text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
22 Shares
1 20 0 1
The anarchist political observer Noam Chomsky has over the years espoused a strategy of voting for the Democrat in swing states. Recently Chomsky, with John Halle, propounded " An Eight Point Brief for LEV (Lesser Evil Voting) ."
Chomsky questions the ethical/moral principle rejecting LEV since lesser evil voting is designed to minimize evil. As futile as lesser evilism is, it is also futile to discuss there being a lesser evilism between the two utterly dominant rightist political parties in the United States. LEV, in fact, is an equally contemptible or greater evil.
Chomsky, though, sensibly cautions that challenges to the political-business duopoly needs to be contemplated with a full awareness of their possible consequences. What are the possible consequences? Chomsky suggests, "A Trump presidency, should it materialize, will undermine the burgeoning movement centered around the Sanders campaign, particularly if it is perceived as having minimized the dangers posed by the far right." However, another consequence is equally possible: a horrendous slide to the right would spur progressives to coalesce among a leftist Democrat, and/or it might finally cause former or potential Democrats to reject the chicanery of the business-dominated Democrats and embrace the progressivist platform of the Green Party.
This cost/benefit strategic accounting seriously pushes for progressivist change.
Focusing on the electoral system, however, must not be the end-all and be-all for bringing about progressivism in the US. Grassroots organizing and activism must continue to inform, oppose poverty and impoverishment, oppose war and violence, and push for human rights and equal opportunity for all people — during electoral periods and between election cycles.
MORE... 9/11 and the Zionist Question: Is Noam Chomsky a Disinfo Agent for Israel? - Part 9 9/11 and the Zionist Question: Is Noam Chomsky a Disinfo Agent for Israel? - Part 7 9/11 and the Zionist Question: Is Noam Chomsky a Disinfo Agent for Israel? - Part 3 9/11 and the Zionist Question: Is Noam Chomsky a Disinfo Agent for Israel? - Part 2 I examine Halle and Chomsky's Eight Point Brief for LEV.
1) Voting should not be viewed as a form of personal self-expression or moral judgement directed in retaliation towards major party candidates who fail to reflect our values, or of a corrupt system designed to limit choices to those acceptable to corporate elites.
No argument with this.
2) The exclusive consequence of the act of voting in 2016 will be (if in a contested "swing state") to marginally increase or decrease the chance of one of the major party candidates winning.
This is true of the individual act of voting. The individual in solitude has little sway over the electoral result; that is an obvious given. However, when a consciousness sweeps across a multitude of like-minded individuals then enormous potentials emerge. This desire for a change from the effete status quo is, arguably, what occurred with the almost breakthrough candidacy of Bernie Saunders, and it is also what happened, in a dissimilar manner, with the candidacy of Donald Trump. Chomsky has framed the exclusive consequence of the act of voting as the result of an individualistic action, and it is. But individuals can and do, at times, form a wider consciousness, measurable by statistically rigorous polling results, that has potential ramifications on a much greater scale that mere margins. An example of this would be the expression of voter disgust in the Canadian federal election of 1993. Following two successive majority governments led by the Brian Mulroney Tories, a voting tsunami washed away all but two Tory seats in the 295-seat Parliament. The conservatives had been around since 1867, but the electoral demolition led to the eventual dissolution of the Tories.
3) One of these candidates, Trump, denies the existence of global warming, calls for increasing use of fossil fuels, dismantling of environmental regulations and refuses assistance to India and other developing nations as called for in the Paris agreement, the combination of which could, in four years, take us to a catastrophic tipping point. Trump has also pledged to deport 11 million Mexican immigrants, offered to provide for the defense of supporters who have assaulted African American protestors at his rallies, stated his "openness to using nuclear weapons", supports a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. and regards "the police in this country as absolutely mistreated and misunderstood" while having "done an unbelievable job of keeping law and order." Trump has also pledged to increase military spending while cutting taxes on the rich, hence shredding what remains of the social welfare "safety net" despite pretenses.
Much of what Trump stands for is anathema. True. There is no need to defend this man. However, Trump stakes out important positions diametrical to Hillary Clinton; for example, Clinton's advocacy of a no-fly zone over Syria, her saber rattling with Russia, her corporate-friendly policy toward so-called free trade deals.
Chomsky cleverly anticipated such an objection, writing:
... with respect to point 3) which some will challenge by citing the claim that Clinton's foreign policy could pose a more serious menace than that of Trump.
In any case, while conceding as an outside possibility that Trump's foreign policy is preferable, most of us not already convinced that that is so will need more evidence than can be aired in a discussion involving this statement. Furthermore, insofar as this is the fact of the matter, following the logic through seems to require a vote for Trump, though it's a bit hard to know whether those making this suggestion are intending it seriously.
First, Chomsky concedes "an outside possibility that Trump's foreign policy is preferable..." In other words, Chomsky posits an inside possibility (one assumes that Chomsky is saying that there is the strongest likelihood) that Clinton's foreign policy is preferable without any substantiation of why this would be so. Second, he raises an unreasonable demand for "evidence" that Trump will follow a less menacing foreign policy than Clinton. Given that Trump has never held political office no such evidence exists. What does exist is plenty of evidence that Clinton will pursue a menacing foreign policy. There is no reason to assume Clinton would reduce the number of American military bases overseas or curtail military spending. In fact, it is likelier that she would increase military spending. She will also likeliest resort to a US military attack to bring about "regime change" in Syria, pushing the US closer to military confrontation with Russia. Trump's detractors compare his bombastic rhetoric unfavorably to Clinton's rhetoric. But toward Putin or Assad, Clinton's undiplomatic utterances are on record.
Moreover, following Chomsky's logic, while the more preferable policies of Trump lack evidence, by the same token, the more objectionable policies of Trump also lack evidence for the same reason: Trump has no political track record upon which to judge what he would do if in the Oval Office. Thus, following this Chomskyian logic one could not pass judgement on hardly of Trump's pronouncements. Would he really build a wall on the Mexico-US border? Where is the evidence for this? Would Trump really ban Muslims from entering the US? Where is the evidence for this?
By effectively undermining Trump's peacemongering vis-à-vis Clinton's warmongering, Chomsky, by the same logic, undermines criticisms of the regressivist political utterances by Trump. Thus, following Chomsky's logic through it seems a bit hard to know whether his suggestion is intended seriously.
4) The suffering which these and other similarly extremist policies and attitudes will impose on marginalized and already oppressed populations has a high probability of being significantly greater than that which will result from a Clinton presidency.
One assumes that Chomsky refers to the domestic population here. Trump's policies — if he is true to his word to protect jobs for American workers and punish offshoring of American jobs along with his opposition to the TPP — would be a political reversal for neoliberalization. Clintonomics would be decidedly worse for marginalized and oppressed peoples at home and abroad. The economic plight of students, the poor, and ill, however, would be much better under a Jill Stein presidency .
The economic plight of students, the poor, and ill would be much better under a Jill Stein presidency.
If Chomsky is referring to the preponderant violence of US foreign policy and its oppressive and genocidal on populations, then I agree with his "basic moral principle": "not only must we take responsibility for our actions, but the consequences of our actions for others are a far more important consideration than feeling good about ourselves." Under the Democratic administration hundreds of thousands have died, millions of people have been displaced, and terrorist organizations have proliferated. This is the evidence from Clinton's time in political office. Thus a vote for Clinton is predictably a vote that will lead to a continuation, perhaps even a ramping up, of the suffering of others. Basic morality suggests to this writer to steer clear of casting such an oppression-enabling vote.
5) Should constitute sufficient basis to voting for Clinton where a vote is potentially consequential-namely, in a contested, "swing" state.
I contend that Chomsky's basis for 5) is false or questionable. First, Chomsky has staunchly argued that "we" should concentrate foremost on the wrongful actions and crimes of our own state because they are something we can have an influence over. But it seems that Chomsky believes that Trump will supersede Clinton's record of killing in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. Clinton is not going to close US military abroad. Trump has called these bases into question. And if one concentrates on the domestic population, at least the rhetoric of Trump against so-called free trade agreements and offshoring US factories abroad bodes well for the American worker.
6) However, the left should also recognize that, should Trump win based on its failure to support Clinton, it will repeatedly face the accusation (based in fact), that it lacks concern for those sure to be most victimized by a Trump administration.
This criticism is anti-democratic; furthermore, the criticism applies conversely. Chomsky's citing the accusation gives it a veneer of credence. Effectively it leads to the perpetuation of the business-party duopoly. The records of the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations demonstrate the futility of such a proffered rationale. Clinton deregulated the finance sector, exposed American workers to the vagaries of "free trade," implemented regressive welfare policies, and continued aggressive US militarism abroad. Obama? Bailing out the banks; attempts to cut back social security; warring in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria; drone strikes; confrontation with Russia and China; TPP; and the lingering incarceration at Guantanamo Bay. It is important to note that Democrats, arguably, have a freer hand to implement rightist policy than Republicans have since many supporters of Democrats will mute their opposition to avoid providing succor to the Republicans. George Bush was stymied from tinkering with social security. Notably, Obama has done an about-face on social security and proposed an expansion, picking up on the popularity for such a measure from the Bernie Saunders candidacy.
7) Often this charge will emanate from establishment operatives who will use it as a bad faith justification for defeating challenges to corporate hegemony either in the Democratic Party or outside of it. They will ensure that it will be widely circulated in mainstream media channels with the result that many of those who would otherwise be sympathetic to a left challenge will find it a convincing reason to maintain their ties with the political establishment rather than breaking with it, as they must.
It is true that establishment operatives will use LEV as a bad faith justification for defeating challenges to corporate hegemony either in the Democratic Party or outside of it. That was the case when Ralph Nader ran. It is the case when Cynthia McKinney ran and it is when Jill Stein runs. The corporate media and even many so-called progressives will trot out this time-worn argument with each election cycle. As long as enough people buy into the premise, then the status quo will persist. The result is that a right-wing government always assumes office in Washington. This bodes ill for the poor and working class. It bodes poorly for nation states designated as enemy states by the US.
8) Conclusion: by dismissing a "lesser evil" electoral logic and thereby increasing the potential for Clinton's defeat the left will undermine what should be at the core of what it claims to be attempting to achieve.
Conclusion: by buying into a "lesser evil" electoral logic the corporate-political duopoly will remain in power to continue policies that primarily benefit the 1% and their goals for further enrichment; to unfetter finance, to pursue a belligerent foreign policy — a policy that seeks to placate the military-industrial establishment; and to further entrench corporate domination of the electoral system. All of this is at cross-hairs with what should be at the core of what progressives claim to be attempting to achieve.
Final Comments
The tragedy of opting for lesser evilism is that the people get evil.
Some leftist commentators argue that there is no evilism . I found that to be preposterous. Barack Obama was the so-called lesser evil the previous two election cycles. Obama is not a lesser evilist; he is the man who enables evil. ... The cycles of US-backed violence and killing in places such as Gaza, Syria, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia underscore the utter futility of pandering to a perceived lesser evilism. If one votes for a degree of evil, then one should not be surprised when evil results.
Progressivism demands that social justice activists repudiate evil. Morality dictates that people should not live in fear of being killed. A genuine peacemongering US president is needed to stop the killing and save lives. Consequently, both Democrats and Republicans are anathema. Given the present candidates, if people vote, then the only conscionable vote is for someone not of the business party factions.
Only a propeace "third" party will set the US on a new path . Outside of a revolution, the election of a propeace "third" party is the only moral direction on the horizon for Americans truly interested in steering their country toward peace and rehabilitating the ensanguined US reputation. Such a "third party" vote, however, may well augur the birth of a revolution on many promising fronts. | 0 |
In an address after the Orlando massacre punctuated with dire warnings of impending violence, Donald J. Trump said he would “suspend immigration from areas of the world when there is a proven history of terrorism” against the United States or its allies. Mr. Trump promised fixes to the immigration system that would be “tough” and “smart” and “fast. ” It sounded much like his provocative proposal to keep Muslims from entering the country, but those listening closely noticed an important change. By proposing to bar people from certain regions rather than religions, Mr. Trump had avoided the sticky issue of testing someone’s faith. Mr. Trump’s plan, lawyers and legal scholars agree, is one that the president has the power to carry out. But they said that putting it in place would take an ambitious bureaucratic effort not likely to move nearly as quickly as the candidate envisions. And it would make sweeping use of executive authority to enact the sharpest restrictions on immigration since 1965, when the United States abandoned longstanding quotas designed to exclude people from much of Asia and from southern and Eastern Europe. “Executive authority over immigration is very broad,” said Bo Cooper, a lawyer who served as general counsel to the federal immigration agency from 1999 to 2003. But Mr. Trump’s proposal, he said, “goes far beyond what’s been done with that authority in the past. The leap in scale is orders of magnitude. ” The presumptive Republican nominee did not name which countries would be covered by his ban, but they could include vast sections of the Middle East, northern and Africa and Asia. Islamic terrorists have operated in at least 17 nations in recent years, and citizens of those countries received more than 1. 4 million visas to come to the United States in 2014, including green cards for immigrants settling here permanently and temporary visas for workers, students and visitors. By Mr. Trump’s definition, a ban could include countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, souring relations with governments that are working closely with the United States to combat the jihadist terrorists he aims to defeat. Immigration analysts said a ban, even if temporary, could prompt a wave of retaliation against American citizens traveling and living abroad, which could separate families and disrupt American businesses, trade and intelligence gathering. Together with his plans for a wall along the border with Mexico and a “pause” in legal immigration by foreign workers, Mr. Trump’s antiterrorism suspension would alter the welcoming message the United States has long sought to project to the world, symbolized by the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. That, Mr. Trump and many of his supporters believe, may be a change long overdue. “We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer,” he said in his speech Monday after the killing of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando by a gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Although the gunman, Omar Mateen, was a American who was born and raised in the United States, Mr. Trump focused his ire on Mr. Mateen’s parents, who came here from Afghanistan more than three decades ago. As with some of Mr. Trump’s other proposals, it was unclear to what extent the ban was an promise as opposed to a considered strategy. But in contrast with his usual style of speaking, he read from a prepared text, quoting from the actual immigration statute he would be using. Still, he provided few details on how it would work. The ban would be lifted, Mr. Trump said, when “we understand how to end these threats. ” The Trump campaign declined to elaborate. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a Republican on immigration who has advised Mr. Trump on the issue, said the proposal was a statement of purpose that would be filled in with details in coming months. “He has been very clear and very strong that we need to pause until we have time to figure out this violent jihadist thing and get it under control,” Mr. Sessions said.’ ”Mr. Trump’s ban would rely on a law that allows the president “by proclamation” to restrict the entry of any immigrants who “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States. ”” ’The ban would probably not drastically reduce the overall flow of immigrants to the United States. Of 1. 2 million immigrants who came here to live in 2013, for example, were from just three countries, none of which are likely to be suspended: China, India and Mexico. But identifying areas to include in a ban and persuading Washington to accept that definition would be the first steps that would slow down Mr. Trump. “It takes time to turn the government around to do things, and nothing is going to happen quickly that easily,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, the director of immigration policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a research organization in Washington, and a former senior policy official at the Department of Homeland Security. Although the president has the power to set the broad course of immigration policy, she noted, Congress would have to approve funds for the initiative and some pieces could require new rules and a long period of public comment. Once a ban is in place, its impact would be harsh for countries on the list. Their citizens require visas any time they enter the United States, even for short trips. So their businesspeople could not come for meetings, students could not attend American universities, and tourists could not come to see the sights. Foreign spouses of American citizens could not come to live with their families. “It could include everyone from the king of Saudi Arabia to a college student,” said Muzaffar Chishti, a director at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research group. Whatever the range of a ban, the United States could expect swift reciprocal responses. “I can see severe adverse political fallout,” said Stephen an immigration law professor at Cornell. “Countries could retaliate by limiting travel by U. S. citizens, and it would certainly harm our standing in terms of international initiatives negotiating trade deals and stopping wars. ” Daniel Tichenor, a political science professor at the University of Oregon who studies American immigration history, said a precedent close to Mr. Trump’s regional ban was the ban on immigration from Asia during the first half of the 20th century. Racial and national security fears during World War I led Congress to establish an “Asiatic barred zone” starting in 1917, acting on the belief that Chinese, Japanese and other Asian immigrants could not assimilate into American society. In the 1920s, Congress also limited immigration from southern and Eastern European countries including Italy, Greece and Poland, on the theory that their citizens were inferior to Western Europeans and could import subversive socialist ideas. Because of the restrictions, during World War II many Jews and others fleeing Hitler were blocked from coming to the United States. Congress eliminated the national origin quotas when it overhauled immigration in 1965. “It is not uncommon in our past for national security anxieties to be exploited by those who favor strong immigration restrictions even before a real national crisis,” Prof. Tichenor said. But, he said, “Trump really stands out. ” For a time after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, people from predominantly Muslim countries arriving in the United States were fingerprinted and questioned for a special registration, and immigrants from those countries already living here had to register as well. About 13, 000 of those immigrants were deported, mostly for overstaying visas. But there was no effort to ban entire countries or regions. Mr. Trump said an antiterror suspension would be lifted “after a full, impartial and long overdue security assessment” to create tougher screening and determine that the threat from Muslim terrorists had diminished. Mr. Cooper, the former general counsel for the immigration agency, said such a suspension would probably not be temporary. “I promise you, any security expert is going to say the threat is not going to end in our lifetimes,” Mr. Cooper said. “That is an ending point you probably never reach. ” | 1 |
Loading Posted on November 4, 2016 Putin Condemns Europe’s Handling of Migrants and Says the Child Rape in Austria Shows ‘a Dilution of National Values’ Jennifer Newton, Daily Mail, November 3, 2016
Vladimir Putin has waded into the migrant crisis condemning Europe’s handling of asylum seekers and saying a case of child rape in Austria ‘dilutes national values’.
The Russian president has largely kept quiet over the refugee crisis in Europe but has now spoken out of his disbelief over its handling claiming that a continent that ‘can’t protect its children’ has no future.
His comments come off the back of a case in Austria last week, which saw an Iraqi migrant have his conviction of raping a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna overturned.
He was originally convicted of the crime but it was overturned because a court didn’t prove he realised the boy was saying no.
It came after the migrant, identified as 20-year-old Amir A., claimed that it was a ‘sexual emergency’ because he had not had sex for four months.
A second trial for the rape is expected to take place next year, but the attacker is likely to remain in custody until then.
And speaking at a press conference this week, Putin slammed Europe’s migration policy and cited the case, where the victim was from a Serbian family living in Austria.
He said: ‘In a European country, a child is raped by a migrant, and the court releases him.
‘It doesn’t fit into my head what on earth they’re thinking over there.
‘I can’t even explain the rationale–is it a sense of guilt before the migrants? What’s going on? It’s not clear.’
He also claimed that the case highlighted ‘the dissolution of traditional national values’ adding: ‘A society that cannot defend its children has no future.’
And Putin’s words appeared to have struck a chord, as he is extremely popular with Serbs.
In the rape case, the boy had arrived in Austria with his Serbian mother, who paid for him to go to the Theresienbad swimming pool, where he was violently attacked.
The boy was so badly injured that he needed hospital treatment but he will be forced to go back to court for the Iraqi man’s second trial, outraging the Austrian Serbian community.
Austrian media say the case has hardened the communities position against asylum seekers, who were previously divided about whether to vote for the left-leaning Green party candidate or the far right option Nobert Hofer in upcoming elections.
However, it is not the first time Russia has lashed out at the EU’s handling of the migrant crisis.
In March, Konstantin Romodanovsky, head of Russia’s Federal Migration Service accused leaders of willfully ignoring cultural differences that have caused such widespread friction and chaos across the Continent.
He also added that ‘multiculturalism has failed’ because Europe never formed a unified strategy to integrate refugees into Western society.
He said: ‘The European Commission left it up to individual nations to decide how they want to treat asylum seekers–despite the fact the policies and capabilities of member states are very different.
Romodanovsky also accused EU countries of ignoring the ‘differences in culture, religious traditions, and customs’ with the refugees, the vast majority of whom are Islamic. | 0 |
Donald says Friedrich Trump amassed 'substantial nest-egg' from Yukon hotel before heading to New York Donald says
Canadians amused by the improbable presidential run of Donald Trump might be surprised to learn the role their own country played in shaping his story.
Trump’s grandfather started the family fortune in an adventure that involved the Klondike gold rush, the Mounties, prostitution and twists of fate that pushed him to New York City.
Friedrich Trump had been in North America a few years when he set out for the Yukon, says an author who’s just completed a new edition of her multi-generational family biography.
That Canadian chapter proved pivotal for the entrepreneurial German immigrant, says Gwenda Blair, author of The Trumps: Three Generations That Built An Empire.
“It allowed him to get together the nest egg he’d come to the United States for,” the author and Columbia University journalism professor said in an interview.
“Whether he could’ve accumulated that much money somewhere else, in that short a period of time, as a young man with no connections, and initially not even English, is certainly … unlikely.”
He’d left Europe in 1885 at age 16, a barber’s apprentice whose father died young.
Trump wanted a life outside the barber shop, far from the family-owned vineyards his ancestors had been working since they’d settled in Germany’s Kallstadt region in the 1600s carrying the soon-altered surname Drumpf.
He sailed in steerage to join his sister in New York.
Within five years he’d anglicized his name to Frederick; moved to the young timber town of Seattle; and amassed enough cash to buy tables and chairs for a restaurant.
His next big move was heralded by the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer of July 17, 1897, and its exclamatory headline: “Gold! Gold! Gold!”
It described a resplendent scene at the port involving mountains of yellow metal and men returning from the “New Eldorado” with fortunes as high as $100,000.
Trump sold everything and headed north.
The move to Canada spared him financial disaster. He not only sold off two Seattle eateries, but also land in nearby Monte Cristo, Wash. — right before floods and avalanches destroyed the nearby railroad and development plans for the town were scrapped.
Blair describes his perilous northward journey in early 1898.
After boarding a crowded ship to Alaska, Trump trekked over mountains, through Canadian customs, and to the Yukon River where he had to build a boat from scratch and transport a year’s worth of personal supplies.
The worst was a notorious mountain pass. The U.S. National Parks Service estimates 3,000 animals died on the White Pass, with many bones still visible today in its so-called Dead Horse Gulch.
“Owners whipped horses, donkeys, mules, oxen, and dogs until they dropped. The bodies were not buried or even moved,” Blair writes.
“Travellers … had no choice but to walk over the remains. As the months went by, the walls of the pass were stained dark red from the blood.”
Trump smelled opportunity.
He opened a canteen along the route, Blair says, where weary travellers likely stopped for a bite of Arctic roadkill. There are records for similar establishments along the route, Blair writes: “A frequent dish was fresh-slaughtered, quick-frozen horse.”
This established a pattern for Trump’s Canadian business model.
It’s summed up in one chapter title: “Mining the Miners.”
Unlike other gold-crazed migrants, Blair wrote, “[Trump] realized that the best way to get [rich] was to lay down his pick and shovel and pick up his accounting ledger.”
‘Liquor and sex’
In his three years in Canada, Trump opened the Arctic Restaurant and Hotel in two locations with a partner — first on Bennett Lake in northern B.C., and then moving it to Whitehorse, Yukon.
Their two-storey wood-framed establishment gained a reputation as the finest eatery in the area, Blair said — offering salmon, duck, caribou, and oysters.
It offered more than food.
“The sex,” Blair wrote. She cited newspaper ads referring obliquely to prostitution — mentioning private suites for ladies, and scales in the rooms so patrons could weigh gold if they preferred to pay for services that way.
One Yukon Sun writer moralized about the backroom goings-on: “For single men the Arctic has the best restaurant,” he wrote, “but I sex.”
The Mounties initially tolerated the rowdiness. There were exceptions, according to the legendary Canadian writer Pierre Berton. People faced forced labour or banishment from town if they cheated at cards; made a public ruckus; or partied on the Lord’s Day.
“Saloons and dance halls, theatres and business houses were shut tight one minute before midnight on Saturday,” Berton wrote in “Klondike Fever.”
“Two minutes before twelve the lookout at the faro table would take his watch from his pocket and call out: ‘The last turn, boys!”‘
‘I wouldn’t call him a pimp’
Trump acted as cook, bouncer, waiter.
But Blair cautions: “I wouldn’t call him a pimp.”
She said backroom ribaldry was part of the restaurant package in those towns, and it’s not clear how the arrangement worked: “As somebody trying to attract business to his restaurant, of course he would have liquor. Of course he would arrange easy access to women. A pimp is, I think, a different business model.”
By early 1901, trouble was brewing.
The Mounties announced plans to banish prostitution, and curb gambling and liquor. Trump quarrelled with his partner. Gold strikes were getting scarcer.
“The boom was over, Frederick Trump realized,” Blair wrote. “He had made money; perhaps even more unusual in the Yukon, he had also kept it and departed with a substantial nest-egg.”
He returned to Germany with US$582,000 in today’s currency, and found a wife. But he was greeted as a draft-dodger for being away and becoming a U.S. citizen during his military years.
So he was deported from his own country. He boarded a ship for New York, his wife pregnant with Donald’s dad.
The elder Trump died of pneumonia in 1918, leaving behind some real estate. His son built the empire, his grandson the global brand.
Ironically, their heir is now running for president on a platform of mass-deportation. But Donald and grandpa share some traits — an entrepreneurial spirit, and formative youthful adventures in Canada.
Donald met his first wife, Ivana, at the Montreal Olympics. Related Posts: | 0 |
On Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam asked guest Frank Gaffney about a post he wrote on the Center for Security Policy blog, in which he endorsed a call by Jeanine Pirro of Fox News for House Speaker Paul Ryan to resign following the failure of the House Obamacare replacement bill. [As he wrote in the post, Gaffney stipulated that “health care is not my field, by any means,” so he did not mean to criticize the substance of the House bill. “I think what is of concern is that this was a doomed approach,” he said. “Paul Ryan, who is supposed to be helping President Trump get through his agenda in the House of Representatives and the congress more generally, should have known better. He either didn’t, which justifies removal on the grounds of incompetence, or did — in which case I think the argument is that he’s simply not a reliable partner for the president in getting this agenda done. ” “On either grounds, I think that it would be necessary for the country, not just for the Trump presidency but for the country, to have leaders in both the House and the Senate who want to ensure that the president’s projects, the president’s agenda, the president’s promises to the American people — which I think were momentous, not just for health care reform but in so many other respects, including the return to the prospect of peace through strength, which if course is near and dear to my heart, and I think yours Raheem — is going to be a necessary condition going forward,” he argued. “From a layman’s perspective, from a person who understands as a layman the importance of health care, this seemed to be a statist — well, ‘Obamacare Lite’ it’s been called — approach, when a free market approach seems to be called for,” Gaffney said. “I think that’s what Donald Trump set out to do. That’s what he promised the voters. It’s what I think you could get a majority of the Congress behind, if it is clear that in the process, you’re not going to abandon people who genuinely need health care support. ” “It goes back to kind of the fatal flaws of Obamacare, and just making it a little better at the margins, which is I think, at best, what you could say Ryan was up to. It was clearly unsatisfactory and was, as I say, doomed to fail,” he pronounced. Gaffney added compliments to Rep. Mark Meadows ( ) and the House Freedom Caucus for “ensuring that it did fail. ” “I think they’ve done a great service, despite all the brickbats being thrown their way, for President Trump as well as for the country,” he said. Gaffney conceded that choosing a possible replacement for Rep. Ryan as Speaker of the House was a difficult task. “I think there are a number of people who could probably command the support of the majority of the House,” he said. “It wouldn’t be for me to pick them. Some have been willing to serve in the past. Daniel Webster comes to mind, he seems to be a very presentable guy. It would be obviously up to him or others in the House to stand for this, if in fact Paul Ryan were to create a vacancy — which I hope he will do. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Donald J. Trump vowed on Tuesday that as president, he would put an end to policies that send American jobs overseas, threatening to impose tariffs on Chinese imports and promising to punish companies that relocate their manufacturing to countries with cheaper labor. “It will be American hands that remake this country,” said Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, standing before a hunk of aluminum at a recycling plant in western Pennsylvania. But such declarations are at odds with Mr. Trump’s long history as a businessman, in which he has been heavily — and proudly — reliant on foreign labor in the name of putting profits, rather than America, first. From cheap neckties to television sets, Mr. Trump has benefited from some of the trade practices he now scorns. Besides construction, Mr. Trump is big in the clothing business. But most of his line of suits, ties and cuff links bear a “Made in China” label. Some also come from factories in Bangladesh, Mexico and Vietnam. He has blamed China’s currency manipulation to argue that it is almost impossible to find garments that are made domestically these days, or that they are prohibitively expensive. “The answer is very simple,” Mr. Trump told ABC News when asked about his merchandise in 2011. “Because of the fact that China so manipulates their currency, it makes it almost impossible for American companies to compete. ” Despite that claim, some companies such as Brooks Brothers continue to make clothes in the United States. In 2013, Mr. Trump teamed with Dorya, a Turkish maker of luxury furniture, for his Trump Home brand. In a news release at the time, the Trump Organization promoted the craftsmanship of the pieces, which furnish some of Mr. Trump’s hotels. “The entire production process, from the moment the raw wood is cut until the product is finished or upholstered occurs in Dorya’s Izmir, Turkey, production facility,” the release said. Mr. Trump also invested in a line of crystal bearing his name to go with his Trump Home line. The collection was produced in Slovenia, the home of his wife, Melania. Mr. Trump told The New York Times in 2010 that the production facilities were first class. “I’ve seen factories over there their glass and crystal works are unbelievable,” he said. Mr. Trump has not held back when it comes to his concern that undocumented immigrants are taking jobs from American workers, but he has used them on occasion. In 1980, a contractor hired by Mr. Trump to demolish the Bonwit Teller building in New York and make way for Trump Tower used undocumented Polish immigrants who reportedly worked and even slept at the site. Mr. Trump said that he did not know they were undocumented and later settled a lawsuit over the matter. Last summer, The Washington Post found that Mr. Trump was using undocumented immigrants for the construction of his Trump International Hotel at the site of the Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington. And The Times reported this year that Mr. Trump had employed hundreds of foreign guest workers from Romania and other countries at his resort in Florida. Mr. Trump said that he found it difficult to find qualified local people to work there during the high season. While Mr. Trump has for years railed against trade and currency policies that he says are unfair, he has not always been opposed to outsourcing. Writing on the Trump University blog in 2005, Mr. Trump acknowledged that foreign labor was sometimes needed to keep American companies from going out of business. “If a company’s only means of survival is by farming jobs outside its walls, then sometimes it’s a necessary step,” Mr. Trump wrote. “The other option might be to close its doors for good. ” Mr. Trump usually makes the case that foreign labor is necessary to keep production costs down, but in an interview with David Letterman in 2012 he also offered a humanitarian argument for outsourcing. Teased for selling dress shirts that were made in Bangladesh, Mr. Trump expressed pride that he was creating jobs around the world. “That’s good, we employ people in Bangladesh,” Mr. Trump said. “They have to work, too. ” | 1 |
Next Swipe left/right “I feel like these Topshop models are sick of me apologising, but also maybe willing to hear me out” @Brycoo over on Twitter writes, “I feel like these Topshop models are sick of me apologising, but also maybe willing to hear me out” | 0 |
Via UsualRoutine “There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.” – Senator Daniel K. Inouye, the highest-ranking Asian-American politician in United States history SPONSORED LINKS Scroll Down For Video Below
One great way to find out is to follow the money, and in doing so, it becomes immediately apparent that corporations sit higher than the government itself.
“It’s corruption really, the might of money, the corporations that hold governments in their hands, because of lobbying power and so forth, it’s really frightening.” – Jane Goodall ( source )
The recognition that we now live in a ‘corporatocracy’ rather than a democracy has become almost a commonplace for many people. Above the corporations (who continually require access to cheap money), however, are the big banks. These groups supply cheap loans to corporation, enabling them to maintain their lobbying power and thus their influence over governmental policy. The banks in question include Chase, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs, to name a few.
Above these big banks are the national central banks, like the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. Above them still are the international central banks — the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. And finally, above these two is the central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements.
The Rockefeller and Rothschild families are and have been involved with the creation of this system. If we follow the money, that is precisely where it leads.
When it comes to the UFO phenomenon, we know that governments have been kept in the dark, that there are developments being made within the “ black budget ” world, most notably within unacknowledged and waived Special Access Programs (SAPs), that ‘world leaders’ know little about.
“It is ironic that the U.S. would begin a devastating war, allegedly in search of weapons of mass destruction, when the most worrisome developments in this field are occurring in your own backyard. It is ironic that the U.S. should be fighting monstrously expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, allegedly to bring democracy to those countries, when it itself can no longer claim to be called a democracy, when trillions, and I mean thousands of billions of dollars have been spent on projects about which both the Congress and the Commander in Chief have been kept deliberately in the dark.” – Paul Hellyer, Former Canadian Defence Minister ( source )
I think it is a fair assumption to say that information surrounding UFOs and extraterrestrials, along with this “shadow” government, lies within the hands of those who sit atop these major financial institutions — a group of private, international elites.
“A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many, and various, and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks.” ( source ) – John C. Calhoun, the 7th Vice President of the United States
Today, we have no shortage of evidence for the existence of UFOs. In fact, the reality of these objects has been officially verified in the ‘mainstream’ world, as thousands of government documents have been released showing that there are objects in our atmosphere performing impossible maneuvers at unbelievable speeds. The Rockefeller Family and UFOs
What evidence is available suggesting that the Rockefeller family had information regarding UFOs and possible extraterrestrials?
We can start with the fact that we now know that Laurence Rockefeller, the prominent third-generation member of the Rockefeller family and the fourth child of John D. Rockefeller, encouraged UFO research.
How do we know this?
He heavily supported the work of Harvard University professor, psychologist, and Pultizer prize winner Dr. John Mack, who had a great interest in UFOs and those who have had supposed contact with extraterrestrials. You can learn more about Mack in an article we published earlier this year where he dealt with 60 school children who all witnessed non-human beings and a large craft landing. According to the US National Library of Medicine, Mack’s “disparate personas—from esteemed professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School to social activist and believer in alien abductions—were as incongruent as the extraordinary assemblage of his supporters, who included venture capitalist Laurence Rockefeller. . . .” ( source ) The John E. Mack Institute website also states that Rockefeller funded Mack.
Peter Sturrock, an Emeritus Professor of Physics, gathered a group of other world-renowned scientists in 1997 to stress the fact that the UFO topic deserves serious attention and is accompanied by physical evidence. The scientists met at the Pocantico Conference Center near Trrytown, New York, and the conference was financially supported by Laurance Rockefeller. ( source )( source )
Laurence Rockefeller initiated an effort alongside Hilary Clinton and Bill Clinton encouraging the U.S. government to officially disclose the existence of extraterrestrials and UFOs. It’s what’s known today as the “Rockefeller Initiative,” and you can view all of the documents to and from Laurence Rockefeller to various people regarding this initiative here . They were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by various researchers, including the Paradigm Research group, who was responsible for the Citizens Hearing on Disclosure, an event that brought together researchers and high ranking military and political personnel to testify about the reality of UFOs and extraterrestrials in front of several former United States congresspeople. You can learn more about that here . ( source ). Laurence has also supported the work of Dr. Steve Greer, head of the disclosure project .
HERE is a picture with Hillary Clinton meeting with Laurence Rockefeller, holding a book believed to be written by Paul Davies titled, “Are We Alone?” You can see from the information above why it’s not unreasonable to assume this, and we published an article earlier this year explaining how we determined the identity of the book. What’s interesting about this point is the fact that John Podesta, Former White House Chief of Staff under the Clinton Administration, councillor to Barack Obama, and current head of Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has gone on the record stating that:
I’m skeptical about many things, including the notion that government always knows best, and that the people can’t be trusted with the truth. The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue. We have statements from the most credible sources – those in a position to know – about a fascinating phenomenon, the nature of which is yet to be determined. (taken from Leslie Kean’s 2010 New York Times bestseller, UFOs: Generals, Pilots, And Government Officials Go On The Record, for which Podesta wrote the forward)
Podesta also made a live appearance at the National Press Club years before this, stating that “it’s time to open the books on questions that’ve remained in the dark” regarding “government investigations of UFOs.” ( source )
So What Exactly Does The Rockefeller Family Know About UFOs?
As stated earlier, based on my research, I believe that the secrecy surrounding this subject has been dictated by a small group of elite who sit atop the global financial system. I believe this same international group has heavy influence inside the military industrial complex/ black budget , and I believe they are responsible for what President Eisenhower warned us about many years ago — “the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”
I also believe that information regarding this subject could lie in the hands of people above those who control our global economy/financial systems — with a group that’s completely, one hundred percent clandestine, even possibly beyond the big banks… but who really knows?
That being said, it’s only possible to find information linking Laurence Rockefeller to UFOs; we don’t have much evidence to suggest his other family members have been involved, but it’s not illogical to assume that given the fact that Anne Bartley, the stepdaughter of Winthorp Rockefeller, was also involved We know he has shown a clear interest in the subject, and, as illustrated above, financed a few prominent people who were studying the subject. It’s clear that Laurence had a heavy interest in this subject and certainly encouraged the disclosure of classified information, as the above information demonstrates. Whether he was doing this out of pure interest or because he and his family were already involved in the cover-up is unclear. Who knows what information he was privy to? Or what the other members of his family knew about the subject? Laurence was the only one to openly take interest in it, but other members of his family could have been working behind the scenes.
What are your thoughts? | 0 |
California & Oregon Want To Secede From The U.S. After Trump Election Nov 12, 2016 2 0
In what is shaping up to be the beginning of a revolution within the United States, residents from California and now Oregon are wanting to secede from the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected President…and they want Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Washington state to join them to create an entirely new country altogether.
Two days after the Trump election in the U.S. residents in California began a campaign called “ Yes California Independence Campaign ,” which is to initiate the process to officially secede from the U.S. California residents are pushing for secession.
Ruiz Evans said Yes California intends to launch an initiative that asks Californians whether they believe the state should remain part of the United States or break away on its own. Similar to the Citizens United ballot measure voters approved Tuesday, it would begin as an advisory proposal to kick-start an arduous process. Marcus Ruiz Evans is the vice president of the group and s aid that Californians have a choice :
“The reason that we’re here today is we wanted to point out to everybody in California that the American system is broken. It’s failing. It’s sinking. You as a Californian have a choice to make: Do you go down with that ship out of tradition or sail on your own?”
Their website states that Californians should follow Brexit’s lead: In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidizing the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children. However, this independence referendum is about more than California subsidizing other states of this country. It is about the right to self-determination and the concept of voluntary association, both of which are supported by constitutional and international law. In 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the international community with their “Brexit” vote. Our “Calexit” referendum is about California joining the international community. You have a big decision to make. To add to Calexit’s momentum, an Oregon lawyer has joined the movement and filed the Oregon Secession Act , which has formally invited the states of California, Alaska, Washington, Hawaii and Nevada to secede with them and form a new nation together. The Act was filed by lawyer Jennifer Rollins and writer Christian Trejbal, who said that Oregonian values are no longer the values held by the rest of the United States and that joining with these other states to create a new nation “is a viable way to go forward.” However, just 24 hours after the Act was filed, they withdrew it due to the amount of violence they saw in the streets around the world. Trejbal said that they were receiving death threats and that their movement is not about violent protesting, so it was best to withdraw it at this time. Though Oregon has suspended their secession campaign for now, California’s campaign is growing stronger. With Texas speaking of secession just months ago, we now have the most populated state in the U.S. speaking of secession as well. Regardless of one’s political stance, it is clear to see that the people are growing restless and that something is going to have to give, and give soon. How do you see this playing out? Will California be able to secede and will other states join them? Will the U.S. Congress allow something like this to happen? Will revolution be the result? | 0 |
Tuesday 22 November 2016 by Gary Stanton Would-be Ambassador Farage asks EU parliament for character reference
Nigel Farage is hopeful that a glowing character reference from the guys in Brussels will clinch him the US Ambassador job.
The former non-racist UKIP leader has been asked by President-elect, Donald Trump, to provide three good character references from somebody who isn’t a member of, or donor to, UKIP.
Trump’s spokesman Simon Williams said, “The reference should be from someone who has worked closely with Nigel on a daily basis for more than ten years and who isn’t already married to him.
“We’re looking for written evidence of Nigel’s willingness to overcome difficulties and work with others in a harmonious way, irrespective of gender, race or creed – although those last three are not that important, obviously.
“We’ll also check things like his attendance – for things like crucial parliamentary votes.
“It’s just a formality, really.”
Farage, meanwhile, insists he is a ‘shoe-in’ for the role after describing himself on his CV as a ‘proactive self-starter who thrives under pressure – from immigration’.
But former EU parliamentary colleague Herman van Rompuy said, “I’m afraid it is above my pay grade to provide Mr Farage with a reference as, to use his words, I am little more than a jumped-up bank clerk with the charisma of a damp rag.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently witterings below - why not add your own? | 0 |
Hundreds of athletes at the Rio Games showed the many ways to celebrate winning an Olympic medal. This was Claressa Shields’s on Sunday: She dropped to one knee after her middleweight boxing bout and quickly sprang to her feet. Then she kept moving — cartwheeling, laughing, running laps around the ring, the American flag billowing like a parasail over her head. She swayed to some internal music as she waited to step onto the podium. On the final day of the Summer Games, Shields won one of the last gold medals for the United States and became the first American boxer since 1904 to win two Olympic golds. “You know not everybody can be an Olympic gold medalist,” she said. “I’m a Olympic gold medalist. Oh my god, I can’t believe I just said that. ” Shields, who won gold in London four years ago, nearly shut out her opponent Sunday in the bout, Nouchka Fontijn of the Netherlands. All three judges scored the first three rounds in Shields’s favor. One judge gave her the fourth as well, while the other two went for Fontijn. In the first round, Fontijn looked like a boxer with a plan. She was relaxed and confident, using her height advantage and long arms to counter and to keep Shields at a distance. Shields exploded forward several times, heaving big right hands. Shields glided in behind her triple jab. It wasn’t until seconds before the bell, however, that any of them landed flush. “I told her that was very close,” said the American coach Billy Walsh. “I’m not sure whether we got this round or not. We gotta close her down a bit more, start working a bit more, use your jab a bit more. Put that right hand over the top. ” Shields got the message and started driving home her punches in in round two. She also began slipping Fontijn’s shots. Fontijn circled and jabbed, but Shields, determined, kept stalking her to the end of round three. Up by three rounds, Shields came out to play in the fourth. She crouched low and shimmied backward, luring Fontijn with her hands down. She danced and goaded, ducking nearly every shot Fontijn threw. She landed two hard right hands, and waved Fontijn in. “I hit you with a hard shot, hit me back,” she said later, recalling the moment. “I want to see if you can hit me. ” Shields landed one more left hook as the final bell rung. Shields accepted her Rio Games medal and then pulled out the gold medal she won in London, and hung it around her neck alongside the new one. The favorite Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya won the Olympic marathon on Sunday, drawing away over the final four miles to win in 2 hours 8 minutes 44 seconds. Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia took second in 2:09:54, while Galen Rupp of the United States won the bronze medal in 2:10:05, his personal best. Kenya swept both marathons at the Rio Games. Jemima Sumgong won the women’s 26. race, becoming the first Kenyan woman to win a gold medal in the event. Caster Semenya of South Africa, whose body has been subjected to indelicate and unrelenting public scrutiny for years, won her first Olympic gold medal on Saturday at the Rio Games. Semenya won the 800 meters by a comfortable margin, in 1 minute 55. 28 seconds. While her performances tend to carry the weight of an issue that transcends sports, those looking for undeniable athletics excellence Saturday night were rewarded: her runaway victory solidified her standing as one of the best runners of her generation. Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi was second in 1:56. 49, and Margaret Wambui of Kenya was third in 1:56. 89. When Semenya, then 18, dominated the 800 at the 2009 world track and field championships, winning by more than two seconds, a fellow competitor called her a man, setting off a debate over how sports officials should navigate the complicated question of how to determine an athlete’s sex. The questioning of Semenya’s success led to a policy enacted in 2011 by the I. A. A. F. the sport’s governing body, that restricted the permitted levels of testosterone, which occur naturally high in some women. That condition is called hyperandrogenism. With that policy in effect, Semenya won silver at the 2012 London Games. Last year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the high court for international sport, suspended track and field’s testosterone policy for two years. The court said it had been “unable to conclude that hyperandrogenic female athletes may benefit from such a significant performance advantage that it is necessary to exclude them from competing in the female category. ” • Mo Farah of Britain added the gold to the one he earned in the 10, 000. In the 1, 500, American Matthew Centrowitz upset Asbel Kiprop of Kenya to win the gold. • The United States concluded the final night of track and field with two commanding relay performances, raising the country’s tally to 43. The women’s team — Courtney Okolo, Natasha Hastings, Phyllis Francis and Allyson Felix — outran Jamaica (silver) and Britain (bronze) with a time of 3:19. 06. Felix, who ran the anchor leg, now has six gold medals the night before she became the first woman in the sport to win five. The only American female Olympian with more golds is the swimmer Jenny Thompson, who won eight. LaShawn Merritt ran the anchor for the United States in the men’s 4x400, creating a big gap between the Americans and Jamaica. Arman Hall, Tony McQuay, Gil Roberts and Merritt finished in 2:57. 30. With only the men’s marathon remaining, on Sunday morning, the United States track team has collected 31 total medals, including 13 golds. • In the men’s soccer final, Brazil got a measure of revenge on Germany, winning the gold medal on penalties after a draw. Germany had embarrassed Brazil in the 2014 World Cup semifinal, . Here’s our game story. • The American Gwen Jorgensen of the United States has won the last two world championships in the triathlon, but she had some unfinished Olympic business after a flat tire on her bike doomed her to 38th place at the London Games. The wheels stayed intact this time, and Jorgensen won the gold medal. The United States women’s basketball team extended their gold medal streak to six by beating Spain, . Here’s our story. • The boxer Shakur Stevenson of Newark lost his bantamweight title match against Cuba’s Robeisy Ramírez. Stevenson, who was named after the rapper Tupac Shakur, was trying to win the first gold medal for the United States in men’s boxing since Andre Ward in 2004. • The major winner Inbee Park of South Korea won the first gold medal in women’s golf since 1900. Five strokes back was Lydia Ko of New Zealand, and Feng Shanshan of China won the bronze. • The defending champion, American David Boudia, grabbed another medal in men’s platform diving, this time a bronze. The winner was Chen Aisen from the strong Chinese diving team. | 1 |
Monday on CBS’s “The Late Show,” former Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart criticized the media for what deemed to be “whining” about President Donald Trump’s treatment of them. Stewart described the media as having an obsession over “Donny,” referring to Trump. “You know what I say? I say stop your whining,” Stewart said. “You finally thought you met your match — a blabbermouth who’s as and narcissistic as you are. Well, now it’s over. Good riddance, I say! Kick him to the curb. ” “It is time for you to get your groove back, media,” he added. “You’ve let yourself go over the past few years — put on a few pundits, obsessing 24 hours a day, seven days a week about this one guy. ‘What’s Donny up to? Did he say anything about us? Do you think he’s going to come on our show? Do you think he even likes us? He doesn’t even have to come on. He can just call. Oh, Donny please, let us know you’re OK.’ And the whole time you’re chasing after Donny, the rest of us are thinking, ‘Can’t you see he’s an asshole? ’” ( The Hill) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast on Wednesday, a day before President Trump was to host his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, at his estate in Florida for their first summit meeting. The missile test is likely to intensify differences between Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi over how to deal with the recalcitrant government in North Korea. The timing is also a deep embarrassment for Mr. Xi as the leader of China, which for decades has been the North’s closest ally. China accounts for about 90 percent of the North’s trade and is a major supplier of oil for the country. But in the eyes of Washington, China has been reluctant to use its economic leverage forcibly enough to stop the North’s growing nuclear and missile threats. “The United States has spoken enough about North Korea,” Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson said in a statement. “We have no further comment. ” There was no immediate reaction from state news media in China. Mr. Xi was in Finland when the test was carried out. In Seoul, the South Korean capital, acting President Hwang ordered a meeting of security cabinet ministers to assess the test and the North’s growing missile menace. The missile took off from Sinpo, a town on North Korea’s east coast, and flew 37 miles before splashing into the sea, the South Korean military said in a statement. Initial assessments indicated that the type of missile was a said Cmdr. David Benham of the Navy, a spokesman for the United States Pacific Command. is the name the United States uses to refer to the a new ballistic missile North Korea launched for the first time in February. The February missile test took place while Mr. Trump was hosting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan at his club. “The North American Aerospace Defense Command determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” Mr. Benham said, referring to the missile launched on Wednesday. It was the first test from North Korea since a launch on March 22. That test was considered a failure, with the projectile exploding within seconds of launching, according to American and South Korean defense authorities. But by launching a missile on Wednesday, North Korea apparently sought to pull attention to its growing missile and nuclear weapons threats a day before the United summit meeting. To Mr. Trump, the test is a new reminder that North Korea’s leader, Kim is determined to develop a missile that can one day carry a nuclear warhead across the Pacific. Before the summit meeting, Mr. Trump increased pressure on China, saying that it was time for Beijing to rein in its Communist ally. In an interview with The Financial Times published on Sunday, he said, “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. ” But he did not say how. But China has insisted that the United States should the North in dialogue to work out a compromise. Analysts say that despite its irritation with North Korea’s nuclear programs, China does not want to destabilize its government, for fear that it might set off open conflict on the Korean Peninsula that would unleash a flood of refugees into northeastern China. Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi will probably use another missile test by the North to stress the merits of their conflicting approaches on the North. North Korea has conducted a series of nuclear and tests since 2006 in an effort to develop a small and sophisticated nuclear warhead and an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching targets as far away as the United States. North Korea rattled the region in February when it successfully launched the . That missile uses a technology that American experts say will make it easier for the country to hide its arsenal in its numerous tunnels and launch its missiles on very short notice. Then, on March 6, the North launched four ballistic missiles into the sea near Japan. By firing the four missiles simultaneously, North Korea tried to flaunt an ability to launch multiple missiles at American bases in Japan and at American aircraft carriers around the Korean Peninsula, South Korean defense officials said. The ability to launch a barrage of missiles increases the chances of breaching antimissile defenses. Largely because of North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests and Mr. Kim’s bellicose talk, the government in Seoul agreed to a United States proposal to put an antimissile system in South Korea. The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, began last month, and the announcement was made a day after the launch of the four missiles. China, which had long considered the system a threat to its own security and strongly opposed it, warned that the deployment, in Seongju, South Korea, could set off a new arms race. China’s news media, in angry editorials, urged boycotts of South Korean products, which led to protests against South Korean businesses in China and canceled tours to South Korea. The Thaad system has not won universal approval within South Korea. Moon a liberal candidate running to replace the ousted conservative president, Park has expressed misgivings over the Thaad system, citing China’s fury. | 1 |
Ryan McMaken https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/homo-economicus-straw-man/
To understand the marketplace, it is not necessary to believe in the existence of a selfish, profit-maximizing human. 10:24 am on October 28, 2016 | 0 |
October 27, 2016 The Zika Virus Is Harmless - It Does Not Cause Birth Defects - We Told You So
After nearly a year of causing hysteria, mass travel cancellations and unnecessary abortions it finally daunts to "journalists" and "experts" that the Zika virus is harmless. It can cause a very minor flue - two days of a low fever and uncomfortable feeling for a quarter of those infected - that is all. It does not cause, as was claimed by sensationalists in the media and various self-serving "scientists", birth defects like microcephaly.
We told you so.
The piece refereed to a Congressional Research Service report and various sound scientific papers. It concluded: There is absolutely no sane reason for the scary headlines and the panic they cause.
The virus is harmless. It is possible, but seems for now very unlikely, that it affects some unborn children. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about it.
The artificial media panic continued and huge amounts of money were poured into dangerous insecticides to kill mosquitoes (and important pollinators) that did not do any harm. Indeed, generous use of some of these insecticides likely were the very cause of a blip in microencephaly cases in northeastern Brazil.
In March we wrote: Reading About Zika May Hurt Your Brain .
We listed 35 "news" headlines about potential catastrophes related to a Zika epidemic. The common factor - all those headlines included the miraculous little word may . The pieces were pure speculations though some quoted this or that "expert" who was hunting for new research funds or lobbying for some pharmaceutical or pesticide conglomerate.
In June we added: Zika Virus Does Not Cause Birth Defects - Fighting It Probably Does .
New serious research found what some people in Brazil had suspected from the very start of the small and strictly locally limited jump in microencephaly cases in Brazil: [D]octors in the Zika affected areas in Brazil pointed out that the real cause of somewhat increased microcephaly in the region was probably the insecticide pyriproxyfen, used to kill mosquito larvae in drinking water: The Brazilian doctors noted that the areas of northeast Brazil that had witnessed the greatest number of microcephaly cases match with areas where pyriproxyfen is added to drinking water in an effort to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes . Pyriproxyfen is reported to cause malformations in mosquito larvae, and has been added to drinking water in the region for the past 18 months.
Pyriproxyfen is produced by a Sumitomo Chemical - an important Japanese poison giant. It was therefore unsurprising that the New York Times and others called the doctors report a "conspiracy theory" and trotted out some "experts" to debunk it.... But [s]cientist at the New England Complex Systems Institute also researched the pyriproxyfen thesis. They found : Pyriproxifen is an analog of juvenile hormone, which corresponds in mammals to regulatory molecules including retinoic acid, a vitamin A metabolite, with which it has cross-reactivity and whose application during development causes microcephaly . ...[T]ests of pyriproxyfen by the manufacturer, Sumitomo, widely quoted as giving no evidence for developmental toxicity, actually found some evidence for such an effect , including low brain mass and arhinencephaly—incomplete formation of the anterior cerebral hemispheres—in rat pups. Finally, the pyriproxyfen use in Brazil is unprecedented—it has never before been applied to a water supply on such a scale. ... Given this combination of information we strongly recommend that the use of pyriproxyfen in Brazil be suspended pending further investigation.
Today the Washington Post finally admits that the Zika virus does not cause birth defects: [T]o the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil.
Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas. According to the latest U.N. figures, of the 2,175 babies born in the past year with undersize heads or other congenital neurological damage linked to Zika, more than 75 percent have been clustered in a single region: northeastern Brazil.
The localities where the flue virus occurred outside of a small area in Brazil saw no increase in birth defect numbers. The number of (naturally occurring) microcephality cases stayed constant despite a large increase in (harmless) Zika virus infections. The numbers in Brazil also turned out to be partially inflated because of a lack of standard diagnosis criteria and unreliable statistics. A factor we had pointed to in our very first piece.
The WaPo piece today muses about several "possible" causes for the local increase in cases in northeastern Brazil that indeed happened. It quotes some of the very "experts", like from the pharmaceutical industry influenced CDC, that were wrong on the issue since the first panic headline. It strenuously avoids to even mention the most likely cause - the excessive local use of an insecticide that is supposed to cause birth defects - in developing mosquitoes. Thus the reporting is still void of journalistic ethics and irresponsible in its conclusions.
It did not take much effort to get this right. An hour or two of skimming through publicly available sources of good standing, some basic higher education and sound reasoning was enough. But instead of doing such basic inquiries "journalists" and media "served" panic and speculations by biased "experts". Keep this story in mind for the next sensationalist onslaught of panic headline. There surely will be some "interests" behind those; just don't expect unbiased facts and basic logic reasoning. Posted by b on October 27, 2016 at 06:49 AM | Permalink | 0 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — For most athletes at the Olympics, a gold, silver or bronze medal is the ultimate payoff for years of training and sacrifice. But when the American wrestlers take to the mats at the Rio Games, they stand to head home with a lot of green, too. One wrestler could earn half a million dollars for winning a second consecutive gold medal, and his teammates could also take home substantial earnings for finishing first, second or third, making their potential paydays the envy of athletes not named Phelps or Bolt. The bonuses would come courtesy of a fraternity of former wrestlers, several of whom happen to have made it big on Wall Street. Together, they have endowed wrestling to a degree that other Olympic sports can only dream about. In other words, they are rich and obsessed. Chief among them are Michael E. Novogratz, a private equity tycoon who wrestled at Princeton, and David Barry, who wrestled at Columbia and is the president of Ironstate Development Company. They aim to give a lift to a sport that was nearly booted from the Olympic program several years ago. “Wrestlers have to cobble enough to live on to train for four or eight years, so winning $250, 000 is nice,” Novogratz said. “They can use it as nest eggs. ” Jordan Burroughs received $250, 000 for winning a freestyle wrestling gold medal in the ( ) division at the London Games four years ago and would receive $500, 000 for successfully defending his title at the Rio Games. He used his London payoff to buy a house and pay for his wedding, among other things. “It’s great any time you get an extra incentive, in addition to being the strongest man on the planet,” said Burroughs, who has received $415, 000 for his Olympic and world championship medals since 2011. “There’s not a lot of money floating around in the sport, so it’s key for us to compete at our best in the Olympic Games. ” The rewards offset the lack of endorsement deals and American government funding for the Olympians. While the Olympics once celebrated amateurism, nowadays the biggest names at the Games — like Michael Phelps in swimming, the Jamaican Usain Bolt in track and the American Kerri Walsh Jennings in beach volleyball — are able to secure endorsement deals after winning Olympic gold. At least in the United States, wrestling has few household names, and wrestlers, like athletes in other Olympic sports, must make do with far less. Participation in collegiate wrestling has been in decline for years, and those wrestlers interested in staying in the sport have had little choice but to join World Wrestling Entertainment, which is orchestrated, or mixed martial arts, where the action is far from the ancient grappling at wrestling’s roots. In 2009, Novogratz and Barry an existing but modest fund, which they rebranded the Living the Dream Medal Fund. It helps wrestlers continue wrestling and motivates others to keep trying. They then recruited former wrestlers with deep pockets, including Andrew F. Barth, a portfolio manager at Capital Group who wrestled at Columbia James G. Dinan, the founder and chief executive of York Capital Management, who has sons who wrestle and David H McCormick, who wrestled at West Point and is the president of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. So deep is their passion for the sport that they sprinkle discussion of financial trades with wrestling jargon like “takedown” and “pin. ” “You have to find someone who’s wealthy and loves wrestling,” Novogratz said. “They’re out there, but you have to find them. It’s like being an ancient Spartan, doing the right thing. ” So far, the fund has dispersed $1. 225 million to male and female wrestlers who have won medals at the Olympics and the world championships, a windfall on top of the prize money from the United States Olympic Committee — which pays $25, 000 to gold medalists, $15, 000 to silver medalists and $10, 000 to bronze medalists — and from U. S. A. Wrestling, which pays smaller amounts. The Living the Dream fund poured in tens of thousands of dollars more, bringing the total prize money to $250, 000 for an Olympic gold, $50, 000 for a silver and $25, 000 for a bronze. “We wanted something that would be an number,” Barry, an League wrestler at Columbia, said. “We wanted to celebrate the spirit of competition. ” The gold mine dwarfs what federations in other Olympic sports pay American medalists. Rowers who win medals, for instance, receive awards only from the United States Olympic Committee, while U. S. A. Shooting divided $198, 000 among the four American medalists in London. Backed by sponsors like Nike, BMW and Visa, U. S. A. Track Field expects to pay its Olympians a total of about $3 million this year. Each of the 129 athletes who made it to Rio was paid $10, 000, and another $1. 3 million in bonuses was paid based on where they finished at the Olympic trials. Medalists in Rio will earn even more. On an individual basis, though, Burroughs and Jake Varner hit the jackpot at the London Games four years ago: They each received $250, 000 for winning a gold medal. Two other wrestlers won $25, 000 for placing third. (The awards for medals at the world championships are far smaller.) Novogratz was so excited about Burroughs’s and Varner’s wins in 2012 that he offered to double the prize if either wrestler won another gold medal in Rio. Varner, who won in London at (211 pounds) did not qualify for these Olympics, but on Aug. 18, Burroughs has a chance to earn $500, 000 for one day’s work. As Burroughs tells it, after he graduated from the University of Nebraska, he was scraping by until he won gold at the world championships in 2011 and then struck gold in London. Winning a second Olympic gold, in Rio, would help him continue wrestling through 2020, when the Summer Games will be in Tokyo. Burroughs tries to remain modest about his achievements, but he said it was only fair that he and other wrestlers were rewarded given their long workouts, the injuries they face and the other sacrifices they make. “I consider myself one of the best athletes in the world, and there’s a little bit of anger and jealousy to athletes in other sports who perhaps put in a fraction of the work as wrestlers,” he said. The spoils can be even more lavish in countries like Russia, where wrestling medalists can receive apartments, cars and national acclaim. But even they have taken note of the prize money available to Americans, said Elena Pirozhkova, who as a child moved to the United States from Russia and will wrestle in Rio for the United States. “Everybody talks about it, and I can speak Russian, and they’re always asking what the U. S. pays,” she said. Pirozhkova, who will compete at (139 pounds) and Burroughs said they occasionally thought about the potential payday and how the money could change their lives, but they have to block out those thoughts once their matches begin. “Wrestling is such a tricky sport,” said Pirozhkova, who has used her $65, 000 from the fund to help her mother buy a house. “Everything has to be fast. Your life can change in a couple of hours. ” | 1 |
MANILA — The head of the Thai junta urged his countrymen on Friday to have patience while investigators determine who was behind a wave of deadly bombings in Thailand this week. Gen. Prayuth the junta chief and prime minister, hinted that the perpetrators were “bad people” opposed to a new Constitution that was approved by voters on Sunday in a nationwide referendum. “There are still bad people, and they have been acting since before the referendum,” he said in an address to the nation. The bombings in five provinces on Thursday and Friday, including in Phuket and Hua Hin, areas popular with tourists, killed four people and wounded dozens. The authorities said arson attacks elsewhere in the country appeared to be related. Analysts said the bombings did not appear to be aimed at killing many, but rather at damaging the tourism industry, a bright spot in Thailand’s economy. “Whatever the motives are, the explosions and arson attacks undermine the junta’s claim that the situation would be stable,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These attacks create effects that discredit the authorities, terrorize the public and harm the economy. ” The police have portrayed the attacks as “local sabotage,” not as terrorism. The timing and location of the attacks carried strong political symbolism. The bombings occurred as people prepared to celebrate the birthday of Queen Sirikit on Friday, which is considered Mother’s Day in Thailand. Four bombs struck the royal residential town of Hua Hin, about 125 miles from Bangkok. The police there detained two men for questioning on Friday in connection with the attacks, Reuters reported. The Constitution will diminish the influence of political parties and give greater power to the military even after it returns the government to civilian control. The junta ensured its victory by preventing opponents from campaigning against it. Murray Hiebert, an expert on Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, noted the military’s suspicion that the attacks had been carried out by people disgruntled over the vote. The bombings were “clearly coordinated but obviously intended to create fear and anxiety rather than massive damage and deaths and injuries,” he said. Last year, a bombing in Bangkok killed 20, most of them tourists from China. Thai officials attributed the bombing to Uighur militants angry over the return of more than 100 Uighurs to China. General Prayuth, who has led the junta since a 2014 coup ousted a civilian government, said this week’s bombings “hurt the hearts” of the Thai people. “Why now, when the country is getting better, the economy is getting better, and tourism is getting better?” he said. “We have to ask why, and who did it. ” | 1 |
An innocent question posed by a young girl led Naivon Lake Jr. to chart out a new course in his life. He was at an internship last December, tutoring at an elementary school, when a student addressed Mr. Lake’s supervisor. “Naivon is smart, right?” the girl had asked. Mr. Lake’s supervisor chuckled and replied that he would not be there otherwise. “If Naivon is smart, why isn’t he in college?” the girl said. Mr. Lake overheard the conversation, words that rattled him and knocked him into a moment of introspection and unexpected clarity. “I’m not a hypocrite,” Mr. Lake, 20, said. “If I’m telling her, ‘You have to go to school and do this,’ I can’t not go to school. ” He had graduated from the Benjamin Banneker Academy for Community Development in Brooklyn, but came out with no plans to attend college. He had wandered through school, never fully recovering from the death of his beloved aunt during his sophomore year, but paid just enough attention at school to receive a diploma. “I was always at school, I just wasn’t at class,” Mr. Lake said. Instead, he preferred to hang out with his friends on the courtyard to play soccer. His mother scolded him for his truancy, but it was not enough to improve his attendance. It took a school official to explain to him that the peers he had been skipping class with were going to graduate, but he was not. “If I don’t graduate, I don’t go to college,” Mr. Lake said. “If I don’t go to college, I won’t get a good job. ” He raced to finish assignments for the class credit needed to walk across the stage at graduation. School, after all, was not so difficult, Mr. Lake said. He always had a knack for memorizing information, and was quick to understand math formulas and science theories. He graduated on time, but without a next step in mind. College was a possibility, but not something he had done the work to actually pursue. “I was just lost,” Mr. Lake said. “I figured, I don’t like being idle too long, so I had to get a job. ” For the next year, he worked 70 to 80 hours a week at a Duane Reade, hating every shift he clocked in for. In fall 2015, at his mother’s urging, he begrudgingly entered Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow’s Young Adult Internship Program. Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow serves people like Mr. Lake who are considered and unemployed youths. It is a beneficiary agency of the Community Service Society, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. With its help, Mr. Lake landed a paid internship as a tutor at El Puente Taylor Wythe, which operates an center and summer camp program. It was rewarding in an unexpected way, he said. “Just being there nurtured me as a whole individual,” he said. “My patience is way higher than it was before. Tolerance for things is a lot more sturdy. ” It was there that he met that inquisitive girl who inspired him to go to college. Earlier this year, he returned to Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow and met with a college counselor. He applied and was accepted into LaGuardia Community College. The Community Service Society used $65 in Neediest funds to pay for Mr. Lake’s college application fee. Mr. Lake is enrolled as a student, pursuing a major in commercial photography. He has ambitions of starting an event photography business, a passion that developed in high school. He also hopes to eventually pursue a degree in information technology and web design. Yet, Mr. Lake still finds himself fighting boredom with school and struggling to get excited for class, except for his photography assignments. To resist his old habits, he tries to remind himself of the patience and focus he sharpened as a tutor. “I feel like I really matured as a person, after seeing what I’ve gone through and reflecting on it,” Mr. Lake said. “I can’t afford to slack off. ” He currently works part time as a tutor at El Puente Beacon Leadership Center, where he has motivated many students to complete homework they wanted to put off some later earned perfect scores on those assignments and on tests. They all credit Mr. Lake’s guiding hand with their success. “I really have an impact on someone’s life,” Mr. Lake said. “It sticks with you. It’s powerful. It’s a powerful thing. ” | 1 |
Why Are So Many People Choosing To Leave The United States Permanently? August 11th, 2013
Have things gotten so bad that it is time to leave the United States for good? That is a question that a lot of Americans are dealing with these days, and an increasing number of them are choosing to leave the country of their birth permanently. Some are doing it for tax reasons, some are doing it because they believe the future is brighter elsewhere, and others are doing it because they are very distressed about the direction that America is heading and they don’t see any hope for a turnaround any time soon. Personally, I have several friends and contacts that regard themselves as “preppers” that have decided that the United States is too far gone to recover. They have moved their families out of the country and they never plan to return. As this nation continues to head down the very troubled road that it is currently on, this trend is probably only going to accelerate even more.
In fact, some Americans are even going so far as to renounce their citizenship when they leave. This represents only a small percentage of those that are leaving the country, but as Bloomberg recently reported , the number of Americans that renounced their citizenship in the second quarter of 2013 was six times larger than the number that renounced their citizenship in the second quarter of last year…
Americans renouncing U.S. citizenship surged sixfold in the second quarter from a year earlier as the government prepares to introduce tougher asset-disclosure rules.
Expatriates giving up their nationality at U.S. embassies climbed to 1,131 in the three months through June from 189 in the year-earlier period, according to Federal Register figures published today.
Renouncing the country of your birth is not an easy thing to do. From the moment that we come into this world, those of us born in this country are trained to think of ourselves as “Americans”. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Simon Black of the Sovereign Man blog …
It doesn’t matter where you’re from– the United States, Sweden, New Zealand, or Venezuela… many people all over the world are inculcated from birth with a sense that their country is ‘better’ than all the others.
We grow up with the songs, the flag waving, and the parades until the concept of motherland becomes deeply rooted in our emotional cores.
Not to mention, when so many of our friends and neighbors unquestionably fall in line, it’s a powerful social reinforcement that only strengthens the bond.
We come to view our nationalities rather ironically as a big piece of our core individuality. I am an American. I am a Canadian. I am an Austrian. Instead of– I am a human being.
It has taken decades… centuries even… to reach this point. So the fact that more and more people are making the gut-wrenching decision to ditch their US passports is truly a powerful trend.
Traditionally, the been some of the most patriotic people on the face of the planet.
So why are we now seeing such an increase in the number of people choosing to leave the United States permanently?
Well, the truth is that there are a whole host of reasons why people are losing faith in this country and are deciding to leave…
-The U.S. economy has been steadily declining for many years and that decline now seems to be accelerating.
-We are being taxed into oblivion .
-The quality of the jobs in our economy is rapidly declining .
-Our culture is rapidly going down the toilet .
-Our health care system has become a complete mess and a giant money making scam . Obamacare is only going to make things even worse .
-Our politicians are tremendously corrupt, but the same clowns just keep getting sent back to D.C. over and over again.
-Our nation seems to be on a relentless march toward collectivism .
-America is rapidly turning into a “Big Brother” police state that is run by control freaks that seem obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and controlling virtually everything that we do.
Of course the list above could go on indefinitely, but hopefully I have made my point. A whole lot of people out there are absolutely horrified as they watch what is happening to America, and leaving the country for good is increasingly being viewed as a potential option by many.
But as tempting as “ going Galt ” may seem, please come up with a good plan first.
As one family recently discovered , hopping into a small boat and sailing off into the Pacific Ocean in search of a better life is probably not going to work out too well…
A northern Arizona family that was lost at sea for weeks in an ill-fated attempt to leave the U.S. over what they consider government interference in religion will fly back home Sunday.
Hannah Gastonguay, 26, said Saturday that she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led us” when they took their two small children and her father-in-law and set sail from San Diego for the tiny island nation of Kiribati in May.
But just weeks into their journey, the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks, unable to make progress. They were eventually picked up by a Venezuelan fishing vessel, transferred to a Japanese cargo ship and taken to Chile where they are resting in a hotel in the port city of San Antonio.
Yes, life in America is definitely going to be extremely challenging in the years ahead, but the grass is not always greener on the other side of the planet either.
There are a whole host of things to consider before you make a permanent move to another country. The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles …
The following are 10 questions to ask yourself before you decide to move to another country…
Do You Speak The Language? If Not, How Will You Function?
If you do not speak the language of the country that you are moving to, that can create a huge problem. Just going to the store and buying some food will become a challenge. Every interaction that you have with anyone in that society will be strained, and your ability to integrate into the culture around you will be greatly limited.
How Will You Make A Living?
Unless you are independently wealthy, you will need to make money. In a foreign nation, it may be very difficult for you to find a job – especially one that pays as much as you are accustomed to making in the United States.
Will You Be Okay Without Your Family And Friends?
Being thousands of miles away from all of your family and friends can be extremely difficult. Will you be okay without them? And it can be difficult to survive in a foreign culture without any kind of a support system. Sometimes the people that most successfully move out of the country are those that do it as part of a larger group.
Have You Factored In Weather Patterns And Geological Instability?
As the globe becomes increasingly unstable, weather patterns and natural disasters are going to become a bigger factor in deciding where to live. For example, right now India is suffering through the worst drought that it has experienced in nearly 50 years . It would be very difficult to thrive in the middle of such an environment.
Many of those that are encouraging people to “escape from America” are pointing to Chile as an ideal place to relocate to. But there are thousands of significant earthquakes in Chile each year, and the entire nation lies directly along the “Ring of Fire” which is becoming increasingly unstable. That is something to keep in mind.
What Will You Do For Medical Care?
If you or someone in your family had a serious medical problem in the United States, you would know what to do. Yes, our health care system is incredibly messed up , but at least you would know that you could get the care that you needed if an emergency arose. Would the same be true in a foreign nation?
Are You Moving Into A High Crime Area?
Yes, crime is definitely on the rise in the United States. But in other areas where many preppers are moving to, crime is even worse. Mexico and certain areas of Central America are two examples of this. And in many foreign nations, the police are far more corrupt than they generally are in the United States.
In addition, many other nations have far stricter gun laws than the United States does, so your ability to defend your family may be greatly restricted.
So will your family truly be safe in the nation that you plan to take them to?
Are You Prepared For “Culture Shock”?
Moving to another country can be like moving to a different planet. After all, they don’t call it “culture shock” for nothing.
If you do move to another country, you may quickly find that thousands of little things that you once took for granted in the U.S. are now very different.
And there is a very good chance that many of the “amenities” that you are accustomed to in the U.S. will not be available in a foreign nation and that your standard of living will go down.
So if you are thinking of moving somewhere else, you may want to visit first just to get an idea of what life would be like if you made the move.
What Freedoms and Liberties Will You Lose By Moving?
Yes, our liberties and our freedoms are being rapidly eroded in the United States. But in many other nations around the world things are much worse. You may find that there is no such thing as “freedom of speech” or “freedom of religion” in the country that you have decided to move to.
Is There A Possibility That The Country You Plan To Escape To Could Be Involved In A War At Some Point?
We are moving into a time of great geopolitical instability. If you move right into the middle of a future war zone, you might really regret it. If you do plan to move, try to find a country that is likely to avoid war for the foreseeable future.
When The Global Economy Collapses, Will You And Your Family Be Okay For Food?
What good will it be to leave the United States if you and your family run out of food?
Today, we are on the verge of a major global food crisis. Global food reserves are at their lowest level in nearly 40 years , and shifting global weather patterns are certainly not helping things.
And the global elite are rapidly getting more control over the global food supply. Today, between 75 and 90 percent of all international trade in grain is controlled by just four gigantic multinational food corporations.
Leaving the United States permanently and setting up a new life in another country can be done, but it isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes planning, preparation and lots of hard work.
However, there are lots of people that have done it successfully, including quite a number of people that I know personally.
In the end, you have got to make the decision that is right for you and your family. Don’t let anyone else tell you what to do.
For many, staying in the United States and preparing for the tough years that are coming is the best choice. For others, getting out and heading for greener pastures is the right choice.
What about you?
Please feel free to share your perspective by posting a comment below…
Are These The Last Days Of The U.S. Marine Corps? » Rodster
I’m sticking it out. As screwed up as America is i’ll take my chances here. As the article mentioned, when the global economy collapses it may be harder to survive in another country. ian
no. it will probably be easier, as most other nations dont have gun toting nutjobs and a less self centered view of life. Other countries may adopt a “we’re all in this together’ mentality, while america will, at first, descends into ‘me first’ chaos. MeMadMax
Take ur statement, and make it the opposite, and less hateful, and it would be right. Vindicare
Guess what, no one is entitled to positive feelings. Hate is a feeling, nothing more. People may hate you, but you live in west, where you must feel good about others, whatever stupid and evil they are. Positive=!good, negative=!bad. And to tell the truth people often earn hate, they own it they. Yes hate may be rightfully earned. Hate is just waste of time, contempt is better, indifference is best. sherpeace
Exactly. The people you hate don’t care! The hate only hurts the hater! So, go for it; Keep on hating. Then you will die young, either from a heart attack or because the object of your hate kills you. Hooray! Now we will be rid of you! (Sorry, I know that is not very peaceful of me, but I couldn’t help it.) Vindicare
Stop projecting. I hate no one but mosquitoes. Usual Yada yada yada! Whatever I may sound to you when I go from keyboard it stop bothering me. Some people write things because they think, not because feel something. This western paranoia is pathetic. FEELINGS, FEWWINGS, FEEL, HURR DURR! Nop prefer logic. condaggitt
Ian most other countries dont have mass quantities of violent black thugs either. xander cross
Most countries have violent white men with guns. Just look at the white supremacist groups and people like Alex jones. Most white people are racist and evil by nature SVD
Takes one to know one eh!? xander cross
You would know. A racist like yourself is common in the land that you stole from us. Ted
Just admit that you hate White people…which by definition makes you a racist! Oh the horror There’s nothing worse than racism…oh no sherpeace
People are offended by the white comment, but not the black one. That means YOU are racist. I am white, but I am offended by BOTH comments. You can not make blanket statements about ANY race. It is just unfair and wrong! Graham
Your last sentence would lead a reader to believe you are of “American Indian” decent. Is that correct?
If so, I’m interested in what tribe you are affiliated with, assuming that is something you are happy to share. Joe Jakkerton
Im American Indian and can tell Xander is African. SVD
Oh you hurt my feelings. I think I’m about to shed a tear. Get over yourself loser! xander cross
The loser is the white man that enjoys selling his land to china for a currency that rapidly loosing its value. White men are the problem, that is why they’re marring (or stealing) Asian women in mass droves. sherpeace
Oh, brother, come on! The things that ignorant people say just amazes me! Joe Jakkerton
Thats makes us the WINNERS ha ha ha! DuchessLazy
Why do so many Chinese murder their baby girls ? It’s a horror. Jill Ellen Schulze
you are really really stupid. You are the reason I want to leave this country. People like you are still kept alive Walt Lonsdale
We don’t even know what you are BrianLandon
right. stole from you, eh? so show us the deed? Joe Jakkerton
Then move back to Africa and get on with it. Walt Lonsdale
IS that why there is considerably more black on black crime??Idiot! sherpeace
It is because there is considerably more poverty in black neighborhoods. And, I am sorry to say, that has a lot to do with the quality of schools. If you were to check, most successful blacks went to white schools, the only place to get an equal education despite “Brown vs. the board of education”. Son Goku
Most White AmeriKKKans are psychotic sociopaths. Blacks are on their sick demonic minds 24/7. This article had nothing to do with blacks. If Anglo Americans were so peaceful. Why do they have missile defense systems around China, Russia, and Iran. They are the real thugs. sherpeace
Got a point there. Just remember that not all of us believe in what our govt. is doing. carnac123
SG Because we are smart and we defend ourselves. You…however are just a racist calling others racist. If America was all Anglo or at least all white,.. it would be a paradise. Joe Jakkerton
Who said we were peaceful? We are violent and always have been. Oline Wright
Not so, that statement is as racist as saying most blacks are violent thugs. There are good and bad in all peoples and it is high time we stop stereotyping people because of the color of their skin or even the place they grew up. DuchessLazy
Try living in a an area where the majority is black and see what you get. Mondobeyondo
Violent white men take over countries with guns. Violent black men take over inner cities with guns.
We are ALL under attack!!! Linda Williams
Who told you that? RalphZiggy
what nonsense you spew, when did Alex Jones ever do or say anything racist? he has even demonstrated against hate groups like the KKK. In the USA, white people huge the majority of weapons but don’t commit most of the crime. You are a white-hating racist, the supremacist full of hate is in your bathroom mirror. xander cross
During the trayvon Martin trail. He and his supporters are indeed racist just like Ron and pans Paul are. His supports are really the same people that go to stormfront site as well. Alex jones never demonstrated against the kkk, but he demonstrated against black people several times. But then again, he gets paid by white men to be an idiot on television so, you defending him proves my point. RalphZiggy
It is a fact Alex Jones demostrated against the KKK in Waco Tx in 1999 with a bullhorn, look it up. There are videos of it. You make up an world between your ears and believe in it, without letting facts get in the way of your prejudices Joe Jakkerton
oh man you must be Lacquer head. I bet you love your caurborator cleaner. BrianLandon
uh right. sort of like the blacks killing blacks in Africa? Or how about Muslims killing Muslims in Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. And how about the fact that the biggest rate of murders in the US is committed by young black men killing other young black men.
the only racist here is yOU! xander cross
No, white men are the racist and white men commit the most crimes and they’re not convicted for the murders that they commit. White men commit the most crimes and you use fake percentage numbers to spew your lies about black people. Let’s talk real numbers, not fake percentages that you get from world net daily. DuchessLazy
Lies. Whites actually care about THEIR neighborhoods and gladly get rid of criminals. But…if you’re rich, no matter the skin color, you’re likely to get away with about anything. Joe Jakkerton
All colored people are evil and racist. xander cross
White men are evil and racist and to add to your stupidity, you white men turned a third world country to an economic superpower (China). Elliot
“Most white people are racist and evil by nature”? Are you serious? That is such an ignorant statement with zero credibility. That is a stupid as if I were to say, “There aren’t any nations in this world governed by black people from top to bottom that dominate on the world stage, therefore all black people are stupid and lazy”. Look at the Chinese and India. They aren’t white, are two of the most populated countries in the world, are HUGE players in our world economy, and yet both pollute the Earth daily like never before seen, and China executes more people annually (with a gun to the back of the head) than any other country worldwide. Yet you tell me they are full of “violent white men with guns”? You are what is wrong with our society. There are too many dumba$$e$ like you able to post their uneducated, idiotic opinions online and somehow garner steam from it. Some other dumba$$ will read your comment and give it a “thumbs up” without realizing how stupid you both are. The problem with our societies is that the dumb people outnumber the smart ones 100 to 1, and whether you are black, white or rainbow-colored, you are an IDIOT. d
What? Son Goku
Dude!!! Why are you racist bigots obsess with black people?!?! This is one of the reason why people dislike white Americans around the world. Plus you bomb other people’s countries for natural resources. You are the real thugs. Most of You people are obsess with race. Oline Wright
again it is not about color or race it is truly more about who or what is in power. ANd frankly as an American I have to say I have not been that satisfied by the government that is supposed to represent me for the last 20 years or so. xander cross
Stop lying because the white people on this site is openly racist. White men are the problem and every white person on this site supported stop and frisk by mayor Bloomberg. mikeymike61
neegrows be da prolem, git rid a neegrows and you gots rid a 85% a da krime Tobias Smith
you are clearly a racist foolish little boy sherpeace
Oh, EVERYONE, huh? You got a lot of nerve speaking a lie like that! Joe Jakkerton
Hey we only supported stop and frisk of coloreds and gays like you. sherpeace
Longer than that, for me. Carter was the last true humanitarian in power in this country. Linda Williams
Carter was an idiot. The interest rate soared under Carter. sherpeace
Wow, you must be one of the most intelligent people on earth to be able to call a man like carter an idiot! Or you are a tea party Republican who hates all Democrats. lunchbox
first of all, tea is delicious, but let me just say that is not a reference to politics, i just like tea. Especially irish breakfast tea. Secondly, you should all take the time to go back to the top of this page and re-read all of your comments. I would be interested to see if anyone can come up with a sensible answer as to how the discussions went from being about the government, and what is wrong with it. Tell me how the conversation shifted from discussing how to solve a very real problem to being concerned with racism, which is and always will be an issue as long as there is mankind. We can solve that problem later, that problem is not what will be destroying ours, or anyone elses country. Please stay focused on the matter at hand, or it will pass you by while you stand idly in oblivion. Mankind is but a petty child, given shoulders with which to carry the weight of the world. So please let us stop being petty, and use those shoulders to lift each other up to a point where we no longer need the guidance of govt.. We are after all the people that they are referencing when they say that govt. is for the people, by the people. Joe Jakkerton
Carter was and still is an idiot. You sound like one of them Teaophobes. sherpeace
You do have a point, but that is a very small minority of white American males. Most of us are peace loving people who lived in mixed neighborhoods and get along with everyone. My husband has been a teacher for 28 years at the same school. Everyone knows where he lives and no one bothers us. Oooops, my hubby isn’t white. Only I am. I guess that explains it, huh? Fed Up With Your Ignorance
You’re such an ignorant fool. GOVERNMENTS bomb other countries, and news flash, AMERICA’S PRESIDENT IS BLACK. Have a nice day… Joe Jakkerton
Or any other kinds of thugs. Alex
Forget the black thugs. The problem is the scum bag wall street banksters who have destroyed our society while accomulating wealth. Jill Ellen Schulze
you serious? You want to leave because of “black thugs?”. The biggest problem here is the government and in case you haven’t noticed by watching fox news ( i am sure that’s what you watch), most are white besides the pres (luckily!) and they are not the “black thugs” you speak about. Ray J Cimbalnik
I agree. Americans will only care about themselves. I can not wait to expatriate OUT of America. America will never recover UNTIL it falls COMPLETELY and then rebuilds. Oline Wright
I have to disagree. Again it is an oversimplification of the attitudes of the country and a stereotype. Many in the US if they have it to spare will send money to help out countries in crisis due to catastrophic events. People will do so even within the country. It is more a case of the government overreaching its stated powers and becoming diametrically opposed to what the founding fathers envisioned. I have to admit that when a person is struggling to meet the day to day needs of their lives they will frequently become more centrally focused. But I think you will see similar attitudes in other countries as well. sherpeace
You said it! Thank you! Boy, thank God when I went to El Salvador in the 80s, they understood that the govt. is NOT the people. I guess they knew because of their F*#@ed up govt. Joe Jakkerton
Why not just leave the city? Joe Jakkerton
I would appreciate it if you just stayed in the USA where you belong. Alex
I decided to abandon ship. Humans have the right to survive, that has nothing to do with being an American. I am not the property of the USA, although they may think I am. America is not going to change, it is essentially dead with a few exceptions. Once you start disconnecting from this fake American society it will become easier to assimilate to another. In the US we have been spoiled and brainwash that we are number 1 because we have more material possessions then the rest of the world. If this was the case why are the majority of Americans unhappy. Although it is challenging to move to another country, I believe it can be done if one has the will. I left the states about almost 3 months ago and there is not a day that I regret it. Even though I have the advantage of speaking spanish, it still it is a challenge. Even though I may be broke atleast I am free and that you cannot put a price on. Lingram90
Where did u relocate to? T
Yes, but which ones? Can you name them? NoSheDidn’t!
I agree…no matter where you are, all countries will get hit one way or the other…eventually…especially those developing countries that depend on the 1st world countries…compliments of: globalization! Vindicare
It is other way around in case of USA. USA depend on import as it had outsourced the industry. It depends on dollar as reserve currency. And depend on military. sherpeace
Sad, but true. Reality_Seeker
It will be harder to survive in another country. Moreover, the global economy is going to collapse; and when it does, it will be open season on amerikans…….amerikans will be stripped of whatever they have, and in some cases, their lives will be taken, too. Think about your future before you try and run, because you can run but you might not be able to hide. dishatin
There with ya nicho12
I think it will be harder to survive in America if the global economy collapses. Think about it, America is full of different races all fighting each other to get ahead which creates too much hatred and anger among the races. An economic collapse will lead to a civil war in America and millions of people will die, especially the minorities, the you add in feminism which has caused many men to resent women, you have a multicultural chaos. Most people don’t think about the social problems that America is facing. At least in other countries, their cultures are much more homogeneous and there’s less individualism than in America. In America, it will be it’s every man for himself Mudpie
I have lived abroad once and loved the nation but I will say living there for good would be hard. When everything and everyone – including close family, some of whom are ill – you know is in the U.S.A. There are great places out there, but as Michael notes, money issues are significant as well. Unless seriously loaded, you gotta work. Many nations discriminate against foreigners in the job market. And do not underestimate local connections that you lack, etc. Very hard to accomplish. Of course, most Americans have family forefathers who came from elsewhere and survived. It takes a VERY spiritual outlook to endure the privations until one is comfortable. Also, America discriminates against expatriots and the U.S.A. tax system for foreign earned income is insane and impossible to understand for most people.
Michael hits the nail on the head when he says the grass is NOT always greener.
We may do it again when our children get old enough to live on their own. But for the time being, I think that hunkering down and planning smartly here may be the way to go over time. Travel to those other amazing places. But feather the nest here, live in the state of your dreams and find a city that you are really into. I like New Mexico, for instance, and places therein. Alaska is like a foreign country for the so inclined.
Honestly, if the U.S. goes to hell then most of the world will go with it, at least S. America and Central America. And at least here your neighbors who are sympathetic to your cause and freedom will be locked and loaded. In many places only bad guys have guns.
Of course there will be violence here as the Al Sharpton haters pour into the streets. But you will have a chance.
And those liberty lovers in your area . . . .do not forget Americans DO tend to be very smart people. Even in other really great countries, there are even more socialists than here (though some seem to manage it better, for at least a while). Americans who believe in liberty are the best on the planet.
Let us hope we get a state that secedes and serves as a magnet for free men an women. MeMadMax
NOT. My wife is from Guatemala, her mom finally got a hot water heater, the place can’t go to hell because there is nothing to break. That is the extreme end of it, but it’s the same thing. The world is not dependent on us for anything, except for one thing: Doing their dirty work for them…. If you think the world thinks about the US all the time, think again. We are like the prissy little cheerleader in highschool who thinks the school would close if she ever stopped going to school…. Mudpie
Dude, I pretty much agree. I like the cheerleader analogy. We are full of ourselves and now it is coming out of our rears… [email protected]
It is probably best to stay in this country until the riots start. Even then you may want to make your first move out of the cities to a romote easily protected rural farming area. As bad asthe US is, a lot of the world is already in even worse shape.
As banks fail and markets crash, you might want to start hunting for another country. I am looking at the Caymen Islands or Balese.
I am steadily building a supply of gold and silver. I am also starting to take my money steadily out of the markets. I am also taking cash out of the bank.
There is really no good reason to leave cash in your account. The highest probability of theft comes from the banks Rodster
Exactly, just look at the conditions of countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Portugal, Brazil. These are some of the places experiencing riots and unrest due to economic condition.
As things global economy continues to get worse, those places will probably experience more unrest and violence. We haven’t seen it here because our monetary policy is what’s driving the world’s economy.
So when the SHTF expect chaos around the world. If you are Jim Rodgers, George Soros or a very wealthy person who can buy protection and a place that can insulate itself from turmoil then it really doesn’t matter where you live.
The world has never seen the potential for financial armageddon. So if and when it hits it’s going to be ugly wherever you live. Prophecy2008
Where do you put the cash to be safe if not in the bank? What about Paypal? Sergi William
I was born in Spain and I am 100% Spanish. I spent 3 months in DC at 2011 and I totally agree with Michael: I had a culture shock.
About the language, even if you know the language of the country you are moving to, it takes many years to get all the slang and to have a correct spelling and knowledge of everything about that country.
And well… I feel sad because I came back to Spain and I always thought it was a mistake and I should stay in the US.
But with the last news and everything, maybe I did the right thing…
Anyway, the whole view is so scary…
Greetings from Barcelona to everybody! Rodster
Greetings and yeah it’s tough everywhere you live we cause this collapse is being planned on purpose. It’s better to live within one’s culture. I’m spanish but born and raised in the US. I know even for me it would be hard to move to a latin american country or to Spain. The culture is so different. jacklohman
Mainly the rich will gather their stash and look for a country where it will be protected. But they will have to worry about pirates, or a corrupt security crew, or local politicians who will claim the cash as illegally acquired and confiscate it. Better that they stay in America and fix the system. Gracie Darling
You are mostly wrong about that. Most countries in South America and Central America are no pirates or will take you money!
The banks in South America have branches in the states. There are actually laws down here!
Ecuador is not less corrupt than the USA. Look around. Look at the shipping docks in the states, for example. Same here though, mostly.
Money is pouring into Latin Countries and the government are not taking it from anyone.
Banks are very strict here in Ecuador. Same in Colombia and Peru. Only two countries are having some banking problems. They are south and in the center of the continent, not Bolivia.
The economy in Ecuador is booming and gringos are flooding the cities. Hard to find a cool apartment on the coast. Building is rocketing with huge shopping centers. People are spending money on cars and houses and many luxury items.
We have paved streets in Ecuador now! Even toilets and air conditioned bars. How bout that! T
You’re saying that the banks there are healthy, and safe? close call
Would you fix the system that feeds you? It’s a bottom up food chain that’s working upward very quickly. The die off is coming, it’s global. jacklohman
Yea, I guess I’d recognize that I pushed too far. “Greed” is this country’s #1 problem, and our politicians share in it all through campaign cash. ONLY public funding of campaigns will fix it, and ONLY a major turnover in 2014 will do it.
Ignore the promises. If you are happy with our nation’s direction, vote for incumbents. If not, vote for challengers. MD
That is the most defeated mentality on earth. Are you really so bogged down by the system the only thing you can do to protest is vote for challengers? lol. pathetic. jacklohman
I agree totally dude!!!! lol Pathetic. IF anything, vote independant or no vote at all!!! Jill Ellen Schulze
No, america is worse. The pirates are only in africa. What about Europe where I personally know life is nicer and less stressful. Well that depends if material stuff is important of course (most all of the americans I met in my 31yrs abroad where consumed with being matwerialistic or tryng too hard to be destitute losers. I want to leave soon but my [partner is an american and so is our daughter. Although I grew up in Europe I am trapped in the U.S. It is verty hard. I have never found a more superficial, damaging society than here in the U.S Sonia
I know how you feel… I’m not European so I can’t escape to Europe, I’m Latin American so I could move back to my country or to another Latin country with low restrictions on immigration. However, it’s very hard, I was brought to the US when I was 13y/o and since then I have always dreamed of leaving this place. Trying to pick a career was very difficult because I also didn’t want to pay 100k on a degree here to move to another country and make significantly less, so I’ve always taken a conservative and safe route and have no debts, but now I’m so unhappy because I’m almost 30 and I still live here, and I’m afraid I will never escape this country.
It is really scary because I really don’t have a big family, I don’t know where to go, and I’m scared that I won’t be able to support myself in a different country since I am single and I’m just used to taking care of myself alone in the United States. I don’t have a big family, I really don’t have anyone to welcome me in another country, and I feel really scared. I wish I could find a way to be autonomous, have my own business, or telecommute so that I could finally move. This culture is depressing, and I’ve realized that it’s not just me, because when I talk to other immigrants (Latin, Europeans, etc.) they feel very similar. In fact, after so many years here, my friends are immigrants with the exception of one or two Americans, and even with those American friends I feel like they don’t understand because they still have a blind over their eyes and believe that their country is wonderful. piccadillybabe
To go back to your homeland where unemployment is close to 50% does not bode well for America. Best wishes to you. lois752
like Stephanie said I cant believe that people can make $9561 in a few weeks on the internet. did you see this web page www.KEP2.com Mondobeyondo
Honey – if you made $9561 in a few weeks on the internet, I sure wouldn’t be posting about it on The Economic Collapse Blog. I’d be off surfing on my private island in Tahiti.
*burp*
Tell me how is Barcelona? Is it a good place to live? Sergi William
Yes. Good weather. Mountain & beach. In that case it is. The problem is the econOmic crisis, wich is everywhere. BeenThere
“in many foreign nations, the police are far more corrupt than they generally are in the United States”. I find that hard to believe Max Never the less, I never thought I would see the day when Americans would want to leave their country. MeMadMax
Hey, that corruption can be taken advantage of… Always keep a $20 dollar bill on you, and you will never go to jail….
I experienced that first hand when I lived in Mexico for a while! infocyde
Good post. Another thing to consider too is that if things go south the natives might look at America as the country to blame for the world being in Chaos. If you stick out in those countries it might be a worse place to be. Just food for thought. Mudpie
Great point. I went to a fairly USA-friendly country to live and work for a fairly long period of time and though they liked me, there is definitely a bias against Americans in particular. It is based on the fact that they get lots of stuff from TV and are ignorant as well; and also, honestly, that we really are NOT anymore the nice guys we used to be and they have a reason to dislike us often. MeMadMax
The Gastonguays stole my idea! Anyways, I find the idea of leaving the states not only a necessary truth for me and my families’ survival, but an exciting endeavor. I dunno, maybe it’s because I have been exposed to other countries, then look at the US and go, well… we just suck. We may be “rich and powerful”, but we suck at the same time. One time, I was walking down the street of Santiago, and saw a country rich in culture, but not money, but yet, every single person I ran into there seemed… happy. And you could feel it too. I have also been to lima peru, bahli indonesia, melbourne austrailia, hobart tasmania, and some places in the middle east. Anyways, each time, same deal(with the exception of the middle east) you could feel the attitude there, festive and fun. The feeling I get in the states is disconnected and cold. People don’t want to socialize with each other here. Maybe it’s because of technology overload. People don’t get out of their cars and walk anymore. There’s no street vendors or anything either… It feels dead here. >_> Mudpie
Living abroad was an eye opener for me. I loved the place we were in and truly, now after that America does just suck and seem filled with artificial people and things at this point in history. Seeing from another perspective cemented for me that our culture is vile and we are a moral sewer. Seeing the attack on George Zimmerman was almost more than I could bear. We have turned into a seething cesspool.
But again, the grass is always greener and even though America is in bad shape, truly emigrating to another place is pretty radical and not necessarily the solution. Making a community of similar thinking friends here and enjoying the natural beauty of the US (even people in the beautiful place I was in appreciate our natural beauty in the West, e.g.,) may be the best way to go for most.
But I salute you : ) And may still join you at some point.
One thing for SURE. We all need to become less emotionally connected to the construct of “America” as that was, even 6 years ago. Those days are gone for good. We need to be clear eyed on moving ahead on our principles.
For instance, I hear the Star Spangled Banner and scoff these days, for we are no longer the land of the free and home of the brave.
What was true is now a lie. xander cross
Attack on Zimmerman? He murdered a kid and molested his cousin. Are white people this sick and evil? Mudpie
Yeah, white people are that sick and evil. Sequoia
You are probably mixed with white European blood in your ansestry too.About everyone is mixed now days. there are good and evil in every race and nationality and it isn,t fair just to point the finger at one race or people. And about Zimmerman,he is a Hispanic white and Jewish with a black grandfather in Peru.He is mixed. We all need to come together as one people against this evil government that has been hijacked by foreign off shore banks and come together as Americans. Seanyboyo
Zimmerman is not white European in any of his heritage , his father is Ashkenazy Jew not European! His mother is native Peruvian Indian with a black father! I’m white European , my ancestry is traced back 300 years on both sides of may family to N&S Ireland, immigrated to England in the 19th century, my genetic grouping is R1b (like most Western Europeans!) all this makes me white ( the way the above racist zander utilises my ethnicity to place people with no connection to white Europeans amongst us to facilitate his ideological racist hate for white people’s is a classic definition of racist ideology)! Zander & his ilk need to be fought , because should our ethnicity become a minority be holding to zander & co we’ll find no leftist PC defenders, only belligerent intolerance that’ll surpass our worst nightmares! All people deserve ethnic & cultural protection , whites included! Ray J Cimbalnik
I AGREE!!! You hit the nail on the head! People in all of the other countries that you mentioned might have less money, BUT…they ARE much happier and more friendly people. I have experienced that for myself when I have been in other countries. As a side note, they are also generally healthier than the people in America. I am now in the process of trying to tie up the loose ends so I can expatriate just as SOON as I can. Prophecy2008
What country do you feel is the best? infocyde
Also I have noticed a lot of my expat friends still have their income sources somehow tied to the US (supporting tourism in their new country, online businesses, remote workers). They are proud to have left, but I see this as a giant gaping hole in their strategies. As a temporary solution OK, but if your checks come from the USA or USA/Western tourism if there is a crash you might be very vulnerable. Mudpie
It is true. VERY hard to do business overseas unless one is very rich. So many hurdles. Banking customs, rules (though where I lived the banks were MUCH better, real people answered phones politely, GOD I hate what we have become), time zone issues, it is hard to get things done in the states from overseas. Sequoia
If someone moves to another country and is dependent on Social Security checks or other income from the USA,will be screwed when the S#!T hits the fan and the USA goes bankrupt completely. If you relocate to another country,keep this in mind, that you will mabey need another source of income. If you move out to another country,now is the time to try to open a business or find some work,because one day those checks are not going to come to you and you will be poor just like in the USA. You need to have a stragety plan before leaving. infocyde
I will say this though, as much as I love America, I think it will only be harder to get out and we are on a trajectory towards fascism. It won’t get any easier to leave if that is your plan IMHO. This doesn’t mean that you will be successful if you leave, but the option will get harder as time progresses. Another factor to add into the calculus. frankensteingovernment
At some point, you begin to realize that the government is simply going to tax you to death. They have no other strategy to cope with the massive debt they have incurred.
So these folks are seeing the obvious. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better and it’s clear that their US Countrymen are a bunch of apathetic cowards.
Expatriating is looking very good to me also. MeMadMax
There was a post on ZeroHedge of a guy that described the united states as a “Prissy cheerleader who thinks the world revolves around her”. And that if she didn’t show up for school, the place would close down and her friends would commit suicide and the teachers would quit… well, not quite all that but you get the gist right? Fact of the matter is, the world does not really care about the US… Neither like nor dislike, they just want to get on with their lives just like the rest of us… And, “third world countries” are really not that bad… They got it all, mostly, too, TV’s, cars, toilets… etc…. Mudpie
Again, I pretty much agree. But you cannot deny that we have a strong tradition of liberty here that many people still carry. Just saying.
I noticed the same thing about America though Max. And many overseas economies are booming and more free than ours. I even thought China felt more economically vibrant (though I would be afraid to post this over there – it will be a few years before the NSA starts disappearing people for these kinds of things). davidmpark
There’s old wisdom, “A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and mortgage.” Guess that’s what’s going on here.
Wish we could leave; always wanted to go back to the ancestral homes in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bristol, Brighton and the small village of Parc in France (where family legend has it we got our name from Charlemagne himself). But my family and I have no choice but to stay put.
I’d rather fight it out here. I know we have a collapse and an international + civil wars coming and have been studying the possible effects and outcomes, and have come to a conclusion: America is going to be better off long term than the rest of the world.
My reasoning is that if Obama or the next president becomes a fascist dictator, they will fail and the United States will collapse. If not a dictator is elected, then the coming perfect storm will get us also.
Many are leaving for reasoning that they will be better off elsewhere. Not true – they’ll get into the wars to come anyway; cast into the Benedict Arnold or Coriolanus roles. 2Gary2
I think those leaving are sick of the crazy conservatives like paul ryan who takes from the poor and gives to the rich. davidmpark
Doesn’t Bloomberg have a Bahamas home that he goes to each weekend in taxpayer dime with NYC cops also paid for at NYC expense? vizeet
I think many countries may be safer than US because US has gun culture which makes it very very unsafe at the time of riots. People may look for more foreigner friendly, having good natural resource and still not heavily industrialized. I can think New Zealand as one. GSOB
O beautiful for spacAnnotateious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet Whose stern impassioned stress A thoroughfare of freedom beat Across the wilderness! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife. Who more than self their country loved And mercy more than life! America! America! May God thy gold refine Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine!
O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for halcyon skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties God shed his grace on thee Till souls wax fair as earth and air And music-hearted sea!
O beautiful for pilgrims feet, Whose stem impassioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness! God shed his grace on thee Till paths be wrought through Wilds of thought By pilgrim foot and knee!
O beautiful for glory-tale God shed his grace on thee Till selfish gain no longer stain The banner of the free!
O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam God shed his grace on thee Till nobler men keep once again Thy whiter jubilee!
What an incredibly gorgeous song.
But it is about the people of a different era.
Still, I get your point. It is a hard decision either way. lavista4u
I’m from Asia. Americans are the most talented people in the world. Its just that they ain’t getting the opportunity they deserve.
You are worth more than what America tells you. Just come out of America and see how your value goes up from Zero to Infinity in a day.
Agree, other countries are a bit struggle too but its not as bad for guys of the caliber of Americans. I admit, I’m not as talented or educated as some Americans who are living in depression and unemployment, but i earn a good income and that has allowed me to travel places.
First, learn a new foreign language, if you can learn at-least one foreign language say Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Russia, German…The whole world suddenly opens for you. With your English skills and local language…you will be on top of the competitions. There are very few people in non-English speaking countries who would then have the skill-set as you would.
Just learn a new language. I guarantee you will experience a New World. Joyce J
I live in Florida, and I keep telling people, if you want to learn something, learn Spanish! I have a feeling it’s going to be needed in the next few decades. I try to do as much traveling as I can. I am not able to do it like I would, but still. I think for some Americans – we need to learn about the cultures in our OWN back yards as well! You got the Cajuns, Native Americans, and others. Apokalupto Aletheia
I took Hebrew. I may never meet a Spanish only person, or an Asian language only person. But I will meet God one day. I know I have ticked Him off enough already and He still forgives me. The least I could do is speak His language when I meet Him face to face. sherpeace
My brother is being treated like a king in China. They practically have him running the school. Here they made him quit saying he was racist after they put the worst kids from several grades in his class. He speaks Chinese and the children LOVE him; the parents and admin too. HORIZON
Thank you. Ken
Moved to New Zealand 14 years ago. I haven’t lived in America for almost 20 years now. I can tell you that it takes a significant amount of time to rebuild your life when moving countries. Even though English is the main language here there are a lot of aspects to consider that would be subject to change. With that said there are a lot of advantages living here as opposed to the States. The government is much more accountable and visible to the ordinary citizen, i.e. you can actually bump into a member of Parliament or a government minister on the street…. without them having a phalanx of security guards. There is no oppressive police presence. Only 4.5 million people in a country the size of Japan. Yes it is on the ring-of-fire but nothing is without risk. USKiwi
We did the same about 5 years ago and feel that living here is significantly better than the US. Moose is Loose
I stayed in NZ for about 4 months… Auckland down halfway through the north island. I loved it as it was a clean and polite country, however viewing it on a map is a bit of a fright. It’s strange, as a born American I must have lived in over 30 of my fifty states including Alaska (but not hawaii), and always on the coast until just recently when I had my first land-locked experience in Indiana, and now living in central canada far away from any ocean. I feel (possibly falsely) so much more secure here. No giant tectonic plates running along my coastlines, no volcanoes nearby to speak of, no oceans to rise over the landmass… wind usually comes south-east in the northern hemisphere, so our wind current sweeps down from the eastern tip of Russia through the Yukon to us. Not much to speak of as far as population above us…. but when I was in NZ, I FELT the distance from any landmass on the planet. It was like the fresh ocean air, even in the middle of the city, always reminded me that I lived on a tiny blip in a water world. And driving up into the mountains gives you some spectacular views of the waters… but also a bit scary! to look 290 degrees around you and see the curvature of the earth on the vast oceanic horizon is a big wake up call on just how far out you are! TR
No one can escape global warming & NTHE. Ralfine
After all, most Americans descended from immigrants, refugees, slaves. Mudpie
Why we were so strong.
It takes a tremendous act of courage to emigrate for good.
And back then they did not even have computers or TV to stay in touch with the old country.
I never cease to be amazed at how low our character has fallen from what it used to be. Pathetic. And happened so quickly.
The Left’s cunning is brilliant. Ralfine
Don’t blame it on the left.
Emigrants and the left have one thing in common: leaving behind the old and trusted and heading for new opportunities.
It is the right that wants to conserve the old and allow very little movement.
In chaos theory chaos allows for creativity, while order is stagnation.
Making a new country in a new continent does not work with conservatives, you need progressives for that.
The only danger is, that even the most progressive become conservative and eventually are left behind when they do not progress themselves. davidmpark
When will the rationing start in the US? Should be before the world war gets hot. Ralfine
You mean food stamps? davidmpark
I was originally thinking of US WWII style rationing. But that’s a good point about the food stamps. With our situation, we had no choice but to go on it. They don’t supply enough for a whole month – enough for 2 people; not 5.
Food stamps as the new rationing. Good observation! Melissa McGuire
I live in Scotland, Great Britain. So I don’t know what it’s like to live in America. Carl
Australia is as racist as the United States mary
There are racists everywhere in the world. Where Ive lived in the states, majority of people are not racist. Its a big enough country that youre not on top of each other and people are used to living with people from other areas. Those who are racist, usually have their reasons, often times bad experiences with a few from that race. Most people do not generalize though and see people as individuals. Sounds like you dont, youre in fact “generalizing”. Apokalupto Aletheia
The problem with Australia for me at least is the Sydney Funnel Web Spider…or the very venomous snakes, or that huge desert. I hate the heat, and most definitely hate “Tiny Critters that Kill…for a thousand Alex.” condaggitt
If I had $100,000+ in student loans and very little prospects of ever paying it off…i’d move too.,,
Life in the usa not worth having that over your head for decades. Cubatraveler
I have not lived in the U.S. in 25 years and I would not go back now. Everything I see has changed for the worse there and I am doing much better out of the U.S. than I ever did in it. If you feel like you don’t belong there anymore, you are probably right and should immigrate. No regrets from me. Manny
If things are going to get bad in the United States, maybe they will be as bad anywhere else? Richard
Why has my comment been deleted three times this morning? chris
Sinking ship? Not that i’m saying the people leaving are rats of course! Rufus T Firefly
The quicker these ignorant religious wackos leave the country, the better off we will be. Maria S Biddle
As flawed as she is, this is home and I will fight for her, not flee. xander cross
Yeah right. You will work for the Chinese and then complain about the very jobs your white male CEO’s sold to them in the first place. Smithfield, va comes to mind. mary
She should complain, as should we all. We help bring more of them to middle class, while we hurt ourselves. Glad to see they are doing better but not at our own expense. I personally know several Companies affiliated with China, and if they left and brought the jobs back home, a lot of our current issues would be solved. And not just in China either. If our own Companies cant be loyal to the US, I dont support them. I understand the situation for some of them(shipping costs etc) or reduced labor costs helped their survival, but the government should be doing more to bring them back with incentives. The rest of us need to get innovative and help create more jobs. This country has survived issues before, they will rise above them again. Negativity defeats us. Positive attitudes with hard work and creativity can save us and help us to rise above our problems. Unify ourselves and create jobs so that families can remain in the same cities, we need to revitalize our family situations and our Communities to reach out to one another. Its up to all of us as individuals. If you see defeat and dont make an effort, then youre going down with the ship. I would rather try to save it. We can all be leaders, and we need strong, energetic leaders to encourage us with communication…speak to us as a nation, revitalize us with their spirit and leadership. A leadership which calls on those in the country to take us down the right paths to renew the economy and rebuild the nation. Jackie Milton
I personally support going galt. Become less productive on purpose. Do not earn anymore than it takes to survive.Keep yourself under the poverty level. Do not enable the government to extort more taxes by working harder and being more productive than others. If people will study the history of the past 40 yrs and the paradigm of today they will find that it is not beneficial to be extremely productive in our society. sherpeace
You can blame that on laws passed by Republicans to give welfare to corporations and leave nothing for the middle class. TA
Welfare is wrong no matter who the recipient. It is the initiation of force that provides the welfare state. seth datta
I don’t know what the future holds, but there is the potential for social cataclysm in many parts of the world. I don’t think the UK will survive as we have too many people compared to local resources; we only survive because of fraudulent banking practices of the City of London Corporation.
Seems the better English-speaking countries are Canada, Australia and New Zealand. If you add Germany, Chile and Singapore to this list, you have the best countries for white people to live in future. For non-Caucasians, mostly these countries or a few extra ones may be fine, depending. The US and ireland are both fence-sitters, as the administration of the US is enslaving the world and the US through enforced globalisation practices designed to make the rich more wealthy. So it could go either way.
I do believe the US stood for something that no other nation achieved, and that this is something worth fighting for. markthetruth
In the end you will most likely survive in a place you grew up in and are familiar with. And I’m a believer you are where you are for a reason. Stay Put ! Like all living things they learn how to adapt.
the end… K
If I had very young children. I might feel I owed it to them to leave. But since I do not, I will stay. All of us have the choice to run, or take a stand. Running always seems easier, so many do it. As the encroaching darkness of Fascism spreads throughout this Country. I will continue to hold up my small light in the darkness. And if one day they come and snuff out that light, so be it. Some times taking a stand for the right thing, is the only action a decent person has left. piccadillybabe
America is resilient. We bounce back because most of us carry that “small light in the darkness” and ride out the storms and carry “hope” in our hearts. It’s just hard to see all the insanity and chaos going on now days and all for what? It’s gotten so out of control. Jade
I have had the same thought, but likely I grow tired of being a Delphi that no one listens too even though the evidence is laid out in front of them. T
Amen. Couldn’t have said it better. I’m going to make a stand, and fight in my own small way. JailBanksters
But the only ones leaving are the ones that helped to create the problems. And their the only ones that doesn’t matter where they move to. It’s not like they contributed a lot to society, you would probably be better off without them to be honest. It would be a totally different story if all the Peasants left leaving all the rich behind. Vlad Lenin
If it was a pure economic collapse, we would stay. But, it won’t be. This country is headed towards a future that would make Adolf Hitler proud. When the collapse comes, the people in power will use that as an opportunity to go all in. Many of us will be imprisoned (or just disappear), there will be confiscation on a national scale… we’re going to loose everything we have, so why not leave now while we still have something. Look at Lincoln and FDR, they’re already done stuff like this. Americans are bred to be fascist lites (we call the American system). When the end comes and the majority side with the government, what are you going to do?
And no it’s not just the rich leaving. Our group is all middle class professionals…tired of being handed our cards. And yes I said group, we have found ways to nullify or attenuate the article’s valid points. There is a way.
This country just isn’t worth the trouble anymore. Mudpie
Good points here as well.
People disappeared in Argentina. And Mexico. And in many other places. The USA was unique. Not so much anymore. Jim
I am a dual citizen, living outside the US. At the moment I am seriously considering giving up my US citizenship due to the cost to keep it. Very few who live in the US realize (and not all expats) the paper work required to live outside the US and hold either a green card or citizenship. I certainly don’t have much and the cost in time is huge and a mistakes (not intentional avoidance, mistakes) can cost a large part of the account plus tax penalties. The cost is also professional, if I have too much authority at my company I have to report various aspects of the company to the IRS. The report has to be made even if it breaks the law of country the company is based in. It is becomning inpossible to open or maintain a forgien bank account in many countries if one is a US citizen as the banks don’t want to deal with the IRS and the penalties. US citizenship simple isn’t worth the cost to me. Mudpie
We almost reached that point.
You are so right about the paperwork. robert burns
I would not define “many” the same way as if there is a mass migration. There isn’t and won’t be. First, it requires money. Second, it requires skills. Third, it requires another country willing to take you for either your money or your skills. It is difficult and time consuming. People who have done it struggle usually and some come back because they cannot bear not being “near” family. Even with Skype it is hard to remain abroad without huge commitment. Far more people are trying to get into the US. Many are losers such as from Mexico but there are many, many well educated ones from mainland China and India. They still view this as a land of opportunity compared to their home countries. Even if I could get into one of the chosen countries: NZ, Australia or Canada, I would not do it at this stage of life (age 67). Not enough energy for it and unwilling to be away from children. I tend to think more along the lines of a favorite Vietnam related song: NOWHERE TO RUN TO. Jodi
I think the best plan is to be prepared. As nice as it sounds to move away from it all, it would be difficult to adjust. Charlie
What if the citizen’s of the countries that people are running to for whatever reason begin to hate Americans. These peoples lives could be in serious jeopardy. jakartaman
I have lived in several countries. America has gone to the dogs and the whole world will be at war over basic resources. Why did America become so powerful? Two Oceans Freedom Once the SFTF there will be a scramble for “Things” There will be a lot of death from violence, starvation, thirst, disease etc. even possible nuclear? Once things settle down to a reasonable level people will reconstitute themselves and their living environments – It will be like the 1850’s. Where would you rather be at this time – I want to be in America where there is a lot of natural resources. Belize – really – the coconuts will run out soon! David Kessel
Another important thing- if not ‘the’ most important thing to consider is visas. You will relocate as what? Most countries either want a special skill or money from you. Otherwise, you’re a tourist with no rights whatsoever and your tourist visa may or may not be extended. And also, most countries protect their job market from foreigners. Even if you have a skill, they just may not want to hire you. The exception is maybe teaching English for a pittance. Ralfine
And you need to be married to take your sweetheart with you. Some people are not even allowed to marry everywhere or their marriages are not recognised as such.
Your children might not have the right to stay after they turn 18, if they have neither a job nor citizenship. David Kessel
If you are both 1st world citizens, you don’t need to be married. If you are a 1st world citizen and/or your sweetheart is say a Filipina, then you will have to be married but still the immigration may not grant her a tourist visa. Ralfine
And if we are both boys, … David Kessel
That is even worse. That is why any article about resettling must touch upon the visa issue by country as the first topic, not culture shock-shmulture shock, The next thing is how and where to make a living- work permits, etc. Then, and only then come other relatively minor things described above. Ralfine
Yes, culture shock is something you can worry about, when you have the permission to live (and work) there together.
And language? Well, just learn it. Richard
That makes four times my comment has been deleted. I wold like to know why. Ralfine
Left my home 20 years ago for a job in China. It was a culture shock. No living in England. Another culture shock.
Just one regret: I didn’t learn Chinese. ArigatouGozaimas
Switching countries is mainly an option for the very wealthy. And for those who are not wealthy, where do they go?
Canada might become an option in the future. they have more solid fundamentals to their economy, a wealth of resources, and their socialized medical system will function better than Obama care.
In the U.S. itself there is a large diversity between regions. So most of the migration might actually be within the U.S. and not require renunciation of citizenship. I could envision a movement of population to the energy producing regions of the U.S. (Texas & North Dakota).
Perhaps migration to the Midwest could become international at some point in the future. If there is a state and municipal debt crisis and New York, California, and Illinois need federal bailouts will the energy producing states stay in the Union and fork over the money to save them?
Imagine the U.S. in three parts. The west coast, the north east coast, and the middle/south. I think it is a possibility. There is nothing unifying the american people beyond a bloated government making an overabundance of rules and passing out the common currency as it sees fit. (redistribution of wealth) apeiron
Not that I endorse emigration, but might I suggest Uruguay. Climate like coastal Georgia, constitutional republic with sane laws, less than 5% unemployment, about 3 1/2 million population half of which live in Montevideo, fertile well watered, 93% of the population is of European extraction, mostly catholic…no Muslims. Montevideo is a short distance from Buenos Aries. But, of course, Spanish is the predominate language. El Pollo de Oro
Apeiron: If I moved to Latin America, Uruguay would be at the top of my list along with Chile. I’ve known Italians and Spaniards who felt right at home in Monteovideo or Santiago and felt like they had never left Europe. And those cities are relatively safe (certainly compared to Caracas or Guatemala City).
Pero si un estadounidense no hable español, no recomiendo mudarse a Uruguay o Chile. Si un americano no tiene ganas de hablar español, es mejor quedarse en un país ingleshablante. NoSheDidn’t!
Have you ever read the book “How to hide your assets and disappear” by Edmund Pankau? It’s a bit outdated but the book has many low tech tips and tricks that come in handy. I guess it would be a “starter” book to get into that topic. I was born and raised in Mexico city, learned English at a bilingual private British school…boy was it a shock when i moved to the US! For starters the accents, like the southern one, the NY one, the Boston one…golly! Been living in the USA for 10 years now, i picked up the slang pretty quick but am still baffled by the accents. People looked at me weird when i said the words “petrol”, “banister”, “cupboard”, “lift”, “storey”. People also looked at me weird when i wrote words like “colour”, “neighbour”, “learned”. I’ll never forget their faces when they heard me say “i have to collect my husband”…lol… :b they probably thought i was fixin’ (southern term) to charge him for child support or smthg xD…I also got fat, because i fell in love with “Miami subs”, their hush puppies, milkshakes and deep fried fish were delicious…country fried steak with gravy, biscuits and gravy every morning…oy! chicken tenders with honey mustard…ran to Mickey D’s or Taco Bell for a snack, i put ranch on just about everything i ate and the biggest change of all: I HAD A CAR! shoot, back in Mex city i walked everywhere, never needed a car, had the subway, buses, cabs, etc. So between the foods i was eating and having a car i literally ballooned, fast…like 100 lbs in a year. It took me a while to lose the weight and get back to exercising but i finally lost the extra lbs. Talk about a culture shock! Anyway…i wouldn’t mind going to Spain next… ;b Olé pissobama
I’ll stick it out and await the better days when the adults are finally back in charge. Hopefully this country will have learned that putting spoiled rotten-to-the-core race baiting entitlement demanding free market hating socialist/progressive/Marxist Muslims in any position of power is not the road you want to go down. Muhammad Kazim
“Ab tau ghabra kai yeh kehtai hein keh mar jaaein gai Mar kai bhi chain nah paya tau kidhar jaaein gai”
(A very famous couplet in Urdu)
Translation: Feeling nervous about this world, in panic I console myself saying I would die. But even if death too doesn’t provide the desired peace of mind, where would I go?
Stick to the land of opportunities and hope for the best; keep your composure. Ready to Bail
Leaving the US is a very viable option and not nearly as difficult as some might think. I am set to leave whenever it I deem it appropriate. I own several pieces if property / housing in another country, have bank accounts / credit cards already in place, a successful business in place and Permanent Residency in the country of my choice ( won’t be identified ). Leave your arrogance and sense of entitlement at the border. Learn the language and don’t complain about how they do things.. you are there voluntarily. And no, I am not rich. Wherever you think is viable, go there. Spend lot’s of time there. Go back again and again if you can’t spend extended time there. MAKE LOCAL FRIENDS.. real ones.. not ones who think you are a rich American. Be NICE. Always. Smiles remove more obstacles than arguments. 68Impala
1,139 out of 319,000,000 or looking at it another way 99.99964% are staying. How many of the 1,139 are born here, didn’t marry a spouse from another country or left for a tax haven. Things are going downhill but I do not believe the 1,139 are the canaries in the coal mine. chris
You’ve not understood. That’s 1,139 who have RENOUNCED their citizenship on leaving. That number is only a tiny fraction of those that left. Richard
Let’s see: The following are 10 questions to ask yourself before you decide to move to another country… Do You Speak The Language? If Not, How Will You Function? There are plenty of countries where you can get by in English – even where English is not the main language (e.g. India. Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. etc.) Richard
Let’s see: The following are 10 questions to ask yourself before you decide to move to another country… Do You Speak The Language? If Not, How Will You Function? There are plenty of countries where you can get by in English – even where English is not the main language (e.g. India. Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. etc.) How Will You Make A Living? Teach English As A Foreign Language. Google TOEFL. Countries like Thailand, Korea and Malaysia are CRYING OUT for English teachers and YOU DO NOT NEED ANY EXPERIENCE. Just the fact of being able to speak English fluently is often enough. It need not at all be “very difficult to find a job”. Sorry, that is not an excuse. Will You Be Okay Without Your Family And Friends? Yes, make new ones. And you will probably speak more to your family abroad than you did when living near them. (Skype and Magicjack, for example, offer FREE phone calls anywhere in the States from anywhere in the world. Sorry, excuse just vanished. Joyce J
I’m finishing up my degree in technical writing, and they are looking for people all over places in Latin America to teach English. TESOL certifications aren’t very hard to get (if indeed you need one). It doesn’t pay a lot but (depending on the country) it’s a pretty decent salary. Some require you only be a native English speaker. Some are for public schools, some private. Just depends. And if you can speak both English and Spanish (which I only know enough to get by), it’s better. I seriously thought about doing it. Richard
Have You Factored In Weather Patterns And Geological Instability? Hmmm… ask that question of those who live in Florida, California, the mid-west.. Need I say more? Oh, sorry drought??? DROUGHT?? Oh please. Give me a break! What Will You Do For Medical Care? Pay less than a tenth of what you pay in the States. Next question? Oh sorry, “get the care you needed (in the States)” Are you trying to make me laugh? American doctors are among the most careless, ignorant, greedy, distasteful professionals in the world. In my 22 years in the United States I can regale you with stories that would turn your hair. More people die of medical malpractice in the United States of Stupidity than anywhere else in the world. Are You Moving Into A High Crime Area? Then don’t. Whatever the above statement is, it is NOT a reason not to stay in the (crime-ridden) United States. Richard
Are You Prepared For “Culture Shock”? If you haven’t already suffered “culture shock” from living in the United States in recent years, you won’t notice it anywhere else either. If you do move to another country, you may quickly find that thousands of little things that you once took for granted in the U.S. are now very different. And there is a very good chance that many of the “amenities” that you are accustomed to in the U.S. will not be available in a foreign nation and that your standard of living will go down. True. And if your standard of living hasn’t already “gone down” in recent times while living in the United States, you are very lucky. What Freedoms and Liberties Will You Lose By Moving? Yes, our liberties and our freedoms are being rapidly eroded in the United States. But in many other nations around the world things are much worse. You may find that there is no such thing as “freedom of speech” or “freedom of religion” in the country that you have decided to move to. Nobody is suggesting moving to such countries. This is a silly comment designed to dissuade you from leaving the United States. Michael, I am sure you are quite shocked to see from the Comments how many people agree with the idea of leaving. Probably not what you hoped to see. sherpeace
I experienced culture shock years ago moving from Upstate New York to New Orleans, LA. It was worse than any culture shock going to any other country, including El Salvador in the 80s when it was embroiled in civil war! Dubaibonddude
Its not easy anywhere. Agreed. But catastrophe is everywhere from Cyprus to Greece and Spain to Syria and Egypt. Sanctions on Iran…etc.
Without a job and income, most are doomed, anyways, wherever they live.
Rich, who are people with above USD 1m in net worth and number about 25m (0.35% of World pop.) and people with over USD 100k are 334m out of 7bn which is just 4.77% so approx 5% have USD 100k and more.
What about the remainder 95% who do not even have access to a computer, and in most cases to food and water? They have no clue what a financial crisis means! I do not think they are thinking giving up any citizenships or moving abroad. They dont even have a dollar to eat a square meal or a bus fare. They are not reading any internet articles, too.
Only 5% of the planet, at most, will be and is worried but the remainder from the jungles of Amazon to the Savannahs of Africa or interiors of China and India will make it through just fine, unless someone takes away their money and job,…but hey they never had one in the first place!
This was more tongue in cheek but does anyone care to comment? El Pollo de Oro
It isn’t hard to see why someone would want to get the hell out of The Banana Republic of America, formerly Gli Stati Uniti. From the shortage of decent jobs to the death of the American middle class to an increasingly abusive police state to an abomination of a health care system, the reasons to leave this collapsing hellhole are numerous. This banana republic is not the America I grew up in. But if you’re going to leave, there is much to consider. I know some American expatriates who really enjoy living overseas and have no desire to return to the BRA, but other Americans would be absolutely miserable in another country. It depends on the individual.
If you’re the type of person who enjoys speaking more than one language and has a sense of adventure, you might do really well as an expatriate. I’ve known Americans who spoke perfect French and fit right in when they moved to France or Belgium.
On the other hand, if you’re the type of American who makes a beeline for McDonalds the minute you get to Amsterdam or gets upset because someone in Rome spoke to you in Italian……you won’t make a very good expatriate.
So again, it depends on the individual. El Pollo de Oro
If you do stay: remember that our once-great country is now a banana republic, and the misery will only get worse for the vast majority of Americans. Below, some savvy individuals express the gravity of the situation, and smart people will heed their warnings.
“Our country’s vital signs are tanking—not just from the monetary area, but from a liberty standpoint as well. We are going down the path that other failed governments and institutions have gone down historically, and I don’t see it turning around.”—The Patriot Nurse
“The cities are going to look like Dodge City. They’re going to be uncontrollable. You’re going to have gangs in control. Motorcycle marauders. You’re not going to have enough police or federales—just like Mexico—to control the situation.” —Gerald Celente
“I live in a place in Tennessee where people started eating GMO food in 1995, and now, it’s 18 years later—and they’ve been poisoned. They walk around like they’re zombines. They are dying. If you look at the life expectancy from 1990 until now of somebody without a high school educiation in America, the life expectancy has dropped 5 years for women and 3 years for men. The Great Depression has been where I live for years. You have everybody eeking along on social security or disability. The food is poisoning them. The chemtrail spread over their head is poisoning them. For them, Armaggedon has already come.”—Catherine Austin Fitts, president of Solari, Inc.
“The American labor force has, in effect, been turned into a Third World labor force, where the only jobs available are in lowly paid domestic services.”—Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
“We’re sandwiched between authoritarian government and street thugs.”—Alex Jones
“When you reduce people to a level of desperation, it becomes far easier to control them—and that’s what we’re seeing. ”—Chris Hedges
Sad, but could end up true. sherpeace
Good points, all. Alika Nganuma Toshihiko Cripe
Well damn then Id love to live in different country. And i cook my own food anyway so that settles it. Fred
Hi Michael.Enjoy your website(s),all three of them. If you don’t mind telling,where do you currently reside?Thanks…Fred Trailer Park Investor
Yes I am not independently wealthy, in fact I owe and owe and owe, so I guess I will have to stay put. At least I have a bag of beans and a bag of rice, so I guess I am good to go. Concerned Boy
This is a great forum to promote paranoia treatments!!! Wally
The only issue I see with leaving is that this is a Global problem and not only a US problem. When the US economy goes it will take a lot of the world down with it. There may not be a safe and sound place left. ArigatouGozaimas
For English speakers there is Canada, The United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Kenya, Belize, New Zealand and Australia for starters. TrailerParkOverpriced
I have a friend who is moving to the Atlantic provinces since it is away from it all….the person lived in Toronto for 20 years and like many other residents, the immigration, cheap foreign labour programme, youth unemployment and crimes committed by youth and expensive housing is making Toronto a future Chicago where there is a few haves and lots of have-nots who can’t get a chance to get out of poverty legally. ArigatouGozaimas
I wonder where the immigrants into Toronto are coming from?
It’s sad to hear that. My most powerful picture of Canada was comparing Detroit to Windsor on Google Maps. The difference is astonishing.
Though Canada is really not that much different than the U.S. politically and economically. Though it seems the version of socialism to the north is less corrupt and run more efficiently for now. It helps that Canada has no real military budget. It also helps to have a huge pile of natural resources. (As does the U.S., Russia, China, Australia). ((Socialism tends to do better when there is money in the ground. Think Norway, Saudi Arabia.)) Then there is cultural cohesiveness, Canada wins that round as well.
Sad to hear that Canada’s system is still starting to suffer the same woes as the U.S. system. It sounds like the aristocratic model of the U.S.
Unfortunately, without a strong and vibrant U.S. economy to the south the Canadian system will be strained even more. RPT34
South Africa is very dangerous for white people. piccadillybabe
I have traveled to a few foreign countries mostly Mexico, Belize, Virgin Islands and the Dominican. As beautiful as those countries are, they are third world. The US is becoming third world also but at least we have a ways to go yet before we are totally on the skids. Mexico would probably be my country of choice as I always felt kind of at home there, probably because Mexicans are very friendly, nice people and love gringos. It’s true many Americans are packing it in and out. Teaching English (ESL) in a foreign country where there is a shortage of teachers is an option. TrailerParkOverpriced
If the USA becomes third world, the entire world goes down with it economically. Think about the loss of foreign monies into poor countries and remittances. The locals of other countries will become more poorer and desperate. David Kessel
PS. You keep stress “land/country/place of birth” as if that is the only thing that defines one’s nationality and forgetting about the fact that you can be an American/Canadian/NZer, etc., by birth, or naturalization or by jus sanguinis – inherited through ancestors/parents, etc., regardless of place of birth. I was not born in the US but I’m only an American citizen and I don’t qualify for any dual nationality. There are many of us and you don’t mention as at all. Also, in 70% of the world just because you are born in the country, does not mean you are one of them now. Like being born in Japan does not suddenly make you Japanese. Guest
PS. You keep stress “land/country/place of birth” as if that is the only thing that defines one’s nationality and forgetting about the fact that you can be an American/Canadian/NZer, etc., by birth, or naturalization or by jus sanguinis – inherited through ancestors/parents, etc., regardless of place of birth. I was not born in the US but I’m only an American citizen and I don’t qualify for any dual nationality. There are many of us and you don’t mention us at all. Also, in 70% of the world, just because you are born in the country, does not mean you are one of them now. Like being born in Japan does not suddenly make you Japanese. David Kessel
PS. You keep stressing “land/country/place of birth” as if that is the only thing that defines one’s nationality and forgetting about the fact that you can be an American/Canadian/NZer, etc., by birth, or naturalization or by jus sanguinis – inherited through ancestors/parents, etc., regardless of place of birth. I was not born in the US, but I’m only an American citizen and I don’t qualify for any dual nationality. There are many of us and you don’t mention us at all. Also, in 70% of the world, just because you are born in the country, does not mean you are one of them now. Like being born in Japan does not suddenly make you Japanese. Charles
I did not see any mention of the “Economic Berlin Wall” set up against those who leave the country… Karen
I retired from the military not to long ago…… I have traveled the world, and yes American is an awesome place but so is the rest of the world to many people listen to the media and what else. Your made to believe that the rest of the world is worse off than you but it is really grand in Spain and so forth because maybe in an other country you might have to WORK Get off the couch and do something. The government there doesn’t pay you to do nothing, I remember still today, open air markets full of fresh produce REAL cheese, REAL butter, REAL bread, communities worked together. The best beer I have every drank because it is all homemade, people here have lost all since of community it is all about self. And if I could afford it I would head back to portugal Bosnian Serb
I would not suggest to any American to leave America because this nation is very, very hated in rest of the world. Even our “allies” the English hate us, and I felt this hate at their airport in London. Even my own family don’t like me anymore because I live and work in America. There is no way in the world I would suggest any American to leave this country. If I can’t find any common ground with my own “tribe” whose customs I know, whose language I speak, and where I spent some of my early years, then how in the world an American born citizen will adjust to a new environment? ian
I’ve traveled to many places recently. Other countries dont hate Americans, they just hate ‘tourist Americans.’ Be a real human in these countries and people like you just the same. greg_s
There is no shortage of comments on the web about all of the impending problems we are facing. Where does one find information about specific things that we can do NOW as individual Americans to change and, hopefully, improve things? After weeks of searching, I have found nothing other than often powerful statements of commitment to our nation, to stand by it to the death, etc. As a Vietnam combat veteran, father, and grandfather, I feel exactly the same way. Organizing, setting individual differences aside, having specific beliefs and goals seem reasonable. So does getting rid of corrupt, lying politicians including (or especially) Obama – even taking on the “elites”. These all sound like good ideas, but who is going to start the process and when? I am an oath keeper. I stand by the United States of America. I am ready to help, but where do we find information or other Americans who feel similarly? How do we start making a difference for the better? Undecider
Going down with the ship. Glory goes to God! TrailerParkOverpriced
I know someone who wants to move out from Toronto, Canada into some quiet town. He/she/it said that Toronto has so many traffic, jobs being taken away for lower wages and rent is ridiculous, and the city is unfriendly. The person is moving somewhere in the Atlantic provinces with his/her life savings and thinking of setting up a small business. One bad part of a country has a good part of the country.
America and Canada have lots of places where one can live. Find out for yourself rather than going abroad to some country where people are desperate for food or human rights are no rights.
Unless you are going to a country where your heritage is, I don’t think it’s wise to escape to say, Zimbabwe when your nationality is European. greg_s
BTW, I am a 32nd degree Mason. We have no idea how we got lumped into the groups that are considered “anti-American”. As any friend or relative of a Mason knows, we believe in God (that, along with “geometry” is what the “G” in our symbol represents). Many, if not most, of us believe that Jesus Christ is the true Son of God. We believe in the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Bible is the inspired word of God. I believe in the Communion of Saints. We exist to help, not hurt, our fellow man. Historically, Masons were architects. Shriners’ Crippled Childrens’ Hospitals, Shriners’ Burns Institutes and Speech and Language Clinics at Universities across the country did not just appear. They were built and exist because of Masons. We have members of all racial/ethnic and religious creeds and beliefs. I am tired of seeing good people bashed undeservedly and literally due to ignorance. Again, how can we be successful if we are unable to overlook individual differences? S.I. Hayakawa wrote, “A difference, in order to be a difference, has to make a difference”. The color of one’s skin, his/her religious beliefs or the shape of one’s eyes does not make a difference. Someone coming at one with an AR-15 does. Let’s pull together and become, once again, one nation under God.
As a soldier, I saw too many of my buddies fall in ‘Nam. As a V.A. therapist, the same holds true for the maiming of our veterans from the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. I do not think that we have the luxury of time. Time is not on our side. Let’s pull together before it is too late, that is, let’s pull together NOW! Graham
A rather unusual intro for a practitioner of the Royal Secret.
[Agni Ushas Mitra] chris
You must be familiar with the entity Albert Pike said is the god of Freemasonry then? RPT34
We Christians are not to be yoked with unbelievers. Please consider that command from the Lord Jesus Christ. Joe Whitman
So Masons take responsibility for turning America non-White, third world.
All brown countries are poor, unless White people find oil under their feet. Rufus T Firefly
USA to. Expatriates: you didn’t build that….so leave your fair share behind Chris
I left the US over 10 months ago to move to Paraguay to escape what is coming in the US. This is despite never even being in South America (but did years of research searching for best place) before and not knowing Spanish. It was one of the best decisions I made in my life! I laugh at the question asking about what freedoms you give up. I have much more freedom down here than US: no TSA goons, no militarized cops, some of the lowest taxes in the world, no RIAA(pirated DVDs sold almost everywhere; even cops buy them), a mostly cash economy. The government is one of the smallest in the world in terms of % spending of GDP and is actually one of the few that are solvent. Language barriers are not as bad as people think as you can say a lot with pointing, and I know people who have lived here for years without speaking virtually any Spanish. More importantly the are not stockpiling billions of bullets and tens of thousands of drones to kill their own citizens when the economy collapses. I cannot tell you what a relief it was to get out of the USA. Huge sense of peace came over me knowing that no goon squad could raid me for collecting rainwater, growing grass too high, or drinking raw milk, or just criticizing the illegal alien in chief. I could not imagine being there now when the government is openly MURDERING journalists like Hastings. Malecon
I just read your deleted comment about Nazism and fascism. Very informative. JJArise
If you have ever read a good mystery novel, you know that the author does not reveal who did it until the end of the novel…not the beginning or the middle…the end. You may have a specific individual in mind as to who the culprit is and then find out at the end that it is someone else. You may not like the answer but you are not the author. As such, the MYSTERY concerning end-time Babylon (a.k.a. Babylon the Great) was not to be revealed until the end. Read Jeremiah 50-51 and Revelation 17-18. Who is it? You know! The question is…WILL YOU RECEIVE IT!
And you wonder why people are leaving her! pray for discernment
140+ parameters describing this end time super power and yet Amerikan “Christians” still miss it.
That “great city” the book of Revelation is talking about is New York city with he UN as the modern day incarnation of the Tower of Babel– the future governing seat of the New World Order/BEAST anti-Christ kingdom. Souheil Bayoud
The real problem of America has nothing to do with economic. edward emmell
I feel for now that America is the best place for me and my family. Spain is close to economic collapse right now from what I been reading. America has a ways to go yet. America keeps printing more cash and selling bonds. We have many problems and they will get worse. Hopefully the rapture will come and my family and I will be living in heaven before the USA crashes. But for now America is a good place to line at least here in Delaware Oline Wright
I moved to Australia in 2009. I did not leave because of what America is becoming I left because I fell in love with an Australian who I met over the internet. It took a long time for us to get together legally because the costs of immigration can be high if you don’t have much money. Then there is the fact that you have to pass certain health checks and background checks etc. I am now approaching the point where I can be an Australian citizen. I will likely stay here for the rest of my life and it makes sense for me to become a citizen of the country I am living in. My problem is do I give up the citizenship of my birth? can I become a citizen of both? I know from a friend that when you become a citizen your visa/permanent residency is canceled because it is no longer considered necessary therein lies the rub. Will I be able to keep my American Passport if I apply for an AUstralian one as well? because that would be what I would have to do if I ever chose to return to the states for a visit to my family. I would need my American passport for the trip to America and my Australian Passport for the trip back to Australia which is now my home. Archie1954
The main reason to leave the US is a moral one so obviously it wasn’t mentioned in this propaganda piece, that is the constant military warmongering. I personally would be too upset to live in a country that relishes warmongering, killing and destruction as much as the US does and even worse to be so grossly hypocritical about it! RarefiedSnotress
The more weirdo Preppers that leave, the better. Johnny
I moved to Canada 2 years ago, and never regreted it. Strong economy, good job, low crim rate, free health care and a government that respects privacy. The USA is collapsing and I am sad but I would never return from paradise:) peace angel
After 40 years of studying the New World Order coming to being in the US and Knowing the future of Americans is in the Fema camps and knowing that recently the US imported 3 million foreign troops to take us all to the camps I am leaving.
Americans have had decades of time to stop the NWO in America and have not and I have decided that America is too dumbed down and drugged up now to make intelligent decisions. The American Psychiatric Assoc. reported this year that 50% of all Americans are “clinically depressed” and that one in 25 Americans are sociopaths and one in 100 Americans are psychopaths. This is a very sick nation being poisoned by the government and it is the most dangerous nation on earth that is NOT at war.
I have decided to move to the Sunshine Coast of Canada. There are only two concentration camps in BC and they are not operable like ours. They are not hiring internment guards and are not yet at the place as the US is in creating the NWO.
The US is the test case for the NWO and Agenda 21 and soon things are going to be unbearable.
Almost three million ppl. are expatriating to other nations every year and most of them blog about it. IF you want to leave then the best place to learn about the transition is from the expats who have already done it.
I lived in Mexico three times without knowing Spanish and had no problems. Today Mexico is a war zone because of the US failed war on drugs and that is sad and yet ppl are still moving there which is crazy.
The world is a billion ppl overpopulated and crime among young ppl is real worldwide and will only continue, but the US is the most violent nation on earth that is not at war and far more dangerous than any of the many nations I have researched moving to, but what is most obvious is that expats are far more happy than they ever were in the US. Life has become too hard here for most and far too expensive by design and our politicians will not stop without an armed revolution and no one is talking about that. Tobias Smith
it is time to eat a tuna fish sandwich sherpeace
Most of these people left when Bush II was president. They didn’t like what he was doing, and on top of that, many thought that the elections were stolen (including Me). Bush started a lot of the problems but Obama doesn’t seem that interested in reversing his laws, etc., so most don’t feel a need to come back. Obama haters are not leaving, except for the Billionaires, but the truth is they have been leaving for a while. They made their money off the American middle class, but they don’t want to pay the taxes or spend their money here. They are hypocrites of the worst kind. John Citizen
Your assessment of the current state in America is wrong. It is very bad here under the progressives. I do not know why Bahamas is not as popular spot as one would think. I really need to get out of here. I live in Florida now which has no income tax but the country is turning into a police state and if Hillary becomes president in 2016, it is adios for me. My country was once great, now it is full of freeloaders and leeches with their king in the white house. I really want to leave this country, it is in permanent decline. Thank you liberals.[sarc] Alex Macintyre Gore
Come to Australia…..ex citizens of the USA, we ain’t much different from you…well maybe our food, our jokes, the way we talk…..lol Venci
well, i would love to come to Australia, but there is no way … Australia Gov. is asking for visas, e.t.c … any ideas on your end? sherpeace
Maybe we should all learn to sail. that might be the safest place to be! 14482302
I have one foot in the Socialist States and the other in Ecuador. My wife works for an airline, and I can travel to Cuenca for free, at least the Atlanta-Quito part of the trip. My medical care is in Cuenca, and many expats are already there and many doctors there speak English and are American-trained. When the circumstances warrant, I can more easily transfer there permanently. I know the language, enjoy the people, and even eat the cuy that they enjoy eating. jack abercrombie
..after 45 yrs born & raised in ATL. GA. I have been in Quito, ECUADOR since SEP 2008. Certainly the Economic meltdown will domino & be global. Ecuador has a year round growing season and abundant water sources. Come see us: “JourneymanJack in ECUADOR” 123421
Left the States around two decades ago and never once regretted it; never experienced hardship; never experienced culture shock; never found it hard to get a job. Living in Easter Europe and now SE Asia has been a joy and an adventure, with a better standard of living, and more freedoms than back home. Jerry
I left the U. S. of A. a long time ago, in 1976 (when Carter still was president). I did it for work reasons, but I had come to think that life would be better in the Dominion of Canada. I was right about that, too. However, missing friends and adjusting to the sheer gentility of Canadians, which can be a bit maddening for Americans, took time and effort. I know that today, leaving the truly dreadful U. S. of A. is harder by far than what I underwent, and that moving to places more culturally remote a nation like Canada could take much more getting used to. jaleel shakir
The perverted culture has destroyed the morals of the publics in America. wisdom
It’s already laid out for you in the book of revelation (meaning reveal). No one gets out alive. You will need to choose to take the mark of the beast, which some believe is an rfid or get beheaded. You might live through armageddon (the third and final war on earth), but your soul is what this life is all about. frankyzee
My wife and I left the US after 9/11. I had this feeling that things would go from bad to worse so we left. We live in Southeast Asia and you are correct, a person must be aware of all of the above.
If you are not ready to assimilate into a new culture with an open heart and mind… forget it.
If you can… here are some of the benefits; 1. Live debt free 2. Live on a small income/retirement
3. Own a home for 1/10th of the cost in the US 4. Have cheap medical insurance 5. Live off grid easily if you want to 6. Start a business with very little capital… This list could go on and on… be wise, find a good country and leave if you want to. It made our life so much better and we are thankful we made the decision.
Good luck Nate
The economic crisis is not everywhere as a lot of people like to say. That is just a bunch of hogwash to get people scared of making the move and leaving his or her citizenship behind. The US is dying, but it is going to do a lot of damage before it is buried. I am now 35 years of age, I see no point in staying on a ship that is sinking. When I was 18 I thought this country was worth fighting for, not any more. Whether it is 1 month or 50 years from now, I will be leaving the US permanently. From my own research I believe that most “third world” countries will probably flourish when, not if, the US is gone. BrianLandon
if you think America is bad, just live in many third world and even second world countries. They are either dictatorships or pseudo-dictatorships. If you have lots of money, you can live somewhere in the Caribbean or South Pacific but be prepared to spend it, and invest there. And don’t expect the same infrastructure that you’re used to.
Maybe instead of running, its time for Americans to actually change things!! Don’t be lulled into false security by big government that promises everything, and then if you do vote for them(Obama), don’t be surprised when they are watching your every move(you’re an asset after all in their eyes). I’ll bet the entitled to my entitlement generation is not moving–well at least until the government has no money left to spend on the massive bureacracy it’s created. Bill
I do not understand that some leave US due to halthcare system. Obama is 6 years here and healthcare becomes better and better and will be more. So, you woud be optimistic about it. Sarcasm. John Citizen
Obama has destroyed this country and a president Hillary will be the final nail on the coffin. I am curious though as to why the Bahamas is not a popular destination spot. Anthony Rivera
this is what happens if the rich 1% creates selfish policies in our government Gracie Darling
I live in Ecuador. Been here 4 years. Now a citizen. Get good medical for $86 month. I have used the medical for an emergency and found it to be excellent in “Kennedy” hospitals in GYE.
It cost about $20 minimum payment into social security to qualify for medical. But, they will see you if your name is not on the computer. It is law. Kennedy hospital in Samborondon challenged this law and lost big time.
Ecuador is nice. Very expensive. Poor people don’t come here nor do they go to Panama or Costa Rica. South America is becoming very expensive due to the greedy gringo coming from the north to make money in housing.
Don’t believe what international living ragazines tell you. It is expensive if you desire to live close to what you were in the states, meaning nice house, nice car, nice clothes etc. Best to travel to Miami and buy and return.
Everywhere you visit on the internet you will find the liars, cheats and thieves in South America such as Gary Scott. David
I’m not an “American” in this country. No, in this country I am a slave. I have never thought of myself as American only the slave base on which the rich and greedy in this country run. David
So needles to say, renouncing this country as my birth, that’s easy. LET ME THE HELL OUT! David
America sucks, and I don’t even have the freedom to post about it on this board. Ha ha. They took down my last two posts. Congrats good job guys. Keep watching out, you know thought policing and everything. Laobai
I took my college degree and ran to China and left my debt with Sallie Mae. I never had anything in America and here I get to screw lots of beautiful young Chinese girls. Chow. LemmeOut
Divided we fall. The race war is a rediculous one. It’s funny how one ignorant comment about race can distract everyone from what’s important – that the United States is going down. The more we argue right left black white the more quickly the globalists can move forward. Besides the majority of us are muts of some nature so skin color is pretty much obsolete and its useless to stereotype (you f*n morons.. jk, only God can judge your stupid a$$es) Lingram90
Totally agree! I just don’t know where to start with prepping for relocation. Joshua
If more people are leaving USA i don’t know where they are going. The media hype is just confusing them. There is no place like America Today. Are these people going to China or India, the Middle East, or Africa? I don’t think they will go to these countries. The quality of life in these countries is unbearable?
How can you leave luxury and go to poverty-stricken countries. Countries in Europe are congested and have their own relative cultures. If you are staying in America I will advice you to stick on and improve your quality of life. Outside USA is hell.
Joshua SouthAfrica Liz
Why are service vets leaving the country? They have been taxed out of the US and can retire cheaper abroad. Hard to see our laws not being upheld and hardworking people losing jobs and houses because laws were dropped regulating certain businesses and the wrong people were bailed out not once but twice. Makes us think… frustrated_ayfkm
I was really interested in this article until I read all the points and realized my perspective and reasoning for wanting to raise my family elsewhere seem to be the exact same reasons why the author thinks it might be a bad idea. e.g. Guns – Of every country I’ve been in, the only one in which guns even enters my mind is the US. I am not the least bit concerned about needing a gun to defend myself in (example) Europe b/c it’s just not an issue there. I can sit and chat for hours in a mall, go see the latest movie, send my children to school, all w/o the tiniest concern that some previously “responsible” or “legal” citizen is going to snap, walk into a WalMart and walk out w/ a high capacity weapon & proceed to mow me and/or my children down in seconds. It’s just not an issue in most of our peer nations. john
The United states is tranceforming into a police state more and more everyday, not to mention that it already has by far the highest incarceration rate of all countries, and most inmates never did anything wrong to be locked up in the first place. Freedom in America is an illusian, it is only to pretect the money and those who the government defines as perfect. There is no such thing as freedom our god given human rights have been taken hundreds of years ago do to a cleverly disguised form of totalitarianism. Alika Nganuma Toshihiko Cripe
Its gotten that bad Randall
I think some of the points or “warnings” about leaving the US are a little silly. Food shortage? War? Medical care? There are many countries that are much BETTER with food and medical care than the US. As far as war, the US is constantly at war. While it may be true that no part of the US is a current war zone, it doesn’t mean we still can’t be killed by opposing forces (9/11 anyone?). As far as making a living, many countries LOVE americans and will hire you quicker than their own fellow native people, ecspecially in asian countries. Personally, I crave culture shock, I think that’s why a lot of people DO travel.
And my friends and family can do as they wish. I’m planning on being out of the US hopefully by this time next year, this is my personal choice for my life. I’ll still visit of course, but my choice is mine alone. Lisa Chapko
lissen up all people There is a curises going to happen 2015 end the banking in the usa
This is why the wealthy is leaving and who ever can get out. the USA is bankrupt
The goverment is hiding more then is being told I will be dead for posting but God help America
mility ours is being trained to kill USA people it will start with gun control then round up the poor
no more food or water to areas wwlll starts in usa by are own people
Churches are falling away leting sin take over . God is now going to punish
war , floods end of california no more freedom
if not believe me ask vetrense and see why military people are quiting the militay
this is a wake up call for americans christains for you will now be hunted and killed for your faith.
faith will save your soul death is better somtimes then losing your soul christians
more eval is coming and the world will feel Gods rath are we ready i am some what ready but like most it is scary to see hell on earth
God bless your all and good luck ps sept 13 hell will hit if you believe me or not guest
I was born here in the southeastern United States.for the most part the land is rich in fish and wild game.i have rabbits,deer and squirrel on my front lawn and a natural water source nearby.i belong to a local church in which we all have common goals and help our community and each other when in need.when the time arises i simply have to kill and eat those cute little rabbits and deer instead of going to the store Wanderersend
Join our camper convoy to Belize Safety in numbers when you surround yourself with those on the same path. Wanderers End is leaving to claim our island rendezvous in Rockport tx Mike Breen
You missed the big question….How will you get the IRS off your back? The USA does not let go easily, Americans are US tax payers for life regardless of their location. Even if no tax is owed, the cost of compliance can be painful and god help you if you make a mistake on the form even if no tax is still owed. Penalties start at $10,000 per offence. And THAT is why there is a huge increase in Americans giving up there citizenship. And the US response to this phenomenon? Increase the basic consular fee from $350 to $2450, and you will be VERY lucky if that is all it costs you. USA is a tyrant, and only those who tried to leave seem to know it. theyorkiedad
I am considering moving mself, myy wife and my dogs to Belize. My wife is Colombian, and Spanish is one of the languages spoken in Belizse. It is an anglophone country, and Roman Catholicismi is the prevalent religion. My wifwe and I are Catholics. I am fluent in Spanish. I have lived in Colombia for a cou8ple of years. I seriously doubt that we will suffer from culture shock. You can get most of what you want in Belize if you kinow where to look. And medical care is available in both Guatemala and Mexico, both close in to the boerder of Belize. Anbd, my maineason for leaving is Belize is center-right politically ande it is not very PC. BOOTOUTTHEBULLIES
“Oh Canada.” I am on my way as soon as I resolve some important document matters here. This country no longer represents what the founding fathers embodied in the constitution. We are a melting pot of immigrants and now a bunch of bullies want to do a 180 and change it all. I can’t live in a culture full of hate. it’s time to get out. Especially if you are a homeowner because your property, the single largest financial investment we all make, will be devalued in a depression and than we will be all stuck here. I am getting out before that happens. I don’t feel this is the country with the values that I grew up with here. I had said that even if Hillary had won I wanted to leave because of the fact that half of the people were so full of hatred and aggressiveness. And, I can’t live in a country that looks the other way when a candidate is a sexist, racist person. It is like saying that women are insignificant and we don’t matter and it’s open season on women and that is the way it is and deal with it. Well, I’m dealing with it by leaving this place. I’m done. No experience, no accounting experience, 6 bankruptcies, 5 Vietnam deferrments and the block of voters that put him over the top were very lowly educated people who probably only use their computers for fantasy football or nonsense instead of learning about the their candidate of choice and not just believing his sound bites. We have dropped in our level of education in the world standing and have uneducated, uninformed voters charting the future of our country. Is it any wonder we are headed for a huge fall? I am getting out before it happens. I feel for those who didn’t support trump but I won’t have a shred of mercy for those who did support him. You deserve what you get and I hope you suffer the worst for endangering the world economy and our values in this country. I hope you suffer the very worst and I’ll be waving to all of you from my safe house in Canada. Good riddance! | 0 |
Spend enough time traveling around the United States and you’re bound to notice a dramatic variation in what a dollar can buy. Everything from the price of a cup of coffee to the cost of a house can fluctuate between, and even within, states. A gallon of regular gas costs $2. 74 in Hawaii, but just $1. 82 in South Carolina. The average Connecticut resident pays twice as much for electricity as the average Tennessee resident. A $7 lager in San Francisco might cost you half as much in Chicago. A $5 hamburger in California may be a dollar cheaper in Nebraska. Tuition at public colleges varies by orders of magnitude. Fortunately for the confused consumer, the federal government now measures these variations. For a few years now, the agency that tracks gross domestic product, personal income and other economic indicators has also produced what it calls Regional Price Parities, measures of price fluctuations across states and metropolitan areas. That data, published in July by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows that a dollar can swing by more than 30 percent in terms of what it can buy. “Regional price differences are strikingly large real purchasing power is 36 percent greater in Mississippi than it is in the District of Columbia,” Alan Cole, an economist with the Tax Foundation, a think tank, noted last week in a blog post. To better understand, imagine a store offering a range of goods and services, each for sale at the price for that particular item. Now, imagine a shopping cart filled with $100 worth of items from that store. In Hawaii, $100 buys about 85 percent of the goods in the cart thanks to the high prices there. In other words, $100 in Hawaii feels more like $85. 60, compared to the national average. In Mississippi, the opposite is true. With $100, you would be able to buy the cart’s contents and more: the equivalent of $115. 30 of goods and services from the store. The “real value” of a dollar is highest in Mississippi, Arkansas ($114. 30) Alabama ($113. 90) South Dakota ($113. 60) and Kentucky ($112. 70). It buys the least in the District of Columbia ($84. 70) Hawaii, New York ($86. 40) New Jersey ($87. 30) California ($89) and Maryland ($90. 70). The Regional Price Parities are calculated using data already collected for another indicator, the Consumer Price Index, which serves as a measure of inflation. For that index, the government tracks prices of more than 200 goods and services, including men’s suits, college textbooks, cereal, electricity and cars and trucks. It also tallies rents, which are particularly variable among states. The “real value” of $100 in rent can range from roughly $63 in Hawaii to $160 in Arkansas. Generally, the prices of goods and services in states correlate with the nominal incomes, according to Mr. Cole. “There is a relationship between the two: in places with higher incomes, the prices of finite resources like land get bid up,” he wrote. But, he noted, when prices in a region are high, employers often raise pay to attract and retain talent. The two don’t always correlate, however. Some states are home to high incomes and low prices, a valuable combination for working residents. After adjusting for the purchasing power of a dollar, North Dakota emerges as the state where per capita incomes have the most purchasing power. The “real per capita personal income” there is roughly $56, 000. Connecticut is next at $55, 000, followed by Washington, D. C. at $54, 000, Wyoming at $52, 000, Massachusetts at $50, 000 and Nebraska at $48, 000. The states where incomes fall shortest are Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho and Hawaii, all of them home to real per capita personal incomes of $36, 000, give or take a few hundred dollars. | 1 |
BERKELEY, Calif. — Fires burned in the cradle of free speech. Furious at a lecture organized on campus, demonstrators wearing outfits smashed windows, threw rocks at the police and stormed a building. The speech? The university called it off. Protest has been synonymous with the University of California, Berkeley, from the earliest days of the free speech movement, when students fought to expand political expression on campus beginning in 1964. Those protests would set off student activism movements that roiled campuses across the country throughout the 1960s. Since then, countless demonstrators have flocked to Sproul Plaza each day to have their voices heard on issues from civil rights and apartheid to Israel, tuition costs and more. But now the university is under siege for canceling a speech by the incendiary writer Milo Yiannopoulos and words like intolerance, long used by the left, are being used by critics to condemn the protests on Wednesday night that ultimately prevented Mr. Yiannopoulos from speaking. Naweed Tahmas, a junior who is a member of the Berkeley College Republicans, the group that invited Mr. Yiannopoulos to campus, said the cancellation had made him more determined to fight for freedom of speech on campus. “I’m tired of getting silenced, as many conservative students are,” he said. “If we support freedom of speech, we should support all speech including what they consider hate speech. ” When the event was canceled, the Republican student group reacted by writing on their Facebook page, “the Free Speech Movement is dead. ” More than 100 faculty members signed a letter opposing the visit by Mr. Yiannopoulos in recent weeks. “We support robust debate, but we cannot abide by harassment, slander, defamation, and hate speech,” they wrote. On Thursday, heated arguments broke out at Sproul Plaza between students who said Mr. Yiannopoulos — a provocateur editor at Breitbart News who is known for his attacks on political correctness and offensive, writing — was too inflammatory to be invited to campus and those who argued that he should have been allowed to speak. The university made it clear they believed the people who resorted to violence on Wednesday night — a group, clad in black clothing and carrying sticks — had come from outside the campus. The university estimated on Thursday that the rioting had caused around $100, 000 in damage. Whatever the origins of the violent mob, the university was and remains divided over the meaning of free speech at a time of national political tumult. “I think we need to have a serious conversation about protests. This is going to be a big part of our lives for the next four years,” said Kirsten Pickering, a graduate student at the university. She and others described the violence as a “potential teachable moment. ” “We need to sit down and talk about what is acceptable,” she added. Troy Worden, a student and a member of the College Republicans, said he would “absolutely” invite Mr. Yiannopoulos to speak on campus again, and Mr. Tahmas added that the Republican student group is a racially diverse group that does not consider Mr. Yiannopoulos to be a white nationalist. Criticism of the decision to cancel the speech came from outside the university as well. On Twitter early on Thursday, President Trump went as far as to threaten withholding federal funds from the university for failing to stop “violence on people with a different point of view. ” Mr. Yiannopoulos has cultivated a sizable following among the movement with his speaking events, podcast interviews and articles. He travels around California on a tour bus airbrushed with his likeness. Since embarking in September on his speaking tour of American campuses, he has been trailed by protests. But the events have also attracted pockets of anarchists clad in face masks and spoiling for a fight. Some university organizers withdrew invitations to Mr. Yiannopoulos over security concerns. At the University of California, Davis, on Jan. 13, his speech was canceled as it was set to begin after a tense standoff between protesters and police officers. A week later, on Inauguration Day, a man was shot during protests outside Mr. Yiannopoulos’s speech at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was to cap his tour this week at Berkeley. In the weeks leading up to the event, campus administrators faced tremendous pressure from student groups and faculty members to cancel it. In a video of himself posted on Facebook after the cancellation on Wednesday night, Mr. Yiannopoulos criticized the “hard left, which has become so utterly antithetical to free speech in the last few years. ” “They simply will not allow any speaker on campus, even somebody as silly and harmless and gay as me to have their voice heard,” he added. One group that has been outspoken in favor of allowing Mr. Yiannopoulos to speak is the veterans of the university’s free speech movement. “I’m really a little fatigued with all of this, ‘Oh my goodness, cover my ears, someone will say something that will upset me, I can’t tolerate that,’ ” said Jack Radey, who was a activist during the original free speech movement at Berkeley. “There are racists, sexists, piggery of various kinds who will say really terrible things. And that is part of the world,” Mr. Radey said by telephone from Oregon, where he is retired. “Learn how to fight back. Don’t say, ‘Oh, no. We can’t allow someone to speak because someone might be offended.’ ” In a letter to The Daily Californian, Berkeley’s student newspaper, Mr. Radey and other members of the Free Speech Movement Archive board of directors, a grouping of some of the movement’s activists, said Mr. Yiannopoulos was “a bigot who comes to campus spouting vitriol so as to attract attention to himself. ” But they said free speech was paramount. “Berkeley’s free speech tradition, won through struggle — suspension, arrest, fines, jail time — by Free Speech Movement activists is far more important than Yiannopoulos, and it is that tradition’s endurance that concerns us,” they wrote. | 1 |
By Cassius Kamarampi Did you know that Aspartame literally turns into formaldehyde and methanol inside your body? It breaks down into, according to one paper, “phenylalanine (50%), aspartic acid... | 0 |
This post was originally published on this site
Perhaps you’ve read about how the Hillary Clinton campaign had a strategy to elevate Donald Trump to the status of what they called a Pied Piper candidate. Rather than the Pied Piper, however, it seems that Trump is closer to another fictional figure. Portrayed by the media for years as a wizard of business, like the media-amplified conman in the L. Frank Baum classic, Trump (as both Clinton and Margaret Atwood have recently pointed out) is more like the Wizard of Oz.
If Trump is the Wizard, however, who is Hillary? The Wicked Witch? Rather than reproducing sexist cliches, perhaps it’s more fair to cast Clintonism, the Democratic Party, or neoliberalism in toto, as the Witch. And the witch is dead. Ding dong. And (though less visible than the daily anti-Trump demonstrations breaking out across the country) throughout the land the little people are celebrating.
They’re celebrating because the ideology that ushered in and maintained wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere, outsourced jobs, spread unemployment and precarious work along with trade deals like NAFTA seems to have been finally put to rest. The crime bills, the surveillance state, the bailouts of banks, the mass incarceration, the austerity and privatization, the stagnation of wages, accompanied by increases in student loan and consumer debt – all capped off by the insult of Obamacare (aka Romneycare), which has done much to enrich the wealthy and further impoverish the little people – all this, it seems, has been halted. But, as in Oz, things are rarely as they appear. And while the Munchkins – and Mnuchins – and others are exulting in the political death of Clintonism, many more see little to celebrate, and much to dread. For though the Witch may be dead, and the staving off of war with Russia and the killing of the TPP are victories for the little people of the planet, the enemy of one’s enemy isn’t necessarily one’s friend. The promises of further deregulation, school privatization, environmental degradation, and tax cuts for the rich made by Trump are hardly victories for the little people, and neither are the racist and xenophobic policies of the Alt-Right (aka white nationalism) taking over the Executive Branch of the United States government. Marking a fundamental departure from post-War norms, the explicitly racist – and implicitly genocidal – goals of Trump and Co. augur persecution, repression, and catastrophe.
Hyperbole you say? Exaggeration?Many will no doubt respond that people have been crying wolf for years about anti-semitism and racism. Anyone sufficiently critical of Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, for instance, is labeled and libeled as an anti-Semite. Even Jews who are critical of Israel, like Noam Chomsky, are branded this way. As such, it’s entirely understandable that people should be skeptical about reports concerning the anti-Semitism and racism of Donald Trump and his inner-circle. And yet, there’s a profound difference between honest skepticism and dishonest skepticism; and anyone who examines Trump’s history will see that he has practiced various forms of racist discrimination and scapegoating for decades. Among others, Trump’s chief strategist supports anti-Semites and racists. And the only problem that Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for Attorney General, has with the KKK is that some of them smoke pot. (Moreover, let’s not fail to recall the fact that the point of the story of the boy who cried wolf is that the wolf did eventually come.)
Whether wolf or wizard, Trump’s history of discrimination is not only old news, it sheds much light on his appointment of Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist. Bannon’s tenure at Breitbart (an Alt-Right, i.e. white nationalist organization) led to stories promoting the most stereotypically racist tropes against women, blacks, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, and others. And now this proponent of Alt-Right/white supremacy is in charge of strategizing the implementation of policies that include the deportation of millions of immigrants, and banning Muslims – longstanding white nationalist goals of forcible deportation that don’t merely violate basic principles of religious tolerance and respect for human rights; they violate the 1st Amendment, the 4th Amendment, the 14th Amendment, and others. In other words, Trump’s policies baldly contradict the executive’s oath to uphold the constitution. With Trump, such contradictions abound.
Trump says, for instance, that he won’t undermine rights recently attained by gays and lesbians. That’s settled law, he says, referring to the Court’s recent recognition of marriage equality. It’s been decided by the Supreme Court, he announces. In the next breath, however, he promises to overturn Roe v Wade, which was also settled by the Supreme Court. It’s even more well-settled. These contradictions hardly cancel one another out.
His invective against Muslims, immigrants, and others has already incited violence, emboldening many to attack blacks, Muslims, Latinos, Jews, and other scapegoats. Displacing the generalized anxieties and violence of the capitalist system, hundreds of such attacks have been reported since the election.
This isn’t, of course, to suggest that Trump won the election solely because of racism, or that his supporters are mostly racists and sexists, as Clinton and her supporters contend. As many have pointed out, Trump won states – like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida – that Obama won just a few years ago. His success is attributable to the fact that people were disgusted by the historically unlikable Hillary Clinton and her poverty-spreading neoliberal politics.
Like the Wizard of Oz, an illusion projected onto a screen, the con man (who just settled a fraud suit stemming from his phony university for $25 million) fooled a nation. No one’s really sure what he thinks. Trickery and spectacle, he mesmerized the media for months and months with his outrageousness – his ridiculous hair distracting people the way the lure-like growths on the heads of anglerfish fool their prey. Spouting outlandish statements, he cast his spell. And the plutocrat Hillary and her ideologically-blinded cohorts, believing (like George W. Bush apropos Iraq) that victory would be a cakewalk, stumbled into defeat.
In spite of her arrogant stupidity, however (her cheating, her contempt for the constituency she needed to win, her choice of Tim Kaine for VP, etc.), we shouldn’t overlook the fact that Trump only won because of an undemocratic technicality. Though he prevailed in the electoral college, he lost the popular vote. As such, though Trump may enjoy a legal victory, his wasn’t a moral one. In many respects his victory is entirely immoral – stemming both from his pledges to promote torture, and other crimes, as well as from the US Constitution’s anti-democratic electoral college. Like the Constitution in general, the electoral college was designed to minimize popular rule by aggrandizing the power of a minority of plantation owners. (Concerned that the North was growing more populous than the South, and that popular elections would diminish their power, slaveowners ratified the Constitution only because it included the electoral system, which counted slaves as 3/5 of a person for the sake of apportioning representatives and electors, and thereby heightened their power and secured their privileges.)
Had this institution been extricated from the USA’s legal structure, well, it’s hard to imagine that things would be less undemocratic today. As it stands, though, the electoral college illustrates the degree to which the USA remains little more than an insufficiently-reformed slave state. And here we are, like Dorothy, wondering how to get home.
Dorothy, of course, was not alone in Oz. She was aided by, among others, the Scarecrow. Too dumb to recognize that capitalism and democracy are antithetical, is the Scarecrow Paul Krugman? Or is it Nate Silver, and other pollsters, who unwittingly abetted the despised celebrity billionaire’s victory (and the equally despised former Secretary of State’s defeat)?
One thing’s for sure, if Trump is the Wizard, and the Democratic Party is the Witch, then Bernie Sanders – who turned on his supporters and supported Clinton – is the Cowardly Lion. And yet, the Cowardly Lion would ultimately develop courage. So, maybe there’s still hope for Bernie. As opposed to many Democrats suggesting we give Trump a chance, Sanders has been speaking out against his repressive designs.
Praised by recently hostile Republicans (and by that other notorious wizard, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke), Trump has also had a friendly meeting with Obama since winning. It seems the last thing Obama wants is to undermine the peaceful transition of power (even if it’s the power of a white supremacist state – which, after all, the USA has been for most of its history).
Notwithstanding the thoroughly racist history of the US, however, it is still more than a little alarming to see white supremacists preparing to set up shop in the White House. And it must prompt us to wonder: what will happen if the system fails to constrain Donald Trump? Thanks to Bush and Obama, Republicans and Democrats, he has an unprecedentedly powerful national security state at his command. And, on the other hand, what if the system succeeds, and prevents Trump from pursuing his infrastructure-building project, his trade re-negotiations, and his easing of relations with Russia, which frighten the military-industrial complex and other aspects of the system more than the more xenophobic aspects of his agenda?
If Trump is constrained from pursuing his plans, then what? It isn’t difficult to imagine Trump continuing Obama’s policy of mass deportation. Unlike Obama, though, who’s successfully hidden his policy of deporting millions from the public, one can easily see Trump taking credit for this, satisfying some of his base this way. And let’s not forget, though Trump raises fears about creating registries for Muslims, to some degree registry databases for Muslims already exist. No fly lists are just one part of this. And police surveillance of Muslim communities, in mosques and schools, has been widely known and tolerated since 9/11. Trump could simply continue these as well.
All of which is to say, as repression in Standing Rock and other places continues and a deteriorating environment, toothless climate accords, and unabated economic inequality demonstrate, for most people conditions are already intolerable. Even if Trump is prevented from following through on his promises of ethnically cleansing the US, Trump’s position concerning global warming has genocidal implications of its own. Promising to only intensify the poverty, insecurity, violence, and ecological degradation produced by a political-economic system that’s based on the exploitation of the planet and its people, Trump, and the system that produced him, must both be stopped.
Of course, an opposition that merely aims to stop Trump will at best succeed in slowing him down. To prevail, an opposition must forcefully push in the opposite direction – toward universal health care, toward an expansion of the public realm as opposed to privatization, toward an aggressive prioritization of rights to water, housing, education, healthy food, a clean environment, and other requirements for human and environmental health, over the demands of profit. And, like other rights are said to be, these rights must be inalienable – not for sale – beyond the market. This should be the goal, the creation of an actually democratic system – an economic as well as a political democracy.
Beyond rhetoric, for an opposition to prevail it must not simply proclaim that Trump is “not my president.” It must recognize that Trump (and the system itself) lacks legitimacy. This is not simply because Trump’s opponent obtained over a million more votes than he did, but because Trump promises to violate the very principles that (however much they’ve fallen short historically) justify the United States’ existence in the first place.
Beyond Trump, however, the biophagous political-economic system that enabled him to attain so much power must be rejected as well. As the ancient legal maxim has it, the health of the people should be the supreme law. And, because the current global system has spread, and is designed to continue to spread, conditions of disease throughout the world, the entire system is in breach. Related | 0 |
In the late 1960s, the artist Vito Acconci wandered into a movie theater near Times Square hoping to catch an art film and was confused to see a group of musicians take the stage. That group turned out to be the Velvet Underground, whose first album sold poorly but whose influence was so profound, as Brian Eno later said, that everyone who bought the record started a band. The same sentiment might be expressed about Mr. Acconci’s influence in the contemporary art world. The genetic impact of his performances, photographs and video works from just an period — 1968 to 1976 — is so pervasive that it is difficult to trace. But Mr. Acconci, who turned 76 this year, has not had a retrospective in the United States in more than three decades, and his most important work can now sometimes seem more like legend than fact. That is set to change on June 19, when MoMA PS1 in Queens opens “Vito Acconci: Where We Are Now (Who Are We Anyway?) 1976,” which traces his career from his early days as a poet through his heyday and around the corner of a radical turn in the when he abandoned the gallery world and remade himself as a highly unorthodox architect and designer, to the confusion of many. In a series of interviews over the last three months as the PS1 show was being planned, Mr. Acconci spoke about his perpetual unease in the art world, and before that the poetry world, where he said he always felt like an outsider, someone with a relentless creative drive for which a genre had not — and still has not — been invented. Almost because of this, he has opened bold new avenues over the years for artists as important and widely varied as Laurie Anderson, Martin Kippenberger, Mike Kelley and Tania Bruguera. “I hated the word artist,” he said. “To me, even in the years when I was showing things in galleries, it seemed to me that I didn’t really have anything to do with art. The word itself sounded, and still sounds to me, like ‘high art,’ and that was never what I saw myself doing. ” As far as the art world was concerned, his leap into architecture — designs for things like public parks, airport rest areas and a island — was almost as if Mr. Acconci decided to enter the witness protection program. But he disappeared right in the art world’s midst, continuing to teach generations of art students (at Brooklyn College and at Pratt Institute) working in a cluttered, studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn and lecturing so often over the years that his presence — his long unruly hair, his wardrobe, his voice with its distinctive loping stutter and, before he quit, the endless cigarettes he would light and stub out and light again — became a kind of ongoing work in itself. Born in the Bronx into a Catholic Italian family, the overprotected only son of a bathrobe manufacturer and a mother who later worked in a cafeteria, Mr. Acconci came of age in the politically agitated years when artists began trying to find ways around the making and selling of objects. They turned to their bodies, their ideas and their actions as the currency of a new realm. Along with peers like Chris Burden, Adrian Piper, Dan Graham and Valie Export, Mr. Acconci began conceiving and documenting performances — at a rate of sometimes one a day in what he called “a kind of fever” in 1969 — that were conducted on the streets or for audiences so small that they seemed almost not to have happened. In Mr. Acconci’s case, the work grew out of an experience as an aspiring poet and fiction writer whose fascination with the physical space of the page eventually led out into the world. In 1962, in thrall to postmodern writers like Alain and John Hawkes, he enrolled in the graduate writing program at the University of Iowa, taking along with him a short story he had written, titled “” that when read anonymously in the class provoked a minor riot. Its subject, a horrifying vision, was a recently limbless man. It began: “They cut him up and since the chairs had just been varnished for the celebration, he was set down on a giant floor urn. The jar was for most people, but not for Rockram, because he had no legs. ” “When the professor asked for reactions,” Mr. Acconci recalled, “one guy said that whoever wrote it should be chucked out the window into the Iowa River. ” Back in New York City after getting his degree, in the wastelands of the Lower East Side, the East Village and SoHo, Mr. Acconci began experimenting with using the city as another means of making literature. In one of his early works, “Following Piece,” from 1969, he spent each day for almost a month following a person picked at random on the street, sometimes with a friend following Mr. Acconci to record the action. The rules were only that he had to keep following the person until he or she entered a private place where Mr. Acconci couldn’t go in. During years when crime and urban paranoia were spiking, the work might be seen as a creepy metaphor for vulnerability, but Mr. Acconci saw it essentially as an and in many ways optimistic narrative. “It was sort of a way to get myself off the writer’s desk and into the city — it was like I was praying for people to take me somewhere I didn’t know how to go myself,” he once told the musician Thurston Moore. (The band Sonic Youth was formed not long after Mr. Moore first met Mr. Acconci and began playing in various arrangements with Kim Gordon and Mr. Acconci’s girlfriend at the time, Anne DeMarinis.) The dozens of performance pieces that followed through the early 1970s, many of them now contained varying elements of existential unease, bodily discomfort, exhibitionism and gender play — elements he shared with some other artists of the time, particularly with female artists — but also a kind of wit and a Svengali aura that were Mr. Acconci’s own. In “Trademarks,” (1970) Mr. Acconci sat naked on a floor and bit himself wherever he could reach, then applied printer’s ink to the marks and stamped them on paper and other surfaces. In “Pryings” (1971) Mr. Acconci and Kathy Dillon engaged in a disturbing in which she clenched her eyes shut as he grabbed her face and tried to force them open. (Ms. Dillon, with whom Mr. Acconci lived for a time, is a powerful presence in his early performances after they separated they fell out of touch. “Or a better way to say it would be that she thought she had to get away from me because I was taking too much of her life, which I guess I was,” he said.) In “Seedbed,” (1972) — undoubtedly Mr. Acconci’s piece, which has in a sense unfairly overshadowed much of his other work — he constructed an angled false floor at the Sonnebend Gallery in SoHo and hid himself beneath it with a microphone, speaking luridly to the people who walked above him, masturbating as he spoke. The piece became a touchstone of performance art in part because of its sheer, outlandish audacity. But it also drew a remarkable line through the preoccupations that began Mr. Acconci’s career and carry it up to the present day. The idea for the act under the floor arose linguistically, after he turned to a thesaurus to find synonyms for the word “foundation” and was struck by the poetry of “seedbed. ” And in constructing the floor, he was already beginning to explore his interests in architecture and public space, in this case a space in which he could merge with the building, ceasing to be a discrete human presence and becoming instead a kind of quantum field. “I wanted people to go through space somehow, not to have people in front of space, looking at something, bowing down to something,” Mr. Acconci said of the performance. “I wanted space people could be involved in. ” Holly Block, the executive director of the Bronx Museum, which commissioned an architectural environment from him in 2009, said: “A lot of people don’t understand Vito’s turn to architecture, but I think he wanted to be more ambitious and make pieces that lived in the world — and in people’s lives — in a different way than artworks usually do, and it was a risky and courageous thing to do. ” Klaus Biesenbach, the director of PS1 and the organizer of the show, which was conceived as part of the institution’s 40th birthday, said: “He’s one of the most influential artists of his time because of the way he connects the private with the public sphere, the body with the street, the media space with the personal space. He’s challenging our limits about what we want to be private and what we want to be public, and those questions have only become more important. ” The show, which is being designed by Acconci Studios, the firm that Mr. Acconci runs in close collaboration with his wife, Maria, has been a kind of fragile over the past months, threatening at times to collapse under his unpredictably evolving ideas and inspirations. “You have to think about him deciding ‘Maybe I should go to China tomorrow,’” said Mr. Biesenbach. “That’s just how Vito is. With great artists — and Vito is one — sometimes you have to have unprecedented flexibility. ” But the tension also comes from Mr. Acconci’s longstanding desire not to have his career bifurcated into and . “There are people who like to keep Vito in what I call a prison of a few years, and it’s not right,” said Maria Acconci, 36, a writer who met Mr. Acconci after seeing his work at a retrospective in Barcelona in 2004 and is a fierce defender of his prerogatives. Mr. Biesenbach said he believed the show would strike a delicate balance to reveal the connections between the early work and Acconci Studio — the “two Vitos,” as he calls it — though even as recently as late May he remained uncertain whether the exhibition would open as planned. Mr. Acconci, around the same time, seemed to be leaning toward it actually happening — legend becoming fact. “I never liked museums,” he said. “They always seemed artificially separated from real life. But you have to be seen, and I guess I’ve never cared enough about that. Maybe I should have. ” | 1 |
“If a man’s friends do not take enough interest in him to play a few April Fool jokes on him he might as well go to a monastery and stay there. ” Or so said The Times on April 1, 1892. So be on guard for pranks on Saturday. But in between, you could do some poses from our new guide to yoga for strength, or try these 10 ways to sharpen your kitchen senses (here’s why you should). And remember that thinking positively may improve your health and extend your life. No pressure. (Maybe you, too, have $763, 000 in unclaimed cash somewhere?) Have a great weekend! What do you want to see in these weekend roundups? Email us to let us know! • Looking for something to read this weekend? A good place to start is our weekly editors’ and critics’ picks. • And check out these great books new in paperback. • Of course, April Fools’ Day calls for comedy. Here are seven titles we recommend by leading voices in American humor, from Nora Ephron to Mindy Kaling to David Sedaris. • Ever had a book question but didn’t know who to ask? The Times is here with the answers: The Book Review is introducing Match Book, a new literary advice column. • For breakfast, get out that waffle maker collecting dust in the back of your cabinet and follow this waffle recipe. Top it with compote or (and? !) ice cream and blow the kids’ minds. • Had your mind set on something savory and eggy? No problem. Migas are here! • For dinner, try Amanda Hesser’s rigatoni with white Bolognese sauce. Not for nothing, it’s got 928 ratings. Also, it’s even better the second day. • Mark Bittman’s super easy scallops are a lighter alternative. • If you’re in the mood for a project or feeding a crowd, try out Sam Sifton’s adaptation of the late Jim Harrison’s Caribbean stew. Pork ribs, Italian sausage and chicken thighs, oh my. You might want a nice arugula salad on the side. • We’re beginning to see asparagus at the market. Here’s a helpful guide on how to buy it, store it and cook it • These chocolate peanut butter balls (known as buckeyes to the Midwesterners among us) are super easy to make and delightful to eat • Passover and Easter are approaching quickly. If you’re planning on serving lamb or ham this Easter, order yours this weekend. And after Easter, don’t forget to freeze the hock. You can make these awesome Cuban black beans. • And in preparation for Monday: What to cook when you’d rather be doing anything else • All that and more in Sam Sifton’s weekly guide to weekend cooking • Listen to the songs that caught our pop music critics’ attention this week. • Catch up with our latest Popcast podcast, hosted by Jon Caramanica, pop music critic for The Times. • Read our review of Aimee Mann’s first solo album in five years, then listen to it right on that page through Spotify. • If you liked “Serial,” try the new “This American Life” podcast “ . ” • Here are the best TV shows and movies new to Netflix, Amazon and more streaming services in April. • The team at Watching, our film and TV recommendation website, has rounded up picks for what to stream this weekend. (The Watching newsletter just turned one now is an excellent time to sign up for it if you haven’t already.) • Watching the “Walking Dead” season finale on Sunday? Here are the questions our TV team is considering leading up to it. • Catch a show without breaking the bank with our guide to cheap Broadway tickets. (Now, what to see? Find all of our theater reviews here.) • Check out these 10 cultural highlights, including Prospect Park’s opening weekend and soul and RB singer Madison McFerrin at Joe’s Pub. • If you find yourself at Mimi’s at midnight (unless it’s Saturday or Monday) see one of New York’s most eccentric and unsung acts — he’s known as “Chicken Delicious. ” | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple is rethinking what it plans to do about cars, just as other big tech companies appear ready to plow ahead with competing efforts. In a retrenchment of one of its most ambitious initiatives, Apple has shuttered parts of its car project and laid off dozens of employees, according to three people briefed on the move who were not allowed to speak about it publicly. The job cuts are the latest sign of trouble with Apple’s car initiative. The company has added resources to the project — Titan — over the last two years, but it has struggled to make progress. And in July, the company brought in Bob Mansfield, a highly regarded Apple veteran, to take over the effort. Apple is not the only big tech company pursuing autonomous driving technology. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has tested cars on the road for years, but its focus has been on designing the underlying software and systems to make that technology work. Tesla has a feature within its cars that has come under scrutiny in recent months after a fatal accident was connected to its use. Separately, Uber, in a limited test in Pittsburgh next week, plans to start picking up passengers in cars. Last month, Uber also acquired the Otto for about $700 million, a purchase that brought with it some of the top minds in robotics and autonomous technology. And automakers like Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler have all said they expect to put a number of vehicles on the road in five years or less. But Apple has stood out from the others mainly — as is often the case with the company — for its secrecy. Apple has never acknowledged that it is working on a car, though Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has said the automotive industry is undergoing a drastic change and, earlier this year, he seemed to confirm the existence of the car project at its annual shareholders meeting. “Do you remember when you were a kid, and Christmas Eve, it was so exciting, you weren’t sure what was going to be downstairs?” Mr. Cook said at the meeting. “Well, it’s going to be Christmas Eve for a while. ” Apple employees were told that the layoffs were part of a “reboot” of the car project, the people briefed on it said. An Apple spokesman declined to comment. Under Mr. Mansfield, Apple changed the focus of the project, shifting from an emphasis on designing and producing an automobile to building out the underlying technology for an autonomous vehicle. Bloomberg earlier reported the strategy change. Electric cars rely not on the internal combustion engine, but on technologies more prevalent in the consumer electronics world: batteries, sensors and software. In addition, cars could change the traditional notions of public transportation and car ownership. Apple started looking seriously into building an electric car about two years ago. It expanded the project quickly, poaching experts in battery technology and machine vision, as well as veterans from the automobile industry. The team also pulled in staff members from other divisions across Apple, growing to more than 1, 000 employees in about 18 months. But as the project grew rapidly, it encountered a number of problems, and people working on it struggled to explain what Apple could bring to a car that other companies could not, according to the people briefed on the project. Steven Zadesky, a longtime Apple employee initially charged with heading the car effort, left the company for personal reasons this year. His departure opened the door for Mr. Mansfield, who worked closely with Apple’s Steve Jobs, but left the company’s executive team in 2013. He had all but retired from Apple except for the occasional visit to the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. He was coaxed into coming back to oversee the project, which could represent a new market for Apple as sales of its flagship iPhone are slowing. Apple has also made some headway in the space. The company has a number of fully autonomous vehicles in the middle of testing, using limited operating routes in a closed environment, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. Like other companies in the space, that technology is likely a number of years away from seeing mainstream consumer use, they added. | 1 |
If you were an alien and had just beamed down to Doral, Fla. the gold letters on a Spanish building amid 800 acres of golf courses would leave no doubt as to who owns the resort: TRUMP. You might, however, find yourself wondering if this Trump fellow is a reality television star, a titan of industry or a vintner. Trump chardonnay and Trump sauvignon blanc (about $25 each) line the shelves of the Marketplace Cafe at Trump National Doral Miami. Trump nail polish sets ($25) glittery Trump pouches ($30) and Empire by Trump eau de toilette ($62) are sold in a gift shop. A lounge area is replete with framed magazine covers of Donald J. Trump. There he is on Newsweek, mouth agape, pointing at the viewer, beside the words, “You’re Fired!” There he is in a tuxedo on the cover of Playboy with Brandi Brandt, a former Playmate, who appears to be clad in nothing more than his suit jacket. And there he is gazing at the camera, chin in hand, on the cover of GQ in an issue about “men who take risks and make millions. ” But it is the 2011 cover of a golf magazine, Fairways and Greens, that really grabs the viewer. Mr. Trump, with a golf club at his side, is shown next to the words: “President Trump?” Turns out, it was a prescient question. Mr. Trump’s candidacy has drawn attention not only to his policy positions, but also to everything that bears the Trump name, including about a dozen hotels and resorts from Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii, to Turnberry Ayrshire, Scotland. This year, Trump Hotels — the hotel company founded in 2007 by Mr. Trump and three of his children (Donald Jr. Ivanka and Eric) — is planning to open Trump International Hotel Tower Vancouver, Trump Hotel Rio de Janeiro and Trump International Hotel, Washington, D. C. In coming years, the company said it will expand to Asia. And next year, it will introduce a lifestyle hotel brand. While the Trump name is ubiquitous, Trump Hotels may not be as familiar to travelers as larger brands with longer histories like Marriott and Hilton. Are Trump Hotels as big, brash and over the top as the man for whom they’re named? In visits to Trump properties in and around New York, Miami and Las Vegas, I set out to see how it feels to be a guest of the man who would be president. As you roll across the paths of Trump National Doral Miami in a golf cart emblazoned with a Trump crest, bird calls alternate with the thwack of golf balls, and every staff members offers a friendly nod or hello. Acre after acre is manicured with flower beds, orderly rows of palm trees and clipped greens where golf luminaries like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have trod. A fallen palm frond the size of a surfboard hadn’t been on the ground more than a few minutes before an employee pulled up in a golf cart, lifted it onto the roof and drove off, trailing an electric whir, and then, silence. It was a muggy spring afternoon, and the quietude belied the news that had broken days earlier. A staff member said the PGA Tour, which has held an annual tournament at Doral for more than half a century (the Trumps bought the property in 2012) was planning to move it — to Mexico. Mr. Trump, who last year had choice words for Mexican immigrants, broke the news on May 31 that the Tour is moving: “They’re moving it to Mexico City which, by the way, I hope they have kidnapping insurance,” he told Fox News. The PGA Tour commissioner said the move was not a political statement. The next day, however, Ricardo Salinas, the chief executive of the Mexican conglomerate that’s moving the tournament, tweeted at Mr. Trump: “You’re welcome to join us at the WGC,” he wrote, referring to the World Golf Championships. “Only good things can turn out, if you know the real Mexico. ” Though the PGA Tour may be a thing of the past, Mr. Trump has poured some $250 million into the resort’s future. In April, nearly 50 “spa suites” were opened near the Trump Spa, part of the property’s extensive renovation. The suites, decorated in rich blues with abstract art that evokes the ocean, include soaking tubs use of the Trump Spa lounge areas and, in the evening, Trump wine. Inside the suites (a night in a in June was $425) one finds Trump Hotel Collection products like bath crystals and a Trump yoga mat bag, one of several amenities to encourage “wellness. ” Gold is used sparingly: Objets d’art and glass boxes for storing jewelry or sunglasses lend an understated glamour. Perhaps it’s not surprising then that the spa suites were overseen not by Mr. Trump, whose aesthetic is more aligned with opulent hotels in the Middle East and Asia, but by Ivanka Trump, an executive vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization. Admiring a decorative gold sphere, I turned over a nearby vase to see if it had a mark from a designer like Kelly Wearstler or Jonathan Adler. It had a sticker: West Elm. Maybe someone ought to have peeled it off. But I’m glad they didn’t: Design trends today mix high and low with abandon one can picture young décor buffs sharing photos of the suites on Pinterest. The gold sphere was $29 to $39 on WestElm. com cream and gold coasters on the coffee table were $31 for four. A charming bud vase had a CB2 sticker ($10. 95 on CB2. com). Generally speaking, the hallways and rooms of Trump Hotels are surprisingly subdued, save for the occasional Trumpian flourish: a gold toilet handle, or chandeliers that appear to have been sized for the “Game of Thrones” giant Wun Wun. Beyond the gold and glossy exteriors and marble lobbies, the private spaces are decorated in grays, cream and chocolates. That restraint extends to other aspects of the properties. Music at the pools and restaurants is often, refreshingly, not at full volume. And the hotels are nonsmoking, even in Las Vegas, a city where you can burn your paycheck at any number of hotel casinos. Yet Trump International Hotel Las Vegas doesn’t have a casino. Rather, it sells Trump piggy banks for $10. The facade of the Las Vegas property is another matter it’s the hotel with the unrepentant Midas touch. The building looks like a bar of gold bullion but, after all, it’s Vegas Mandalay Bay is equally blinding. “Make America Great Again” baseball caps are proffered in the Trump Store ($30) and adorn the bar at the poolside cafe, H2 Eau, amid bottles of vodka. “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway,” reads a quote from Mr. Trump splashed across a mirror at H2 Eau, “think big. ” The maxim applies to the rooms. My room in Las Vegas, upgraded to a suite at — possibly because the staff is attentive and it was the third time I booked a hotel as a Trump Card member (the brand’s free loyalty program) or because the hotel figured out where I work (I didn’t book using a New York Times email or phone number, though I used my name) — included a refrigerator, a Wolf stove and a Bosch dishwasher. Even at Trump SoHo New York, the smallest rooms are an impressive 420 square feet. The price of admission befits a luxury hotel. The cheapest available room on a July weekend at Trump International Hotel Tower New York was $563 a night, according to a recent online search. At Trump International Hotel Tower Chicago, it was $420 a night. That said, rooms are not always out of reach. For instance, one search turned up rooms at Trump International Hotel Las Vegas for $165 a night. Restaurant prices are what one expects at hotels. At BLT Prime at Trump National Doral Miami, ahi tuna was $37 a New York strip steak was $51. The hotels also tend to have cafes and shops with affordable sandwiches and snacks. If, however, you get a yen for, say, the bag of gold Trump chocolate bullions in your room at Trump SoHo, it will set you back $35. Sitting at a table in the Trump Bar at Trump Tower New York, the skyscraper used as Wayne Enterprises in the film “The Dark Knight Rises,” Ivanka Trump said the Trump Hotels customer can’t be pigeonholed. “We have millennials,” she said one spring evening during a reception in conjunction with the N. Y. U. International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference, “people from the entertainment business, entrepreneurs, titans of industry and those at the beginning of their careers. ” During recent visits to Trump Hotels, I met men and women on vacation or traveling on business, some with families. Guests spoke English, French, Chinese, Hebrew and more. The Trump Hotels website is available in several languages, including Chinese and Arabic, even as Mr. Trump proposes to squeeze China and bar Muslims from entering the United States. Asked to describe their guests, staffers at Trump SoHo said they are chief executives, athletes and actors. The Kardashians have been frequent visitors, though that doesn’t necessarily reflect their politics. “I know you like the Trump hotel, but honestly how do you feel about Trump running for president? ,” Khloé Kardashian’s friend, Malika Haqq, asked her in November on their vlog, Ebony Ivory. Ms. Kardashian replied: “Wha — how does that have to do with the Trump hotel?” “Well, no,” she continued, “I don’t think he should be president. ” Other celebrity guests have chimed in, too. After Mr. Trump said that he would bar Muslims from entering the United States, Lucy Lawless, who played the title role in the television series “Xena: Warrior Princess,” tweeted: “I used to stay in Trump hotels. Can never again,” and urged her more than 140, 000 Twitter followers to boycott the brand. Recently, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” created a fake commercial for Trump Hotels with the tagline “We’re not to blame!” and apologies to groups Mr. Trump may have offended. Indeed, some companies think Mr. Trump’s campaign has hurt his hotel business. Hipmunk, the travel comparison site, said in May that “while overall Hipmunk hotel bookings have been on the rise that has not been the case with bookings of Trump Hotels. ” The share of Trump bookings on Hipmunk as a percent of total bookings was down 59 percent year over year. In New York City and Las Vegas, Trump Hotels’ share as a percentage of each city’s total hotel bookings tumbled more than 70 percent. But Trump Hotels executives say the brand has never been stronger. Four of its hotels were among the 0. 4 percent of hotels that made AAA’s Five Diamond list this year. Asked at Trump Tower if Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign has helped or hurt the hotels, Ivanka Trump said “it’s been an upward trajectory,” adding that it may have been the case without the campaign. Behind the sheets, there has been controversy, from the bankruptcy of Mr. Trump’s hotels and casinos in Atlantic City, N. J. to a lawsuit involving Trump SoHo from buyers who alleged they had been defrauded. More recently, Mr. Trump is suing the chefs José Andrés and Geoffrey Zakarian, both of whom canceled plans to open restaurants in the Trump International Hotel, Washington, D. C. because of Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants. Still, the family business rolls on. In the fall the company plans to share details about its new lifestyle hotel brand, as yet unnamed. One name it won’t have is Trump. Is that because the name isn’t good for business? Ivanka Trump said it’s because some properties simply aren’t right for the Trump brand. It’s common, in fact, for hotel companies to spawn brands that don’t use their name. Marriott, for instance, has nearly 20 brands, including the . So, are Trump Hotels as splashy as the man for whom they’re named? Only on the surface. Beyond the facades and lobbies there’s a feeling of calm and comfort. No smoking. No gaudy colors. Even the service is what one employee called “ghost service” — omnipresent but silent. Mr. Trump, too, is omnipresent. Just not silent. In guest rooms he appears in videos about Trump Hotels on a television channel in a seemingly loop. “The thing I do best is build,” says Mr. Trump during one featuring the forthcoming Trump hotel in the nation’s capital, set to open weeks before the United States presidential election. “Better than ‘The Apprentice,’ ” he says. “Better than politics. ” | 1 |
HANOVER, Germany — It has been, perhaps, one of the most enduring mysteries of President Obama’s tenure: What really happened to the bust of Winston Churchill that was once displayed in the Oval Office? With just months left in his term, Mr. Obama’s first comments on the matter, in Europe last week, may have finally cleared up the truth of a tale that has persisted for more than seven years. For conservatives in both America and Britain, the disappearance of the bust from its place of honor soon after the end of George W. Bush’s presidency was evidence of a liberal snub by Mr. Obama. In their view, he clearly did not fully appreciate the greatness of the British prime minister, who served during and after World War II. (The bust was replaced, White House officials said at the time, with one of Abraham Lincoln.) The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the onetime Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a current Republican presidential candidate, are among those who have chastised Mr. Obama over the years for returning the bust to the British. Less than a month after Mr. Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, a British newspaper bluntly accused him of sending “Sir Winston Churchill packing. ” Not true, the White House insisted at the time, offering various explanations. William Allman, the White House curator, said in a 2010 interview with CBS News that the bust, on loan to Mr. Bush by Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, “was already scheduled to go back” before Mr. Obama took office. The bust was returned “as a matter of course” by the new administration along with other art that had been on loan to Mr. Bush for display during his term in office, White House officials said. Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s communications director at the time, blasted Mr. Krauthammer, calling his charge about the disappearing bust “100 percent false” and saying that “news outlets have debunked this claim time and again. ” In a blog post labeled a “fact check” on the White House website, Mr. Pfeiffer wrote: “The bust still in the White House. In the Residence. Outside the Treaty Room. ” Mr. Pfeiffer later apologized to Mr. Krauthammer after admitting that the bust outside the Treaty Room was, in fact, a different Churchill bust, given to President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960s. Still, Mr. Pfeiffer insisted, the return of the Oval Office bust was “not something that President Obama or his administration chose to do” and was not “a symbol of President Obama’s failure to appreciate the special relationship. ” But late last week, Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, renewed the charge, writing in a British tabloid that the Oval Office bust had been “banished” and suggesting that it could be “a symbol of the president’s ancestral dislike of the British Empire — of which Churchill had been such a fervent defender. ” Countering such charges is typically left to a president’s aides. But asked at a news conference Friday about the mayor’s comments, Mr. Obama seemed to relish the chance to set everyone straight, once and for all, about the fate of the Churchill bust. The president started by explaining that when it came to Churchill, “I love the guy. ” He offered as proof the Churchill bust that sits outside the Treaty Room, the president’s private office on the second floor of the White House residence, not far from the first family’s living quarters. “I see it every day, including on weekends, when I’m going into that office to watch a basketball game,” he said. “The primary image I see is a bust of Winston Churchill. It’s there voluntarily, because I can do anything on the second floor. I love Winston Churchill. ” But then Mr. Obama went on to explain what had happened to the bust lent by Mr. Blair, the one that critics had accused him of summarily sending back to the British. It was, Mr. Obama said, his decision to return that Churchill to his native land, because he wanted to replace it with a bust of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “There are only so many tables where you can put busts. Otherwise, it starts looking a little cluttered,” the president explained. “And I thought it was appropriate, and I suspect most people here in the United Kingdom might agree, that as the first president, it might be appropriate to have a bust of Dr. Martin Luther King in my office. ” He added that the choice of Dr. King was “to remind me of all the hard work of a lot of people who would somehow allow me to have the privilege of holding this office. ” That appears to contradict the longstanding denials by White House officials, including Mr. Pfeiffer, that neither Mr. Obama nor anyone else in his administration had chosen to dispatch Churchill’s likeness in favor of someone else’s. By Mr. Obama’s admission, he made the decision to replace the Churchill bust with one of Dr. King. “I think people should know my thinking there,” Mr. Obama told the reporters in London. Mystery solved. Except for one thing: The version of events in which Lincoln had replaced Churchill was mentioned in most stories about the issue (including in this paper). Mr. Pfeiffer included news reports about it in his 2012 blog post attacking Mr. Krauthammer. “The A. P. reported that President Obama ‘replaced the Oval Office fixture with a bust of one of his American heroes, President Abraham Lincoln,’ ” he wrote. Mr. Pfeiffer no longer works for Mr. Obama he is now vice president of communications and policy for GoFundMe, a website that helps its users raise money for causes. Current White House officials said the Churchill bust had been replaced with one of Dr. King, but the Oval Office still has a Lincoln bust as well, perhaps leading to the confusion. After all, one White House official noted, Mr. Obama did say the Oval Office could get a little cluttered. | 1 |
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, recapped with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow the recent March for Life and discussed future legislation under President Trump. [In terms of the larger picture, Perkins said, “this is about the American people. ” If Trump “holds his ground,” he added, “I do think we will see a shifting of the power back to the American people and away from Hollywood and the media. ” Perkins pointed out that it was the average American’s frustration with media and elite culture that ultimately fueled Trump’s election in November. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 1 |
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton attended a dinner at media mogul Haim Saban and wife Cheryl’s Beverly Hills mansion on Thursday night along with several major donors to her 2016 campaign, according to a report. [Sources told Variety that the dinner was meant as a to 2016 campaign donors and as an introduction to the former candidate’s creation of a new political group called Onward Together, which Clinton is reportedly expected to launch this month. Saban, the billionaire mogul behind Saban Entertainment, was one of Clinton’s top Hollywood donors during the 2016 campaign, having given more than $12 million to Priorities USA Action, the SuperPAC that had supported her run. The Sabans hosted Clinton at their Beverly Hills home multiple times during the 2016 campaign, including in August, when the former candidate participated in a session with around 80 guests, with tickets going for a reported $100, 000 per couple. That dinner also drew donors like Disney CEO Bob Iger, former DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg, Chernin Group founder Peter Chernin, and actors Will Ferrell and Tony Goldwyn. Thursday night’s dinner was attended by around people, sources told Variety. Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are reportedly in Los Angeles to attend the graduation of nephew Zach Rodham from USC. Politico reported this month that Clinton is expected to launch a new political group, Onward Together (a play on her campaign slogan, Stronger Together) as soon as this month. The group will reportedly fund other organizations and activists working to resist President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. According to the report, Clinton has been quietly lining up donors and filling out the Board of the new group over the past several weeks. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Waking Times
“If the matrix gives you Trumpocalypse, then use secret alchemical means to create matrix-shifting Trumpocalyptic lemonade.” ~ Rob Brezsny
When people asked Carl Jung, who actually met Hitler, how he manipulated the psyche of the German people, Jung replied, “Hitler didn’t manipulate the psyche of the German people, he was the psyche of the German people.”
If, as Mark Twain said, “History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes,” and you’re still wondering how this racist, xenophobic, authoritarian, climate-science-denying, misogynistic, “grab-them-by-the-pussy” candidate somehow made his way into the presidency, then look no further than a mirror. For far too long you have given into the idea that an authority will save you. You were under the delusion that you needed someone to rule over you. That delusion has led to someone who just so happens to want to rule over you. Are you really that surprised?
If you’re not careful your own Stockholm syndrome will have you thinking the state is moral and just and wants to empower you to be free. It doesn’t. It’s the complete opposite, in fact. It wants you to remain blindly subservient to its outdated laws and its chain of obedience which leads right up the immoral-laden ladder to the president who holds the violent monopoly on power.
This isn’t about who won the presidency. This is not about bipartisan fuckery. This is about the illegitimacy of any presidency, ever . This is about the illegitimacy of authority and the immoral nature of entrenched power. The state is unhealthy, unsustainable, immoral, and violent, and who ever rules over it is thereby illegitimate; whether it’s the orange-headed, spoon-fed baby of a man, FrankenTrump, vomiting hate and racism through narcissistic, ignorant, misogynistic, and bigoted bully tactics, or the status quo queen, Killary Clinton, spewing Military Industrial Complex rhetoric from her plutocratic pulpit backed by greedy corporations from Wall Street calling themselves “persons” backed by even greedier corrupt banksters with their vampire-tentacles in every country’s pie. As Larken Rose said, “The only “us versus them” that matters is not about race, religion, nationality, or income level; it is about aggressors and their victims.” 1.) They Sheepishly Assume They Need Someone to Rule Over Them
“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.” ~ Lysander Spooner
It’s not your fault, really. You were born and raised in a culture that conditioned and brainwashed you into believing that you must answer to someone. From your authoritarian upbringing to your indoctrinated school years, you were propagandized and persuaded into thinking people are inherently bad so they must be led by people who are… somehow not bad? Huh?!
Here’s the thing: people are, for the most part, a product of their environment. We’ve all been programmed to be kowtowing statists by an extremely unhealthy, unsustainable, immoral, and violent state. To break the cycle, we must break our addiction to being ruled over by such a state. We must reprogram our programming. Unlearn what we have learned. Recondition the precondition. It’s time to rise up and become an author of self (self-authority).
This is your life; not your parent’s life, not your peer’s life, not your state’s life. As Eliezer Yudkowsky said, “You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.” It begins by admitting that you need neither masters no rulers, neither president nor queen, to rule over you. It begins by empowering yourself and taking responsibility for your own power. 2.) They Falsely Assume Leadership Means Rulership
“I find it extremely liberating to see that I was the cause of all my problems. With this realization, I have also learned I am my own solution. This is the great big gift of personal accountability. When we stop blaming external forces and own up to our responsibility we become the ultimate creators of our destiny.” ~Jenna Galbut
Contrary to popular statist dogma, it is possible to have rules (cosmic law; Golden Rule; non-aggression principle) without the need for rulers and masters. Through bottom-up leadership as opposed to top-down leadership. It begins by not being an ignorant statist who gives his/her power to a tyrannical state. It begins by speaking your own truth to power, and then becoming a leader of your own. It begins by being proactive with the power you’ve wrestled back from the state and then leading by example. It begins by realizing that nobody –no president, no king, not even God– can give you permission to be free. In fact, every single president from Washington to Trump only had power because people believed it. Without that petty belief, they were nothing more than charismatic, fallible men.
You, and you alone, must become a freedom unto yourself. And that may require a little revolt. Especially if you discover that you’re not so well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. As Niels Bohr said, “Every valuable human being must be a radical and a rebel, for what he must aim at is to make things better than they are.” 3.) They Ignorantly Assume Voting and Taxation are Moral and Just
“If taxation without consent is robbery, the United States government has never had, has not now, and is never likely to have, a single honest dollar in its treasury. If taxation without consent is not robbery, then any band of robbers have only to declare themselves a government, and all their robberies are legalized.” ~Lysander Spooner
Taxation without consent is immoral. There is no way to wriggle out of this profound truth. It’s especially immoral in a state where violence is threatened if you do not consent. Most naïve statists assume they must pay taxes in order to live freely. When, really, it’s the exact opposite of that. You’re only free if you’re able to choose to pay taxes or not without the threat of violence or imprisonment hanging over your head. Otherwise it’s just soft slavery. Deep down, we’re all anarchists. We know, inherently and instinctively, that all transactions should be voluntary. We’ve just been programmed to make an exception for the state.
Voting is indirectly violent, as the result directly forces majority rule on the minority who did not consent. Voting is a profound futility, an egregious gamble. As Robert Rorschach said, “If the outcome of a vote is unknown, then voting is tantamount to gambling. If the outcome of a vote is known, then voting is futile.” Most naïve statists have been conditioned to believe that voting is the only way to change things, that one must do it from the inside. Nothing could be further from the truth. Real change only occurs outside the doing-things-over-and-over-again-and-expecting-different-results ballot box. No matter what, you’re only ever going to get a puppet popping out. Trump just happens to be the latest jack-in-the-box, albeit orange, ugly, and dumb. 4.) They Blindly Assume Their Nation State is the Greatest Nation State
“Don’t believe yourself, and don’t believe anyone else. If you don’t believe, what is not true will dissolve in front of your eyes. Only what is true will remain, because what is true doesn’t need anyone to believe it” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz
Men never act so contentedly (and conveniently) evil as when they do so from a patriotic conviction. With hyper-nationalized perspectives whipping their brains into xenophobic scrambled eggs, and border-worshipping divisiveness cutting them off from any authentic engagement with the rest of the world, statists are the new dogmatists. They are brainwashed extremists, worshiping law and order, power and violence, and grossly outdated notions of how to be a flourishing human in an ever-changing world. They assume waiving a flag is an honorable thing. When flags are nothing more than propagandized “bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead ( Arundhati Roy) .”
“Flags don’t unite us” as Belfast surmised; “they only reinforce our false sense of entitlement to lands we were born into by sheer chance.” And yet the inured statist myopically moos, ignorantly sneering at other nations from a platform of convictions gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from “authorities” who have had their own convictions spoon-fed to them by parochial forefathers who themselves didn’t have the courage to question the legitimacy of authority. As Mark Twain cryptically stated, “To create man was a fine and original idea; but to add the sheep was a tautology.” Indeed. Avoid the tautology (and the Trumpocalypse). Progressively evolve. Liberate yourself from the outdated ill-reasoning that you ever needed a chain of obedience, let alone a president. 5.) They Tragically Assume Violence is the Answer
“Like all great ideas, anarchism is pretty simple when you get down to it –human beings are at their best when they are living free of authority, deciding things among themselves rather than being ordered about.” ~Clifford Harper
This is by far the worst of the five outdated assumptions. The fact that people still think that peace comes from waging war is mind-boggling to those of us who have freed ourselves from the state and discovered empathy and compassion from our interdependence with each other as free human beings in solidarity with leaving a healthy world for our children.
It’s simple, really. To become a better human all you need is a simplified perspective: Your birth place –Earth, your race –Human, your politics –Freedom, your spirituality –Love. It’s so easy it’s stupid. All it requires is a shedding of your statist skin, and a transformation into a free human being who seeks to free others from the sickness of statism.
The only way all of us win is through horizontal democracy that’s void of centralized government. In other words: no masters, no rulers. In short: democratic anarchy. The Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora peoples did it through the Iroquois Confederacy, living in authentic democracy for hundreds of years before the tyranny of the state ruined everything. So it’s not some far-fetched utopian dream. If they did it, so can we. Democratic anarchy, combined with the non-violent non-aggression principle , has the potential to usher in an age of peace, and a progressively sustainable evolution for our species. Read more articles by Gary ‘Z’ McGee . About the Author
Gary ‘Z’ McGee , a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man . His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world. Like Waking Times on Facebook . Follow Waking Times on Twitter . This article ( Trumpocalypse & 5 Ridiculously Outdated Assumptions Every Statist Makes ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary ‘Z’ McGee and WakingTimes.com . It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.
~~ Help Waking Times to raise the vibration by sharing this article with friends and family… | 0 |
«El garito más exclusivo de la ciudad»
Esta fantástica coctelería recibe el nombre por el modo en que te miran los seguratas de la puerta. Es tan exclusiva que los camareros no aspiran a ser actores, porque ya lo son. A nosotros nos atendió Antonio de la Torre, y fue muy atento. Ojo: no dejan pasar a grupos grandes. Mi mujer tuvo que provocarse el parto en la puerta y dejar al niño en guardarropía. Por lo demás, mis diez.
FRAN BERMÚDEZ «Un buen rato entre gatos»
★★★★
Una preciosa iniciativa del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona para todas las solteras de más de 35 años. Gatalia es una exposición con todo tipo de parafernalia felina. Tienen una amplia colección de gatos siameses, siendo la joya de la corona Haagen y Dazs, los únicos gatos siameses-siameses del mundo, unidos por el tronco. Si tengo que poner alguna pega, el espectáculo musical fue decepcionante. Los gatos no vomitaban bolas de pelo al ritmo de la música. No olvides probar los rollitos de primavera, con su ingrediente “secreto” 😉 😉
NAZARET FERRER | 0 |
“The Legend of Tarzan” has a whole lot of fun, things going for it — adventure, romance, natural landscapes, digital animals and oceans of rippling handsome . Its sweep and easy pleasures come from its escapades — it’s one long dash through the jungle by foot, train, boat and swinging vine — but what makes it more enjoyable than other recycled stories of this type is that the filmmakers have given Tarzan a thoughtful, imperfect makeover. That must have been tough given the origin story’s white supremacy problems. Tarzan has always had bad optics — white hero, black land — to state the excessively obvious. Probably the only real way to avoid his negative image would be to let him molder on the shelf and in our cultural memory. Except that this wild child raised by apes turned wild man forever caught between civilization and nature is a great mythic character — a rich, dense tangle of narrative, philosophical and political meanings. That partly explains why he’s been such a commercially reliable property since Edgar Rice Burroughs cut him loose in 1912, the year Tarzan roared into existence in a pulp magazine that evolved into an empire of books, comics, plays and films. The image of Alexander Skarsgard crashing through the jungle as the latest Tarzan, his long hair and muscles gently fluttering, gets at another aspect of this character’s attraction. Like a lot of Tarzan stories, this one teems with striking flora and fauna, much of it skillfully computer generated, some of it captured on location in green, green Gabon. But its most special and spectacular effect is Tarzan, one of those characters who have always complicated the familiar argument that visual pleasure in Hollywood cinema is hinged on women being objects of male desire. Johnny Weissmuller, the most famous screen Tarzan, was an exemplary fetishized object of desire. The casting of Mr. Skarsgard, who spent a lot of time baring his body, along with vampire fangs, on the HBO show “True Blood,” indicates that the filmmakers understand a primal part of Tarzan’s allure. This isn’t strictly a question of Mr. Skarsgard’s considerable physical charms, though these are central to the character. (He isn’t playing nerd boy of the jungle.) Mr. Skarsgard is also a fine actor with an enigmatic melancholy, a quality that has been put to expressive use in small roles in movies like “What Maisie Knew” and that here suggests Tarzan carries a profound burden that makes him more complex than the usual beefcake in loincloth. And Tarzan needs a burden, something heavy enough to justify the exhumation of such a difficult fantasy figure. He gets one by proxy in “The Legend of Tarzan,” which opens with some historically informed text about King Leopold II of Belgium ( ) known as the butcher of Congo for his role in murdering millions. It’s a grim start to this but the mood lifts at Greystoke Manor, Tarzan’s ancestral pad in Britain, where he’s broodily prowling about like a caged animal. Already married to Lady Jane (Margot Robbie, holding her own) Tarzan now goes by John Clayton, having years earlier returned to nominal civilization and its discontents. Directed by David Yates, from an script by Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer, “The Legend of Tarzan” takes a while to get going. After announcing its grave bona fides, it continues to engage in a lot of narrative throat clearing, much of it dedicated to seeding Burroughs’s foundational story with historical facts. To this end, John receives an invitation from King Leopold to return to Congo to witness the king’s putative good works. John rejects the offer, only to change his mind after an entreaty from an American, George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) who suspects that the Belgian king is enslaving the region’s people. Mr. Jackson’s character is very loosely based on an extraordinary real historical hero named George Washington Williams, who occupies a chapter in Adam Hochschild’s magisterial book “King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. ” Mr. Hochschild writes that Williams, whom he calls “the first heretic,” was the earliest dissenter to speak out “fully and passionately and repeatedly” on Leopold’s atrocities. Williams deserves a grand cinematic adventure of his own, and perhaps Mr. Jackson’s comfortable, affable performance, which like the movie itself oscillates between seriousness and gentle comedy, will help make that case. Here, though, Williams is basically an elevated sidekick as well as a physician, war veteran and crack shot who’s as proficient at suturing wounds with insects as he is mowing down swaths of white mercenaries. More interesting, especially given how routine colonialist fantasies tend to play out, it is Williams who voices the complexities, catastrophic errors and redemptive efforts of the civilized world, a screen job usually given to white saviors. Williams’s polar opposite is the resident villain, Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz, predictably good) a silky, uncomplicated sadist who embodies rapacious evil from his suit to his crosslike weapon. Tarzan remains the man apart and the man in the middle, the uneasy, sometimes forlorn, sometimes exuberant bridge between civilization and nature, between the human and nonhuman animal world. His origin story from his cradle to his new mother’s hairy arms is related in flashback patchwork that conveys what he lost when he left the jungle — home, world and identity. And when he at last returns to that home, he has much to do, including nuzzle old furred friends and lead a rescue mission that soon involves Jane along with thousands of Africans. Jane scoffs at the word damsel, but she’s in distress as well as a for the abused, captive black bodies that the movie shows only glancingly. Mr. Yates, who directed the last four movies in the “Harry Potter” franchise, slips easily between intimacy and grandiosity, and he scales up and scales down as easily as Tarzan scrambles up and down the digitally rendered trees. If he and his team haven’t reinvented Tarzan it’s because they’re working in an industrial context that still puts a premium on heroic white men, even if this one doesn’t make you wince each time he turns up. Tarzan is still the white avatar flying through the African jungle with eerie skills, a mighty yodel and existential issues, yet the terrain he swings over is messier, closer and less of a lie than it once was. Part of Tarzan’s appeal — at least to some — is that he inhabits a world that resembles ours, but without the unsettling distractions of real suffering. It’s become trickier for pop entertainments to gloss over historical traumas, which may be why so many modern colonial struggles involve deep space or an alien invasion. Perhaps it’s easier to rewrite history through futuristic fictions, where worlds can collide before everyone moves on. There’s something touching about “The Legend of Tarzan,” which as it struggles to offer old adventure without old racism, suggests that perhaps other fantasies are possible — you just need some thought and Mr. Jackson. “The Legend of Tarzan” is rated (Parents strongly cautioned). It’s a Tarzan movie! Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. | 1 |
ISTANBUL — When Turkey and Europe reached an agreement a year ago this week to restrict migration to Greece, it was bad news for Abu Samir, a in Istanbul. By late 2015, Abu Samir, a former house painter from Aleppo, had become a key cog in one of the largest migrations in history, sending thousands of refugees, most of them Syrians, to Greece and earning up to $4, 000 on some days. But in the 12 months since Turkey’s pact with the European Union, his business has collapsed. The problem: Too few refugees and too many border patrols. As relations between Turkey and Europe plumbed new lows this week, fresh concerns were raised that smugglers like Abu Samir — a nom de guerre he uses for security reasons — would soon be back in business. In addition to accusing European governments of Nazism for refusing to allow referendum rallies in support of a new Turkish Constitution in their countries, the Turkish government has hinted that it might scrap the accord to restrict migration flows through Turkey in exchange for financial aid from the European Union. “We will review the migrant deal if necessary,” Numan Kurtulmus, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, warned on Monday night. In Europe, the announcement prompted fears of a repeat of the 2015 migration surges that saw 850, 000 people leave Turkey for Greece in a single year. In Turkey, it gave Abu Samir renewed hope of better business. “I expect waves of people,” he said in a video call on Tuesday night. “The business will come back to the way it was, and maybe better. ” But can President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey turn on the migration tap as easily as Abu Samir thinks? As analysts have acknowledged, the dynamics that led to the 2015 migration have changed. As a result, it may no longer be in Turkey’s power — or its interest — to influence migration flows in the way that it did a year ago. Since the European Union first promised Turkey several billion euros for its help in stemming migration to Europe in late 2015, the number of migrants leaving Turkish shores had fallen to under 1, 500 in January from nearly 70, 000 in January 2016. There are several reasons for this drastic decrease, but one partial explanation lies in a crackdown on the Turkish smuggling industry that began over the winter. As Abu Samir said on Tuesday, “Turkey wanted to show that they were stopping the smugglers. ” Migration through Turkey rose sharply in 2015, not just because of the impunity with which smugglers could operate here, but also because it was comparatively easy for Syrian refugees to reach Turkey from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. At the time, the land border was easier to cross, and Syrians in Amman and Beirut could fly to Turkey without needing to apply for a visa. Nearly two years later, that is no longer the case. Syrians now need visas to enter Turkey, while the land border is much better protected. In theory, Mr. Erdogan could lift both restrictions. But analysts said this was unlikely as it would make Turkey even more vulnerable to infiltration by fighters from the Islamic State extremist group and risk angering nationalist Turks in the middle of a tightly fought ballot referendum that would give Mr. Erdogan broad new powers. It would also mark “an incredible divergence” from one aim of Turkey’s continuing military campaign inside Syria, “which is to create a safe space for refugees to move back” into Syria, said Aaron Stein, a Turkey specialist at the Atlantic Council, a policy research group. “This seems to me like an empty threat, and it’s about time Europe called Turkey on this,” Mr. Stein added. Turkey nevertheless still already hosts the largest refugee population in the world, including more than 2. 5 million Syrians. In theory, some of these could also take advantage of renewed impunity for smugglers and pay for a boat ride to Greece. But the circumstances awaiting them there are now markedly worse than what their predecessors experienced in 2015. A humanitarian corridor that once ferried people from Greece to Germany via bus and train closed in March 2016. This did not stop onward migration entirely. Over 25, 000 still made it through the Balkans of their own accord last year, according to United Nations data, highlighting how it is usually possible to curb migration, yet far harder to end it entirely. But it did trap thousands of asylum seekers in squalid conditions inside Greece, many of them confined to detention centers on islands in the Aegean Sea. “It is a situation of absolute precarity,” said Dimitris Christopoulos, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights, an umbrella body for 178 rights groups. “It sends a message to migrants: Do not come. ” Whatever Mr. Erdogan does, the prospect of traveling to Greece is less appealing to Syrian refugees than it once was, said Heaven Crawley, a migration expert at Coventry University and the of research on the motivations of migrants. “There is no shortage of people in Turkey who could move. It’s just that they don’t see there’s much point in moving,” Professor Crawley said. “They don’t see the point of being stuck in Greece. ” Abu Samir, however, still holds out hope. In 2015, the sheer number of migrants was what forced European countries like Macedonia to establish the Balkans corridor in the first place. Two years later, the smuggler still will not rule out a repeat of that bonanza. If a new wave of migration to Greece does materialize, Abu Samir said, and “if enough numbers arrived in Greece, then neither Greece and Macedonia will be able to hold them, so they’ll have to open their borders. ” | 1 |
When you are traveling solo, it’s not always a breeze to strike up a conversation with a stranger. In fact, how do you meet other single travelers or locals in the first place? And if you’re looking for friendship — or even something more — how do you ensure that amid all the fun you don’t neglect to take safety precautions? Before we get to tactics, it’s helpful to know that you are likely to be rewarded for overcoming apprehensions about approaching someone new when you’re on the road. “Its easy to imagine all the ways things will go badly or believe that this person doesn’t want to connect,” said Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. But if you reach out, he continued, “almost everybody reaches back. ” Social scientists have found that making such connections, whether traveling or not, boosts happiness, and yet strangers in proximity “routinely ignore each other,” as Dr. Epley and his colleague Juliana Schroeder put it in the Journal of Experimental Psychology last year. During a series of nine experiments, they saw again and again that we underestimate other people’s interest in connecting. How to break the ice then? Dr. Epley suggests simply saying to that stranger on the bus or in the cafe: “Hi, I’m visiting. Can you tell me what I ought to see in town?” “Everybody loves to brag about their city,” he said. Or offer a compliment, he suggested. “I think you’re just best off in your relationships if you’re transparent with people. ” (This is not to gloss over any genuine concerns about talking to strangers, Dr. Epley said. But we’ll address those in a bit.) As experienced solo travelers know, opportunities for pleasurable connections are everywhere: trains, planes, parks, bars, museums, walking tours, group hikes. Yet should all that fail, technology provides seemingly innumerable ways to increase the odds. Obviously dating websites and apps like OkCupid and Tinder can facilitate around the world. Yet the travel industry has its own tools, designed not specifically for romance, but for friendship. I’ve previously written about some of these websites and apps, including Highlight and Planely. The app Skout enables travelers to meet locals or one another wherever they are, be it a concert in London or a soccer game in Barcelona. More recently there’s Tripr, which allows travelers to find others who will be in the same place. But if you’re seeking a companion, a couple of veteran sites deserve another look. Unlike a lot of aimed at connecting travelers, Couchsurfing. com was founded in 2004 and has grown to some nine million members. You may know it as the purview of frugal travelers who see the world by sleeping on the couches and air mattresses of strangers, but it’s also a great way to meet other solo travelers and locals — even if you don’t crash on their couches. Some 120, 000 cities worldwide offer weekly Couchsurfing art gallery tours, hikes, dinners or gatherings in coffee shops and bars. (Becoming a member of the site is free.) In addition to joining events, you can also reach out to other members who have set their “hosting availability” status to “wants to meet up,” meaning that while their couch is unavailable, they’re happy to meet for coffee or be a resource while you’re visiting their city. Another digital stalwart is VirtualTourist. com, which offers tips and reviews from fellow globe trekkers and has been around since 1999. That means you’ll find a true online community, a deep well of people with whom to interact. Members have profiles that may include photos, their hometown, travel interests and where they’ve been. Each member’s travel tips are tied to his or her profile, and should you like what you read or have questions, you can message the user. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get together offline. Once you’re on the ground in a city, you can meet dozens of people at once by attending a cocktail hour, group run, or tour through the worldwide events site Meetup. com. While meeting someone new is exciting and can be deeply fulfilling, such overtures must be balanced with safety measures. Even Couchsurfing, which refers to strangers as “friends you haven’t met yet,” has a page devoted to safety, warning members to trust their instincts (“If a person, situation or profile seems unsafe for any reason, move on. Don’t worry about seeming rude”) and know their limits (“Partying like a rock star might be fun, but it puts your safety and in the hands of others”). For women, especially, the site advises being educated about your destination’s cultural and religious norms and to “be clear about your boundaries and don’t be shy about stating them. ” At the same time, Dr. Epley said most people are not interested in taking advantage of you. “The person who wants to take advantage of you wants to find you immediately,” he explained. It’s different when you’re the one who decides to initiate a conversation. “When there’s random selection, you don’t have that risk of being targeted,” he said. Solo travelers are often told to keep friends and loved ones informed about where they’re going and when (including the time they expect to return) know which neighborhoods to avoid, and learn local emergency numbers. Additionally, consider registering with the nearest United States Embassy or consulate at Step. state. . This allows the embassy to reach you in an emergency (natural disaster, civil unrest) and family and friends to contact you if there’s an emergency. You may also want to memorize words such as “help,” “police” and “fire” in the local language, and have a plan for how you’ll get back to your hotel anytime you’re out after dark. If you are in a place where there’s no mass transit or if mass transit is not safe at night, have the number of a taxi service with you. If you use Uber, make sure the photo of the driver that appears on the app matches the face of the person who picks you up. Also, the Uber app has a “Share my ETA” option that allows you to send someone your whereabouts and estimated arrival time. (Before I even get into a car I send the driver’s name, car make and my destination to a friend or family member.) The fear of strangers has deep evolutionary roots. Do not, Dr. Epley said, disregard your intuition. “Our research does not suggest that you should talk to everybody that you meet or that you should have the volume turned up to 11 in all your social interactions,” he said. It’s just that for most of us, “the dial for engaging others seems set a little too low. Nudge it up. ” | 1 |
BEIJING — China’s most senior uniformed military commander paid a visit in recent days to the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, the country’s Ministry of National Defense said on Friday. The commander, Gen. Fan Changlong, appears to have been the People’s Liberation Army officer ever to visit the Spratly group, a sprawling collection of islands that extends close to the Philippines. Although the details made public about General Fan’s visit were sparse, his tour appeared intended to show China’s determination to ward off any challenges to its claims over the islands, which are also the subject of claims by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan. China calls them the Nansha Islands. General Fan led a delegation to the “relevant Nansha Islands to offer good wishes to officers and personnel stationed there, and also to understand the construction of facilities on the islands,” said a brief statement from the Ministry of National Defense. General Fan is a vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the council that runs the People’s Liberation Army forces. He is outranked only by the chairman, Xi Jinping, who is also president of China and head of the country’s Communist Party. Under Mr. Xi, the Chinese military has accelerated efforts to secure domination of islands also claimed by Southeast Asian countries. The growing reach of the Chinese Navy, and the rival claims of other Asian powers, have turned the Spratlys and other islands across the South China Sea into a volatile mosaic of disputes. In past decades, Chinese military and civilian leaders have visited the Paracel Islands, which are closer to the Chinese mainland. China claims sovereignty over much of the sea, but it faces not only rival claims from Southeast Asian countries but also growing wariness from Washington and its allies. They say that Beijing is risking a dangerous escalation of regional tensions by expanding barren reefs and outcrops into artificial islands and by installing military outposts, lighthouses, airstrips and other infrastructure on islands under its control. On Friday, the United States secretary of defense, Ashton B. Carter, visited an American Navy aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, a gesture that seemed likely to draw ire from Beijing. The Chinese government says that Washington should play no part in trying to settle the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, and it has criticized operations by United States Navy ships that have passed close by islands controlled by China. The Obama administration has said those operations are to show that China cannot deny other nations freedom of navigation through waters near islands under its control. China says that its island facilities, including lighthouses and weather stations, serve valuable civilian functions for all countries. | 1 |
ATLANTA — What, exactly, do you do with a work of art, mythmaking and Civil War history that is longer than a football field, more than 40 feet tall and urgently in need of a new home? This city is finding out. After decades of deepening disrepair and disinterest in the painting commonly known as the Atlanta Cyclorama, workers this month are moving the panorama as part of a $35 million plan to rescue and maintain a titanic, deteriorating example of an art form that has mostly disappeared. Saving “The Battle of Atlanta,” which is among the largest oil paintings in the world, has proved to be an undertaking of remarkable complexity. It is rife with logistical tests, engineering quandaries, curatorial challenges and political and racial sensitivities that linger more than 150 years after Gen. William T. Sherman’s military campaign here. Yet after taxpayers spent years supporting an imperiled painting in a building troubled by leaks and temperature fluctuations, formal opposition to the effort, which is privately funded by multiple philanthropists, is strikingly scarce. “The fact that this painting has survived when so many others were left out to mold and rot and get burned up and whatever is nothing short of a miracle,” said Gordon L. Jones, the senior military historian and curator at the Atlanta History Center, which reached a license agreement with the City of Atlanta to display the cyclorama. “Everything that we know about Civil War memory, all of those stories, can in some way be described by using this painting as an example,” Dr. Jones said. Indeed. “The Battle of Atlanta,” prepared in Milwaukee by a team of German artists, was completed in 1886, when cycloramas — massive panoramic projects intended to give viewers the sensation of standing in the depicted landscape — were a leading form of entertainment, and the colossal works traveled the country. During its tour of the North, “Atlanta” was widely interpreted as depicting the 1864 struggle here for what it was: a decisive and pivotal victory for the Union that left an estimated 12, 140 people dead, most of them Confederate troops. Then the exhibition moved to the South, and in November 1892, The Atlanta Constitution newspaper printed a masterstroke of spin: an advertisement that said the cyclorama’s scene was the “only Confederate victory ever painted. ” The painting swiftly attracted large, and almost exclusively white, audiences and was donated to the city around the turn of the century. But the crowds dwindled, in part because motion pictures increasingly replaced cycloramas as entertainment, and generations of decline began. A major restoration that concluded in 1982 bought the Atlanta Cyclorama more time before the painting’s quality and appeal began to wane again. In recent years, elementary schoolteachers leading field trips were among the most loyal visitors to the cyclorama. “I remember that when I took my permission slip home, my mom and my dad had a conversation,” said Mayor Kasim Reed of Atlanta, 47, who is black. “I remember it not being a typical permission slip that was quickly signed. ” But it fell to Mr. Reed, who will leave office next year, to help solve the contemporary riddle of what to do with the cyclorama, which black residents, in an earlier time, were allowed to view only one day a month. The city announced the agreement with the Atlanta History Center in 2014. The center will display the relic on its campus, located in an upscale area of Atlanta that includes the Governor’s Mansion and some of the city’s finest restaurants. The plan comes — somewhat serendipitously, its organizers said — at a time of scattered efforts in the South to move beyond the traditional Old South narrative surrounding the Civil War. In 2014, for example, the Georgia Historical Society dedicated a marker that sought to undermine what it described as “popular myth” about Sherman’s cruelty during the war. “It helps to bring some emphasis to why what happened here was important and why it’s not your grandfather’s Civil War anymore,” Dr. Jones said of scholarship and presentation of the war. Mr. Reed said he was not bothered by the painting’s continuing prominence and possible resurgence. “As a black person, I’m quite comfortable with it because I know how the end of the movie turned out,” the mayor said. “The right result was reached. That doesn’t mean that we should not be privy to an expansive story of how we got to who we are today. ” But the deal that Mr. Reed helped to broker created the complicated task of moving the painting from the Atlanta Cyclorama and Civil War Museum, which closed in 2015 to prepare for a relocation that will cumulatively require about 200 people. Not long ago, a expert from the History Center’s insurer called Jackson McQuigg, the center’s vice president of properties, with a polite, terse request: “Walk me through it. ” Workers, Mr. McQuigg replied, will spend days rolling the painting, which is appraised at $7. 5 million, onto a pair of spools. A crane will slowly lift the spools — “We’re hoping goes faster,” Mr. McQuigg said in an interview — through holes cut in the roof of the nearly building. Then, once the painting is resting aboard two trucks, the workers will let the clock tick. “We’re going to wait until everybody goes home and the traffic dies down and there’s no more Atlanta rush hour,” Mr. McQuigg said in the musty room where the cyclorama has hung for generations. “Heck, it might be 3 in the morning. ” The cyclorama’s former home will be converted into an event space for Zoo Atlanta, a private nonprofit. The painting, once it has been relocated, will undergo extensive restoration efforts before its formal reopening, scheduled for fall 2018. Among panorama proponents, the project in Atlanta, more than eight years after a restoration of the “Battle of Gettysburg” cyclorama in Pennsylvania, is seen as a crucial effort to preserve the medium’s past. Fewer than two dozen cycloramas from the late 1800s and early 1900s are believed to have survived the last century. “It’s a chance to represent a really major and widely consumed art form that most people have really forgotten about,” said Sara Velas, the president of the International Panorama Council and the artistic director of the Velaslavasay Panorama in Los Angeles. “It’s still impactful and entertaining, even if our attention span has changed from what it was in the 19th century. ” And in Atlanta, a city that was a cradle of the civil rights movement but is within sight of a monument to the Confederacy at Stone Mountain, reviving the “Battle of Atlanta” cyclorama is also a means to clarifying history. “It’s been caught up in ‘the Lost Cause,’ and that made it a sore subject for a lot of people,” Dr. Jones said of the painting that stood nearby, shrouded in scaffolding. “We’ve got to unwrap that, and we’ve got to get past that, and we’ve got to be able to talk about ‘the Lost Cause’ objectively and talk about it for what it is and what it’s not. This is a way we can do that. ” | 1 |
Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway hit back at failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Twitter Thursday, after Clinton mocked President Trump’s immigration order being blocked by the 9th Circuit Court. [As reported by Fox News, “Clinton tweeted, ‘’ after a federal appeals court ruled unanimously against reinstating Trump’s order on immigration and refugees. The panel of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco all sided against the order. ” — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 10, 2017, In response, Conway tweeted the abbreviations of three vital states that Clinton lost during the 2016 presidential election to Trump: “PA, WI, MI. ” PA, WI, MI. https: . — Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) February 10, 2017, Clinton might have been better served staying out of the spotlight after her historic failure in the 2016 election as Republicans step up their Twitter game. In January, Sen. Ted Cruz successfully trolled sports site Deadspin after he responded to their bounty for a picture of the senator playing basketball. “What do I win?” Cruz asked in his reply, which included a photo of Duke star Grayson Allen, who looks similar to Cruz. “Go eat shit,” Deadspin replied, prompting Cruz to send an Anchorman GIF with the caption, “Boy, that escalated quickly. ” Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Print
You know, canoes? Those boats that you powered around the lake when you went to summer camp? Betcha didn’t know they were the epitome of evil — of white privilege, genocide, and a whole host more of crimes against social justice.
So saieth Misao Dean, professor of English at the University of Victoria in Canada, who shared her views on CBC Radio , which reveals in its intro that Dean wrote the book on the evils of canoe appropriation. Its title is “Inheriting a Canoe Paddle: The Canoe in Discourses of English-Canadian Nationalism.”
You can listen to the interview here , or if you have something more important to do (what could be more important?), be advised that Heat Street provides portions of the enlightening Q & A. For example, when asked whether we should look at the canoe as a non-controversial symbol or as a symbol of colonialism, Dean responds:
Absolutely a symbol of colonialism. It seems to me that this narrative we tell ourselves about the canoe about how canoeing makes us in touch with nature, how canoeing makes us in some way guiltless of the terrible things that the Canadian government and Canadians in general did to First Nations people.
If you prefer the dissenting view, scroll down to the comments section of the CBC Radio page, where reader Patrick Saunders opines, “Academia has become a sit-com. A not really funny, sad-in-a-car-crash-sorta-way sit-com.” Then there’s this from Kawartha Cottager:
As soon as the ice is out of the lake I am going to head to the cottage and burn down my boat house so myself and my family will no longer be tortured by those symbols of colonialism like my canoes, kayaks and worst of all my Laser sailboat, that other symbol of colonialism. Those Euros arrived on sailboats back in the 15th century after all. Once I am done that, I will head back up the hill behind the cottage and torch my outhouse so I can destroy that ultimate symbol of colonialism…..the toilet seat.
Well, garsh —if no one’s going to take this seriously, what’s a social justice warrior to do? | 0 |
October 26, 2016 Hillary Clinton and the United Nations on the Same Open Borders Page
During the last presidential debate, Hillary Clinton was asked about her support for a policy of completely open borders and an end to America’s immigration laws. She made the amazing claim that she “only meant” she wanted open borders for energy policies. Whatever her claims, Hillary Clinton is on the same open borders page as the United Nations.
During the October 19 debate, GOP nominee Donald Trump noted that, in speeches she gave to high-dollar corporations, Hillary Clinton insisted she was for open borders.
In a private, richly-paid speech that Hillary delivered to a Brazilian bank on May 16, 2013, she said: “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, sometime in the future, with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.”
The section of Hillary’s address to the foreign bankers was confirmed by a release from the hacker site WikiLeaks. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Few companies have been as intimately tied to the Democratic Party in recent years as Google. So now that Donald J. Trump is president, the giant company, in Silicon Valley parlance, is having to pivot. The shift was evident a day after Congress began its new session this month. That evening, about 70 lawmakers, a majority of them Republicans, were feted at the stately Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building, where they clinked champagne and bourbon glasses and posed for selfies with the 600 guests assembled in their honor. The event’s main host was not from the Republican establishment. Instead, the party was primarily financed and anchored by Google. “We’ve partnered with Google on events before, but nothing like this party,” said Alex Skatell, founder of The Independent Journal Review, a news with a millennial audience, which also helped host the event. The event was emblematic of an by Google. Over the last eight years, the company was closely associated with former President Barack Obama. Google employees overwhelmingly supported Mr. Obama’s presidential campaigns, and some later took roles in his administration. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, advised the Obama White House. And last year, Google employees gave $1. 3 million to Hillary Clinton’s campaign to succeed Mr. Obama, compared with $26, 000 to the Trump campaign, according to federal filings. Now, the tech giant is scrambling to forge ties with Mr. Trump’s new administration and to strengthen its relationship with a Congress. Most important, Google is trying to change the perception that it is a Democratic stronghold. That has led to events like the party at the Smithsonian, which the institution said had cost at least $50, 000. Mr. Schmidt has embarked on an East Coast charm offensive of Republican political leaders, including twice visiting Mr. Trump and his advisers at Trump Tower. Last month, Google also posted an opening to fill a position for a “conservative outreach” employee in its Washington office. “Google has a target on its back because it is fundamentally viewed as a Democratic company,” said Gigi Sohn, a former senior adviser to Tom Wheeler, who was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. “Even though it has reached out to Republicans, it can’t shake the image. ” Google said it had long had Republican lobbyists and had not changed its strategy. “We’ve worked with both Republicans and Democrats for over a decade, advocating policies to encourage economic growth, innovation and entrepreneurialism,” the company said in a statement. “We’ll continue to do exactly that. ” A spokesman for Mr. Schmidt added, “Eric has a long record of working constructively and energetically on important technology issues with American and world leaders across the political spectrum. ” Other Silicon Valley tech companies, like Facebook, are in a similar predicament. The perception is that they lean left and their executives backed Mrs. Clinton. Many are now also pledging to work with Mr. Trump and paid court to the new president at a December tech summit meeting. One week into the administration, Google and other tech companies began to push back, criticizing Mr. Trump’s executive order on immigration bans. The company said an estimated 187 employees were affected by the order and it urged any of those employees who were abroad to work with the company to return safely to the United States. ”It’s painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said in a memo to employees over the weekend. “We’ve always made our views on immigration issues known publicly and will continue to do so. ” Google has much at stake as it repositions itself. During the Obama years, Google avoided American antitrust charges, even as European regulators accused the firm of antitrust violations in search and in its mobile business. Google also successfully pushed a policy agenda that included the creation of net neutrality rules in 2015 and the defeat of online piracy laws in 2012. Now warning shots against Google have been fired by those in Mr. Trump’s circle. Some of the president’s advisers have debated whether the tech behemoth deserves more antitrust scrutiny, according to two people briefed by the new administration’s transition team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and Trump transition adviser, also compared the power that Google had under Mr. Obama to that which the oil giant Exxon Mobil had under President George W. Bush. Under President Bush, the administration largely agreed with Exxon’s skeptical stance on climate change policy. Mr. Trump’s team is particularly wary of one Google executive — Mr. Schmidt — who has been allied with Democrats. During last year’s presidential campaign, Mr. Schmidt counseled Mrs. Clinton on strategy. A photo of him wearing a staff badge at her party circulated widely in the conservative media. Mr. Trump’s advisers, including his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, have complained about Mr. Schmidt’s funding of a called the Groundwork, which provided data and other technology for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. They also suspected Google was skewing search results in favor of Mrs. Clinton, said Barry Bennett, a former senior adviser for Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Mr. Schmidt spent millions and millions of his personal money to defeat Donald Trump,” Mr. Bennett said. “It takes a particular amount of gumption to pretend that never happened. ” Google has denied it tweaked its search results, which are determined by algorithms, and the company declined to comment on Mr. Schmidt. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment. For many years, Google’s support of Democrats was plain. Google’s political action committee and employees ranked third in all donations to Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign at $804, 240, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2008, Google’s PAC and employees were sixth with $817, 855. The company did not rank in the top 20 for donations to Mr. Obama’s Republican opponents in either of those elections. About five years ago, Google began diversifying its bets. The company forged ties with the House of Representatives and started addressing the beginning of an antitrust investigation into whether the company was using its search dominance to suppress competing travel, map and restaurant sites. In 2011, Google hired Stewart Jeffries, a former member of the House Judiciary Committee, to lobby Republicans on Capitol Hill. That same year, it quadrupled its number of outside lobbying firms — including many with Republican lobbyists — to 24, from six in 2010. In 2012, Google named a former Republican congresswoman, Susan Molinari of New York, to lead its Washington office. Google also sponsored conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation. The company has hosted Republican lawmakers including the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California, and Darrell Issa of California at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google’s Washington office is now roughly split between Republican and Democrats. The company spent $15. 43 million in lobbying in 2016, according to federal lobbying documents, making it among the top dozen firms in lobbying spending last year. For the first time last year, Google’s PAC gave more to Republican congressional candidates than to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Even so, Google’s Republican ties got little notice because of the company’s strong relationship with Democrats. Several Google employees joined the Obama administration while dozens of government bureaucrats were employed by the tech company. Google’s head of global public policy, Caroline Atkinson, was Mr. Obama’s former national security adviser. A former Google executive, Megan Smith, became the nation’s chief technology officer. During his presidency, Mr. Obama also repeatedly supported proposals backed by Google, including net neutrality in 2015 and cable box reforms last year. “Google was very much treated as the golden child by the Obama administration,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, which has been critical of Google for privacy policies. Since the election, Google has accelerated efforts to win over the Republican White House and Congress. Before his visits to Trump Tower, Mr. Schmidt met with Mr. McCarthy and Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, who is chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. Days after Mr. Trump’s victory, Google also contacted The Independent Journal Review, which it had worked with on events during the Republican campaign debates. Google told the news that it would provide the main funding for the party at the Smithsonian. Google said the event was open to both parties. But pairing with the conservative site sent a clear message to attendees. “We definitely helped draw Republicans and people from across the spectrum,” said the site’s founder, Mr. Skatell. At the party, several Republican lawmakers were positive about their tech host, brushing off questions about the company’s heft and power. “When I think of technology and Google, I don’t think of dominance,” said Representative Bradley Byrne, a Republican from Alabama. “I think of innovation. ” | 1 |
Only 25 percent of Americans believe that higher education is “fine how it is,” according to a recent survey by the think tank New America. [The survey, which measured American’s perceptions on the status of higher education, revealed that many believe that universities are not delivering on their promises. Of concern for colleges and universities, just one in four of the survey’s respondents feel higher education is functioning fine the way it is. … A contributor to the widespread belief that higher education too often does not deliver on its promise, the survey found, is that 58 percent of respondents believe colleges put their own interests first instead of those of their students. Negative attitudes towards higher education were especially present amongst younger people. Only 13 percent of millennials claimed that higher ed is “fine how it is. ” Millennials in particular felt this way, despite being on track to be the most educated generation yet and the most experienced with the system. Among this group, 64 percent said colleges put their own interests first and only 13 percent say higher education is fine as it is, compared to 42 percent and 39 percent, respectively, for the Silent Generation (age 72 and up). Although the reason for such dissatisfaction is unclear, the increasing divide over what higher education should represent likely contributes to these attitudes. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
The President of the European Council has finally recognized that Europe cannot handle the massive influx of migrants crossing from North Africa into Italy and has called for measures to shut down the maritime route across the Strait of Sicily. [Ironically, just two days ago, Council President Donald Tusk criticized Donald Trump’s recent executive order putting a moratorium on new visas for nationals of seven particularly dangerous seedbeds of terrorism, calling the U. S. President a “demagogue” who poses an “existential threat” to the EU. And yet, Tusk seems to have taken a page from his namesake’s recent actions, boldly proposing that the route be “closed down. ” “The flow of migrants from Libya into Italy and the EU is not sustainable,” Tusk said Thursday after a meeting in Brussels between European and Libyan officials. “Europe has proved it is able to close down irregular routes of migration, as we did on the Eastern Mediterranean route,” Tusk said. “We have discussed the example of our cooperation with Turkey and other countries in this part of the region. Now it is time to close down the route from Libya to Italy. ” Populist leaders in Europe were quick to highlight what they consider the hypocrisy of the Council President, who has tended to downplay Europe’s migrant crisis. The Leader of Italy’s Northern League Party, Matteo Salvini, challenged the EU official for his slowness to recognize the problem and his sudden which occurred just after President Trump decided to draw a line in the sand on the problem of international terrorism and its links to migration. “When we at the League said the same thing five years ago,” Salvini asked, “weren’t we racists?” referring to accusations leveled against the League for its warnings of the dangers of unchecked immigration. Libyan Prime Minister Fayez who met the press together with Donald Tusk, said that the problem of illegal migration is “something dramatic” and affects security, and social, economic and political stability. “We must find ways to deal with all these aspects of the phenomenon,” said, noting that migrants need to be held back “in their countries of origin,” before they embark on the dangerous journey toward Europe. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
Leave a reply
Mike Adams – It’s time to break the cycle of complacency and servitude so that we can move humanity forward. We must move past the age of centralized government corruption and control. We must take responsibility for our lives and the repercussions of our actions. It’s time for humanity to end the age of servitude and proclaim our independence from all the systems of manipulation, deceit and control that try to dominate our minds (the media, the government, false science, false social narratives, etc).
In my newest documentary-style video, I reveal how we can all break the cycle of human complacency and servitude by raising our self-awareness about all the ways we are being systematically manipulated or deceived. Click here to watch the video
From the video: “ One of the hardest things in the world is to introduce someone to the real world they’ve never seen. Because they’ve never lived in it. They’ve lived in a fictional construct inside their own head. They’ve been swimming in fictional delusions and belief systems and cultural narratives that simply aren’t true. And yet they think that’s reality .”
Learn how to question your beliefs, question your senses and preempt the social engineering mechanisms that have turned your brain into a puppet of the corrupt establishment.
Please share. Thank you. SF Source Natural News Oct. 2016 | 0 |
Leave a reply Charles Hugh Smith – The parallels between Hillary Clinton and Richard Nixon are not legal–they are political: specifically, how can a leader crippled by scandal and cover-ups govern? In even blunter terms: how can a crippled politico deliver the goods to the special interests who bet their cash and political capital on the politico’s ability to deliver favors? Among the many ghosts of Watergate, one specter especially haunts Hillary: once the special interests and party stalwarts who defended you through every scandal and every cover-up–month after month and year after year, on the promise that you would deliver the goods upon ascending to the presidency–realize you are too damaged to deliver anything of value to anyone, why would they continue supporting you? Once a politico has to declare “I am not a crook” based on legalese rather than a moral foundation, that politico’s ability to lead has vanished. Hillary and her supporters rely entirely on legalese parsing of wrong-doing rather than on a self-explanatory, basic moral foundation of right and wrong. Declaring “I am not a crook” because the wrongdoing escapes prosecution is the same as declaring “I am above the law.” If the foundation of one’s ability to lead is a reliance on legal parsing and allies in the Department of Justice squashing investigations while handing out immunity like candy on Halloween, the political capital required to lead no longer exists. Ultimately, the President leads by moral suasion. Even the political act of delivering the goods to the special interests that funded your campaign and your wealth must be backed by the moral authority of personal integrity and a morally grounded appeal to the common good. A politician who has effectively zero personal integrity is only as viable as his/her ability to deliver favors to the few (i.e. special interests) over the objections of the many. A reliance on cold-blooded horse-trading only works if the leader has enough political capital to arm-twist everyone into granting favors to allies and special interests. But this political capital rests on moral suasion and support earned not by issuing promises but by leading the nation through thorny thickets to solutions that work for the many, not just the few. Once the ability to lead has been lost, special interests can forget about getting favors. And once they realize their politico is a liability rather than an asset, self-preservation requires abandoning the liability as quickly as possible. It’s nothing personal, it’s just business. Anyone who thinks Hillary has the personal integrity to build sufficient political capital to lead is delusional. Anyone who believes Hillary has the moral foundation to deliver the goods to the myriad special interests that have funded her campaign and her personal wealth is equally delusional. Are Goldman Sachs et al. delusional? If there is any lesson to be learned from the ghosts of Watergate, it is that the big-money support of a leader who has lost the ability to deliver the goods crumbles very quickly as the endgame unfolds. Charles Smith is a Contributing Writer for Shift Frequency SF Source Of Two Minds | 0 |
Some 63 North African migrants caused a major uproar in the middle of the night on an Italian ferry Monday, fighting, screaming, stealing, vandalizing, beating other passengers and pulling people out of their bunks. [The migrants, 29 of whom had been denied asylum by the Italian government and were slated for deportation, boarded the ferry in the port town of Cagliari (Sardinia) and began drinking until the bar closed. At this point they started protesting loudly, demanding more alcohol. Soon they “turned the voyage into a nightmare for the other 170 passengers,” according to Italian media reports. The ship Janas had left Cagliari on Monday night with a large group of North Africans, most of whom were from Algeria. At sea in the middle of the night, the migrants began assaulting other passengers, creating a melee on the ship. Despite efforts by the crew to restore calm, the situation rapidly degenerated and for hours the ship was at the mercy of the sixty rioters. Calm only returned on board at dawn, just before the ship moored, when the migrants realized that police patrols had been deployed on the Naples harbor docks and were waiting for them. Upon the ferry’s arrival in Naples, local police officers boarded the ship and spent the day Tuesday identifying the foreigners who started the brawl and reconstructing the episode as faithfully as possible. One by one, police questioned every passenger as well as reviewing the surveillance footage from the video cameras on board the ship. The episode highlights the exasperation experienced by law enforcement officials who believe the situation has gotten completely out of control. “Little good is coming from these daily arrivals from North Africa,” said Luca Agati, head of the local police union (SAP) in Cagliari. “These young people think they can do whatever they please once they have been denied asylum. ” The deportation certificate is becoming “a permission slip that guarantees them the freedom to commit crimes in Italy,” he added. “What has to happen for people to understand that a definitive solution must be found for the issue of deportations?” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
People in cities other than Delhi spray Fog deo all over to get media attention Posted on Tweet (Image via hindustantimes.com)
Desperate to get media attention over the rising pollution levels in their areas, citizens in cities like Patna, Gwalior Allahabad and Raipur are spraying Fog deo all over in hope that someone will pay close attention to their woes as well.
“We have been watching non-stop coverage of the unprecedented pollution levels in the national capital for a few weeks now. But what people don’t realize is that our cities are polluted too. Nobody talks about this because we don’t live in Delhi,” said a Patna citizen coughing but not giving up before completing the sentence.
A person who regularly travels to Gwalior was not optimistic that spraying deodorant all over the city will get the media attention. But he saw a silver lining in the artificial cloud. “I hate visiting Gwalior because my in-laws stay there. But the Fog deo now sprayed all over gives the city a new odour and I like it. There you go, finally, a good reason for me to visit my wife’s city.”
People of Allahabad too have been shocked as the ‘city of prime ministers’ has been neglected by the media when it comes to air pollution. “The only time our city and the state gets eyeballs is when there is infighting in the family of the party that rules us. When will the media realize that the pollution in UP too is going UP?”
A dejected Raipur citizen said that one day he hopes his city too is placed on the pollution map of the country. “One day, I wish to see a special broadcast on prime-time news shows on the pollution levels in my city.”
When asked what else was happening in the city apart from air contamination, the person replied, “Bas, Fog hi chal raha hai. (Duh! Fog is in the air.)” Tweet About Amrut Thobbi
Amrut Thobbi is an editor by profession, satirist by heart and useless as a person. You can follow him at @amrutti on Twitter or Amrut Thobbi on Facebook. He blogs here | 0 |
Police across the country are being equipped with ‘Christian’ facial recognition cameras Source: MassPrivateI
Soon, cops across America will be wearing body cameras equipped with facial recognition software.
Watchguard Video (WGV) claims their new “ Redactive ” software will enable law enforcement to identify anyone. (WGV is really, Enforcement Video LLC )
Redactive quickly scans the entire video clip first, automatically recognizing faces, so the user [officer] spends much less time manually performing the task.
Police cameras automatically identify everyone’s face
Redactive’s advanced facial recognition technology automatically detects and identifies human faces , minimizing the elements of the video which are falsely detected as human, thus reducing the overall time spent manually searching and marking the video for redaction. Users begin the redaction process by instructing the software to auto-detect any face in the video. Once auto-detection is complete, the software allows the user to select and redact the face or faces throughout the video.
6,000 spying law enforcement agencies and growing
How long, before every law enforcement agency in America is equipped with facial recognition cameras?
Nearly 1 Million spying cops in America
According to the Skeptical Libertarian there are close to a MILLION cops in the U.S. Think about what’s happening.
Soon, America will have 18,000 law enforcement agencies and a MILLION cops using facial recognition software!
How long before firefighters are equipped with facial recognition cameras?
In Modesto, California firefighters are being equipped with heat-resistant helmet cameras.
WGV’s ‘Christian’ facial recognition cameras
According to WGV’s company profile, God wants to give cops facial recognition cameras!
WGV is a God-guided company that is committed to serving our employees and customers through servant leadership .
Are they listening to God or the cops?
“ Our team spends a lot of time listening to the needs of law enforcement as it pertains to video evidence. With VISTA WiFi, I think they’ll find we not only surpassed their needs, we’ve leapfrogged the market’s expectations” Robert Vanman , Founder and CEO of WatchGuard Video said.
WGV works closely with Homeland Security
Join Grants Office, LLC and WatchGuard Video as we explore various [DHS] grant programs that will fund BWCs, as well as other solutions such as in-car video. In addition to gaining an understanding of the funding available and tips to secure grants, participants will learn about the latest and greatest video technology available to public safety agencies.
WGV helps police get $1.8 Billion in grant money from DHS
WGV published a 2016 Grant Funding Guide that identifies funding sources and helps them write grants that’ll get approved. | 0 |
IRONY ALERT: First Person Arrested For Voter Fraud Is A Trump Supporter By Andrew Bradford on October 29, 2016 Subscribe
Ever since the public opinion polls began showing him behind in the 2016 race for the White House, GOP nominee Donald Trump has alleged that the political system and election is “rigged.” He has even recommended that his supporters show up at polling places to observe what is taking place and assure the election isn’t “stolen” via voter fraud.
Which brings us to Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. Terri Lynn Rote voted early at an election office in her hometown. A few hours later, Rote then went to another polling location and attempted to vote a second time. She was arrested and charged with first-degree election fraud, a Class D felony.
The irony is almost too much to stomach, isn’t it?
Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald said it’s the first time in 12 years he can remember ever having to report potential voter fraud to the authorities.
What Trump and other Republicans fail to say when they warn of voter fraud on the left is that based on the demographics of the American electorate, there is no need for Democrats to try and commit fraud when it comes to a national election. In fact, it is far more likely that the GOP will have to try to cheat or intimidate voters (with restrictive voter ID provisions and by cutting back the number of polling places or early voting days) in order to remain competitive.
It should also be noted that when Trump was winning in the Republican primaries, you never once heard him scream about anyone trying to cheat or rig an election. It was only after his own numbers began to slip and he found himself behind by as much at 14 points to Hillary Clinton that such talk began.
So, Donald, what say you about the election being rigged in light of Terri Rote? Donald? Hmm…guess that silence tells us all we need to know.
Here’s the Donald alleging that the election is rigged against him:
Featured Image Via Des Moines Police Dept. About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 0 |
0 comments GOP VP candidate Mike Pence’s Trump plane slid off the runway at LaGuardia airport Thursday evening, landing in the mud not far from the East River.
The Trump plane stopped in the mud. It broke through a thin veneer of concrete designed to give way to keep planes from sliding into the river.
No one was injured in the incident. Authorities say there could have been fatalities had the plane ended up in the water.
KTLA 5 reports :
Rescue crews were responding to the scene. The incident took place during a rainy night in the city.
The press pool in the back of the aircraft could feel the plane fishtailing as it touched down and sliding off the runway before coming to a very sharp halt in the grass off the side of the runway.
“We could feel the plane moving, and it was just not a natural landing that you experience,” CNN’s Elizabeth Landers, who was on the plane, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on “OutFront.”
Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for Donald Trump’s campaign, said the businessman called Pence shortly after the incident, adding that Trump “is very glad everyone on-board the plane is safe.”
There was some noticeable damage to the runway. A campaign spokesperson told reporters there was no structural damage to the plane.
Landers said the Indiana governor’s trip to New York had initially been delayed due to inclement weather. His plane was kept in a ground hold at the airport in Fort Dodge, Iowa, earlier in the day.
Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, explained to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the weather likely prevented the plane from getting “good traction.” There were 37 people on board at the time of the accident, including Pence.
This could have been tragic. It is exponentially safer to fly in a plane than it is to ride in a car, but accidents still happen. Thank God all are safe. | 0 |
A recently retired Women’s National Basketball Association player is charging the league with bullying and oppressing players who aren’t gay. [Candice Wiggins retired at the relatively young age of 30 from the WNBA’s New York Liberty after a standout career including being chosen for the WNBA Team in 2008, earning WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year in 2008, and going to the WNBA finals in 2011. Her professional career is on top of a very long list of high school honors earned between 2001 and 2004. But in a new interview, Wiggins says she was essentially hounded out of the league because she isn’t gay, according to The San Diego . Wiggins said that she wanted to keep playing but the fact that the league itself has so few fans “didn’t lend itself to my mental state. ” “It was a depressing state in the WNBA. It’s not watched. Our value is diminished. It can be quite hard. I didn’t like the culture inside the WNBA, and without revealing too much, it was toxic for me. … My spirit was being broken,” Wiggins said. But she also noted that the major problems between players also added to her anguish. “Me being heterosexual and straight, and being vocal in my identity as a straight woman was huge. I would say 98 percent of the women in the WNBA are gay women. It was a conformist type of place,” Wiggins charged. “There was a whole different set of rules they (the other players) could apply. There was a lot of jealousy and competition, and we’re all fighting for crumbs. The way I looked, the way I played — those things contributed to the tension. ” “People were deliberately trying to hurt me all of the time. I had never been called the so many times in my life than I was in my rookie season. I’d never been thrown to the ground so much,” she added. The retired player insisted that the message given by gay players was: “We want you to know we don’t like you. ” “It comes to a point where you get compared so much to the men, you come to mirror the men,” Wiggins concluded. “So many people think you have to look like a man, play like a man to get respect. I was the opposite. I was proud to a be a woman, and it didn’t fit well in that culture. ” Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
A Florida mother is accused of giving alcohol to minors and having sex with five underage boys at her daughter’s house party. [Jaimie Ayer, 40, of Bradenton, came home to her daughter’s party December 23 and allegedly provided alcohol to the teenagers, the Daily Mail reported. The woman eventually told a boy that she needed to shower and that he should help her, according to the arrest report. Her daughter and other allegedly caught her later having sex in front of two teenage boys, ages 16 and 17. Three more boys have come forward alleging that Ayer had sex with them. Three of the five alleged victims are 16 years old. Ayer was arrested on three counts of unlawful sexual activity and now faces an additional four counts of that charge after the other boys came forward, the Miami Herald reported. Ayer appeared intoxicated when authorities apprehended her, said the arrest affidavit. She is being held on $22, 500 bond and remains in the Manatee County Jail. | 1 |
Support Us Braless Jourdan Dunn flaunt their supermodel figures in racy see-through dresses | 0 |
How Russia could revive its ties with Moldova Following the victory of Igor Dodon in Moldovan elections, Moscow has a real chance to boost its relations with the former Soviet republic. However this task is not so easy Following the victory of Igor Dodon in Moldovan elections, Moscow has a real chance to boost its relations with the former Soviet republic. However this task is not so easy.
With 99.9 percent of the votes counted, Igor Dodon, a pro-Russian politician, won 52.3 percent of the vote and secured a clear win in a presidential race in Moldova. ;Photo: AP
The presidential campaign in the Republic of Moldova is now officially over with the second round of elections concluded on Nov. 13. The first round that took place two weeks earlier did not determine a winner but made two political trends evident: The percentage of voters who supported closer ties with Russia and those who supported the EU was more or less equal, and there is demand for a change in Moldova regardless of any foreign policy aspirations.
The main competition took place between ;pro-Russian candidate Igor Dodon, the leader of the socialist party, and the pro-EU candidate, former Minister of Education (2012-2015) Maia Sandu. As a result of the run-off vote on Nov. 13, Dodon won the presidential seat.
The dominance of the pro-European political groups is now being challenged, as over the course of his campaign Dodon repeatedly called for strengthening ties with Russia, promoting Moldova’s integration with Eurasian projects. He also actively criticized his counterparts for the absence of any visible results of Moldova’s cooperation with the West. He also made promises to visit Moscow first if he gets elected.
Does this mean that Moldova will change or at least make significant corrections to its foreign policy priorities and stop playing the role of a strategic European partner? Can one expect significant developments in resolving the Transnistria conflict?
Also read: " Revealing the post-Soviet identity complex in Transnistria " Just a week before the run-off vote, the head of Moldova’s military, Anatol Salaru, stated : “We will request international organizations to pressure Russia to withdraw its forces. We provide all opportunities for that – by sea, land or air.” Will the new president of the Republic follow these plans or dismiss them given the incompatibility of such plans with improving ties with Russia? To what extent is Dodon ready to make concessions to reach a compromise?
Against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s triumph in the U.S. and the victory of the left forces in Bulgaria, one might consider the victory of Moldovan socialists as another positive external development for Russia. At the same time, it would be too early make any enthusiastic conclusions, first and foremost, because Moldova is a not a republic that has established a strong role for the president.
Indeed, Dodon was elected through direct voting – for the first time since 1996 – and the elections themselves took place during a crisis of trust between the public and the government. However, it is not the figure of a specific politician that is significant for the public, but the institution of the presidency itself. The power of the head of state is quite limited by the parliament and the government apparatus. So, he will have to take into account of the views of his opponents unless he establishes a dictatorship, which is quite unlikely.
The electoral divide is also quite important in this situation and Dodon as a pragmatic politician understands this quite well. It is not a coincidence that after the election he spoke about the necessity to work with all politicians given that he is the president of all citizens of Moldova.
Those who voted for Sandu criticize the idea of Moldova’s Eurasian integration and argue for the continuation of cooperation with the West. The new head of state will inevitably have to take these views into account while working on specific decisions. He can counter or criticize the Eurocentric position, but he cannot ignore it. Otherwise, he will face mass protests similar to neighboring Ukraine , the experience of which is too recent to forget.
Speaking about Dodon’s foreign policy transformation, one should remember what Moldova went through since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the post-Soviet period it made steps to balance between Russia and Europe. In 2001 following the wave of disappointment in cooperation with the West, communists led by Vladimir Voronin won power in the country and received a public mandate to establish closer relations with Russia. However, no breakthrough followed.
Furthermore, the “Kozak Memorandum” for Transnistrian conflict resolution brought no results and this made Voronin one of the most problematic partners for Russia. [This 2003 memorandum outlined Russia’s proposal for a final settlement of relations between Moldova and Transnistria – Editor’s note] The steps to “reset” relations on the background of pro-European parties’ revival in popularity in 2008-2009 were also unsuccessful. As a result, the coalition of liberals, liberal-democrats and democrats replaced the communists.
This did not bring any significant change to the state of Russia-Moldova relations, which were already at their lowest point. What’s worth noting is that the current winner of the elections - Dodon - worked together with Voronin in the 2000s and even contributed to the introduction of stricter tax rules for Transnistria.
In this regard, it is necessary to understand that opposition rhetoric and policies in practice are not the same. Moscow experienced this difference repeatedly in relations with former Soviet republic . This was the case not only with Voronin, but also with Ukrainian leaders Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovych as well: Their “pro-Russian rhetoric” during the elections was later replaced by totally different foreign policy decisions. Even Mikheil Saakashvili was seen in 2004 as a politician who could potentially reverse the negative trend emerged during the time of Eduard Shevardnadze. But the reality was totally different.
But does this mean that, based on these lessons, Moscow should play it safe and abstain from believing in the sincerity of Dodon’s proposals? Such stance would be representing another extreme. The fact that the new leader is ready to improve bilateral ties with Russia is very important. These are not just words – the public voted to support this course. It is the citizens of Moldova, not the voters from some unrecognized breakaway republic.
Yet, it is necessary to avoid inflated expectations in dealing with the new president. One should not believe in miracles and demand him to turn his country into “Belarus-2.” It is important to establish a pragmatic relationship allowing for a gradual strengthening of Russia’s role in Moldova.
Specific projects and deals should be prioritized over diplomatic words and general rhetoric. ;Through these concrete steps the citizens of Moldova, even those who voted for cooperation with Europe, will acknowledge the role of Russia in the development of their country and see cooperation with Russia not only as a Soviet memory but a platform for new opportunities.
In this case, the number of Dodon’s supporters will grow and the demonstration of Russian effectiveness will become a positive factor in Moscow’s relations with other neighboring countries and post-Soviet republics.
In order for this to happen, Russia should avoid the two extremes: inflated expectations from the socialist victory and Moldova’s break-up with the EU, on the one hand, and excessive concerns over the insincerity of the new leader, on the other.
The opinion of the author may not necessarily reflect the position of Russia Direct or its staff. | 0 |
Donations to Clinton Foundation dry up as Hillary no longer has a ‘product to sell’ November 22, 2016 Google + Donations to the Clinton Foundation nose-dived last year amid Hillary Clinton’s presidential run, pay-to-play allegations, internal strife and a black mark from a charity watchdog.
Contributions fell by 37 percent to $108 million, down from $172 million in 2014, according to the group’s latest tax filings.
The cash plummeted as Hillary Clinton left the nonprofit in April 2015 after announcing her ill-fated candidacy. The foundation became a major issue in the race , with Donald Trump vowing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate it.
Whether that effort will go forward is not clear. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), head of the House Oversight Committee, has indicated a probe into the foundation will continue.
Not only did contributions drop, but so did revenue the Clintons brought in from speeches. That income fell to $357,500 from $3.6 million in 2014.
By the time the foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative held its annual conference in September 2015, many donors had bailed, including Samsung and ExxonMobil.
Donna Shalala, the former Health and Human Services secretary who was brought in to run the charity last year, suffered a stroke after the CGI meeting.
The foundation had been rocked by internal divisions after daughter Chelsea Clinton took a more active role in the organization in 2013, when the group was renamed the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Eric Braverman, a pal of Chelsea’s, was brought in to run the group, but he clashed with Bruce Lindsey, a senior adviser in the Clinton administration who had been CEO and became board chairman.
Braverman departed in January 2015 after 18 months, receiving a $330,000 payout, according to the tax filings. Shalala replaced him.
The Clinton Foundation refused to comment, but Shalala told The Chronicle of Philanthropy last month that the foundation had taken in money pledged in earlier years but those donations were recorded on earlier tax filings. | 0 |
The Mayor of Calais has banned food distribution to migrants in the city in a bid to prevent yet another ‘Jungle’ migrant camp from springing up. [Visiting Calais on Wednesday, the French Interior Minister, Bruno Le Roux, said no new shelters would be set up in the vicinity to avoid drawing migrants back to the port city. But he made it clear that the distribution of food would not be prohibited by the state — an assertion Mayor Natascha Bouchard moved quickly to counter, arguing that food distribution also acted as a draw. On Thursday, officials placed posters around the site of the old Jungle shanty town issuing a mayoral decree banning the “regular, persistent and large presence of individuals distributing meals to migrants” to maintain peace and security in the area. It also prevents “repeated, prolonged gatherings” of people, effectively preventing charities from setting up food distribution points which draw crowds. The decree was rapidly enforced one volunteer has told The Guardian that police fired teargas at charity workers and migrants during a breakfast distribution on Thursday morning. “They wanted to stop the distribution, and they wanted to stop people from sleeping in the area,” said Sarah Arrom, who volunteers with Utopia56. “There has never been teargas before when we’ve been trying to hand out food. ” Migrants have been flocking to the northern town for nearly two decades in a bid to gain passage to the UK via the Channel Tunnel and ferry crossings to Dover. In 1999, the French Red Cross opened a migrant reception centre at Sangatte, but it quickly became overcrowded prompting migrants to set up various Jungle camps in the surrounding woods, relocating when the police moved them on. Sangatte was closed in 2002 by the then President Nicolas Sarkozy on request by the British Labour government, having housed some 67, 000 migrants during its three years — but the migrants remained. The first official Jungle made headlines in 2008 when a British journalism student was subject to a “particularly brutal” gang rape by migrants while attempting to write a story on those drawn to the region. The following year saw two operations to bulldoze the tents and structures erected by the 800 or so migrants living there, but again the migrants drifted back, numbers rising steadily. It was the 2015 migrant crisis which supercharged the Jungle, sending migrant numbers spiralling as high as 10, 000, while the camp took on the characteristics of a shanty town complete with bars, shops, restaurants, churches, and a school. January 2016 saw the partial demolishment of the town, the wooden structures replaced with shipping containers offering dry, warm beds and electricity for 1, 500 migrants. By October, the remainder of the camp had been demolished and thousands of migrants bussed out to migrant reception centres across France. Within weeks, the migrants began to return. Despite the police running a “zero tolerance operation” rounding up migrants for relocation to regional reception centres, Utopia56 says it now distributes 250 meals a night. Refugee Community Kitchen and Help Refugees make a further 400 meals a day, according to Renke Meuwese, who works with both charities. But Bouchart is determined to prevent a return to the Jungle’s heydey. “We have already suffered too much,” she said. | 1 |
LONDON (AP) — The pound fell sharply after Britain’s election saw the Conservatives lose their majority in parliament, raising questions about the next government’s ability to lead the talks to leave the European Union. [The British currency lost as much as 3 cents against the dollar by Friday as the results confirmed exit poll predictions that Prime Minister Theresa May had failed in her gambit to gain a stronger majority for those Brexit talks. The pound fell as low as $1. 2636 from $1. 2955 on Thursday, before recovering slightly to trade at $1. 2737. Above all, investors are worried about the general uncertainty surrounding the country — whether a bruised May will resign in due course, whether the Conservatives will be able to form a new government or whether it will be an alliance of opposition parties, led by the Labour Party. “The big picture is that political uncertainty could take weeks or months to be resolved and it is likely to weigh on both financial markets (in particular the pound) and the economy,” said Paul Hollingsworth, economist at Capital Economics in London. As the dust settles, one issue will dominate investors’ concerns above all: whether Britain is more or less likely to retain privileged access to the EU’s single market, the destination for most of the country’s exports. Currently, investors seem to worry that a weakened Conservative prime minister would not have the power to resist calls from some within the party who want a clean divorce from the EU, even if that means losing privileged access to the EU single market. When May called the election in April, she did so with the Conservatives riding high in the polls, and the pound had surged on expectations that a big majority for the Conservatives would allow her to quell the eurosceptics in her parliamentary ranks. But her decision to call the general election has backfired, and it is not even certain she will remain at the helm. Samuel Tombs, analyst at Pantheon Macroeconomics, says the pound could drop further, to $1. 2600, where it was trading before May announced the election in April. Complicating the outlook for the pound, however, is the strong showing by the Labour Party, which has advocated for closer ties between Britain and the EU single market. Though Labour is not expected to form the next government, even through an alliance with smaller parties, the vote suggests the British warmed to the party’s vision of keeping close ties with the lucrative EU market. The drop in the pound could push up inflation further in Britain, eroding people’s living standards. It would make British exports more price competitive around the world — something that was reflected in a rise in shares for major British companies on Friday, with the FTSE 100 index was up 0. 6 percent. It would also in theory make it cheaper for foreign people and companies to spend and invest in Britain, though analysts say any gains would likely be offset by the chilling effect the general uncertainty will have on business investment. “This is a serious moment for the U. K. economy,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, the head of Britain’s biggest business lobby, the CBI. “Politicians must act responsibly, putting the interests of the country first and showing the world that the U. K. remains a safe destination for business. ” | 1 |
LONDON — In another era they could have been allies. Both vicars’ daughters and born just a few years apart, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain share an understated pragmatism and conservative roots, and have made their way in the still largely man’s world of politics. But there could be so much more. At a time when President Trump is lashing out at friend and foe, and when the macho politics of strongmen is resurgent from Moscow to Manila, when not just the European Union but Western values, free trade and security alliances are under attack, the two women might have worked together to defend the liberal global order. Instead, because of Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union, they find themselves on opposite sides of the biggest divorce in recent European history, a chasm that has fundamentally reordered their priorities and is hindering them from cooperating on the broader issues. At a meeting of European leaders in Malta last week, Mrs. May and Ms. Merkel abruptly canceled a planned bilateral meeting after a brief exchange during a sightseeing excursion was deemed enough. After lunch, when it came to discussing the threats facing Europe, Mrs. May was shown the door. Their differing priorities were on ample display this past week as they dealt with both Mr. Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Ms. Merkel, whose overriding strategic ambition as Germany’s leader is to save the European Union, has kept her distance from Mr. Trump. After his election, she firmly outlined the liberal values on which she was prepared to work with him, and she swiftly condemned his travel ban aimed at seven countries. Mrs. May, whose priority is to sign bilateral trade deals to offset her country’s departure from Europe’s single market, rushed to be the first foreign leader received by Mr. Trump after he took office. Apparently pleased to be caught on camera holding his hand, she extended a speedy invitation for a state visit with Queen Elizabeth II. “Opposites attract,” she beamed. The invitation has since become a polarizing issue in Britain’s sharply divided political landscape, and reinforced a view on the Continent that as Britain cuts ties with Europe, it will become America’s lap dog. “It’s chalk and cheese,” said Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European history at Oxford. “But none of this tells you very much about the contrasting character of the two women. It tells you about the contrasting positions of the two countries. ” If Ms. Merkel can still afford to be an idealist, Britain’s plan to leave the European Union, or “Brexit,” has turned Mrs. May into a calculating realist. Within hours of leaving Mr. Trump, she was on a plane to Turkey. Upon arriving, Mrs. May waffled in her judgment of Mr. Trump’s travel ban, later stiffening her criticism after a public outcry. She also negotiated a deal with Turkey involving the British defense company BAE Systems. Five days later, Ms. Merkel paid her own visit to Mr. Erdogan and looked far clearer in her resolve when faced with the autocratic Turkish leader, calmly noting that she had raised controversial issues like press freedom and Turkey’s future Constitution. Privately, German officials express some sympathy for Mrs. May’s sometimes clumsy diplomacy, understanding that she needs new partners if she is to make good on her promise of a “Global Britain. ” But only occasionally have there been glimpses of the partnership that might have been. In July, Ms. Merkel was almost effusive in welcoming Mrs. May, who chose Berlin for her first foreign trip as prime minister. The German chancellor emphasized their countries’ “common values. ” During a news conference, both women stiffly answered questions about Brexit. Then a journalist asked about their first impressions of each other. Their body language visibly loosened. Ms. Merkel laughed, and Mrs. May said, “We have two women here who, if I may say so, want to get on with the job. ” Their shared gender has led to many lazy comparisons, said Rosa Prince, the author of a biography of Mrs. May that is to be published this month. “When you are a female political leader of a certain age, you are inevitably compared to Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel,” she said. “Theresa May is nothing like Margaret Thatcher, but as it happens has quite a lot in common with Angela Merkel. ” Each cautious and deliberate, they are both childless, have quiet husbands and enjoy watching sports. (Ms. Merkel knows soccer Mrs. May prefers cricket.) An Oxford graduate and lawmaker since 1997, Mrs. May was Britain’s home secretary of modern times before taking over from Prime Minister David Cameron in the confusion that followed the Brexit referendum. As Ms. Prince put it, “She was the last woman standing after all the men got burned or ran away. ” Ms. Merkel, a scientist before she went into politics, is long used to being the only woman in the room. Evelyn Roll, a German biographer of Ms. Merkel, said that, on the advice of a German actress, the chancellor had deliberately lowered the pitch of her voice to deter men from talking over her. Both women endured condescension and outright misogyny as they rose. Mrs. May has been called a “bloody difficult woman” by a fellow minister. Ms. Merkel’s predecessor and mentor, Helmut Kohl, patronized her as “my girl. ” Even after Ms. Merkel unseated Mr. Kohl as leader of the Christian Democrats amid a party financing scandal, Germany’s news media belittled her as efficient but bland — until she took office in 2005 and gradually became “Mutti,” the mother of the nation. “The only way men can process that a woman is in power is apparently to liken her to their mother,” Ms. Roll said. Ms. Merkel, who grew up in Germany’s former Communist east, has never branded herself a feminist. But on her watch Germany has introduced boardroom quotas for women and created a generous system of paid parental leave shared between mothers and fathers. Mrs. May once wore a that read, “This is what a feminist looks like. ” In 2005, Mrs. May a group called Women2Win to elect more women to Parliament and then nurture them, something that Mrs. Thatcher was often criticized for not doing. “They are both serious people who don’t grandstand, who don’t play for the gallery,” said Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform. But the few times the two women have met privately have been highly scripted affairs with little warmth on display, according to one person who was present at more than one of their meetings. “Theresa May is not good at small talk,” said Ms. Prince, the biographer. “She is not an easygoing, smooth person. She is not a natural diplomat. ” Ms. Merkel, however, is said to respect Mrs. May, considering her the “ ” in the British government, officials close to the chancellor say. For her part, Mrs. May has long expressed admiration for the German chancellor. “There are still people who don’t rate her, are a bit dismissive, perhaps because of the way she looks and dresses,” Mrs. May said in a 2012 interview with The Daily Telegraph. “What matters is, what has she actually done? And when you look at her abilities in terms of negotiation and steering Germany through a difficult time, then hats off to her. ” The two will soon be on the opposite side of the negotiations as Brexit talks commence. There is no wish in Berlin to “punish” Britain for leaving, said Peter Torry, Britain’s ambassador in Germany until 2007, who still lives in the German capital. But Berlin’s tone has grown more distant as Britain’s resolve to leave has hardened and their interests diverge. Mrs. May has said she will turn Britain into a competitor if no favorable deal is offered by the European Union by the end of a negotiation. But given her promises for a fairer society, that proposal is not considered credible or workable by many business and political leaders in Europe. Nor is her offer to be a bridge to the new American president. At a news conference in Malta after the European Union summit meeting on Friday, Ms. Merkel was asked whether Germany should lower its corporation tax in line with the reductions signaled by Mrs. May and Mr. Trump. “We have a tax system in Germany that is weathering challenges well,” Ms. Merkel said, suggesting that societies rely on raising a fair amount of tax. One reason for the difference between the two women’s approaches may be that one is just starting out as head of government, while the other has been in office for over a decade. “May is like Merkel 10 years ago,” Ms. Roll said. Though sometimes accused of lacking a vision for Europe, Ms. Merkel is calm and strategic, said Daniela Schwarzer, the director of the German Council on Foreign Relations’ research institute in Berlin. “That’s obviously helpful in a situation where we risk seeing a lot of provocations coming out of Washington over the next few years,” she said. By contrast, Ms. Schwarzer added, Mrs. May seems “more tactical at this point. ” One leader is consumed by preparing Britain’s departure from the European Union, and the other with keeping the bloc together. Could they develop a pragmatic relationship during the Brexit talks and beyond? “It won’t be a smooth ride,” Ms. Prince said, “but it certainly has a better chance of succeeding with these two levelheaded women at the top. ” | 1 |
MOSCOW — If Russia once maintained at least a semblance of distance from President Bashar of Syria, it rushed to his defense after the American missile strike ordered by President Trump on Thursday. The attack cemented Moscow more closely than ever to the notorious Syrian autocrat. Even as the United States condemned Mr. Assad for gassing his own citizens and held Russia partly responsible, given its 2013 promise to rid Syria of chemical weapons, the Kremlin kept denying that Syria had any such capability. By championing Mr. Assad and condemning American “aggression,” President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia seemed to be burying the idea that he could somehow cooperate with the Trump administration to end the conflict on his terms. The solidarity with Damascus is likely to cause problems for Russia in the long run, analysts said, although Mr. Putin probably cannot be persuaded to loosen his embrace any time soon. The Russian government often takes its time to react to major world events, but the Kremlin issued a prompt statement early Friday castigating the United States for the missile strike on Al Shayrat airfield in retaliation for Syria’s chemical weapons attack. The Russian Ministry of Defense vowed to strengthen Syria’s air defense systems, sent a frigate on a port call and froze an agreement with the United States to coordinate activity in Syrian air space. “Putin made a choice — to underline that Assad is his ally,” said Aleksandr Morozov, an independent political analyst. “This will lead to Russia’s further isolation, but Putin will stand his ground. ” Mr. Morozov and other analysts consider the policy problematic for various reasons. First, Mr. Trump and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, have painted Russia as at least partially responsible for the carnage among civilians that was fomented by the Assad government. “Moscow’s main problem is not that the U. S. made a strike but that Trump and Tillerson have toughened their rhetoric on Syria and Assad,” said Vladimir Frolov, a foreign affairs analyst and columnist for Republic. ru. He added, “They have said that Russia is responsible for Assad’s actions and that it didn’t fulfill its responsibilities in terms of chemical weapons disarmament. ” The chemical attack in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday killed more than 80 people and afflicted hundreds more. Turkey said on Thursday that sarin, a banned nerve agent, had been used. The United States responded by firing almost 60 cruise missiles at the air base, which housed the warplanes used in the chemical attack. The local governor said five military men and two civilians died. Second, in continuing deadly attacks on civilians, Mr. Assad seems to want to pursue a military victory at any cost, putting a lie to Russia’s statements that a negotiated settlement is the sole solution. That risks dragging out a war that Mr. Putin has depicted at home as quick, cheap and easy at a time when many Russians have been struggling economically. Trying to keep the length and cost of the war down is a crucial reason that the Russians will avoid escalating any conflict with the United States, analysts said. “Russia wants to end the conflict and to diminish its military and economic presence,” said Andrei Frolov, a defense analyst and the managing editor of the Moscow Defense Brief. With the next Russian presidential campaign scheduled to start by the end of the year, he said, “there is no need to continue a war outside the country with a weak explanation for the Russian people why Russia is staying there. ” A poll by the independent Levada center in March found that almost 20 percent of Russians already believed that the country’s military involvement in Syria made no sense. Third, the Assad alliance could undermine one of Mr. Putin’s main goals for entering the war: to try to make Russia a player on the world stage again as the indispensable broker in the Middle East. Protecting Mr. Assad could further repulse countries that Moscow has been courting, like Turkey and Israel, analysts said — not to mention much of the world. In the months immediately after Russia deployed its military in Syria, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, used to say things like, “We don’t support Assad what is important for us is to preserve Syrian statehood. ” After the attack, the ministry cranked out a statement lauding Syria for its “fierce battle” against “international terrorism. ” Aleksei V. Makarkin, the deputy head of the Center for Political Technologies, a think tank based in Moscow, said, “The longer Russia supports Assad, the more dependent it is on him. ” “At the beginning, there was some talk about replacing him, even if gradually,” he said, but that talk has evaporated. The ostensible reason that Mr. Putin deployed his military in Syria in September 2015 was to fight terrorism, but that is often dismissed as the logic. Other goals, especially shoring up Mr. Assad, proved more important. Mr. Putin wanted to resurrect Moscow’s old Soviet reputation as a global military power. Syria proved a showcase for new Russian weapons, and Russia has established two rare overseas bases there. “Russia will continue to support Assad because he is the only guarantor of Russia’s military presence in Syria and hence of Russia’s military presence in the Middle East over all,” Mr. Makarkin said. In addition, Mr. Putin was appalled by the way Western leaders had abandoned former allies like President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Col. Muammar Qadhafi of Libya. Mr. Putin was determined to prove that Russia would stick by its friends and oppose “regime change” rooted in outside intervention. Russia faults the United States for destabilizing countries like Iraq and Libya — which some think has provided an opening for Islamic extremists — a scenario Mr. Putin was determined to avoid in Syria. Finally, of course, Syria presented Russia with an opportunity to break out of the isolation that resulted from sanctions imposed by the West for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and destabilization of Ukraine. The Kremlin thought that forging an alliance with the West on Syria would render illogical the idea of maintaining the economic sanctions. Mr. Trump, during his campaign, seemed to champion the idea, as well, questioning the need for sanctions, suggesting that Crimea probably did belong to Russia and repeatedly praising Mr. Putin as a strong leader. He endorsed the idea that the two countries together fight the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. While that raised suspicions in the United States of collusion, it was welcomed in Russia as a new dawn in relations. The illusions began fading as Mr. Trump or his allies reversed many of those positions one by one, and the attack on Syria pretty much buried them. On Friday, the rubric on Rossiya 24, the state satellite news channel, for some of the coverage of the attack was “Kaptain Amerika” imposed over a zombielike figure with dead eyes. “The rest of the fog has melted away,” Dmitri Medvedev, Russia’s prime minister, wrote on his Facebook page. “Instead of the narrative about a joint fight against our main enemy, ISIL, the Trump administration has demonstrated that it will be fiercely fighting the legitimate government of Syria. ” (That Mr. Medvedev responded publicly, but not Mr. Putin, seemed to indicate moderate anger.) The first consequence on the ground, analysts said, is that Syria and the Russian military will feel less restricted than ever in attacking forces they think are aligned with the West and that they have accused of being terrorists. Some Syrian rebel groups subsidized by the United States and its regional allies have formed battlefield alliances with fighters from Al Nusra, the affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria. “Now Russia in Syria can oppress and destroy opposition forces without regard to the United States and its position,” Mr. Frolov, the defense analyst, said. | 1 |
Man gets only one missed call from Mom Local Mom reportedly called her son just once, and hasn't left any messages whatsoever asking him to call her back when he gets this. Fort Wayne, IN - Worried sick, 29-year-old Barry Oldman reported Thursday he got just one missed call from his mo... Celebs ticked at Porn Knock-Offs Two, to be exact: Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington. Tom Cruise, out promoting his latest "Jack Reacher" fare on the Ricki Lake show, grew furious when he found out there's a new nudie flick called "Jack Reach-around-er", which caters to Gay men. Donald Trump Is The Boy Who Cried "Wrong" After being accused of trying to make America Great Again by grabbing another pussy, the man who is trying to break the Guinness Book of world records for the most lies told during a presidential campaign, Donald Trump is crying "Wrong" again! Ju... Bob Dylan Secretly Longs For Teen Choice Award New York, NY - After being announced as the winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for groovy songs, sources close to legendary songwriter, Bob Dylan, say that all he really wants is a surfboard trophy from the Teen Choice Awards. "Mr. Dylan couldn'... | 0 |
Populist French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been pelted with eggs as she arrived at a public appearance on the campaign trail in Brittany. [French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been egged during a campaign stop https: . pic. twitter. Arriving in just days ahead of the final second round vote, the populist candidate was met by protesters brandishing signs and shouting: “Out with the fascists. ” One launched a barrage of eggs at Mrs Le Pen and her entourage, causing her to duck for cover. She reportedly appeared relatively undeterred and unshaken, however, and continued smiling as she was promptly taken indoors by her bodyguards. The incident comes after her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron attacked Mrs Le Pen as a “parasite” and “liar” who risked throwing the nation into civil war during a heated TV debate last night. Over the weekend, a number of policemen were injured by violent, Pen protesters at demonstrations in Paris. Hooded thugs were filmed throwing petrol bombs at police, who responded with tear gas and stun grenades. At one point, a burning shopping trolley was wheeled towards officers. | 1 |
Posted 11/09/2016 5:13 am by PatriotRising with 0 comments VIDEO COMPILATION —- PUNDITS DECLARE DONALD TRUMP CANNOT WIN ELECTION…
Barack Obama…
Barack Obama 2: Donald Trump won’t be president.
Jorge Ramos: Donald Trump can’t win without Latinos. #JorgeRamos
Bob Schieffer: I can’t find any Republican who now thinks Trump will win (4 weeks ago)
Krauthammer: Trump can’t win in November without cooperation from Ryan Penny Nance on Why Trump can’t win over conservative women
Ted Cruz (in primary) Trump “cannot win a majority”
CNN says Trump can’t win. Do you enjoy reading Patriot Rising? | 0 |
Footage from inside the MILO protests at UC Davis shows protestors screaming and spitting at video producer Matt Perdie, with one describing him as a “Breitbart fascist. ”[After one protester demanded that he stop being filmed, other protestors attempted to help his case by screaming and spitting in the face of the cameraman. Perdie was then pushed around by protestors, as another man screamed “f*** off” in his face with a loudspeaker, before spitting at him. In a statement to Breitbart News, Matt Perdie said: “One of the protesters didn’t like the fact that I was filming him while working for Breitbart, so he summoned a few of his smelly cronies on me, instructing them to get me away from him. A bunch of them started yelling obscenities in my face, another was shoving me by ramming me with his back towards me. It’s pathetic. These losers try to do everything in their power to intimidate and silence those with opposing opinions. Then the same protester who told people to push me away then proceeded to tell the other protesters to grab my camera. ” He said: ‘Get that camera! Someone grab that expensive camera!’ When I confronted him about inciting people to damage or steal my equipment, protesters then pushed and shoved me. I also had a guy spit in my face because he didn’t like me filming in a public space. ” Other reports from the evening have shown ski protestors jumping tearing down barricades and engaging in fights, whilst shouting chants comparing MILO to fascists and Ku Klux Klan. At least one man was arrested. One reporter for ABC10, Frances Wang, faced protestors pouring hot coffee over her photographers camera whilst she was conducting an interview. The event was set to be the first event on the third and final leg of the MILO’s “Dangerous Faggot Tour. ” You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
President-Elect Trump Invites An Excited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu To Come Visit “The bond between the U.S. and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared future. I am sure that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the U.S. and we will bring them to ever greater heights,” he added. 16, 2016 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is looking forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump on “the twin interests of peace and security.”
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.” 1 Thessalonians 5:3 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: After enduring 8 years of a pro-Muslim, anti-Israel president , you can well imagine Benjamin Netanyahu’s excitement at a Donald Trump presidency. At the same time, it will be Trump’s very support that God will use to usher in some dramatic fulfillment of end times events. As we have been telling you – warning you – for over a year now, when Trump moves the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel, get ready to fly. We here at NTEB believe that the move will trigger the Psalm 83 war, or worse, and that the Rapture of the Church will then be right around the corner. If you have something you want to get done for the Lord, do it now.
In a satellite address to the Jewish Federations of North America ’s annual General Assembly in Washington on Tuesday, Netanyahu urged President Barack Obama to continue America’s “longstanding policy” of supporting direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and not pursue other avenues. Israel is concerned that Obama will use his final days in office to push for a UN Security Council resolution that will impose a two-state solution to the conflict.
“I, for one, find great encouragement in the fact that there’s this continuity of friendship,” Netanyahu said . “I very much hope that President Obama will continue the policy that he enunciated,” Netanyahu said, referring to comments made by the outgoing president at the beginning of his first term. “The only way you get a workable and enduring peace is to have the parties agree to it. This is what has happened with our peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan. PM Netanyahu Congratulates US President-Elect Donald Trump:
“We’ve had convulsions in the Middle East, and yet these peace treaties hold because they were directly agreed to by the parties,” he added. “The reason we’ll object to any such effort is because it will harden the Palestinian position, and because it will harden the Palestinian position, it will push peace back.” Netanyahu added that he is hoping to nurture the recent “quiet diplomacy” Israel has had with Arab nations with the future Trump administration.
The day after the Republican candidate rocked the world by winning the election, he invited Netanyahu to visit Washington at the “first opportunity.” The prime minister and president-elect “who have known each other for many years, had a warm, heartfelt conversation” over the phone, a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said .
Netanyahu responded by saying that he and his wife Sara were excited to visit the incoming commander-in-chief and his wife Melania. Netanyahu congratulated Trump earlier in the day, calling the president-elect “a true friend of the State of Israel.” Donald Trump vows to protect Israel: “We will work together to advance security, stability and peace in our region,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“The bond between the U.S. and Israel is based on shared values, shared interests and a shared future. I am sure that President-elect Trump and I will continue to strengthen the unique alliance between Israel and the U.S. and we will bring them to ever greater heights,” he added.
The son of the late president Shimon Peres, Chemi Peres, also congratulated Trump in his speech to the Jewish Federations General Assembly.
“I would like to wish President-elect Trump the best of luck,” he said. “I am sure he will maintain the unbreakable link between Israel and the U.S., at the core of which are the unwavering support of Israel’s security and the forever-extended hand for peace.” source SHARE THIS ARTICLE | 0 |
Stark und schön zugleich Anton Butsenko/TASS
Eine Teilnehmerin der russischen Bodybuilding- und Fitness-Meisterschaften 2016 in Jekaterinburg bereitet sich auf ihren Auftritt vor. Facebook | 0 |
Many of Mexico’s top leaders are linked to the brutal drug cartels overrunning their country. As Mexico slips further into a failed top politicians’ links with drug cartels possibly help explain why. [1. Enrique Peña Nieto, Despite his many campaign promises, the current Mexican president has been unable to put a halt to the raging cartel violence taking place in his country or has he been unwilling? As a candidate and during his term in office, Peña Nieto has openly supported many of the cartel linked politicians who are now in trouble with the law. As Breitbart Texas reported, operators from the Juarez Cartel allegedly funneled illicit funds into Peña Nieto’s 2012 presidential bid. The funds were used to buy cash cards that were then given to citizens in exchange for their votes. The scandal became known as Monexgate and was originally discovered by famed Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui. 2. Tomas Yarrington, The former governor of Tamaulipas is wanted by the U. S. Department of Justice on multiple drug trafficking and money laundering charges. As Breitbart Texas reported, he allowed the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas to operate in his state in exchange for cartel bribes. After his term as governor, Yarrington worked with Los Zetas and the Beltran Leyva Cartel to move drugs through Veracruz. He was recently arrested in Italy and is awaiting extradition to the U. S. to stand trial. 3. Eugenio Hernandez, A second governor of Tamaulipas is wanted by the U. S. Department of Justice on multiple money laundering and bank fraud charges. As Breitbart Texas reported, Hernandez is believed to have continued Yarrington’s scheme of receiving cartel bribes as well as expanding a network used to embezzle government funds from contracts with ghost companies. While Hernandez is a wanted fugitive in the U. S. in Mexico he has a clean record and is not sought by that country’s law enforcement agencies. As Breitbart Texas first reported in a story that then Wall Street Journal tried to take credit for, the Mexican government had been providing both Hernandez and Yarrington with police officers as their personal bodyguards. Hernandez continues to live in Mexico. 4. Javier Duarte The former governor of Veracruz has been charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, embezzlement and other charges by Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office he is not wanted by U. S. authorities. As reported by Breitbart Texas, Duarte was recently arrested in Guatemala and is fighting Mexico’s extradition efforts. Duarte is accused of embezzling massive amounts of money from the state’s coffers. The former governor has also been singled out by news organizations for the impunity with which journalists were killed in his state. 5. Cesar Duarte Jaquez The former governor of Chihuahua is currently a wanted fugitive in his own country on warrants accusing him of embezzlement. As Breitbart Texas reported, the current governor or Chihuahua has stated that Duarte crossed into Texas to hide from prosecution. A series of investigations by the late journalist Miroslava Breach uncovered the ties between Duarte’s party the Institutional Revolutionary Party and Mexican drug cartels. Breach was killed after reporting that the PRI was trying to have the mother in law of a top Juarez Cartel boss run for mayor, Breitbart Texas reported. 6. Humberto Moreira, The former governor of the border state of Coahuila Humberto Moreira, has been singled out as having protected Los Zetas by former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Breitbart Texas reported. The former governor is trying to run for Mexico’s congress under the Partido Joven (Young Party) where he has labeled himself as El Valiente or the Brave one. Moreira and various state officials have been fingered in U. S. court testimony and documents as having protected the key leaders of the Los Zetas cartel in exchange for bribes. Moreira was arrested in Spain in early 2016 on money laundering charges. During the various hearing tied to the case, Spanish prosecutors stated that Moreira had been a surrogate for the Los Zetas cartel the information for the statements was based on an ongoing investigation by U. S. federal agencies. Moreira had been the PRI party leader during Peña Nieto’s 2012 presidential bid. as Breitbart Texas reported, the Mexican government applied political pressure in order to get his release eventually, Spain released Moreira claiming he was clear of the charges in that country. 7. Jesus Reyna, The interim governor of Michoacan remains jailed on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity. The case against Reyna began in 2014 when a leaked video revealed a series of interactions between the politician and Servando “La Tuta” Gomez, the former leader of the Knights Templar — Familia Michoacana Cartel. Reyna served as interim governor of Michoacan for six months and had a long history of having served as state party chair for the PRI. Ildefonso Ortiz is an journalist with Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. Brandon Darby is managing director and of Breitbart Texas. He the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and Stephen K. Bannon. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart. com. | 1 |
How about adding that he is a CHRISTIAN!!! | 0 |
I’m almost always the one who gets the chicken. For review meals, I try to let my guests choose their own food. Then I pick something nobody else wants. Often, this is the chicken. I think this can be explained by a remark a friend made recently. “I never eat chicken in restaurants,” he said. “I can make chicken at home. ” So can I, but every time I go to a new restaurant, I hope the kitchen may know things about poultry that I don’t. Every once in a while, I’m right. At Le Coq Rico, a restaurant on East 20th Street, I was right. In fact, I think I have finally found the perfect restaurant to take people who think they can make a better chicken at home. We’d ordered an old New England breed of chicken called Plymouth Rock for $95, along with a guinea fowl that cost a dollar more. Carved and fit back together, each bird was placed in the center of the table in its own iron roasting pan. Our eyes locked in on the bronzed skin and tapering curves of drumsticks with fixed and purposeful stares that, if we had not been humans looking at poultry, I would call lust. The meat had all the things I wanted and none of the things I didn’t. It was moist but not drippy or briny compact and muscular but not tough long on deep, rounded flavor that didn’t seem to rely on salt or sugar. Some of my guests preferred the chicken, calling the guinea fowl “sinewy. ” It was a bit stringy at the joints, but once disentangled, the flesh had a flavor I found highly persuasive. Even the white meat tasted like dark meat. The menu suggested that one bird would feed up to four people. We nearly demolished twice as many, along with a macaroni gratin and a bundle of stout, dark fries that we dunked into a small pitcher of jus. After we were too full to go on, we noticed an untouched chicken leg. One of my guests ate that, too, down to the bone. True, he did it on a bet. But I suspect he would have done it for nothing. The chef and owner is Antoine Westermann. His distillations of the cuisine of his native Alsace at Le Buerehiesel in Strasbourg were widely praised before he handed it over to his son and moved to Paris. One of the places Mr. Westermann opened there is the original Coq Rico, a theme restaurant of sorts. Poultry (eggs, organs, broth) turns up in almost everything the kitchen makes, most spectacularly in the whole chickens that are first braised in chicken stock and then threaded on to a rotisserie. He gave Le Coq Rico a subtitle that is both irresistible and accurate: “The Bistro of Beautiful Birds. ” By March, when he opened a Manhattan branch a few doors down from Gramercy Tavern, he had spent several months scouting for beautiful American birds. Mr. Westermann is particular about how long they spend pecking and strutting before they land on his rotisserie. The menu lists the age at slaughter — our server seemed to prefer “harvest” — for each breed on the menu, from 90 days for the Plymouth Rock to 130 days for the guinea fowl. “The industry standard is 40 days,” the server said, apparently used to fielding questions about these numbers. (Two more chicken breeds listed on the menu, New Hampshire and Cornish, weren’t available when I went they are still enjoying country living.) A whole Brune Landaise (110 days) a French breed with milder flavor than the Plymouth Rock, is simmered in a clay casserole with potatoes, tomatoes, onions, artichokes, stock and a bottle of riesling. This, Mr. Westermann’s version of an Alsatian baeckeoffe, was terrific, with bewitching undercurrents of spice in a sauce that had body but no visible fat. The price, though, $120, made me queasy. A roasted quarter of the same breed, for $24, is Le Coq Rico’s offering for the solo chicken eater. The and thigh I tried were moist and flavorful but slightly inert, as if warmed over. If I came back alone, maybe to sit at the counter facing the kitchen in a narrow alley off the main dining room, I’d want the squab. Unwrapping the cabbage leaf around it, cutting into the handsomely roasted bird surrounded by foie gras stuffing, and dipping slices of excellent baguette into the glossy dark sauce is a sure route to Francophilia. Shopping for chickens, Mr. Westermann found eggs. Some go into Matthieu Simon’s desserts, one of which is : the floating island, a single ball of meringue with a crackling sugar glaze on top, resting in a pond of crème anglaise. The rhubarb soufflé is another good, if more routine, showpiece for egg whites. I’d choose either over the raspberry whose puff pastry wasn’t crisp enough to shatter. A Coq Rico meal could start with eggs, too — or, as the menu calls this group of appetizers, “Eggz. ” It’s rare to find oeuf en meurette, in all its rich, glory, made this well in Manhattan. Served with a heap of mâche and spicy pink hummus, sautéed chicken livers were glorious, combining the rich creaminess of a soft cheese with the metallic tang of organ meat. I expected great things from the chicken gizzards served with artichokes à la Barigoule, too, but their flavor seemed to have leaked out somewhere. From his days at Le Buerehiesel, Mr. Westermann has brought along the recipe for foie gras terrine baked inside a soft pastry crust. I’m not convinced this single slice of terrine is worth $32, but I don’t know anywhere in New York to get a better, cheaper version, either. The architect Pascal Desprez has slotted Le Coq Rico into a somewhat awkward space. By the entrance is a bar where the cocktail menu promises, somewhat menacingly, “the dark side of Le Coq Rico. ” There always seemed to be mild confusion at the host podium, and each time I was led to my seat, I was afraid I’d be deposited at one of the tables crammed into the narrow passageway. This hall opens in the back into a stylishly monochromatic dining room. Unless you have been to the Paris original, also designed by Mr. Desprez, the only things about the atmosphere that will strike you as French may be the peculiar pop music and, on some nights, Mr. Westermann himself, with glasses on a head full of thoughts about chicken. | 1 |
American Thinker October 29, 2016
To believe recent mainstream media polling releases, one would have to suspend reality enough to believe that John Podesta’s email leaks, the ongoing Project Veritas video series, a world on fire, and new revelations about Obamacare are driving the public to embrace Hillary Clinton as never before. Things are apparently so good for the former first lady that ABC has her with a 12-point lead, a margin not seen in a presidential election since 1984. CNN is less confident but still has her sporting a comfortable 5-point lead. Fox News has wavered between “too close to call” and the current 3-point edge that is contingent on her achieving President Obama’s D+7 support level from 2008, which borders on complete insanity.
The purpose of this article is to prove that the media is either lying to massively impact motivation or turnout for Trump or has absolutely no idea what the actual score is. The media don’t care if I know what they are doing with their nonstop analysis of new “chaos” within the Trump campaign. They are playing this sad song for the record number of independent voters who appear to be requesting ballots or voting early in battlegrounds across America.
The first clue is that in the same week, ABC and CNN have polls showing a massive lead and a comfortable lead, respectively. These two polls are seven points apart. Obama’s landslide win from 2008 was by a margin of 7.6%, and he still lost 22 states. Still, the enthusiasm and novelty of his campaign, combined with the natural pendulum swing that takes place after eight years of either party in the White House, left little doubt that he would win easily. Currently, ABC and CNN have the distance of Obama’s landslide margin between their polls.
For those keeping score at home, here is how these polls play out on a map:
5 points
Obama won re-election in 2012 by 3.9%. The tightest red state was North Carolina, which Mitt Romney carried by 2.0%. In the event of a five-point Clinton win, I suspect that North Carolina would be the only possible state to flip, but it wouldn’t surprise me for the map to stay identical to 2012. In this scenario, as in 2012, Hillary is not competitive in Arizona, Georgia, or Texas, as the media indicates today.
12 points
This map should show you that the media aren’t even trying to be objective anymore. The blue nightmare above sees the GOP holding a likely minimum of six states, and no more than 11. At a twelve-point margin, there are no swing states. None. Not even second-tier swing states like Missouri, Arizona, or Georgia. For the first time since 1996, the Democrats would have made inroads into the Deep South and would threaten some of the reddest states.
Why is this important? The media are deliberately misleading the electorate and can’t even keep their own lies between the networks laced with a scent of historical accuracy. Recent state polls from battlegrounds like Ohio, Florida , North Carolina, Nevada, and others, combined with what we already know about levels of minority support, absentee balloting, early voting turnout, and enthusiasm, indicate that Trump is ahead or neck and neck in the Electoral College. Regardless of the final outcome, competition in these states cannot possibly correlate with a 12-point loss. Companies that release polling like this deserve all the ridicule they will receive for compromising their integrity. | 0 |
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee told reporters he was proud to have shepherded the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch through to his Senate confirmation Friday, which ended the era of filibustering Supreme Court nominations that Sen. Charles Schumer ( ) began 16 years ago. [“There are a significant events that brought us to this point of adding a new member to the Supreme Court, but I think we just witnessed one of the most important votes that a member of the United States Senate can cast. Judge Gorsuch will be an independent voice on that Supreme Court. He proved that very much during the hearings,” said Sen. Charles Grassley ( ). The Senate approved President Donald Trump’s Gorsuch nomination with Vice President Mike Pence presiding not so much because he was concerned there would be a tie, but because he and the other senators seem to enjoy his presence in the chamber. The real fight was not the vote on the nomination, but whether to end debate and hold the vote at all. Until Thursday, Senate rules required a threshold to end debate and proceed to a nomination of a Supreme Court justice. That rule was challenged by the Republican majority and dismissed by the Republican majority. Grassley said the dismissal of the requirement returns the Senate to where it was before Democrats began the practice of blocking appointments with the filibuster, the practice of keeping debate open by holding on to a bloc of at least 41 votes. Senate Democrats used the filibuster and the threat of a filibuster to jam up the judicial appointments of President George W. Bush beginning in 2001, and Senate Republicans followed suit for the appointments by President Barack Obama. In July 2013, Majority Leader Harry Reid ( ) challenged the use of the filibuster for any and all presidential appointments, except for Supreme Court justices. “Those Democrats in 2001 poisoned the well that got us where we are,” Grassley said. “It is up to Sen. Schumer, who started this whole slippery slope in 2001, to drill a new well that is not going to be poisoned. There will be both Republicans and Democrats to help him,” he said. “Bottom line? It brings us back to where the Senate was from 1789 to 2001, when there wasn’t consideration of filibustering judges. ” | 1 |
Radio Aryan October 28, 2016
Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson brings us a new Orthodox Nationalist devoted to Albaniaâs alliance with the globalist word order and itâs catastrophic consequences.
Albania never made sense. Created by the Austrian Empire as a means of blocking Serbian access to the sea, Albania was and is nothing more than a plaything for the great powers. Her ânational awakeningâ was just a means to preserve Turkish suzerainty over the Balkans. The country in 1848 was a collection of Islamic tribal oligarchs who used their promise to fight for the maintenance of the Ottoman empire to catch the attention of the Austrians. Nothing has changed today. Albania, rather than the creation of Austria, is the creation of the US and rather than Islamic tribal oligarchs, it is now a collection of petty crime lords. It is a bizarre, artificial country created and maintained exclusively to frustrate the aims of Serbs, Montenegrins and Russians. This podcast deals with Albania’s pathetic existence since the fall of her Maoist Government in 1991. It serves as a perfect example to show that inventing make-believe countries while attacking natural ethnic aspirations will always lead to disaster.
The picture above is of the current “President” Ibrahim Rugova of (the previously Serbian but now taken over by Albanians) Kosovo, who in 1998 won the Presidency of the new country in a one-party race and achieved 99.8% of the vote. The US organized the election and the BBC then called him the “Father of the Country” as he won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought right after his victory. They even have statues of Bill Clinton there as one of the heroes of their nation.
Albania is proof that the US has been involved in the global narco-trade for decades and the evidence is overpowering. The support for the KLA and Albanian kingpins is nothing new or even interesting historically and today it is just a hub for drugs and human trafficking. All the Afghan heroin in Europe passes through there and Albania’s service to the New World Order is just to preserve her handful of drug lords and other criminals in power. By attacking Russia, even rhetorically, a ruling class can have all its sins covered over as Russia and Nationalism are the two enemies of the liberal world order. There is nothing the global ruling class will not do â no deed too vile â to destroy them and as the possibility of nuclear war with Russia looms over the horizon, this really is an understatement of the truth.
Presented by Matt Johnson | 0 |
All this non-GAAP activity should be disclosed in the footnotes. Where is the confusion coming from? Peeps who can't read a 10Q?
Also Tesla's auditors should have required a period-to-period crosswalk of the numbers both pre-adjusted and post-adjsuted just so they can compare apples to apples. Did this not happen?
Anyway, just rely on the opinion, and sue if it all goes south. That's why auditors get paid to perform the same test work period after period after period.... | 0 |
Finian Cunningham has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Many of his recent articles appear on the renowned Canadian-based news website Globalresearch . He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He specializes in Middle East and East Africa issues and has also given several American radio interviews as well as TV interviews on Press TV and Russia Today. His interests include capitalism, imperialism and war, socialism, justice and peace, agriculture and trade policy, ecological impact, science and technology, and human rights. He is also a musician and songwriter. Previously, he was based in Bahrain and witnessed the political upheavals in the Persian Gulf kingdom during 2011 as well as the subsequent Saudi-led brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted many human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream media, including ,The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Originally from Belfast, Ireland, he is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring. A Digital 9/11 If Trump Wins By Finian Cunningham on November 6, 2016 It is a green light for a coup d’état by the Deep State forces who found that they could not win through the “normal” rigging methods.
by Finian Cunningham
SPUTNIK
There are disturbing signs that a digital 9/11 terror attack is being readied for election day in the US to ensure that Donald Trump does not win.
Such an attack – involving widespread internet and power outage – would have nothing to do with Russia or any other foreign state. It would be furnished by agencies of the US Deep State in a classic “false flag” covert manner. But the resulting chaos and “assault on American democracy” will be conveniently blamed on Russia.
That presents a double benefit. Russia would be further demonized as a foreign aggressor “justifying” even harsher counter measures by America and its European allies against Moscow.
Secondly, a digital attack on America’s presidential election day this week, would allow the Washington establishment to pronounce the result invalidate due to “Russian cyber subversion”. That option stands to be invoked if the ballot results showed Republican candidate Donald Trump as the imminent victor.
Democrat rival Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for the White House among the Washington establishment. She has the backing of Wall Street finance capital, the corporate media, the military-industrial complex and the Deep State agencies of the Pentagon and CIA. The fix has been in for months to get her elected by the powers-that-be owing to her well-groomed obedience to American imperialist interests.
The billionaire property magnate Trump is too much of a maverick to be entrusted with the White House, as far as the American ruling elite are concerned. The trouble is, however, that despite the massive campaign to discredit Trump his poll support remains stubbornly close to Clinton’s.
The latter has been tainted with too many scandals involving allegations of sleazy dealings with Wall Street, so-called pay-for-play favors while she was former Secretary of State, and her penchant for inciting overseas wars for regime change using jihadist terrorist foot-soldiers.
As one headline from McClatchy News only days ago put it: “Majority of voters think Clinton acted illegally, new poll finds”.
Trump is right. The US presidential election is “rigged”. Despite handwringing condemnations by pundits, it seems obvious that the system is heavily stacked against any candidate who does not conform with the interests of the establishment. The massive media-orchestrated campaign against Trump is testimony to that.
But such is popular disgust with Clinton, her sleaze-ball husband Bill and the Washington establishment that her victory is far from certain. Indeed in the last week before voting this Tuesday various polls are showing a neck-and-neck race with even some indicators putting the Republican narrowly ahead.
Over the weekend, the Washington Post, which has been one of the main media outlets panning Trump on a daily basis, reported this: “The electoral map is definitely moving in Trump’s direction”.
This is where a possible Deep State contingency plan is being readied to scupper a shock win by Trump.
In recent days, American media are reporting a virtual state of emergency by the US government and its security agencies to thwart what they claim are Russian efforts to incite “election day cyber mayhem”.
In one “exclusive” report by the NBC network on November 3, it was claimed that: “The US government believes hackers from Russia or elsewhere may try to undermine next week’s presidential election and is mounting an unprecedented effort to counter their cyber meddling.”
On November 4, the Washington Post reported : “Intelligence officials warn of Russian mischief in election and beyond.”
Apparently, the emergency security response is being coordinated by the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the National Security Agency and other elements of the Defense Department, according to NBC.
These claims of Russian state hackers interfering in the US political system are not new. Last month, the Obama administration officially accused Moscow of this alleged malfeasance.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lambasted American claims that his country is seeking to disrupt the presidential elections as “hysterical nonsense”, aimed at distracting the electorate from far more deep-rooted internal problems.
The Obama administration and its state security agencies have not provided one iota of evidence to support their allegations against Russia. Nevertheless the repeated charges have a tendency to stick. Julian Assange, Wikileaks founder.
The Clinton campaign has for months been accusing Trump of being a “pro-Russian stooge”. Her campaign has also claimed that Russian hackers have colluded with the whistleblower organization Wikileaks to release thousands of private emails damaging Clinton with the intention of swaying the election in favor of Trump.
Wikileaks’ director Julian Assange and the Russian government have both rejected any suggestion that they are somehow collaborating, or that they are working to get Trump elected.
But on the eve of the election, the US authorities are recklessly pushing hysteria that Russia is trying to subvert American democracy. Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014 is quoted as saying: “The Russians are in an offensive mode and the US is working on strategies to respond to that, and at the highest levels.”
NBC cites a senior Obama administration official as saying that the Russians “want to sow as much confusion as possible and undermine our process”.
Ominously, the news outlet adds that “steps are being taken to prepare for worst-case scenarios, including a cyber-attack that shuts down part of the power grid or the internet.”
Nearly two weeks ago, on October 21-22, the US was hit with a widespread internet outage.The actors behind the “distributed denial of service” were not identified, but the disruption was nationwide and it temporarily disabled many popular consumer services. One former official at the US Department of Homeland Security described the event as having “all the signs of what would be considered a drill”. Could that cyber-attack have been the work of US Deep State agencies as a dress rehearsal for an even bigger outage planned for November 8 – election day?
The Washington establishment wants Clinton over Trump. She’s the marionette of choice for their strategic interests, including a more hostile foreign policy towards Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere.
But Trump might just snatch an election day victory from the jaws of defeat. George Soros-NGO manipulator
In which case, the shadowy forces that really rule America will trigger a “digital 9/11”. It’s not difficult to imagine the chaos and mayhem from internet blackout, power, transport, banking and communications paralysis – even for just a temporary period of a few hours.
Months of fingering Russia as a destabilizing foreign enemy intent on interfering in US democracy to get “Comrade Trump” into the White House would then serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In that event, the US authorities could plausibly move to declare the election of Donald J Trump null and void.
In fact the scenario could be contrived to a far more serious level than merely suspending the election result. The US authorities could easily feign that a state of emergency is necessary in order to “defend national security”.
That contingency catapults beyond “rigged politics”. It is a green light for a coup d’état by the Deep State forces who found that they could not win through the “normal” rigging methods. | 0 |
Welcome to Our Picks, a guide to the best stuff to read, watch and listen to from around the internet. Check this space for the article, the next great podcast for your commute, the tweetstorm. And yes, we’re also tooting our own horn here. We’ll share can’ Times stories from the week and surface some gems you might have overlooked. We want to hear from you! Send us feedback about our selections to ourpicks@nytimes. com. •Lacoste and Izod share a closely linked history and a common reptilian logo. And in the world of men’s fashion, there’s a longstanding battle about which brand rightfully owns the privilege of stitching a crocodile onto a polo shirt. [Highsnobiety] • The world keeps changing: Schools in Boston have introduced the more accurate projection maps to social studies classrooms around the city. [WBUR] • A 1951 profile in Reader’s Digest called him “Detective X,” a pseudonym for the forensic pioneer who specialized in dental records and handwriting analysis. Now, decades after his work on big cases like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, we finally know the true identity of this “secret crime fighter. ” [National Geographic] • There’s a lot that Hollywood gets wrong. Toward the top of the list is its depiction of chess. [Atlas Obscura] • Terrence Malick hasn’t granted an interview in decades, and TMZ calls him Hollywood’s Bigfoot. With so much we don’t know about the secretive director, one Texas Monthly writer decided to shed light on the filmmaker by charting his past and present in Austin — the city where he has deep roots and the setting for his latest movie, “Song to Song. ” [Texas Monthly] • Brian Wansink is a celebrated social scientist at Cornell who is a prolific researcher and makes frequent television appearances. Recently, a single blog post called into question the celebrity professor’s methodology and reputation. If you’re interested in how the “ credibility crisis in social science” happens, read on. [Chronicle of Higher Education] • Now that it’s officially spring, you could celebrate with homemade iced coffee (as Sam Sifton recommends) follow these 12 florists to add some beautiful blooms to your Instagram feed, or read about the death and rebirth of the Duncan grapefruit. And go ahead — ignore the price tags and just drink the cheap, delicious wine. • Did you notice the byline on Monday’s crossword? It was a collaboration between the astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson and Andrea Carla Michaels, part of the Crossword’s 75th anniversary celebration. • Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry died on Saturday at age 90. He was the genre’s first true superstar (read an appraisal of his work) and also wrote its first great memoir. Here are 15 of his essential songs. Another legend, the New York City newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin, also died this weekend. • John Donohue, a former New Yorker editor and cartoonist, is on an “intentionally hyperbolic” mission to sketch all the restaurants in New York. Here’s a map of what he’s drawn so far (including the Odeon, Cornelia Street Café, and the Good Fork). A selection of the prints are on display at Powerhouse on 8th, and you can contact Mr. Donohue if you have a place you’d like to see drawn. • The Sideways Dictionary is a site that explains complicated technological terms in analogies. For instance, it explains how BitTorrent is like photocopying a book . .. and what WPA and the president’s motorcade have in common. [Sideways Dictionary via Imperica] Want Our Picks delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the What We’re Reading newsletter, a email featuring great stories from around the web selected by members of The New York Times staff. | 1 |
Even before President Trump issued an order on Friday banning immediate entry into the United States by people from several predominantly Muslim countries, immigration lawyers, having heard rumors of coming action from the White House, were on alert. On Wednesday, lawyers from the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center who were concerned that the action would affect the project’s clients sent out an email calling for lawyers who could volunteer immediately to go to airports where refugees were scheduled to enter the United States. “It occurred to us that there were going to be people who were traveling who would land and have their status affected while in midair,” said Betsy Fisher, the group’s policy director. And that is exactly what happened. Across the country, people were detained on Sunday after being caught up in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s order, even though a petition filed on Saturday in federal court in Brooklyn led a judge to block part of the order. Hameed Khalid Darweesh and Haider Sameer Abdulkhaleq Alshawi, the plaintiffs named in the petition, were originally clients of Ms. Fisher’s organization. The email received a tremendous response, Ms. Fisher said, with “well over a thousand people” expressing interest and availability. By Saturday morning, the lawyers who heeded the call were at about a dozen airports around the country. Others who heard about the effort through colleagues or the news media went to airports on their own to pitch in. By early Sunday morning, Ms. Fisher said, lawyers offering services and advice were at “most international airports in the United States. ” Andre Segura, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, arrived at Kennedy International Airport in New York at 1:30 p. m. on Saturday. He said that the outside section of Central Diner, a restaurant in Terminal 4, was “entirely taken over by attorneys,” all working to file petitions for individual clients with the help of the clients’ families. “There were attorneys from numerous major law firms, nonprofits, all working together,” Mr. Segura said. “I’ve never seen that immediate coming together of teams to start filing actions to try to protect people. ” He added, “The dynamic between what was happening inside the terminal with all the attorneys, and outside with massive protests and people holding signs — I’ve never experienced anything like that. ” Mr. Segura said he arrived home around 2 a. m. on Sunday. He woke up at 5:30 and began answering emails from lawyers who had stayed overnight at the airport. While lawyers gathered at airports on Saturday, others were working furiously on litigation. Cecillia Wang, the A. C. L. U.’s deputy legal director, described the scene at her office as “complete chaos. ” “I was sitting at my desk working on a template habeas petition that could be used by lawyers at airports all around the country,” she said. Omar Jadwat, the director of the A. C. L. U.’s Immigrant Rights Project, which worked on the petition that led to the judge’s stay, said the litigation had not been prepared ahead of time. “That was not something we had on the shelf ready to go, waiting for the right plaintiffs to come along,” he said. “It was a case of: There’s this emergency, and people have to work together to figure out a response as quickly as we can so that these people and other people around the country didn’t get deported. ” Even after word of the federal court’s order reached the airport in New York, confusion reigned. Alina Das, a professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law, said she had arrived at the airport at 7 p. m. on Saturday and stayed overnight, working to get a client released. Ms. Das, who said she could not comment on her client’s situation, described the scene on Sunday morning, saying that it was “incredibly difficult to get an answer on whether our clients were going to be sent back or whether they were being processed for release” and that people remained detained even after the court order blocked part of the president’s actions. Avi Gesser, a partner at the law firm Davis Polk Wardwell, described the process in Terminal 4 on Saturday, saying that a group of people had been deployed to search for those whose family members were detained. “If they found people, they referred them over to us and we onboarded people as clients if we could, and then filed habeas petitions,” he said. Mr. Gesser, who is originally from Canada, did not leave the airport until 4:30 a. m. on Sunday, he said. “Our firm has a lot of people who were not born in the United States,” he said. “We felt that people who were being detained needed legal representation. And that’s something that we do very well. ” Rebecca Heller, who was coordinating lawyers’ efforts on the ground for the International Refugee Assistance Project on Saturday, said that by Sunday afternoon, her services were far less in demand. “They’re now!” she said excitedly in a brief phone call. “That’s how a movement starts. ” | 1 |
By Rahul Manchanda, Esq. on October 30, 2016 The Neo-Con/Communist natives are restless, they desperately want their World War 3...
by Rahul Manchanda, Esq.
Never in America’s history has she been in more danger of a “false flag” attack from her enemies, both foreign and domestic, than she is now.
The contemporary term “false flag” describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them.
Historically, the term “false flag” had its origins in naval warfare where the use of a flag other than the belligerent’s true battle flag before (but not while) engaging the enemy has long been accepted as a permissible ruse de guerre ; by contrast, flying a false flag while engaging the enemy constitutes “perfidy.”
Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, can (by extension) also be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation.
America has been thoroughly infiltrated by a mighty and wealthy foreign power and menace, while her people are suffering financially, and she is now poised to be sacrificed on the altar of history for a one world government headquartered overseas.
The Neo-Con/Communist natives are restless, they desperately want their World War 3, and they are wanting to move their wealth and power to their next world empire, which will be the final one in their sick deluded minds, unopposed and permanent.
Now that Hillary Clinton has been “theoretically re-indicted” by the FBI for the email scandals (although they are being obstructed by our very own US Department of “Justice” under Attorney General Loretta Lynch) this has effectively ruined her chances of becoming President through legal channels, so they only have one more option – and that is a false flag attack leading us directly into World War 3 in a nuclear war, using all of their carefully placed traitors in the Pentagon, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, and cooperative local police departments all throughout the United States, with a declaration of a state of emergency in both the United States, and abroad.
This is why it is vitally important that all Americans, both in the private and public sector, start watching their government and elected leaders like “hawks.”
Americans need to use the Neo-Con’s mantra of “See Something, Say Something” against them.
The Neo-Con/Stasi/Communist’s Zersetzung (organized gang-stalking under Bill Clinton’s Community Oriented Policing “COPS” program) needs to be turned by the People against them, and the American People need to watch each and every single one of them like they would watch a lunatic holding an AK-47 in a mall. “Regime Change” Brigade
The Neo-Cons simply can not be trusted, as they work for the Plutocrats, who desperately want to hold on to their power, and will not willingly relinquish it to the People by way of Donald Trump and his Populist Revolt and Uprising.
Some examples of real false flags throughout history having routinely disastrous results, wherein the “winners” re-wrote history, include the:
(1) 1914 Battle of Trindad fought between the British auxiliary cruiser RMS Carmania and the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cap Trafalgar which had been altered to look like Carmania;
(2) World War II German commerce raider Kormoran which surprised and sank the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in 1941 while disguised as a Dutch merchant ship, causing the greatest recorded loss of life on an Australian warship;
(3) trial of Otto Skorzeny, who planned and commanded Operation Greif, by a U.S. military tribunal at the Dachau Trials included a finding that Skorzeny was not guilty of a crime by ordering his men into action in American uniforms;
(4) 1788 incident wherein the head tailor at the Royal Swedish Opera received an order to sew a number of Russian military uniforms to stage an attack on Puumala, a Swedish outpost on the Russo-Swedish border allowing King Gustav III of Sweden, who lacked the constitutional authority to initiate unprovoked hostilities without the Estates’ consent, to launch the Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790);
(5) September 1931 incident wherein Japanese officers fabricated a pretext for invading Manchuria by blowing up a section of railway;
(6) Gleiwitz incident in 1939 involving Reinhard Heydrich fabricating evidence of a Polish attack against Germany to mobilize German public opinion for war with Poland;
(7) November 26, 1939 incident wherein the Soviet army shelled Mainila, a Russian village near the Finnish border blaming Finland for the attack using the incident as a pretext to invade Finland, starting the Winter War, four days later;
(8) 1962 Operation Northwoods plot by the U.S. Department of Defense for a war with Cuba involving scenarios such as fabricating the hijacking or shooting down of passenger and military planes, sinking a U.S. ship in the vicinity of Cuba, burning crops, sinking a boat filled with Cuban refugees, attacks by alleged Cuban infiltrators inside the United States, and harassment of U.S. aircraft and shipping and the destruction of aerial drones by aircraft disguised as Cuban MiGs to be blamed on Cuba and a pretext for an invasion of Cuba and the overthrow of Fidel Castro’s communist government;
(9) Reichstag fire which was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on February 27, 1933 using as “evidence” by the Nazis that the Communists were beginning a plot against the German government, whereby Adolf Hitler, who was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany four weeks before, on 30 January, urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to counter the “ruthless confrontation of the Communist Party of Germany” – with civil liberties suspended, the government instituted mass arrests of Communists, including all of the Communist parliamentary delegates;
(10) April 4 1953 incident wherein the CIA was ordered to undermine the government of Iran over a four-month period, as a precursor to overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by carrying out false flag attacks “on mosques and key public figures” to be blamed on Iranian communists loyal to the government, code-named “TP-Ajax,” the tactic of a “directed campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist party” involving the bombing of “at least” one well known Muslim’s house by CIA agents posing as Communists;
(11) 2008 shooting of two minibuses carrying Georgians who lived in Abkhazia who wanted to cross the border so they could go and vote in the parliamentary election that day, in a volatile area on the border of Abkhazia and the Republic of Georgia, wherein President Saakashvili indicated that the attack had been an attempt to disrupt the election, implying that it had been Abkhaz or Russian forces who had been behind it, providing a favorable opportunity for the president to focus the nation’s attention on an external enemy, leading attention away from his domestic critics, as well as making use of his position as leader to rally the Georgians around his candidates in the election;
(12) assassination of Charlemagne Péralte of Haiti in 1919, after checkpoints were passed by military disguised as guerrilla fighters;
(13) Mau Mau uprising in the 1950s, wherein captured Mau Mau members who switched sides and specially trained British troops initiated the pseudo-gang concept to successfully counter Mau Mau;
(14) Algerian civil war in the middle of 1994 wherein death squads composed of Département du Renseignement et de la Sécurité (DRS) security forces disguised themselves as Islamist terrorists and committed false flag terror attacks;
(15) Mexican wars of 1819 and 1846-48;
(16) Spanish-American War of 1898 involving the surprise explosion of the battleship Maine at Havana, Cuba wherein the Hearst Press accused the Spanish and the USA declared war on Spain conquering the Philippines, Guam and Cuba;
(17) World War I in 1914-1918 wherein a U-boat torpedo hit ocean liner Lusitania near Britain and some 1200 people, including 128 Americans, on board lost their lives, and subsequent investigations revealed that the major explosions were inside the Lusitania, as it was secretly transporting 6 million pounds of artillery shells and rifle ammunition, as well as other explosives on behalf of Morgan Banking Corporation to help Britain and France;
(18) World War 2 in 1939-1945 where a U-boat torpedo hit the ocean liner Athenia near Britain with some 1100 passengers, of which 311 were Americans;
(19) US naval intelligence planning and suggesting “8 insults” to bring Japan into war with the US, and where President Roosevelt executed this plan immediately and also added some other insults, enraging Japan, such as a total blockade of Japanese oil imports, as agreed between the Americans, British and the Dutch – FDR also declared an all-out embargo against Japan and forbade them the use of the Panama Canal impeding Japan’s access to Venezuelan oil;
(20) one of many incidents provoking Japan to attack Pearl Harbor some 6 months later;
(21) Korean War in 1950-1953 wherein South Korean incursions (the Tiger regiment etc.) into North Korea (1949) led to contrary claims and into war – the cause of this war was covert action involving leaders of Taiwan, South Korea and the US Military Industrial Complex (John Foster Dulles has been mentioned as an organizer of the hostilities);
(22) Vietnam War in “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident” wherein the American destroyer Maddox was supposedly attacked twice by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats in 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin – but which never happened;
(23) Grenada invasion whereby the Grenadian leader, Maurice Bishop, who favored the left and invited Cubans to build infrastructure to accommodate long range Soviet aircraft was deposed and executed in October 19, 1983 – six days later the US invaded, with the supposed reason that American medical students studying in Grenada were in danger due to a “Cuban presence”– and of course the new leader supported by the US favored more traditional values and the right;
(24) Panama invasion wherein an incident between American and Panamanian troops led to invasion and the earlier Carter administration plan to hand control of the canal over to Panama was cancelled;
(25) US-Israeli sponsored wars between Iraq and Iran from 1980-1988;
(26) Desert Storm War (First Gulf War) in 1991 wherein Saddam Hussein asked for permission from the US (via their ambassador April Gillespie) to invade Kuwait, and got an answer that the US was not concerned with “Arab quarrels” – this was a trap, and after Saddam occupied Kuwait, George Bush Sr. mobilized a coalition of some 40 nations to “liberate Kuwait” and smash the recently-built Iraqi military power base – this incident also involved a media hoax wherein the daughter of a Kuwaiti US Ambassador played a nurse on TV and testified to “witnessing” Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait;
(27) War on Terror launched by the Bush administration in October 2001 – claimed to be the response to terrorism, especially the 9-11 incidents;
(28) Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan invasion);
(29) Enduring Justice (Second Gulf war); and
(30) countless others.
Paragraph 43 of the Field Manual published by the War Department, United States Army, on 1 October 1940, under the entry Rules of Land Warfare states: “National flags, insignias and uniforms as a ruse – in practice it has been authorized to make use of these as a ruse. The foregoing rule (Article 23 of the Annex of the IVth Hague Convention), does not prohibit such use, but does prohibit their improper use. It is certainly forbidden to make use of them during a combat. Before opening fire upon the enemy, they must be discarded.”
The American Soldiers’ Handbook states: “The use of the enemy flag, insignia, and uniform is permitted under some circumstances. They are not to be used during actual fighting, and if used in order to approach the enemy without drawing fire, should be thrown away or removed as soon as fighting begins.”
The 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 (Protocol I) states:
Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy – 1. It is prohibited to kill, injure, or capture an adversary by resort to perfidy. Acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence, shall constitute perfidy. The following acts are examples of perfidy: (a) The feigning of an intent to negotiate under a flag of truce or of a surrender; (b) The feigning of an incapacitation by wounds or sickness; (c) The feigning of civilian, non-combatant status; and (d) The feigning of protected status by the use of signs, emblems or uniforms of the United Nations or of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. Ruses of war are not prohibited. Such ruses are acts which are intended to mislead an adversary or to induce him to act recklessly but which infringe no rule of international law applicable in armed conflict and which are not perfidious because they do not invite the confidence of an adversary with respect to protection under that law. The following are examples of such ruses: the use of camouflage, decoys, mock operations and disinformation.
Article 38. – Recognized emblems – 1. It is prohibited to make improper use of the distinctive emblem of the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Lion and Sun or of other emblems, signs or signals provided for by the Conventions or by this Protocol. It is also prohibited to misuse deliberately in an armed conflict other internationally recognized protective emblems, signs or signals, including the flag of truce, and the protective emblem of cultural property. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the distinctive emblem of the United Nations, except as authorized by that Organization.
Article 39. – Emblems of nationality – 1. It is prohibited to make use in an armed conflict of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of neutral or other States not Parties to the conflict. 2. It is prohibited to make use of the flags or military emblems, insignia or uniforms of adverse Parties while engaging in attacks or in order to shield, favour, protect or impede military operations. 3. Nothing in this Article or in Article 37, paragraph 1(d), shall affect the existing generally recognized rules of international law applicable to espionage or to the use of flags in the conduct of armed conflict at sea.”
It is vitally important to note that while the United States may have these codes and regulations, her enemies, both foreign and domestic, are not bound by these Rules.
The American People (and indeed the rest of the world) need to be exceptionally on guard and vigilant before the upcoming November 2016 election, and even many months afterwards, because the Neo-Cons/Communists may still try and get their World War 3, even if Donald Trump is elected.
After all, September 11, 2001 took place a full 9 months after George W Bush was sworn in at his Inauguration in January 2001, and this was blamed on Osama Bin Laden who was a known CIA Asset and who allegedly declared War on America in 1998 – he might have been the Neo-Cons’ insurance plan, cooked up during the 8 year Clinton Administration from 1992-2000.
And of course, 9-11 is what led to the wholesale bloodshed and regime changing wars for the past 15 years, leaving the Middle East in flames, with countless millions of innocent lives and refugees lost forever, the greatest genocide and bloodbath the world has ever known.
And don’t think that these crazed Neo-Con psychopaths won’t do it again, especially when there are only a few more countries left to “take out” now – Russia, Iran, and North Korea – as opposed to 20.
See: | 0 |
6 329 2 5 Les volontaires qui aident les réfugiés en Europe, sont-ils vraiment des complices de terroristes? Depuis le début de la crise migratoire, les Européens se posent de nouvelles questions en matière de sécurité. Ces craintes sont parfois poussées jusqu’à l’absurde. Une bénévole hongroise risque même une peine de prison.
L'arrivée massive des migrants a divisé les Européens dont certains craignent, et non sans raison, la montée du terrorisme. Mais ces craintes sont parfois poussées jusqu'à l'absurde. Une volontaire de Budapest, Adele Nagy, 38 ans, risque d'être condamnée à 20 ans de prison pour avoir aidé les réfugiés. « J'ai collecté des vêtements, des produits alimentaires, des médicaments et des produits d'hygiène pour femmes. Mes amis m'ont trahie, ils croyaient que j'aidais les terroristes et m'ont dénoncé aux autorités. En Hongrie, je risque d'écoper de vingt ans de prison. Je suis donc partie pour les Emirats arabes unis », a indiqué Adele Nagy cité par la chaîne de télévision RT. © AP Photo/ Muhammed Muheisen Les réfugiés afghans «déçus» par la vie en Europe Selon Adele Nagy, le gouvernement hongrois considère les réfugiés comme des terroristes potentiels et les médias en persuadent les habitants locaux. Plusieurs Hongrois ont déjàété condamnés à des amendes et même à des peines de prison pour leur bontéà l'égard des migrants. « La plupart des Hongrois détestent les musulmans uniquement en raison des fausses informations qu'on diffuse. Mais je crois que nous devons aider les réfugiés parce qu'ils se trouvent dans une situation difficile, leur pays natal est en proie à une guerre », a ajouté Mme Nagy.
Les Européens qui sympathisent avec les migrants reconnaissent qu'il peut y avoir des criminels parmi les réfugiés, mais ils sont plutôt confiants, d'après la mère d'une étudiante de Berlin, Jana Olernikova. « Ma fille (…) donne des cours d'allemand aux enfants des réfugiés syriens et afghans à Vienne et à Bratislava. Elle a beaucoup d'amis parmi les migrants (…). Je ne dirais pas que je crains de me promener dans les rues depuis le début de la crise. Il peut sans doute y avoir des criminels parmi les migrants, mais il y en a aussi parmi les Européens. Je suis contente que je puisse voir la vie arabe, j'aime la diversité culturelle en Europe », a indiqué Jana Olernikova. © AFP 2016 PHILIPPE HUGUEN Calais: «Les réfugiés ont le droit d’avoir une vie heureuse» Selon Miriam Dusterhoft, bénévole au camp de réfugiés de l'association humanitaire ASB en Allemagne, l'arrivée des migrants est une nouvelle occasion pour les Européens de faire preuve de souplesse. « Je porte une jupe longue ou un pantalon. Je couvre mes bras. Mais c'est une décision personnelle, j'ai beaucoup de tatouages et je ne veux pas gêner les gens qui n'y sont pas habitués. Je ne crois pas que mes droits soient lésés, je porte ce que je veux en ville », a précisé la volontaire.
Selon l'agence Frontex, plus de 1,8 million de migrants sont arrivés en Europe en 2015. Ce flux de réfugiés a compliqué la vie des habitants locaux. Les problèmes causés par la présence d'un grand nombre de migrants font réagir les autorités. En France, le démantèlement du camp des réfugiés de Lande, aussi baptisé la Jungle, a commencé le 24 octobre. Les migrants seront relogés dans des centres d'accueil en France ou transférés vers d'autres pays européens.
Suivez Sputnik sur Telegram pour ne jamais manquer les actualités les plus importantes grâce à nos sélections du matin et du soir. Pour recevoir les actualités de notre chaîne, il suffit de télécharger l'application Telegram sur n'importe quel smartphone, tablette ou ordinateur puis cliquer sur le lien et appuyer sur « Join » ... | 0 |
After President Trump’s administration announced it would toss out an amnesty program for up to five million illegal aliens, immigration hawks are cheering as they have a hope in the White House. [In a joint statement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary (DHS) John Kelly and Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) amnesty program would officially be tossed out. Immigration patriots say that are “thrilled” by the major immigration decision. “NumbersUSA and its 8 million activists are thrilled that Secretary Kelly has rescinded the DAPA amnesty, partially fulfilling one of President Trump’s key campaign promises,” NumebersUSA’s Chris Chmielenski said in a statement. Chmielenski said that by the Trump administration ending the DAPA amnesty program, American workers have been spared having to compete with more immigrants in a scarce American job market. “Although this unconstitutional executive amnesty had been temporarily blocked by the courts, it threatened to issue 5 million new work permits to illegal aliens who would mostly compete with American workers who still face unemployment rates and declining wages,” Chmielenski continued. Breitbart Texas covered the trial in South Texas in Judge Andrew Hanen where the judge not only blocked the order but had harsh words for Obama Administration lawyers. President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) Dan Stein praised Trump’s decision to end DAPA as a win for the rule of law. “Yesterday’s action by the administration also acknowledges that granting de facto amnesty to millions of people who knowingly violated U. S. immigration laws is also bad public policy that harms the interests of the American people and encourages more illegal immigration,” Stein said in a statement. “Many working class Americans voted for President Trump because of his promise to combat illegal immigration and secure U. S. jobs for American workers. They are the major beneficiaries of this action. ” Though the Trump administration kept their promise on throwing out the amnesty program, it has been less active in ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which essentially gives amnesty to young illegal aliens. In his statement praising Trump, Chmielenski asked the White House to keep their campaign promise and end the DACA program. “We hope President Trump now will keep his entire promise by ordering an end to the Obama Administration’s other unconstitutional amnesty, the DACA program which continues to issues new work permits to those here illegally,” Chmielenski said. Stein issued a similar statement on DACA, saying the program was just as legally questionable and hurtful to Americans as DAPA. “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) granted to more than 780, 000 illegal aliens who arrived in the U. S. as minors, was a similar example of an executive overreach that was based on the same flawed legal principle,” Stein said. “Clearly, DACA raises the same legal questions that ultimately resulted in the termination of DAPA. This calls into question the legitimacy of DACA as well. ” John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. | 1 |
Posted: Nov 16th, 2016 by Guest Click for more article by Guest .. More Stories about: Ticker | 0 |
Recently I had a conversation with a chief executive who expressed concern about several of her senior managers. They were smart, experienced, competent. So what was the problem? “They’re not asking enough questions,” she said. This wouldn’t have been a bad thing in the business world of a few years ago, where the rules for success were: Know your job, do your work, and if a problem arises, solve it and don’t bother us with a lot of questions. But increasingly I’m finding that business leaders want the people working around them to be more curious, more cognizant of what they don’t know, and more inquisitive — about everything, including “Why am I doing my job the way I do it?” and “How might our company find new opportunities?” I may be of this trend because I think of myself as a “questionologist,” having studied the art of questioning and written a book about it. But I also think there are real forces in business today that are causing people to value curiosity and inquiry more than in the past. Companies in many industries today must contend with rapid change and rising uncertainty. In such conditions, even a company cannot rest on its expertise there is pressure to keep learning what’s new and anticipating what’s next. It’s hard to do any of that without asking questions. Steve Quatrano, a member of the Right Question Institute, a nonprofit research group, explains that the act of formulating questions enables us “to organize our thinking around what we don’t know. ” This makes questioning a good skill to hone in dynamic times. Asking questions can help spark the innovative ideas that many companies hunger for these days. In the research for my book, I studied business breakthroughs — including the invention of the Polaroid instant camera and the Nest thermostat and the genesis of like Netflix, Square and Airbnb — and found that in each case, some curious soul looked at a current problem and asked insightful questions about why that problem existed and how it might be tackled. The Polaroid story is my favorite: The inspiration for the instant camera sprang from a question asked in the by the daughter of its inventor, Edwin H. Land. She was impatient to see a photo her father had just snapped, and when he tried to explain that the film had to be processed first, she wondered aloud, “Why do we have to wait for the picture?” One might assume that people can easily ask such questions, given that children do it so well. But research shows that peaks at age 4 or 5 and then steadily drops off, as children pass through school (where answers are often more valued than questions) and mature into adults. By the time we’re in the workplace, many of us have gotten out of the habit of asking fundamental questions about what’s going on around us. And some people worry that asking questions at work reveals ignorance or may be seen as slowing things down. So how can companies encourage people to ask more questions? There are simple ways to train people to become more comfortable and proficient at it. For example, question formulation exercises can be used as a substitute for conventional brainstorming sessions. The idea is to put a problem or challenge in front of a group of people and instead of asking for ideas, instruct participants to generate as many relevant questions as they can. Kristi Schaffner, an executive at Microsoft, regularly conducts such exercises there and says they sharpen analytical skills. Getting employees to ask more questions is the easy part getting management to respond well to those questions can be harder. When leaders claim they want “everyone to ask more questions,” I sometimes (in my bolder moments) ask: “Do you really want that? And what will you do with those questions once people start asking them?” For questioning to thrive in a company, management must find ways to reward the behavior — if only by acknowledging the good questions that have been asked. For example, I visited one company that asked all employees to think of “what if” and “how might we” questions about the company’s goals and plans. Management and employees together decided which of these mission questions were best, then displayed them on banners on the walls. Leaders can also encourage companywide questioning by being more curious and inquisitive themselves. This is not necessarily easy for senior executives, who are used to being the ones with the answers. I’ve noticed during questioning exercises at some companies that top executives sit in the back of the room, laptops open, attending to other business they seem to think their employees are the only ones who need to learn. As they do this, these leaders are modeling precisely the kind of incurious behavior they’re trying to change in others. They could set a better example by asking “why” and “what if” — while asking others to do likewise. And as the questions proliferate, some good answers are likely to follow. | 1 |
Email A little planning goes a long way when it comes to mind expansion!
1. Prior to the trip, forget what birds are: When you’re tripping, you’ll eventually learn about birds, and it’ll blow your fuckin’ mind.
2. Surround yourself with lots of sharp knives and guns: You’ll want to be able to fight off any terrifying creatures that might suddenly appear before you.
3. Set your alarm to go off every six seconds to remind you to breathe: Remember, safety first. It may seem “dorky,” but setting a breath alarm can save your life.
4. Write the words “GOOD TIME” on your forehead: That way, if you’re feeling depressed at any point while tripping, you can just look in the mirror and be reminded of the type of time that you’re supposed to be having!
5. Politely ask any terminally ill loved ones to hold off on dying until after your trip: They will understand that you want your experience to be mind-opening, not sad.
6. For god’s sake, make sure you husk all of your corn before you dose: If you want a pleasant trip, you’ve gotta make sure you husk every last ear of corn you’ve got. Yes, even the ones you have in your storehouse!
7. Keep a few Trivial Pursuit cards in your pocket: When you’re eventually stricken with a powerful and lasting sense that you know everything that everyone is going to say and, therefore, you know everything forever, a tough Science & Nature question can be your best route back to reality. | 0 |
— Harry (@followingsea2) October 18, 2016
Trump has made it clear that not even committing sexual assault would make him withdraw from the election.
This latest video is one of many being unearthed, including one in which he said he’d be dating a ten-year-old girl in another ten years. But this isn’t the first time he’s made sexual comments about Ivanka: “If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…”
The latest tape shows the father and daughter duo appearing on an episode of the Wendy Williams Show back in 2013. During a segment called Fave 5, Wendy asked what their favorite thing to bond over was.
Ivanka gave an eloquent response: “Either real estate and golf.”
Her father’s, who is currently holding rallies in swing states while continuing to claim the election is rigged, had less to do with career and sports and more to do with his objectification of women: “Well I was gonna say sex, but…”
There’s also a video from 1994 in which Trump sexualized his other daughter, Tiffany Trump , when she was a one-year-old. Tiffany is the only child between him and his second wife, Marla Maples . “Well, I think that she’s got a lot of Marla, she’s a really beautiful baby, and she’s got Marla’s legs. We don’t know yet if she’s got this part yet.”
As he said that, Trump then held his hands to his chest and suggested breasts. That wasn’t the only cringe-worthy moment pertaining to him and Tiffany, though. Donald Trump and Tiffany duck each other's kisses after presidential debate he refused to kiss Tiffany interesting https://t.co/CFrIs8xdL7
— Rodney Giles (@jubileenetwork) October 13, 2016
Watch the video of this disturbing exchange below :
Featured Image: Screenshot Via YouTube Video . Connect with me | 0 |
Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” while discussing President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice’s decision to decline an invitation to testify before a Senate subcommittee on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Rep. Trey Gowdy ( ) said that could lead Congress to subpoena her. Gowdy said, “There are other ways to invite people other than via a letter. There are things called subpoenas. You shouldn’t have to use it with a former national security adviser, but if you do, you do. ”Referencing Rice’s role in the unmasking of Trump transition officials he said Rice is “a very important witness. ” He added, “Members of Congress don’t pick the witnesses. Lawyers don’t pick witnesses. The facts pick the witnesses. And whether Ambassador Rice likes it or not, she’s a really important fact witness. ” ( WFB) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
28, 2016 | Politics An estimated 100,000 people march toward the Capitol in Washington, DC, to protest the US's war of aggression on Iraq, September 15, 2007 ( Ragesoss / CC BY-SA 3.0 ) Despite the media's best efforts to delude the masses, most Americans still think US foreign policy and its endless wars make the country less safe.
A new poll from an unlikely source suggests that the U.S. public and the U.S. media have very little in common when it comes to matters of war and peace.
This poll was commissioned by that notorious leftwing hotbed of peaceniks, the Charles Koch Institute, along with the Center for the National Interest (previously the Nixon Center, and before that the humorously named Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom). The poll was conducted by Survey Sampling International.
They polled 1,000 registered voters from across the U.S. and across the political spectrum but slanted slightly toward older age groups. They asked:
“Over the last 15 years, do you think U.S. foreign policy has made Americans more or less safe?”
What, dear reader, do you say?
If you say less safe, you not only agree with dozens of top U.S. officials the week after they retire, but you agree with 52.5% of the people polled. Those who said “more safe” add up to 14%, while 25.2% said “about the same” and 8.3% just didn’t know.
Well, at least all these humanitarian wars to spread democracy and eliminate weapons and destroy terror have benefited the rest of the world, right?
Not according to the statistics that show terrorism on the rise during the war on terrorism, and not according to 50.5% of poll respondents who said U.S. foreign policy has made the world less safe. Meanwhile 12.6% said “more safe” while 24.1% said it was about the same and 12.8% didn’t know.
Asked about four wars in particular, registered U.S. voters said each of them had made the U.S. less secure, by a margin of 49.6% to 20.9% on Iraq, 42.2% to 18.9% on Libya, 42.2% to 24.3% on Afghanistan, and 40.8% to 32.1% on bombing ISIS in Syria.
These answers should not immediately be taken to prove that the U.S. public is universally wise and well informed, and (not coincidentally) at odds with U.S. media. Not only is that margin pretty slim on ISIS, but 43.3% of those polled said ISIS was the greatest threat the United States faces. Meanwhile 14.1% named Russia, 8.5% North Korea, 8.1% the national debt, 7.9% domestic terrorists, and bringing up the rear with the correct answer of global warming as the greatest threat were a grand total of 4.6% of those polled.
A survey of U.S. news reports would certainly suggest a point of agreement here between the public and the media. But here is where it gets interesting. Although the public believes the hype about danger emanating from these foreign forces, it does not favor the solution it is endlessly offered by the media and the U.S. government. When asked if, compared to last 15 years, the next president should use the U.S. military abroad less, 51.1% agreed, while 24.2% said it should be used more. And 80.0% said that any president should be required to get congressional authorization before committing the U.S. to military action, while 10.2% rejected that radical idea that’s been in the U.S. Constitution since day 1.
The U.S. public may look quite depressingly ignorant in a quick survey of Youtube videos, but check this out: Asked if the U.S. government should deploy U.S. troops on the ground in Syria 51.1% said no, compared to 23.5% who said yes. Only 10% said yes on Yemen, while 22.8% said no—however, 40.7% said the U.S. government should keep “supporting” Saudi Arabia in that war.
Good majorities also oppose Japan acquiring nuclear weapons, Germany acquiring nuclear weapons, or the U.S. defending Taiwan against a Chinese attack. (Who invents these scenarios?)
This moderately encouraging survey of public sentiment stands in stark contrast to U.S. media coverage of wars in general and Syria in particular . The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof is ready for a bigger war as are columnists in the Washington Post and USA Today , as well as, of course Chuck Todd and other televised talking head. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton’s comment to Goldman Sachs that a “no fly zone” would require “killing a lot of Syrians” has received dramatically less press than her brave calls for creating a humanitarian no fly zone, and the steady depiction of that proposal as “doing something”—in contrast to the only other option: “doing nothing.”
The public, however, rejects the only “something” that’s on offer and just might leap at the opportunity to try something else, if anyone ever proposed anything else .
| 0 |
SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets, being “obsessed” with the customer, and “always be hustlin’. ” The service particularly emphasizes “meritocracy,” the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts, even if it means stepping on toes to get there. Those values have helped propel Uber to one of Silicon Valley’s biggest success stories. The company is valued at close to $70 billion by private investors and now operates in more than 70 countries. Yet the focus on pushing for the best result has also fueled what current and former Uber employees describe as a Hobbesian environment at the company, in which workers are sometimes pitted against one another and where a blind eye is turned to infractions from top performers. Interviews with more than 30 current and former Uber employees, as well as reviews of internal emails, chat logs and meetings, paint a picture of an often unrestrained workplace culture. Among the most egregious accusations from employees, who either witnessed or were subject to incidents and who asked to remain anonymous because of confidentiality agreements and fear of retaliation: One Uber manager groped female ’ breasts at a company retreat in Las Vegas. A director shouted a homophobic slur at a subordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. Another manager threatened to beat an underperforming employee’s head in with a baseball bat. Until this week, this culture was only whispered about in Silicon Valley. Then on Sunday, Susan Fowler, an engineer who left Uber in December, published a blog post about her time at the company. She detailed a history of discrimination and sexual harassment by her managers, which she said was shrugged off by Uber’s human resources department. Ms. Fowler said the culture was stoked — and even fostered — by those at the top of the company. “It seemed like every manager was fighting their peers and attempting to undermine their direct supervisor so that they could have their direct supervisor’s job,” Ms. Fowler wrote. “No attempts were made by these managers to hide what they were doing: They boasted about it in meetings, told their direct reports about it, and the like. ” Her revelations have spurred over how unfriendly Silicon Valley workplaces can be to women and provoked an internal crisis at Uber. The company’s chief executive, Travis Kalanick, has opened an internal investigation into the accusations and has brought in the board member Arianna Huffington and the former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to look into harassment issues and the human resources department. To contain the fallout, Mr. Kalanick also began more disclosure. On Monday, he said that 15. 1 percent of Uber’s engineering, product management and scientist roles were filled by women, and that those numbers had not changed substantively over the past year. Mr. Kalanick also held a meeting on Tuesday, during which he and other executives were besieged with dozens of questions and pleas from employees who were aghast at — or strongly identified with — Ms. Fowler’s story and demanded change. In what was described by five attendees as an emotional moment, and according to a video of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, Mr. Kalanick apologized to employees for leading the company and the culture to this point. “What I can promise you is that I will get better every day,” he said. “I can tell you that I am authentically and fully dedicated to getting to the bottom of this. ” Some Uber employees said Mr. Kalanick’s speedy efforts were positive. “I am pleased with how quickly Travis has responded to this,” Aimee Lucido, an Uber software engineer, wrote in a blog post. “We are better situated to handle this sort of problem than we have ever been in the past. ” As chief executive, Mr. Kalanick has long set the tone for Uber. Under him, Uber has taken a pugnacious approach to business, flouting local laws and criticizing competitors in a race to expand as quickly as possible. Mr. Kalanick, 40, has made pointed displays of ego: In a GQ article in 2014, he referred to Uber as “ ” because of how the company helped him attract women. That tone has been echoed in Uber’s workplace. At least two former Uber workers said they had notified Thuan Pham, the company’s chief technical officer, of workplace harassment at the hands of managers and colleagues in 2016. One also emailed Mr. Kalanick. Uber also faces at least three lawsuits in at least two countries from former employees alleging sexual harassment or verbal abuse at the hands of managers, according to legal documents reviewed by The Times. Other current and former employees said they were considering legal action against the company. Liane Hornsey, Uber’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement, “We are totally committed to healing wounds of the past and building a better workplace culture for everyone. ” Uber’s aggressive culture began with its 2009 founding, when Mr. Kalanick and another founder, Garrett Camp, created a that would let customers hail a cab with little more than a few taps of their smartphone — bypassing many of the headaches people had with the taxi industry. Mr. Kalanick also started putting into place what eventually became Uber’s 14 core values, inspired by the leadership principles at one of the biggest public tech companies, Amazon. To grow quickly, Uber kept its structure decentralized, emphasizing autonomy among regional offices. General managers are encouraged to “be themselves,” another of Uber’s core values, and are empowered to make decisions without intense supervision from the company’s San Francisco headquarters. The top priority: Achieve growth and revenue targets. While Uber is now the dominant company in the United States, and is rapidly growing in South America, India and other countries, its explosive growth has come at a cost internally. As Uber hired more employees, its internal politics became more convoluted. Getting ahead, employees said, often involved undermining departmental leaders or colleagues. Workers like Ms. Fowler who went to human resources with their problems said they were often left stranded. She and a others said human resources often made excuses for top performers because of their ability to improve the health of the business. Occasionally, problematic managers who were the subject of numerous complaints were shuffled around different regions firings were less common. One group appeared immune to internal scrutiny, the current and former employees said. Members of the group, called the and composed of executives who were personally close to Mr. Kalanick, were shielded from much accountability over their actions. One member of the was Emil Michael, senior vice president for business, who was caught up in a public scandal over comments he made in 2014 about digging into the private lives of journalists who opposed the company. Mr. Kalanick defended Mr. Michael, saying he believed Mr. Michael could learn from his mistakes. Uber’s aggressive workplace culture spilled out at a global meeting in late 2015 in Las Vegas, where the company hired Beyoncé to perform at the rooftop bar of the Palms Hotel. Between bouts of drinking and gambling, Uber employees used cocaine in the bathrooms at private parties, said three attendees, and a manager groped several female employees. (The manager was terminated within 12 hours.) One employee hijacked a private shuttle bus, filled it with friends and took it for a joy ride, the attendees said. At the Las Vegas outing, Mr. Kalanick also held a companywide lecture reviewing Uber’s 14 core values, the attendees said. During the lecture, Mr. Kalanick pulled onstage employees who he believed exemplified each of the values. One of those was Mr. Michael. Since Ms. Fowler’s blog post, several Uber employees have said they are considering leaving the company. Some are waiting until their equity compensation from Uber, which is restricted stock units, is vested. Others said they had started sending résumés to competitors. Still other employees said they were hopeful that Uber could change. Mr. Kalanick has promised to deliver a diversity report to better detail the number of women and minorities who work at Uber, and the company is holding listening sessions with employees. At the Tuesday meeting, Ms. Huffington, the Uber board member, also vowed that the company would make another change. According to attendees and video of the meeting, Ms. Huffington said there would no longer be hiring of “brilliant jerks. ” | 1 |
The Archbishop of Vienna who has been tipped to be the next Pope, has implied the election of Donald Trump is a good thing as Ronald Reagan turned out to be “certainly one of the best presidents the U. S. ever had”. [Looking back on a transformational year in politics, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn also cautioned about the effects of mass Muslim migration, urging Europeans to retain the continent’s Christian heritage. On the U. S. elections, he told Krone Zeitung in an extensive interview last week: “I do not know if Ms. Clinton really would have been the better solution and I do not know whether Mr. Trump is the great misfortune. “Many also shook their heads when Ronald Reagan was elected: ‘For God’s sake, an actor from California!’ But Reagan was certainly one of the best presidents the U. S. ever had. So you should not be too quick to judge. ” On the European migrant crisis, he said, “We [Europeans] have responded with a great deal of generosity to the refugee crisis … The figures last year were simply dramatically high … The key issue we are facing in Austria is the integration of refugees. ” In September last year, the cardinal caused a stir when he claimed the ultimate aim of many Muslim migrants is to conquer Europe with their religious ideology. Before Christmas, Cardinal Schönborn said on Austrian television that he was rethinking his approach to mass migration and wanted to see many return to their homelands. When questioned last week, he appeared to stand by this claim, insisting that, as a Christian, he would like to see much of the Muslim world restored to Christianity and urged Christians in the West to preserve their culture. “Of course, as a Christian, I would like the Middle East to become Christian again, as it once was, or North Africa. North Africa was completely Christianised. Of course, I wish this because I believe that Christianity is not only my personal religion, but a religion that is a good … ” Whilst insisting he did not blame individual Muslims for wanting to change Europe, he spoke of the huge rise in the number of mosques in the West and the destruction of churches in Muslim countries, claiming “religions are in competition with each other”. “But we already have 200 Islamic places of prayer in Vienna. We have mosques in cathedrals in Spain, and we have, for example, in Damascus, the cathedral of John the Baptist is now a mosque … ” he said, adding: “I am pleased that Muslims can freely exercise their religion with us, but I also wish that Christians in Saudi Arabia could practice their religion freely — or in other countries. ” “Being afraid of the Islamization of Europe is nonsensical if one does not contribute something to the fact that Europe remains Christian” he continued, insisting that the real problem in Europe was a loss of faith in Christianity, rather than Islam. “But, of course, if a church is sold in the Netherlands and transformed into a supermarket, when the supermarkets are more important to us than the Christian roots of Europe, we must not be surprised that Europe [changes]. ” “But it is not the fault of the Muslims,” he reiterated. “When we see that the mosques are well visited and the churches are badly visited, we can not blame Muslims for wanting to Islamise Europe. “But we must reproach ourselves for not doing enough to maintain a Christian Europe. ” | 1 |
Celebrities including Susan Sarandon, Dulé Hill and Lizzy Caplan know why President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week temporarily prohibiting some immigration to the United States — it’s because he’s working from an alternative, “cursed” Constitution. [In the latest political PSA from comedy website Funny or Die released this week, a number of celebrities — including Shailene Woodley, Cara Delevingne, Jamie Chung and others — lay out the case for why they believe Trump is relying on an old “alternate” Constitution found in a musty old cave. “We only know of two copies [of the alternative Constitution] one of which archaeologists found cradled in the mouth of a large golden deity hidden in a deep underground cave,” explains West Wing star Hill. “Trump was accidentally given the other copy when he was a teen. ” “He’s working from the wrong Constitution and he doesn’t even know it,” says Delevingne. In the supposed “alternative” Constitution from which Trump is working appears the clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, but if a handsome, brave, scared president makes an executive order that favors one religion over another, he shall only experience pure ecstasy. ” The PSA marks the latest entry from Funny or Die after the Will Ferrell and Adam comedy website became nearly the premiere destination for such videos during the election. offerings from the website included Tom Green’s parody music video “Do the Donald” and Katy Perry’s “Vote Naked” political PSA. Last year, the site released a “lost” made for TV movie based on Trump’s bestselling book The Art of the Deal, with Johnny Depp starring as Trump. Watch the full “Alternative Constitution” sketch above. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
French citizens killed in Malta plane crash were intelligence officers Intel News
Despite initial denials, it appears that at least three of the five French citizens who were killed in an airplane crash in Malta earlier this week were employees of the country’s external intelligence agency. The crash happened in the early hours of Monday near the village of Luqa in southern Malta. Early reports identified that the plane as a light aircraft and was carrying five French citizens when it crashed, shortly after taking off from the nearby Malta International Airport. Initial statements from Maltese and French government officials said the plane was on a local flight route and had not been scheduled to land outside of the Mediterranean island. The five passengers were identified in press statements as “customs officers” who were conducting a joint project with their Maltese counterparts.
Subsequent reports in the French media , however, said that at least three of the five French passengers who perished in the crash were officers of the General Directorate for External Security, France’s external intelligence agency, which goes by the initials DGSE. It is also believed that the airplane was registered in the United States and was operated by a Luxembourg-based company. Reports from Libya state that the plane’s mission is “shrouded in mystery”. Some articles suggest that it was heading to the city of Misrata in northern Libya, or that it may have been conducting a reconnaissance operation over the Mediterranean, aimed at gathering intelligence on smuggling activities originating from Libya.
The French intelligence services are known to be active on the ground in Libya, where several Sunni Islamist groups, including the Islamic State, control territory. In July of this year, Paris acknowledged for the first time that it had Special Forces and intelligence operatives in Libya, after three DGSE officers were killed in a helicopter crash in the North African country. The latest air crash was not preceded by an explosion, according to French media. The French government has launched an investigation into the incident. | 0 |
November 1, 2016 US calls for end to Saudi airstrikes in Yemen
The US has called for an end to airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen at a UN security council meeting, but critics pointed out that Washington continues to supply arms and provide other military support to Saudi Arabia.
The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, condemned missile attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels on Saudi Arabia and said the kingdom had a right to defend itself.
But she added: “It is also incumbent on the Saudi-led coalition and the forces of the Yemeni government to refrain from taking steps that escalate this violence and to commit to the cessation of hostilities.
“After 19 months of fighting, it should be clear that there is absolutely no military solution to this conflict. Airstrikes that hit schools, hospitals and other civilian objects have to stop. In many cases these strikes have damaged key infrastructure that is essential to delivering humanitarian aid in Yemen.” | 0 |
LONDON — With thousands of people demonstrating against President Trump outside Parliament, British lawmakers on Monday debated whether to deny him a formal state visit because — in the eyes of nearly two million Britons in an online petition — it would “cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the queen. ” The debate included the kind of political showmanship and heated language that members of Parliament often do well, with dueling lawmakers invoking Mr. Trump’s impetuousness, his strategic importance to Britain or even his willingness to misrepresent the weather during his inauguration as reasons to cancel or go ahead with the visit. “The intellectual capacity of the president is protozoan,” said Paul Flynn, an opposition Labour lawmaker who led the argument against a state visit. In making his case, Mr. Flynn quoted a journalist’s remarks about the disgrace of “pimping out the queen for Donald Trump” — a remark that the Conservative legislator Jacob condemned as unworthy, even as a quotation. Mr. Trump would hardly be the first contentious leader to be honored with a state visit. The queen, acting as always on the recommendation of the government, has in the past received President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and President Mobutu Sese Seko, the former leader of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. After a recent visit with President Xi Jinping of China, she was caught on camera speaking of how “very rude” the Chinese leader had been. “A queen who has been asked over the decades to host tyrants such as Presidents Mobutu of Zaire and Ceausescu of Romania is going to take a brash billionaire from New York effortlessly in her stride,” William Hague, a former foreign secretary, wrote in The Daily Telegraph. Still, the prospect of Mr. Trump’s visit has stirred great passion in Britain. The online petition, backed by 1. 8 million people, does not call for Mr. Trump to be barred from Britain altogether, only that his visit be a political one, without the involvement of Queen Elizabeth II. Another online petition, signed by more than 300, 000 people, called for the state visit to take place. Petitions with more than 100, 000 signatures are eligible for parliamentary debate, and any vote would not be binding. The government of Prime Minister Theresa May has been firm in saying that the invitation to Mr. Trump for a full state visit this year will not be withdrawn. In Parliament, Mr. Flynn cited the need to keep public trust in politicians and noted that no president had ever been invited for a state visit in his first year in office. He also accused Mr. Trump of acting “like a petulant child” and said the queen should not be seen as approving either his actions or his attitudes toward women and Muslims. But a Conservative legislator, Nigel Evans, said that Mr. Trump was the president of a great ally of Britain and that the critics should “get over it. ” Mr. Trump was fairly elected, he said, adding, “I do respect that he stood on a platform on which he is now delivering. ” Alex Salmond, a legislator from the Scottish National Party, argued that the invitation should be rescinded because members should not confuse respect for the United States with a personal invitation to Mr. Trump. Traditionally, American presidents must wait several years before getting a state visit, and many do not get one at all. Mrs. May, after Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union, was eager to cement good relations with the new American president, and she arranged a rapid visit to Washington. During the visit, she conveyed the invitation, which Mr. Trump accepted. Leaving the European Union could lock Britain out of the bloc’s single market, a zone, as well as the customs union, which eliminates tariffs and customs checks. So Mrs. May has seemed eager to shore up her country’s relations with the United States as a counterbalance. During the debate, a Labour legislator, David Lammy, spoke of Mr. Trump’s attitudes and asked why Britain should “abandon all its principles” and invite him, “because this country is so desperate for a trade deal that we would throw all our own history out the window?” He said: “We didn’t do this for Kennedy. We didn’t do this for Truman. We didn’t do this for Reagan. But for this man, after seven days, we say, ‘Please come and we will lay on everything because we are so desperate for your company? ’” He added, “I am ashamed that it has come to this. ” But James Cartlidge, a Conservative, said that if Britain canceled the visit, “there will be smiles all around in the Kremlin,” which wants to “divide the West. ” And another Conservative, Simon Burns, said that it was important to be “a candid friend” able to influence Mr. Trump and the United States, particularly so given Britain’s plan to leave the European Union. Various opinion polls indicate that a small majority of Britons support the state visit. But there are also concerns that it would be met with large protests, comparable to 2003, when President George W. Bush made a state visit and many came out to protest the Iraq war. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, supports the petition to disinvite Mr. Trump because of the president’s “ban on people from seven countries” and his decision to block refugees from entering the United States. “In those circumstances, we shouldn’t be rolling out the red carpet,” Mr. Khan said on Sunday. On Monday, the House of Lords began at least two days of debate on a bill, already passed by the House of Commons, to authorize the government to enact Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which would inform the European Union of Britain’s intention to leave the bloc. The government intends to invoke Article 50 by the end of March, if not sooner, beginning at least two years of negotiations with the other 27 member states on the terms of Britain’s exit and a framework for future relations. | 1 |
By Justin Gardner As the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline nears its planned Missouri River crossing, protesters are remaining strong in their fight to protect the... | 0 |
Democrats in Congress refused to stand while a Navy SEAL’s widow was acknowledged by President Trump in his speech before a joint session of Congress Tuesday night. [Sen. Bernie Sanders ( ) Sen. Al Franken ( ) Rep. Nancy Pelosi ( ) and Sen. Patty Murray ( ) among others, remained firmly seated and did not applaud at all while the rest of the room gave Carryn Owens a standing ovation, IJR reported. “We are blessed to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens, the widow of a U. S. Navy special operator, Senior Chief William ‘Ryan’ Owens. Ryan died as he lived: a warrior, and a hero — battling against terrorism and securing our nation,” Trump said, introducing the widow. Ryan was killed in the line of duty during a raid on a terrorist haven in Yemen. His widow Carryn was seated next to First Daughter Ivanka Trump, clearly distraught as she took the national spotlight. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) Sen. Al Franken ( ) and other Democratic members of Congress did stand and applaud on the second round of ovations, but many others still refused to stand. Sobbing widow of slain Navy Seal receives 2 minute standing ovation. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Keith Ellison stay firmly seated, no claps, — Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 1, 2017, FOR THE RECORD: Carryn Owens had 2 ovations. DWS Ellison stood for her intro. The really long, emotional 2 min one, they did not stand. — Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 1, 2017, Former DNC Chair and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz ( ) and Rep. Keith Ellison ( ) were among the Democratic leaders who remained seated during the second emotional standing ovation for Carryn Owens, though they did stand for her introduction. While Democratic congressional leaders were reluctant to show respect during the speech, former Obama adviser Van Jones had a different take on the moment, calling it “one of the most extraordinary moments” of American politics. Trump’s speech was by the American public and media outlets normally adversarial towards the president. A poll showed that 69 percent of American viewers felt “optimistic” about the country after the speech, while 28 percent felt “pessimistic” after the speech. The Washington Post called Trump’s speech the “best ‘big’ speech” from the president. | 1 |
November 6, 2016 You Won’t BELIEVE The Hilarious Reason We Haven’t Seen Any Late Night Trump Twitter Rants Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
The press has been praising GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump lately for staying on message on the campaign trail and avoiding feuds on Twitter. After all, the entire campaign has been dogged by Trump’s Twitter meltdowns – especially in cases where he did outrageous things like spending a week attacking the parents of a fallen soldier, and fat-shaming a beauty queen in the middle of the night while urging his millions of followers to check out a sex tape.
The world watched in horror as a major party presidential nominee engaged in this childish, bullying behavior, and as his advisers and surrogates toured the talk shows cleaning up his messes. However, it seems that here in the 11th hour of this crazy election cycle, Trump’s campaign aides have had enough of his coming unglued online. So, as if they are babysitting a toddler, they’ve done the unthinkable and removed Trump’s access to his own Twitter account .
According to the New York Times, instead of allowing Trump to tweet when he feels like it, he and his aides craft careful tweets to send out to his millions of followers. The Times cites one instance where Hope Hicks, one of the campaign’s spokespeople, helped Trump word a tweet chastising President Obama for stumping so much for Hillary.
So, in other words, Trump has so little self-control that his social media has to be monitored like a child. He probably stomped, screamed, and ranted throughout Trump Tower when Kellyanne or whoever responsible for this decision took his phone away, but it seems that in the final days, the campaign knew that they’d have no time to clean up any messes Trump might create for himself via Twitter. Therefore, they had no choice but to treat him like the small child who just happens to be occupying a 70-year-old man’s body that he is.
And to think – in two days, this little boy could be in control of the world’s most powerful nuclear arsenal.
Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Share this Article! | 0 |
Yesterday, insofar as anyone can recall, was the White House commemoration of Israel’s birth as a nation. With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic. twitter. — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017, With Steve Bannon and Debbie at the White House on #IsraelIndependenceDay2017. Thank u Steve for your love of Israel pic. twitter. — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017 | 1 |
I declare myself a conscientious objector page: 1 link With tensions as they are and a war on the horizon I have decided to declare myself a conscientious objector. The UK does not need to start a war in Syria, it does not need to start fight with Russia. None of that has any reliavance to the UK or its saftey! In fact it would make us more unsafe! War in these curmstances would not be for my defence. And in my opinion violence is only nessary or justified in self defence. Russias leaders have acted disgrafully. But our leaders in the USA and UK are equally as bad. For every Crimea there's a Iraq, for every Syria a Libya. There is no moral high ground, the USA or UK has no right to point fingers, nor does Russia. I will therefore refuse to support (directly or indirectly), take part in or contribute (beyond taxes) anything. My only exception being unarmed medical services that I will give neutrally to BOTH sides equally. In the unlikely event of a call up I will choose prison. I will not actively support or aid the other side beyond medical and humanitarian aid. Call me a traitor, a coward or anything you like, this is my decision . I want NO part in any looming conflict. edit on 27-10-2016 by crazyewok because: (no reason given) edit on 27-10-2016 by crazyewok because: (no reason given) | 0 |
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that Secretary of Defense James Mattis will visit Japan and South Korea in early February, on his first overseas trip since confirmation. [“The trip will underscore the commitment of the United States to our enduring alliances with Japan and the Republic of Korea, and further strengthen U. S. of Korea security cooperation,” said Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis. “President Donald Trump raised concerns during the campaign by asserting that some allies are not pulling their weight and by suggesting that he might not object to Japan or South Korea developing their own nuclear weapons if they do not pay more for U. S. military support,” Stars Stripes noted in reporting Mattis’ travel agenda. CNN reports the trip is scheduled to last four days, and will include meetings with Mattis’ opposite numbers in Japan and South Korea. There are currently about 50, 000 U. S. troops stationed in the former nation and 28, 000 in the latter. A defense official told CNN that “folks in Japan are very happy about the visit. ” Japan has been looking to improve its military capabilities to deal with potential threats from China and North Korea. The Japan Times reports that Mattis will meet with Defense Minister Tomomi Inada on February 3rd, after paying a courtesy call to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. During these meetings, Japan Times anticipates that Mattis “may request that Japan increase defense spending and expand the role of the Forces abroad in line. ” Mattis and Inada are also expect to “exchange views on China’s island construction and military buildup in disputed areas in the South China Sea and North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,” as well as on a plan to relocate the U. S. Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa. In South Korea, Mattis will likely discuss “North Korea and the planned deployment of an advanced U. S. missile defense system known as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) to South Korea” with Defense Minister Han . The Financial Times writes that THAAD deployment is “looking increasingly in jeopardy amid political strife in Seoul and increasingly strident Chinese opposition. ” Said opposition recently took the form of punitive Chinese action against the South Korean conglomerate that owns the land where the THAAD system would be erected, prompting the conglomerate to delay negotiations. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency predicts “ for U. S. Forces [and] Korea may also be on the agenda, as Trump called for U. S. allies to pay more for the upkeep of the U. S. military during his election campaigning. ” | 1 |
Praise the LORD YAH Almighty. Good Job Comey for doing the right thing thus says Gregory William Gieseke 593-40-8126 DOB July 28, 1968 (nineteen sixty eight). | 0 |
DOJ: Comey NOT ordered to withhold discovery November 01, 2016 U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch leaves after attending the 64th Annual Red Mass at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, U.S., October 2, 2016.
Contrary to initial reports, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch did not order FBI Director James Comey to withhold from Congress the discovery of emails.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch did not order Comey to withhold information of new investigation into emails in Hillary Clinton's email server, but she made it known that she thought his decision violated department policy.
Comey's letter on Friday notifying members of Congress that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had discovered new emails apparently pertinent to the Clinton server probe has upended the presidential race and given new hope to Republican candidate Donald Trump that he can make a comeback and win on Nov. 8. Although some polls prior to the release of Comey's letter to Congress showed that support for Trump was already back on the rise.
Lynch's office informed the FBI on Thursday that sending the letter conflicted with a memo containing official guidance that is sent to all Justice Department employees during presidential election years, according to the official.
The memo instructs employees to "never select the timing of investigative steps... for the purpose of affecting any election."
Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, sent Comey a letter on Monday accusing the FBI of keeping “explosive information” under wraps about ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 0 |
Election crossroads: Socialism or capitalism? Exclusive: Jane Chastain explains impact of Dems' 'living wage' proposal Published: 20 mins ago Jane Chastain About | | Archive Jane Chastain is a Southern California-based broadcaster, author and political commentator. Despite her present emphasis on politics, Jane always will be remembered as the nation's first female TV sportscaster, spending 17 years on the sports beat. Jane blogs at JaneChastain.com. She is a pilot who lives on a private runway. Print
Our country is at a crossroads. Never before have we faced such an obvious fork in the road. One road, the one favored by politician Hillary Clinton and her Democratic colleagues, promises to lead us to a socialist utopia. The other, favored by businessman Donald Trump and some of his Republican colleagues, promises to get us back on the road toward free-market capitalism.
It is no secret that most career politicians lean toward a socialist system. In this system they control the lion’s share of our money and, in turn, hand out favors. In this system, they make the major decisions that affect our lives. As the government accumulates more and more power, we invariably end up with less. Statistics show that the longer a politician stays in power, the more of our hard-earned money he or she spends. Yet we keep electing the same people over and over and over again, expecting a different result.
We’ve been headed down the road toward socialism for quite some time, and this could be the last fork in the road we will have to get us back to the free-market system that has given this country the highest standard of living in the world. No, it isn’t perfect, but it works for everyone who is willing to work hard and wants to improve his or her life.
Notice what I didn’t say is “simply willing to work hard.” There is the belief by some that if you simply work hard, you should have what these politicians now call a “living wage” – the income necessary to support a family of four and supply all its basic needs, which is around $85,000 a year in some parts of the country. The Democrats want to replace the minimum wage, which is a training wage, with this living wage. That completely kicks the bottom rungs out from under the economic ladder Americans have traditionally climbed to reach their goals and live independently.
Ideally, it would mean that you could take a job flipping hamburgers and never gain any skills or accept any responsibility, and live as comfortably as the guy or gal who does.
Unfortunately, this so-called living wage will destroy jobs. It will cause companies to automate, and those that cannot will begin moving offshore at an even faster rate.
But this living wage is only part of what the Democrats want to do in the name of fairness.
This, no doubt, appeals to many in this poor economy who have lost all hope, so they are lulled into thinking that the socialist road is much better.
Wages have remained flat for far too long, but the Democrats are proposing raising taxes even higher on businesses and job creators.
Most people simply do not understand that businesses don’t pay taxes. They are passed down to consumers in the form of higher prices. And when the price of the necessary goods and services becomes too high, such as we’ve seen in Obamacare, there is a large outcry. That’s when the government steps in and takes over the means of production and the control of those services. That’s when the door to socialism/communism slams shut.
They tell us if we take this socialist road there is nothing to fear. Our benevolent government will take care of us. They are offering us free college – or almost free loans – in order to get the job we want at a salary we think we deserve. And if we don’t get that job, the government is going to give us free health care, free food and free housing. Under President Hillary, there will be free child care, free preschool and paid family leave. What a country!
If we don’t reach our goals, everything will be OK because Social Security and Medicare will be there to finance our retirement, and if that isn’t enough, the government will put us in a retirement center where we live out the remainder of our years playing checkers or watching television.
What about the fact that Social Security and Medicare are going broke? How long can we keep printing money to keep us afloat before our economy collapses? They never talk about that.
As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Don’t be fooled: This election is about a lot more than the two personalities at the top of the ticket. It’s an important fork in the road: One fork requires hard work and sacrifice but offers freedom. The other offers a free lunch.
Media wishing to interview Jane Chastain, please contact . Receive Jane Chastain's commentaries in your email BONUS: By signing up for Jane Chastain's alerts, you will also be signed up for news and special offers from WND via email. Name * | 0 |
MEXICO CITY — The first cruise ship in nearly 40 years to sail across the Florida Straits from Miami to Havana docked in the Cuban capital on Monday, cutting a ribbon of water that for years was a symbol of the political gulf between the two countries. Hundreds of Cubans stood near the dock and on Havana’s sea wall, snapping pictures with smartphones and filming the arrival of the ship, Adonia, which arrived in the port after crossing overnight from Miami. The ship is operated by Fathom Travel, a unit of Carnival Corporation. Isabel Buznego, a passenger aboard the cruise, was born in Cuba but left about 40 years ago, when she was 5. She said she was overcome with emotion when she first spotted the fortifications that protect Havana’s bay. “That really got to me,” Ms. Buznego said. The ship’s arrival on Monday caused a stir among the locals, too: So thick was the crowd as the American passengers disembarked that a passing tourist asked, “Who’s the celebrity?” The cruise was the latest stage in the surge of American travel to the island since President Obama announced the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba in December 2014. The arrival of a ship from Florida recalls the heady days before Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, when the island was a tropical getaway for Americans, and Cubans could board a ship in Havana and be in Miami within hours. Commercial sea traffic all but dried up when the United States broke off diplomatic and commercial relations with Cuba in the early 1960s. The Florida Straits became a treacherous barrier that tens of thousands of desperate Cubans crossed, or drowned trying to cross, on rafts and leaky vessels. Plans for the cruise ran into trouble in April after it emerged that it would exclude passengers because they were barred by the Cuban government from entering the country by sea. That prompted a furor in Miami and Washington, and the Cuban government lifted the restriction. Robert L. Muse, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in laws related to Cuba, said the Cuban government’s concession was probably driven by diplomatic considerations, not because it was concerned about lost tourism dollars. “If it were purely about the money, they wouldn’t have backed down,” Mr. Muse said. With Washington eager for the détente to produce more commercial deals, the Cubans conceded “to keep the dialogue afloat,” he said. The last time an American cruise ship sailed to Cuba from the United States was in the late 1970s, during a brief thaw begun by President Jimmy Carter. Since the 2014 announcement of restored relations, several ferry and cruise companies have applied to the Treasury Department for licenses to carry American passengers to Cuba. So far, only Carnival and a French company, Ponant, have reported receiving a license to offer cruises to Cuba from American ports. The Treasury Department has issued a general license to American ferry operators, but they have yet to get permission from the Cuban authorities. For Cubans, the possibility of regular sea crossings to the United States brings the prospect of closer ties with their expatriate friends and relatives living there. Antonio Serrano, 53, a hospital worker who was watching the Adonia passengers arrive in Old Havana on Monday, said he was there to show returning Cubans that his “solidarity is strong. ” | 1 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.