against President Donald Trump’s Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions ( ). Several times, MSNBC political correspondent Kasie Hunt asked Sen. Warren if Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( ) invoked Rule 19 to shut her down while reading a letter by Coretta Scott King because he is “sexist. ” Partial transcript as follows: HUNT: Let’s talk about what’s happened in the intervening hours since this happened on the floor. Your democratic colleagues have gone down to the senate floor. They’ve been reading this letter out loud. Was that something you asked them to do? WARREN: Nope. HUNT: And so far, they’ve been allowed to continue speaking. Some say it was sexist to silence you on the floor last night. WARREN: You’d have to ask Mitch McConnell. He’s the one who shut me down for doing this. But I will tell you what I did. As soon as I was no longer allowed to read, I went outside the senate chamber and I read the whole speech, just did it live on video and posted it on Facebook. I hope everybody reads the speech. I have tried to put up as many connections. I want children to read this speech. I want adults to read this speech. I want all people, and particularly, I want the Republicans who are going to vote tonight on whether or not Jeff Sessions becomes the next attorney general of the United States. I want them to read this speech before they vote. HUNT: Do you think what Senator McConnell did last night was sexist? WARREN: I think what he did was wrong. HUNT: But it wasn’t sexist? WARREN: I think reading the words of Coretta Scott King on the floor of the United States senate honors the senate. She talks about a very difficult time in our history. And a time and a reminder that even today, are often denied access to voting. And she talks about how it happened and why it happened. I think it’s an important part of our history that we cannot just push behind us. that we cannot just gloss over. everyone needs to read Coretta Scott King’s letter. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
Financial Markets , Gold , Market Manipulation , Precious Metals , U.S. Economy Deep State , silver , silver eagles , war on cash admin
Desperation is setting in. The blatant attacks on gold are occurring almost exclusively during the Comex floor-trading hours now. Every night gold pushes higher as Asia’s appetite is seemingly voracious. The two most systemically dangerous banks right now, it was revealed according to the IMF, are JP Morgan and Citibank. I’m sure part of the smash is in response to that. All this action between gold and the dollar means is that the counter-force reaction to what the Fed is doing is going to be even more forceful. They already can’t control the dollar and the strong dollar is going to decimate Q4 revenues and earnings. Give it 6 months and I bet they start talking about the need to print more money. Gold will sniff that out well ahead of time.
Stewart Dougherty has provided another guest post for IRD. I think this is his best commentary yet.
The people hold in their hands the key that can unlock the door to financial independence and steadily increasing wealth, but they do not realize it. An obvious truth, being clear, is the hardest thing for people to see. They look right through it, as though it were not there, even though it is. Once they do see a truth, they never overlook it again. It becomes an invaluable fixture of their thinking.
Like the adult elephant taught from youth that the light chain around its leg cannot be broken, the people believe that the strangulating government currency chain around their necks is unbreakable. The fact is that if the grown elephant pressures the chain, it will snap, setting him free. The people, too, have the power to break the currency chain that chokes them and reclaim their financial freedom from the plunderers who have usurped it, if only they would study, understand and act.
The key to which we refer is private money, the most important forms of which are physical gold and silver. Cash is another, albeit greatly inferior form, in that currencies (not technically money) are controlled by their issuers. Global Deep State efforts to restrict or even eliminate the people’s ability to possess private money are now rampant, and running into resistance. Denied the ability to possess private money in the form and quantity they desire, the people will be deprived of financial freedom, and in the end, given that freedom is indivisible, any freedom at all.
Given the oligarchs’ clear, unmistakable intention to deprive the citizens of financial freedom, the people now have not just a financial, but a moral obligation to redenominate a portion of their liquid assets into private money. The people need to tell the Oligarchy in clear terms that they have gone too far, and will not be going any farther.
There are 7,000,000,000,000 people on this earth. There are fewer than 5,300,000,000 troy ounces of gold. If every person were allotted an equal share, each could possess 0.76 troy ounces of gold. In that gold can only be mined, and not printed by Deep State oligarchs, this sum is projected to remain consistent going forward, and may even shrink if mining cannot keep up with population growth.
The actual ownership of gold is vastly skewed. Fewer than one billion troy ounces of physical gold worldwide are thought to be potentially available to the market, in current circumstances. This is not gold actually offered at this time, but that could be offered to the market if the selling climate were opportune and owners decided to sell. The other 4,300,000,000 ounces are believed to be immobile, at least for now, and include government reserves, non-trading private reserves, and forms of jewelry that are highly unlikely to be sold unless people’s personal or financial circumstances significantly change. People do not sell their wedding rings or other jewelry having deep sentimental value unless there is a pressing reason to do so.
This means that there are perhaps 1,000,000,000 ounces of gold available to 7,000,000,000 people. Put another way, 1,000,000,000 ounces are available to what is estimated to be well more than $200,000,000,000,000.00 in net private wealth. Which translates into 0.143 available ounces per person; and total available gold amounting to only 0.65% of total global private wealth, at a price of $1,300 per ounce. If a low single-digit percentage of the people or the private wealth decided to mobilize into gold, where would the gold come from? The answer is: from radically higher prices, because that is the only place it can come from. We wonder, what is it about these numbers that the people cannot see? The conclusion is: the obvious, which is the hardest thing for them to see. Gold is so rare, and demand for it so potentially overwhelming that it is literally ridiculous it sells at today’s price. Yes, the “Great Oz” of price manipulation and corruption continues to hold sway for now, but Toto is sniffing him out and zeroing in. He is going to find the curtain and pull it back, and then all hell is going to break loose, because the current price of gold is a colossal fraud and lie. An historic price reset is inevitable.
At its core, gold’s price is not a Deep State oligarchy manipulation problem, even though we know for a fact that the oligarchs totally dominate and rig the precious metals market to manufacture fraudulent profits for themselves while advancing a corrupt, statist narrative to assist their government puppets.
Gold’s absurd price is, in fact, a marketing problem. The gold mining industry has been singularly incompetent when it comes to marketing its precious product. The gold industry has not produced one original marketing idea in 250 years, and gold’s current price proves it. Once people’s eyes are opened to gold’s unparalleled virtues as private, personal money, everything is going to change, most notably, its price, which is going to surge out of fundamental necessity.
Brexit and the Trump victory reflect a rising populist tide in the west. The people are saying that they want to take back their countries and their lives. We believe that the same type of popular anger and dissatisfaction that has produced the sharp and ongoing political reset in the west is likely to erupt next in the field of currency and money. The populist movement was fomented in the first place by people who had become disgusted by constant financial regression and the real prospect of and trajectory toward eventual impoverishment. Their sentiments have set the stage for a populist monetary revolution. A determined segment of the people, those who still have liquid assets, is going to figure out that now is an excellent time for them to take back their money. They are going to say it’s time to “drain the monetary swamp” of its Wall Street swindlers and central bank fakers, escape the financial tyranny of zero interest rates, and return to ancient money that is rare, possesses intrinsic value, is beautiful and is virtually certain to appreciate.
For the oligarchs, it is one thing if the people want to take back their countries; it is an entirely different, and totally unacceptable thing if they want to take back their money. The control of national currencies, money supplies and interest rates has been the Deep State oligarchs’ secret preserve and heavily protected “No Go” zone for decades. Their domination of this preserve has enabled them to mint phenomenal amounts of, guaranteed, risk-free profits; profits not measured in the millions or billions, but in the trillions of dollars. To the oligarchs, monetary populism means war. Which now rages, even though most people don’t yet know it.
To combat monetary populism, the oligarchs have launched a War on Private Savings. To put the monetary genie back in the bottle, they need to herd the people’s liquid funds into institutions they control. Now that they can clearly see the whites of the people’s eyes, as the populist sentiment spreads into finance, they have put their actions into overdrive. They need to defeat monetary populism before it becomes a “movement,” which it has every potential of doing.
The War on Private Savings is the largest conflict ever declared in the history of mankind. It is different from all other wars because: it is being fought against humanity, not a national or political enemy; it is global; it is being waged with trickeries, lies, schemes, propaganda, prohibitions and demonetizations, not military weapons; it is synchronized; it targets personal, after-tax savings, not a country’s natural resources, geography, government or political leaders; it has been declared by a non-elected Oligarchy; it is about contempt for freedom; and its ultimate objective is about one thing and one thing only: the conquest of other people’s money.
The War on Private Savings, while massive in itself, is actually part of a larger conflict, the War on Human Freedom. While human freedom has been under attack in various ways since the dawn of mankind, it has never faced such a concerted, coordinated, massively well-funded attack as the one now declared against it by the Deep State oligarchs. If the initiators of the War on Private Savings win, the real casualty will be human freedom, because there can be no human freedom if there is no financial liberty. The stakes of this war for the people are impossible to overstate.
India has been turned into a 1.3 billion person human laboratory for the advanced research, development and testing of the weapons to be used in the full-scale, global War on Private Savings. The weapons that prove successful in India will then be used on other people in other nations throughout the world. What happens in India is a global prologue of what is yet to come.
The term “War on Cash” is a deliberately misleading misnomer. It is merely one act in a much more sweeping drama. There is no war on cash; there is an attack on cash. The attack on cash is just one of the many battles within the much larger War on Private Savings. We can now observe a rapidly intensifying, synchronized, global effort to demonize, control and eliminate cash in Australia; Europe, especially the Nordic countries; the United States; India; and virtually everywhere in between. The War on Private Savings is strategic; cash controls are tactical. The oligarchs want you to focus on the tactic, not the full strategy. You don’t want to fall for that.
In addition to the attack on cash, other tactics currently being used in and planned for the War on Private Savings include: 1) Low and negative interest rates that are less than the rate of inflation and therefore rob savers; 2) Civil asset forfeitures; 3) The explosion of government regulations accompanied by confiscatory fines; 4) Across the board tax increases; 5) The creation of entirely new tax categories (e.g., Obamacare; carbon taxes) that pile onto but never streamline or reduce existing tax structures; 6) The intense manipulation of precious metals prices, resulting in artificially low prices that lessen savings; 7) Endemic corruption resulting in increased consumer costs and national debt that must be borne by the people (e.g., Medicare; Medicaid; Military (for example, the $6 Trillion in unaccounted-for Army spending, alone, all of which is now constitutes additional national debt); 8) Massive, structural government deficits that heap even more non-repayable debt upon the people; 8) Open borders, which spike the cost and deficits of government, which are similarly borne by the people and nationally impoverishing; 9) Deliberately engineered inflation that devalues national currencies and savings; 10) Outright demonetizations and forced conversions of currencies, with massive attendant costs, a new weapon that has been rolled out in India; to name just a few examples of the existing and emerging weapons being used against the people in the War on Private Savings.
To sum up the situation, we believe that: 1) Populism is spreading into the Forbidden Zone of currency and money; 2) To prevent Monetary Populism from becoming a “movement” that they cannot contain, the Deep State Oligarchs have declared a War on Private Savings, as part of a larger conflict, a War on Human Liberty; 3) Precious metals, particularly gold, are an extraordinarily powerful weapon in the hands of the people, and one that can defeat the Oligarchs’ oppressive, anti-humanitarian campaign, but only if the people take up the weapon en masse, and soon; 4) The Deep State oligarchs are fully aware of the threat posed to them by the weapon of private money wielded by the people, which is why they are attacking; 5) If, through simple messaging, the people’s eyes are opened to the unique capability of precious metals to restore to them the financial stability, freedom and dignity that are rightfully theirs, no less than their other constitutionally guaranteed rights, they will embrace this obvious solution in large numbers, ensuring their victory. In the process, monetary populism will be transformed from a sentiment into a powerful, invincible movement.
In our next article, we will discuss the simple ways by which the managements of publicly traded precious metals mining companies can ignite demand for and price escalation of their product, as is required by their fiduciary obligation to shareholders.
Stewart Dougherty November 22, 2106
Stewart Dougherty is the developer of a principles-based forecasting methodology named Inferential Analytics. The unique IA model assesses monetary, fiscal, financial, market, social, political, empirical and anecdotal factors to get a glimpse of tomorrow, today. He has 35 years’ worth of management, corporate strategy and business development achievement. He is a graduate of Tufts University (MA) and Harvard Business School (MBA). Share this: | 0 |
November 2, 2016
A group of about 200,000 White Holland turkeys in a gigantic shed at a farm in Ohio is now debating whether or not to vote in favour of Thanksgiving. The vote to be made next week by pecking once at a pile of grain for ‘Thanksgiving’ or twice for ‘Something Else’ comes after bitter arguments in which claims and counter-claims were made about the availability of dust for bathing in over the turkeys’ long-term (i.e. three-week) future.
Many turkeys have deplored the resulting divisions, which have seen elevated levels of pecking in the once harmonious community five miles from Wapakoneta. ‘I’ve lived here all my life, y’all,’ said turkey hen Wanda-Mae Cabrera. ‘What was it we were deciding on again? Me an’ my folks before me, we all lived here, yes we did.’
Voting for Thanksgiving means that the turkeys will be able to build a wall from their own faeces to deter any incoming poultry from Kentucky from trying to get into the shed, once they have mastered the intricacies of building a wall from their own faeces. Many also believe that this will make the shed great again, as it hasn’t been great for a long time but definitely used to be. They also said they liked the sound of a new farmer called Donald, who recently grabbed a pussy-cat that raided the shed before it could do any damage.
Some turkeys prefer to carry on not celebrating Thanksgiving because the past 244 generations had not and had all gone away to live happily on a farm somewhere else, apparently. ‘One labourer said we will get a right stuffing either way,’ said anti-Thanksgiving turkey DeMarius Jackson, aged 28 weeks. ‘Well, that’s democracy. I imagine.’
‘I ain’t having no goddam American Bronzes sharing my shed, no sirree,’ raged White Holland cock Burl Griffin CCXXVI. ‘Before you know it, they’ll be gobblin’ around your hens, stealin’ your water and sayin’ you can’t worship the Great Spotlight in the Roof no more. I ain’t breedist but have you seen the size of their wattles? I like my shed the way I like it, so I’m for Thanksgiving, sure thing. What is Thanksgiving, anyway?’ Share this story...
Posted: Nov 2nd, 2016 by Oxbridge Click for more article by Oxbridge .. More Stories about: World News 0 | 0 |
Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told Breitbart News that she welcomes President Trump’s executive order aimed at lifting the ban on offshore drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic and Atlantic areas. [Governor Palin said, “Quashing Obama’s energy plan makes America great again. We’ve been working for years to remind people that our exceptional nation came to be by developing our natural resources and by expecting reward for an unsurpassed work ethic. We capture that again when we drill, baby, drill!” Trump’s executive order directs the U. S. Department of the Interior to review the bans to allow “responsible development of offshore areas that will bring revenue to our treasury and jobs to our workers. ” Obama’s prohibition on new drilling in U. S. water around Alaska includes most of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and in 31 underwater canyons in the Atlantic Ocean. President Obama enacted it last December under using the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which gives the president the authority to designate certain offshore areas unavailable for commercial use. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton also invoked the legislation. President Trump said that the offshore drilling ban harms the economy. He explained, “Our country’s blessed with incredible natural resources, including abundant offshore oil and natural gas reserves, but the federal government has kept 94 percent of these offshore areas closed for exploration and production. ” Trump added, “This deprives our country of potentially thousands and thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in wealth. ” | 1 |
White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, scolded TIME magazine White House pool reporter Zeke Miller on Friday for falsely reporting that the Martin Luther King Jr. bust had been removed from the Oval Office after President Donald Trump moved in. [Miller had initially tweeted Friday that the MLK Jr. bust, which Obama put in the Oval Office after removing a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 2009, had been removed from the Oval Office. Realizing his mistake, Miller tweeted a correction and apologized for spreading the false report: Correction: The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door. — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017, Miller’s fake news story had already been tweeted by at least one reporter, who had to delete his false report. Miller offered several more apologies to reporters who had quoted his initial report: @JaredRizzi this was my bad, — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017, @JenniferJJacobs @justinsink @MikeDorning this was my screw up. apologies, — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017, @juliehdavis @neuwaves my sincerest apologies for the confusion. This was my bad. — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017, Miller also sought Spicer’s forgiveness. “This is on me, not my colleagues. I’ve been doing everything I can to fix my error. My apologies,” Miller wrote: Apology accepted https: . — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017, Moments later, Spicer sent a warning to the media about the “danger of tweet first check facts later”: A reminder of the media danger of tweet first check facts later https: . — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017, As a bonus, Spicer tweeted a photo of the MLK bust in the Oval Office: Thanks to White House Chief of Staff for this wonderful picture of the MLK bust in the oval pic. twitter. — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017, President Trump also had the bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill returned to the Oval Office on his first day as President: When I met Trump as President elect I asked him to return the Churchill bust to the Oval Office. First day: pic. twitter. — Raheem Kassam (@RaheemKassam) January 21, 2017, Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/collective-consciousness-individual-is.html In the middle of all the brain-research going on, from one end of the planet to the other, there is the assumption that the individual doesn’t really exist. He’s a fiction. There is only the motion of particles in the brain. Therefore, nothing is inviolate, nothing is protected. Make the brain do A, make it do B; it doesn’t matter. What matters is harmonizing these tiny particles, in order to build a collective consensus, in order to force a science of behavior.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)Individual power. Your power.It stands as the essence of what the founding documents of the American Republic are all about, once you scratch below the surface a millimeter or so.Therefore, it stands to reason that colleges and universities would be teaching courses in INDIVIDUAL POWER.As soon as I write that, though, we all fall down laughing, because we understand the absurdity of such a proposition. Can you imagine Harvard endowing a chair in Individual Power?Students would tear down the building in which such courses were taught. They’ve been carefully instructed that the individual is the greatest living threat to the planet.If you can’t see that as mind control, visit your local optometrist and get a prescription for glasses.So we have this astonishing situation: the very basis of freedom has no reflection in the educational system.You can say “individual” within certain limited contexts. You can say “power,” if you’re talking about nuclear plants, or if you’re accusing someone of a crime, but if you put “individual” and “power” together and attribute a positive quality to the combination, you’re way, way outside the consensus. You’re crazy. You’re committing some kind of treason.In order to spot the deepest versions of educational brainwashing, YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOME STANDARD AGAINST WHICH YOU CAN COMPARE WHAT IS COMING DOWN THE PIPELINE INTO THE MINDS OF STUDENTS.If you lack that standard, you miss most of the action.If you lack that standard, you have already been worked over by the system.And in this case, the standard is INDIVIDUAL POWER.Clean it off, hose off the dirt, polish it, look at it, think about it, remember it.Then you’ll see some Grade-A prime mind control. Everywhere. Because schools either don’t mention it, or they discredit it.Back in the days when I was writing on assignment for newspapers and magazines, I pitched a story about individual power to an editor. I wanted to trace its history as an idea over the past ten years.He looked at me for a few seconds. He looked at me as if I’d just dropped some cow flop on his desk. He knew I wasn’t kidding and I had something I could write and turn in to him, but that made it worse. He began to squirm in his chair.He laughed nervously. Then he stopped laughing.He said, “This isn’t what we do.”For him, I was suddenly radioactive.I had a similar experience with a high-school history teacher in California. We were having lunch in a cafe in Santa Monica, and I said:“You should teach a course in individual power. The positive aspects. No group stuff. Just the individual.”He frowned a deep intellectual frown, as if I’d just opened my jacket and exposed a few sticks of dynamite strapped to my chest. As if he was thinking about which agency of the government to report me to.Now, for the schizoid part. The movies. Television. Video games. Comics. Graphic novels. They are filled to the brim, they are overflowing with individual heroes who have considerable power. These entertainment businesses bank billions of dollars, because people want to immerse themselves in that universe where the individual is supreme. They want it badly.But when it comes to “real” life, power stops at the front door and no one answers the bell.Suddenly, the hero, the person with power is anathema. He’s left holding the bag. So he adjusts. He waits. He wonders. He settles for less, far less. He stifles his hopes. He shrinks. He forgets. He develops “problems” and tries to solve them within an impossibly narrow context. He redefines success and victory down to meet limited expectations. He strives for the normal and the average. For his efforts, he receives tidbits, like a dog looking up at his master.If that isn’t mind control, nothing is.Once we enter a world where the individual no longer has credibility, a world where “greatest good for the greatest number” is the overriding principle, and where that principle is defined by the elite few, the term “mind control” will have a positive connotation. It will be accepted as the obvious strategy for achieving “peace in our time.”At a job interview, a candidate will say:“Yes, I received my PhD in Mind Control at Yale, and then I did three years of post-doc work in Cooperative Learning Studies at MIT. My PhD thesis? It was titled, ‘Coordination Strategies in the Classroom for Eliminating the Concept of the Individual.’”From Wikipedia, “Cooperative Learning”: “Students must work in groups to complete tasks collectively toward academic goals. Unlike individual learning, which can be competitive in nature, students learning cooperatively can capitalize on one another’s resources and skills… Furthermore, the teacher’s role changes from giving information to facilitating students’ learning. Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds.”That is a towering assemblage of bullshit.“Everyone succeeds when the group succeeds.”You could use that quote on the back cover of Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World . Everyone does not succeed — because the individual never finds out what he can do on his own. That avenue is cut off. He only knows what he can achieve in combination with others. He only knows what he can understand when he borrows from others. He may never glimpse what he truly wants to do in life.This is a tragic situation, but the tragedy is concealed, because the memory of shifting from individual independence to group dependence is gone. There is no such memory. A child is brought up without independence. Therefore, how can he recall losing it?He only knows the group and the team and the participation and the praise. He only knows the organizing of his life within a synthetically produced context.He is taught that this is good and necessary.So, one day, when a bolt comes out of the blue and he recognizes he is himself, what will he use to grasp that revelation and build on it?Yes, there are productive groups and teams, and one is always working with others, to some degree. But the core and the starting point is one’s self. That is where the insight and the magic begin. That is where the great decisions and commitments are made. That is where the world is born, every day.I see no end of writing about this magic, because civilization has been turned upside down by treacherous people who have been fabricating a counter-tradition that will sink the ship. By Jon Rappoport / To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here . Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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We are already seeing signs of massive fraud, just business as usual. The good news is that millions will be on the lookout and many more will be recording events and posting them on-line over the next two weeks. Keep up the good work.
Like they if voting was a threat to the elite would not let us do at all. It is all a scam to keep the elite in power and make the masses think consent was given.
Secrete ballots enable all this fraud. | 0 |
cant wait for musou star hopefully run well in portable.cause i wanna it for the vita. | 0 |
Also, since when did we start using "non-GAAP" and stop using "OCBOA?" I left Big Four like 15 years ago when off BS entities were all the rage, so this newfangled "non-GAAP" is new to me. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The F. B. I. has significantly increased its use of stings in terrorism cases, employing agents and informants to pose as jihadists, bomb makers, gun dealers or online “friends” in hundreds of investigations into Americans suspected of supporting the Islamic State, records and interviews show. Undercover operations, once seen as a last resort, are now used in about two of every three prosecutions involving people suspected of supporting the Islamic State, a sharp rise in the span of just two years, according to a New York Times analysis. Charges have been brought against nearly 90 Americans believed to be linked to the group. The increase in the number of these secret operations, which put operatives in the middle of purported plots, has come with little public or congressional scrutiny, and the stings rely on F. B. I. guidelines that predate the rise of the Islamic State. While F. B. I. officials say they are careful to avoid illegally entrapping suspects, their undercover operatives are far from bystanders. In recent investigations from Florida to California, agents have helped people suspected of being extremists acquire weapons, scope out bombing targets and find the best routes to Syria to join the Islamic State, records show. Officials said in interviews that because social media had given extremists a cloak of anonymity, these undercover stings — online and in person — had become increasingly vital to gathering evidence and deterring possible attacks in the United States. “We’re not going to wait for the person to mobilize on his own time line,” said Michael B. Steinbach, who leads the F. B. I. ’s national security branch. He added that the F. B. I. could not afford to “just sit and wait knowing the individual is actively plotting. ” Counterterrorism officials said the Islamic State had inspired loyalists to strike quickly, even within days or weeks of their radicalization. Unlike wiretaps or searches, undercover operations do not require a judge to sign a warrant. They are overseen by F. B. I. supervisors and Justice Department prosecutors, and so can usually be started more quickly. But defense lawyers, Muslim leaders and civil liberties advocates say that F. B. I. operatives coax suspects into saying and doing things that they might not otherwise do — the essence of entrapment. “They’re manufacturing terrorism cases,” said Michael German, a former undercover agent with the F. B. I. who researches national security law at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. In many of the recent prosecutions, he said, “these people are five steps away from being a danger to the United States. ” Karen J. Greenberg, the director of the Center on National Security at Fordham University, said undercover operations had become the norm for the F. B. I. in the most recent Islamic State cases, with little debate or understanding of how the bureau actually conducts its investigations, especially its online stings. “I think the F. B. I. is really going down the wrong path with a lot of these ISIS cases,” she said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State, also known as ISIL. Court records and interviews give a glimpse of the aggressive undercover methods that have become typical in investigations once the F. B. I. identifies someone as a possible threat. In Rochester, a paid informant went undercover and drove a man suspected of being an Islamic extremist, Emanuel Lutchman, to a Walmart in December to buy a machete, ski masks, zip ties and other supplies for a terrorist attack on New Year’s Eve. Because Mr. Lutchman, a mentally ill panhandler, had no money, the informant covered the $40 cost. In North Carolina, an undercover agent pressed another suspect, Justin Sullivan, on whether he was willing to commit acts of terrorism for the Islamic State — “do you think you can kill?” the agent asked in one online message — before giving him a silencer for an assault rifle in June 2015. And in Washington State, an undercover informant paid $1, 100 to Daniel Franey, a former soldier, for acting as a lookout on several trips to buy duffel bags filled with assault weapons for a possible attack last summer. The F. B. I. arrested all three suspects before any attacks occurred, and has used similar undercover techniques to prosecute dozens of others it believes had ties to the Islamic State, court records show. While some defendants have pleaded guilty, most are still awaiting trial. At least 40 agencies use covert operatives to investigate everything from tax cheating and welfare fraud to Supreme Court demonstrations. But in no agency have undercover stings been more central than in the F. B. I. While the F. B. I. ’s internal guidelines, last updated in 2011, require the “least intrusive” methods possible in investigations, bureau officials said they believed less intrusive methods might be impossible because suspects have the ability to remain anonymous on encrypted online sites. “When the bad guys turn to encrypted areas, we’re dark, and the only way to gain a better understanding of what we’re up against may be through an undercover,” Mr. Steinbach said. He said using undercover agents online allowed the F. B. I. to “flesh out” suspects by gaining their trust and persuading them to disclose their real identities. The F. B. I. has about 1, 000 open investigations into “homegrown violent extremists,” which it defines as Americans motivated by a foreign terrorist group, including the Islamic State, to conduct attacks at home, officials said. They said that a “significant number” of cases — hundreds in all — had entailed undercover operations against people suspected of being Islamic extremists, but that the F. B. I. did not have precise numbers. But court records examined by The Times indicate that the F. B. I. has used undercover operations with increasing frequency in its Islamic State investigations since the earliest cases emerged in March 2014. (For years before that, the bureau had carried out similar sting investigations against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.) Only about 30 percent of the first few dozen prosecutions through late 2014 appear to have relied on evidence gathered through undercover operations. That number climbed to about 45 percent by early last year, with a string of undercover prosecutions in New York, Minnesota and Illinois. And since February 2015, about 40 of 60 Islamic State prosecutions, or 67 percent, have been based on undercover operations. The number of Islamic State prosecutions over all has slowed since January officials believe a spate of prosecutions late last year may have deterred plotters. But undercover stings have remained the norm. So far this year, eight of the dozen Islamic State prosecutions have relied on undercover operatives, court records indicate. In the most recent case, prosecutors two weeks ago charged a Bronx man, Sajmir Alimehmeti, 22, with traveling to Europe twice to try to fight with the Islamic State. He met with at least three undercover agents during the F. B. I. ’s investigation. Undercover activity also appears to have risen in the hundreds of Islamic State investigations run by the F. B. I. in the last two years, but it is not as sharp a spike as seen in those cases that led to formal charges, officials said. Asked about The Times’s data, F. B. I. officials said any increase in undercover activity probably reflected the emergence of what they believed to be a larger and more dangerous pool of Islamic State suspects. The officials said there had been no deliberate decision or policy change to rely more heavily on undercover agents. Often, the targets in the stings first attracted the F. B. I. ’s attention for espousing what agents saw as support for the Islamic State or violent extremism online, on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter. The F. B. I. insists that its agents comb these sites not as “thought police,” but rather to look for people who are threatening acts of terrorism. Once the F. B. I. has identified someone as a potential threat, supervisors often have an undercover agent contact the suspect online. In Northern Illinois, for instance, an undercover agent sent a friend request on Facebook to Hasan Edmonds, a National Guardsman who had published posts on social media that the F. B. I. had deemed alarming. Over the next several months, Mr. Edmonds and the undercover agent exchanged numerous online messages, discussing the possibility of traveling to the Middle East to help the Islamic State, or perhaps mounting an attack at the Illinois armory where Mr. Edmonds trained. “Oaths have been given,” Mr. Edmonds wrote to an informant in one online message in January 2015, according to a criminal complaint. “When the time is right, we will strike. ” A few days later, Mr. Edmonds wrote that he and a cousin were eager to help the cause and “would love to do something like the brother in Paris did” — a reference to the terrorist attack a few weeks earlier on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The undercover agent responded by suggesting to Mr. Edmonds that if he could not make it overseas to fight with the Islamic State, he could show his commitment and achieve martyrdom in the United States, court filings said. The online messages led to a meeting in person in March 2015 between a second undercover operative and Mr. Edmonds’s cousin, Jonas Edmonds, prosecutors said. Weeks later, the cousins were arrested at Chicago Midway International Airport — with Hasan Edmonds apparently on his way to the Middle East — and charged with offenses. Both men have pleaded guilty and are facing long prison sentences. In that case and in many others, F. B. I. undercover operatives have let plots play out until a suspect acquires a weapon, for instance, or buys a plane ticket to Turkey en route to Syria. An investigation that ended last month in Miami followed this pattern, with the normal tableau of undercover operatives and talk of a bloody attack. The F. B. I. received word — exactly how is unclear — that James Gonzalo Medina, 40, a Muslim convert who also went by James Muhammad, might have been considering attacking a synagogue, according to court records. It opened an investigation into Mr. Medina in March, but the initial evidence was spotty. At one meeting with an undercover informant and several other men, Mr. Medina accused a friend of wanting to blow up a synagogue he seemed to distance himself from the idea. Five days later, as Mr. Medina was driving with the F. B. I. informant in a suburb of Miami, he pointed out a synagogue with what he called “David’s triangle star” on the outside. The F. B. I. informant suggested attacking the synagogue during a Jewish holiday two weeks later, according to court files. “Now that’ll be a good day to go and bomb them,” Mr. Medina responded, according to the files. The informant took the proposed plot a step further, introducing Mr. Medina to an acquaintance the informant said was experienced with explosives. The acquaintance was actually an undercover F. B. I. agent, who questioned Mr. Medina several times about why he wanted to bomb the synagogue. Mr. Medina said he wanted to carry out a bombing and claim responsibility on behalf of “ISIS in America. ” “You need to be sure, brother,” the undercover agent told him, adding, “You know you don’t have to do any of this. ” Mr. Medina reaffirmed his commitment, according to the court files. Finally, in late April, the agent met Mr. Medina in a parking lot and gave him the bomb, which was inert and “posed no danger to the public,” prosecutors said. The two men drove toward the synagogue a few miles away, and after Mr. Medina stepped out of the car with the bomb in hand, he was arrested. Officials said they were keenly aware that such cases would almost inevitably lead defense lawyers to charge that the F. B. I. had entrapped their clients. That is why, the officials said, they often gauge suspects’ commitment to carrying out an attack and give them an “out” to back away. F. B. I. officials are also quick to point out that, despite dozens of challenges to undercover terrorism cases brought since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a judge has yet to throw one out on the grounds of entrapment. Not that some judges have not considered it. “I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here, except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition,” Judge Colleen McMahon of the United States District Court in Manhattan said in 2011 in a case involving four Muslim men in Newburgh, N. Y. The F. B. I. planted an undercover informant inside a mosque in Newburgh as part of what became an elaborate, nearly yearlong plot to launch a Stinger missile at a local air base and two synagogues. The F. B. I. even built a fake Stinger missile and had it delivered to the men. Judge McMahon said she was troubled by the F. B. I. ’s conduct, but she upheld the charges. So did the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, finding that the F. B. I. ’s conduct did not amount to entrapment. The stings have left many Muslim leaders wary, even as the F. B. I. has sought to build bridges to Muslim Americans. At mosques in Oregon, imams sometimes warn of F. B. I. informants and caution “that we have those among us who are not with us,” said Tom Nelson, a Muslim lawyer in Portland who has represented a number of local men in cases. His message for his Muslim friends, Mr. Nelson said, is blunt. “Avoid the F. B. I. like the plague,” he said. “They’re definitely not an ally. That’s what the F. B. I. does — they infiltrate. ” | 1 |
The 59th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday will feature perhaps the show’s most electric contest in years: Adele versus Beyoncé. Both are megaselling queens of pop whose every move reverberates throughout the culture. The fact that they will face off in each of the top three categories — album, record and song of the year — gives the Grammys a rare tension that can only be good for ratings. Yet their competition is also fraught in ways that have long dogged the awards. One concerns race, a subject the Grammys have a tangled history with — especially this year, when one of the most acclaimed young black artists, Frank Ocean, has boycotted the process altogether. Another sensitive area is the Grammys’ spotty record in recognizing the vanguards of contemporary pop. Added to the mix is a heightened political climate in which issues of race and identity are front and center, raising the question of whether the music industry will use this year’s Grammys as a soapbox. Many longtime Grammy watchers say that a sweep by Adele — and therefore a Beyoncé snub — could feed into complaints that the awards too often fail to recognize black performers in the most prestigious categories. Ebro Darden, a disc jockey on the New York station Hot 97 and on Apple’s Beats 1, said that a big Beyoncé win would be “the best move” for the Grammys “if they want to get the most attention and keep people interested. ” Should Adele dominate, he added, some music fans “would come for them and say #OscarsSoWhite. ” With the news media closely focused on diversity at awards shows — and the public relations nightmares that result from an absence of it — that would be an unwelcome response for the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammys. (A representative for the academy declined to comment.) Adele and Beyoncé are both hailed in music circles as supremely deserving talents. But for voters, the singers also represent a choice between two strains of modern pop: Adele’s album “25” and her hit ballad “Hello” are examples of the finely traditional style that is Grammy catnip. Beyoncé’s “Lemonade,” with its dynamic single “Formation” and accompanying politically and racially charged hourlong art film, represents an edgier sound that rarely takes the top prize — Exhibit A for those who contend that the Grammys are perennially out of touch. Beyoncé’s own example is telling: She may already have 20 Grammys on her shelf, but only one is in the big four categories (album, record and song of the year, or best new artist). She has also been passed over twice for album of the year, losing to Taylor Swift in 2010 and Beck in 2015 (much to the consternation of Kanye West, a frequent Grammy critic). “The #OscarsSoWhite controversy really shook the motion picture academy, and I think the Grammys are saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go we, so let’s make sure this doesn’t happen to us,’” said Paul Grein, a former Billboard columnist who performs detailed Grammy analysis for the industry magazine Hits. The Grammys may be more diverse than most shows this year, Beyoncé is the top nominee, with nine nods, while the newcomer Chance the Rapper has seven. But the show’s record in recognizing black talent has come under plenty of fire. Mr. Ocean declined to submit his work for consideration in this year’s Grammys at all, saying that the institution “just doesn’t seem to be representing very well for people who come from where I come from,” and calling the boycott his “Colin Kaepernick moment. ” Rap fans were outraged when Kendrick Lamar lost best rap album to the white rapper Macklemore in 2014, though Mr. Lamar took all four rap trophies last year. (Eminem has won best rap album six times.) The last black artists to win album of the year were legacy picks: Ray Charles in 2005, and Herbie Hancock, covering Joni Mitchell, in 2008 a black woman hasn’t won since Lauryn Hill did nearly two decades ago. Russell Simmons, the entertainment mogul who is a founder of Def Jam Recordings, said that Beyoncé “is overdue for being accepted by the mainstream in the way she deserves. ” “She’s obviously the most mainstream thing on the planet,” Mr. Simmons said. He added: “When they define her, her color has something to do with the way she’s viewed and the amount of awards she wins and the accolades she gets. I would venture to say were she white and blond from Texas, she would be recognized differently. ” Some, however, reject the idea of the contest as a referendum on race. “I don’t think it’s a black and white thing it’s a quality thing,” said Joel Peresman, the chief executive of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Kevin Liles, a veteran record executive now with 300 Entertainment, said that the Grammys had evolved in recent years: “If it was truly a dormant or stagnant association, then Beyoncé wouldn’t be there. All shapes, sizes, colors and genres are represented. ” The odds on Adele and Beyoncé are hard to read, even among industry insiders. Adele may be a safe choice, but she also swept all three top prizes five years ago, making a repeat seem unlikely. No or contemporary RB album has won the top prize since Outkast’s “ Love Below” in 2004, a tough precedent for Beyoncé on the other hand, there is a wide sense in the industry that it may simply be her turn. At the Grammys, however, anything is possible: Contenders for an upset album of the year winner are streaming hits like Drake’s “Views” and Justin Bieber’s “Purpose,” and this year’s darkest horse, “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” by the country outsider Sturgill Simpson. The awards also comes at a cultural crossroads, following a divisive presidential election. Now, even the most mainstream events are weighted with ideological expectations. “The gloves are off: It is absolutely in style to have a political opinion right now,” the D. J. Mr. Darden said, predicting that the Grammys would “absolutely have that moment” where current events come up, such as with Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech aimed at President Trump. Lady Gaga, a vocal Hillary Clinton supporter, did not make a grand political statement, as some had hoped, at the Super Bowl, but she will have another platform when she performs with Metallica at the Grammys. Among the other performers scheduled on Sunday are Katy Perry, who was a dedicated surrogate for Mrs. Clinton, and Chance the Rapper, a frequent guest of President Obama’s White House. Beyoncé and Adele, who is British, both expressed support for Mrs. Clinton last year. “We want to be a place where artists can feel they can come and express themselves,” Ken Ehrlich, the Grammys producer, said of the possibility that performances or speeches could become political. “Our guidelines are taste and the F. C. C. The F. C. C. is more concerned with profanity than it is with political discourse. ” Mr. Simmons said that no matter who comes away the night’s big winner, a foray by a major artist into politics would be a boon for the show. “If Trump says the Grammys are overrated on Monday morning, people will go looking for what he’s talking about,” Mr. Simmons said. “I hope he does. ” | 1 |
Help us spread the ANTIDOTE to corporate propaganda. Please follow SGT Report on Twitter & help share the message. Related 1 comment to BANG! What The Globalists Are About To UNLEASH On Trump Will KILL America Ed_B November 23, 2016 at 7:09 pm · Reply
Bang? The globalists have been taking it on the chin lately and aren’t really in any position to be laying much of anything on anyone. They are still reeling from the BrExit and Trumps election. About the time they figure out how they screwed the pooch on those issues, they will be smacked up-side the head by the continuing disintegration of their EU project, as more countries leave it on the ash heap of history and move forward into the light of a much more positive, productive, and free world. Good on the ba$tard$. 😀 Leave a Reply You can use these HTML tags
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Shaquille O’Neal, you have brought this upon yourself. [After joining Kyrie Irving in stating his belief that he too thinks the Earth is flat, (Yes, do not adjust your clocks, this is 2017) Shaquille O’Neal drew from fellow NBA legend Charles Barkley. Appearing on the Rich Eisen Show, Shaq’s “Inside The NBA” Charles Barkley knocked the Big Aristotle down a peg for his podcast rant. Not only that, Barkley told the story of another instance of Shaq’s interstellar confusion: Here’s the video of that particular episode of “Inside The NBA”: Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
televisión
La fórmula de emitir capítulos de Los Simpson en cualquier momento parece que le sigue funcionando a Antena 3, que ayer fue líder de audiencia con un especial de esta serie de animación. La continua repetición de sus capítulos hizo que la cadena ni siquiera los emitiera. En su lugar, aparecía Matías Prats recordando sus momentos preferidos. “Me gusta cuando Bart vende su alma a Milhouse. ¿Y el del Tenacitas? Ese me gustó mucho”, explicó Prats.
Telecinco también consiguió un excelente resultado. Aprovechando el estreno de la película “Animales fantásticos”, la cadena de Mediaset quiso subirse al carro de la “Harrypottermanía” y emitió “ Live at Hogwarth’s “, un especial de dos horas en el que Belén Esteban, con una chistera, enseña a la audiencia cómo se usa el juego Magia Borrás.
La nostalgia vende, y eso lo sabe bien La 1 de Televisión Española. Tras anunciar que adaptará a la pequeña pantalla el best seller “ Yo también fui a EGB .”, protagonizado por Dani Rovira en el papel de bote de Tipp-ex, la cadena pública decidió exprimir la fórmula de la nostalgia emitiendo íntegramente la programación de anteayer.
Cuatro, por su parte, parece que no acaba de encontrar un formato que le funcione en el “prime time”. Fría acogida del estreno de su nuevo docureality “ Callejeros Condescendientes “, en el que diversos imbéciles recorren el mundo diciendo frases como “son tan felices con tan poco” o “lo mejor de esta ciudad son sus gentes”.
Tampoco fue la noche de La Sexta. El show de Chicote centrado en las reuniones de vecinos, “ Pesadilla en el rellano “, no está obteniendo los números esperados. Ayer, Chicote se presentó para mediar en un conflicto relacionado con el posible cambio de los buzones. El cocinero utilizó su táctica de irse muy enfadado y volver poco después, para que los concursantes recapaciten. Pero esta vez no le funcionó: a su regreso, Virginia del sexto le había abierto la cabeza a la Puri, del bajo, golpeándosela contra los buzones. Ni por esas la audiencia mostró interés.
En clave autonómica, la catalana TV3 consiguió su máximo histórico con la “ Telemarató” , un espacio solidario que este año ha conseguido 20 mil millones de euros para pagar la multa de Messi a Hacienda.
En Galicia, TvG sorprendió con su formato “ Al filo de la mayoría “, un experimento en el que un alcalde del Partido Popular hacía cosas terribles: hundir un petrolero, pellizcar los testículos a gatos de la calle, pedir pizza con piña… El objetivo: comprobar cuál es el límite que hay que superar para que le dejen de votar.
Y en Televisión de Castilla La Mancha se vivió una noche especial. Isabel Gemio inició una nueva edición de su clásico “ Sorpresa, sorpresa ” visiblemente emocionada. Tras una pausa publicitaria, Gemio descubrió ser víctima de su propio equipo y la sorpresa se la llevó ella. En el plató aparecieron Jaime Bores, Alicia Senovilla y Agustín Bravo para gritarle al unísono “¡Bienvenida a Televisión de Castilla La Mancha! ¡Bienvenida al ocaso de tu carrera!”. Habían hecho creer a la presentadora que estaba trabajando de nuevo para Telecinco. Gemio rompió a llorar de pura ilusión.
La 2 de Televisión Española volvió a ser la última opción de los espectadores. Quizá no ayudó el controvertido título del documental que emitió: “ Todos los que tienen audímetro son unos hijos de puta “. | 0 |
A Civil War battlefield museum in Georgia is closing its doors after a local politician demanded that the establishment discontinues its use of the Confederate flag. [After Commissioner Dee Clemmons of Hampton, Georgia, demanded that the Nash Farm Battlefield Museum tear down the flags in its Confederate displays that explain the battle to visitors, the museum decided to close its doors, saying it could not properly explain history if half of its displays were to be censored, WFMY reported. Tim Knight, who represents the nonprofit group that runs the museum, said Clemmons spoke with the color of authority of the county and felt that he was given no choice but to close the museum. “Nash Farms has always represented both sides of the conflict,” Stuart Carter, a supporter of the museum, said of the establishment. “Sure I understand some people find the imaging of (the Confederacy) offensive,” Carter added. “But if we try and erase it from history, then we can’t remember how we messed up and why we shouldn’t go back there again. ” The group running the museum insisted that it could not properly relay the history of the 1864 battle without its Confederate artifacts and displays. But a county spokesperson said it was “reasonable” to demand that the Confederate flag displays be censored. “I think it’s reasonable. I think there were plenty of artifacts in the museum that can tell the story of the Civil War. And I think it was a reasonable request,” county spokeswoman Melissa Robinson said. The controversy comes amid similar discussions in states across the south, as Charlottesville, Virginia, and New Orleans, Louisiana, debate removing Confederate symbols and memorials. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
ISTANBUL — The Italians have a saying for it: “Fuma come un turco,” meaning, “He smokes like a Turk. ” There are actually plenty of people who smoke more than the Turks, but there are times when a visitor here may find that hard to believe. The famous Istiklal Avenue, one of the world’s most appealing pedestrian spaces with its cobbled pavement and little red trams clacking down the middle, bells dinging, can be covered over on a crowded weekend night by an inescapably dense, cloud of secondhand smoke, hovering between the elegant, tall buildings on either side. Along dusky alleyways in Kadikoy, the trendiest part of Istanbul, on the once less fashionable Asian side of the Bosporus, cafes typically have a few tables inside and many more outside — where smoking is allowed. On even the coldest days, the outside tables are crowded, smokers kept warm by overhead heaters and lap blankets provided at each chair. Some restaurants go so far as to remove their outside walls, replacing them with transparent plastic sheeting, to make the entire place at least officially outdoors. If the government has its way, however, the cafe culture’s smoking days are numbered. In April it proposed a law limiting outside smoking tables to no more than 25 percent of an establishment’s total — almost the reverse of the present trend, at least in major cities like Istanbul. That prospect is greeted with horror in the cafes. “If there’s such a law, we’ll have to close down,” said a waiter named Okan, at a hip bar in Kadikoy. (He asked that the bar not be named, as there were not only smoking scofflaws inside, but Che Guevara posters and logos too.) “We don’t want to get shut down. ” Turkey has made tremendous efforts to counteract its reputation — and its smoking habit — with measures that are nearly as strict as those in any Western country, and far stricter than those found in most developing societies. It has outlawed smoking in public places, not only inside restaurants but also outside government buildings, and even banned it above decks on the innumerable ferry boats plying the Bosporus. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, used his growing power and popularity to push through most of these antismoking measures beginning in 2008. Even the cherished tradition of the nargile, or Turkish water pipe, in which flavored plugs of tobacco are smoked through long tubes that cool the smoke, has faced tough legislation during his administration. As Mr. Erdogan famously said, “There can be no such freedom as the freedom to smoke,” likening it to suicide. Turkey’s health system even pays for drug and nicotine replacement cessation therapies, and some doctors regularly text their smoker patients to remind them of the risks. When a cigarette appears in a movie, Turkish censors either blur it or put a cartoon flower over it. As progressive as those measures may be, they have had relatively little impact on getting Turks to cut back. The percentage of smoking Turks did initially fall in the years after the new measures, and continued to decline among young people, according to the latest government figures, from 2012. But more recent data from the Turkish Thoracic Association in 2014 show a slight increase in the percentage of smokers: 42 percent of men and 13 percent of women. That may well be because taxation of cigarettes and tobacco products in Turkey remains substantially below the guidelines recommended by the World Health Organization. A pack of cigarettes here costs $3, compared with as much as $15 in some European countries. Three dollars is a lot of money for people on the modest salaries paid here, although not enough to affect habits in a country where many people can remember a time when it was common to smoke inside hospitals. Many Turkish smokers feel aggrieved by the changes, and reports that smoking bans may be extended to parks and other outdoor spaces distress them further. Ismail Gungor, 26, a lawyer, is a smoker who says “my aim is to turn my mustache yellow — I’ll smoke as long as my health allows it. ” But he’s tired of freezing half to death in the process, when he goes to restaurants and bars, and feels there should be licensed places for smokers to frequent. He was at the Tarantula Cafe drinking — and smoking — with his friend Gurkan Kurt, 26, an engineer. Mr. Kurt had quit smoking for three days, until he met up with Mr. Gungor on a recent Saturday. “Oh, well,” he said. Government regulation is not the only obstacle faced by Turkish smokers, who are more than three times as likely to be men. “The women smoke less, and they’re always pressuring us to quit smoking,” Mr. Gungor said. Mr. Kurt does not have that problem. “I don’t tell them I smoke,” he said. Like many other Turkish smokers, they do not dispute their country’s reputation. Barkan Karsh, a Turkish academic consultant who works in Macedonia, said people there not only use the “smokes like a Turk” expression, but they also use a Turkish word for tobacco, “tutun,” as slang for a cigarette. This is a bit rich, because Macedonia ranks among countries in per capita cigarette consumption, according to the Tobacco Atlas, published by an antismoking group, while Turkey is only 29th. “Even Macedonians say they should change ‘smokes like a Turk’ to ‘smokes like a Macedonian,’” Mr. Karsh said. Somehow, it doesn’t have quite the same ring. “Actually it’s kind of an urban legend that Turks smoke so much,” Gokhan Bicici, a local journalist, said. “Especially younger people are smoking much less. ” He has a point. The Tobacco Atlas maintains that some countries consume more than twice as many cigarettes per person as Turkey, among them Montenegro (the world leader with 4, 124 cigarettes consumed per adult annually) Belarus and Lebanon. Macedonia and Russia are nearly as bad. As for Italy, it’s really not much better than Turkey. No. 34 among nations in smoking, Italians consume roughly the same number of cigarettes as Turks. According to World Health Organization data for Turkey and Italy, fewer adult Italians are smokers than adult Turks, but among young people, smoking rates are more than twice as high in Italy. Perhaps the expression should actually be, “Fuma come un italiano” (or, as they say in Turkish, “O bir Italyan gibi sigara iciyor”). | 1 |
Taming the corporate media beast How the West Provoked the New Cold War Originally appeared at Consortiumnews.com
The mainstream U.S. media portrays the New Cold War as “white-hatted” Americans standing up to “black-hatted” Russians to stop aggression against NATO and to save children in Syria, but the reality is much more gray, says ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern.
How did the “growing trust” that Russian President Vladimir Putin once said marked his “working and personal relationship with President Obama ” change into today’s deep distrust and saber-rattling?
Their relationship reached its zenith after Mr. Putin persuaded Syria to give up its chemical weapons for verified destruction, enabling Mr. Obama at the last minute to call off, with some grace, plans to attack Syria in late summer 2013.
But at an international conference in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi last week, Mr. Putin spoke of the “feverish” state of international relations and lamented: “My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results.” He complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice” and, referring to Syria, decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.” 692968.jpg President Barack Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly’s seventy-first session on Sept. 20, 2016 (UN Photo)
A month earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov , who chooses his words carefully, told Russian TV viewers, “My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the U.S. military machine. Despite [Mr. Kerry’s] assurances that the U.S. commander in chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin) apparently the military does not really listen to the commander in chief.”
Do not chalk this up to paranoia. The U.S.-led coalition air strikes on known Syrian army positions killing scores of troops just five days into the September cease-fire — not to mention statements at the time by the most senior U.S. generals — were evidence enough to convince the Russians that the Pentagon was intent on scuttling meaningful cooperation with Russia.
A New Nadir
Relations between the U.S. and Russian presidents have now reached a nadir, and Mr. Putin has ordered his own defense ministry to throw down the gauntlet. 645495.jpg Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. 28, 2015. (UN Photo)
On Oct. 6, ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Russia is prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft — including any stealth aircraft — over Syria, and warned ominously that Russian air defense will not have time to identify the origin of the aircraft.
It seems possible that the U.S. air force will challenge that claim in due course — perhaps even without seeking prior permission from the White House. Last week, National Intelligence Director and former Air Force General James Clapper commented offhandedly, “I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft … if they felt it was threatening their forces on the ground.”
Injecting additional volatility into the equation, major news outlets are playing down or ignoring Russia’s warnings. Thus, Americans who depend on the corporate media can be expected to be suitably shocked by what that same media will no doubt cast as naked aggression out of the blue if Russian air defenses down a U.S. or coalition aircraft.
Meanwhile in Europe, as NATO defense ministers met in Brussels on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told reporters the U.S. is contributing “a persistent rotational armored brigade combat team” as a “major sign of the U.S. commitment to strengthening deterrence here.”
“This was a decision made by the alliance leaders in Warsaw,” he explained, referring to NATO’s July summit meeting in the Polish capital. “The United States will lead a battalion in Poland and deploy an entire battle-ready battalion task force of approximately 900 soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which is based in Germany.”
On Thursday, at the Valdai Conference in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, President Putin accused the West of promoting the “myth” of a “Russian military threat,” calling this a “profitable business that can be used to pump new money into defense budgets … expand NATO and bring its infrastructure, military units, and arms closer to our borders.”
Myth or not, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was correct to point out last spring that military posturing on Russia’s borders will bring less regional security. Mr. Steinmeier warned against “saber-rattling,” adding that, “We are well advised not to create pretexts to renew an old confrontation.”
Speaking of such pretexts, it is high time to acknowledge that the marked increase in East-West tensions over the past two-and-a-half years originally stemmed from the Western-sponsored coup d’état in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and Russia’s reaction in annexing Crimea. Americans malnourished on the diet served up by “mainstream” media are blissfully unaware that two weeks before the coup, YouTube published a recording of an intercepted conversation between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, during which “Yats” (for Arseniy Yatsenyuk) was identified as Washington’s choice to become the new prime minister of the coup government in Kiev.
This unique set of circumstances prompted George Friedman, president of the think-tank STRATFOR, to label the putsch in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, “really the most blatant coup in history.”
It’s time for Western politicians and media to learn their lesson and pay attention to the statements coming out of Russia. Ask yourselves: Why all this hype now? | 0 |
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