text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
Adam Morgan, Editor in Chief of the Chicago Review of Books, published an article in The Guardian today where he called MILO’s new book “hate speech” and claimed that it would inspire the likes of Omar Mateen and Dylann Roof. [Adam Morgan, the Editor in Chief of the Chicago Review of Books, published an article today in The Guardian explaining why the Chicago Review of Books chose to boycott Simon Schuster, the company publishing MILO’s new book, DANGEROUS. The title of the Guardian article reads, “Publishing Milo Yiannopoulos’ book is wrong. My magazine is fighting back. ” However the URL of the article and the Facebook sharing preview reveal the title, “Simon Schuster is rewarding hate speech. We cannot stay silent. ” This may be a simple error but it is also likely that the title calling MILO’s book “ hate speech” was the original tile of the article. The Guardian may have realised their error in calling MILO “ ” a political movement which MILO has repeatedly stated he is not part of, despite the media’s various attempts to paint him as a “leader” of the movement, and changed the article title. Morgan’s article goes on to make a number of claims such as, “2016 taught us that ridiculing women, people of colour, Muslims and members of the LGBTQ community can make someone immensely popular,” and that MILO is, “not a conservative intellectual leader with a political agenda. He’s a clickbait grifter who has made a name for himself spewing hate speech. ” What Morgan considers to be “hate speech” have garnered MILO a position as Senior Editor of one of the largest political news website on the internet, media appearances on news outlets across the world, over one million Facebook likes and an army of fans that listen to him speak at his immensely successful Dangerous Faggot college tour. Morgan then states that he “made a decision that has nothing to do with political ideology and everything to do with human rights and decency,” by refusing to review Simon Schuster books in 2017. Exactly what human rights MILO’s book is denying people, Morgan fails to state. Morgan then states that MILO’s book may inspire terrorist acts. “Rhetoric like [MILO’s] — which targets racial, religious and cultural minorities — invites discrimination. It arguably encourages people such as Omar Mateen and Dylann Roof to think of entire groups of people as less than human. ” MILO of course gave a speech at the site of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando where he urged the gay community to fight back, to let it be known that they will never let an attack such as the one at Pulse nightclub happen again, and that they will protect themselves if the left will not. When asked for comment on the accusation that his words will lead to terrorism MILO said, “Following Omar Mateen’s horrific crimes, I travelled to Orlando and spoke out against Islam’s hatred of homosexuals outside Pulse nightclub. The websites Dylann Roof is associated with hate me as much as anyone. Regressives like Adam Morgan can’t stand free speech or opposing viewpoints being heard. ” Further discussing the Chicago Review of Books’ decision to refuse to review Simon Schuster books in 2017, Morgan states “After the Chicago Review of Books attracted so much attention for our stance, and writers more talented than me asked us to reconsider, I lost sleep. But on Saturday, when the biographer of a lesbian artist criticised Simon Schuster, Yiannopoulos responded: ‘There is only one place for lesbians: porn. ’” Read the article in full here. DANGEROUS is available to now via Amazon, in hardcover and Kindle editions. And yes, MILO is reading the audiobook version himself! | 1 |
ESPN “SportsCenter” host Scott Van Pelt shared his thoughts on the massive ESPN layoffs Wednesday in his “1 Big thing” segment, calling Wednesday a “very difficult day. ” Van Pelt expressed sympathy for his departed former colleagues and noted they did nothing wrong to “deserve” being laid off. Partial transcript as follows: This was a very difficult day in our neighborhood. People we care about, some of our neighbors who have been here a long time, lost their jobs. They are our friends and yours. We value them because they’re valuable. We care about them because they’re worth it. Because of circumstances beyond their control, they will no longer be part of our block, our neighborhood, even as they remain our friends and always will be. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Print
[Ed. – Well, that’s a new one.]
A man is in custody after leading police on a bizarre chase into the east Valley on Wednesday night.
Phoenix police began following the suspect in Phoenix and the pursuit continued into the east Valley, but it took a bizarre turn when the suspect stopped at an In-N-Out Burger restaurant’s drive-thru near Priest and Ray Roads in Chandler.
The suspect appeared to order food, but then drove away and got out of his pickup truck near Rock Wren Way and Ray Road.
He then ran into a backyard and tried to get into a house through the back door. | 0 |
Even with all the setbacks from recessions, burst bubbles and vanishing industries, the United States has still pumped out breathtaking riches over the last three and half decades. The real economy more than doubled in size the government now uses a substantial share of that bounty to hand over as much as $5 trillion to help working families, older people, disabled and unemployed people pay for a home, visit a doctor and put their children through school. Yet for half of all Americans, their share of the total economic pie has shrunk significantly, new research has found. This group — the approximately 117 million adults stuck on the lower half of the income ladder — “has been completely shut off from economic growth since the 1970s,” the team of economists found. “Even after taxes and transfers, there has been close to zero growth for adults in the bottom 50 percent. ” The new findings, by the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, provide the most thoroughgoing analysis to date of how the income kitty — like paychecks, fringe benefits and food stamps — is divided among the American population. Stagnant wages have sliced the share of income collected by the bottom half of the population to 12. 5 percent in 2014, from 20 percent of the total in 1980. Where did that money go? Essentially, to the top 1 percent, whose share of the nation’s income nearly doubled to more than 20 percent during that same period. Inequality has been a defining national issue for nearly a decade, thanks in part to groundbreaking research done by Mr. Piketty at the Paris School of Economics and Mr. Saez at the University of California, Berkeley. But now a new administration in Washington is promising to reshape the government’s role in curbing the intense concentration of wealth at the top and improving the fortunes of those left behind. During his tenure in the White House, President Obama pushed to address income stagnation by shifting more of the tax burden from the middle class to the rich and expanding public programs like universal health insurance. Both strategies are now targeted by Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan. Like many conservatives, Mr. Ryan argues that aid to the poor is ultimately counterproductive because it undermines the incentive to work. Proposals put forward by Republican leaders, though short on details, make clear that they want to roll back benefits like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, which primarily help the poor, and direct the largest tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. About 30 percent of the country’s income is channeled to federal, state and local taxes. Apart from military spending and performing basic public services, much of that is distributed back to individuals through various programs and tax benefits in the form of Social Security checks, Medicare benefits and veterans’ benefits. But until now, no one has truly measured the full impact that tax payments, government spending, noncash benefits and nontaxable income together have on inequality. Abundant documentation of income inequality already exists, but it has been challenged as incomplete. Studies have excluded the impact of taxes and value of public benefits, skeptics complained, or failed to account for the smaller size of households over time. This latest project tries to address those earlier criticisms. What the trio of economists found is that the spectacular growth in incomes at the peak has so outpaced the small increase at the bottom from public programs intended to ameliorate poverty and inequality that the gap between the wealthiest and everyone else has continued to widen. Average incomes, adjusted for inflation, grew by 61 percent from 1980 to 2014. But nearly $7 out of every additional $10 went to those in the top tenth of the income scale. Inequality has soared over that period. In 1980, the researchers found, someone in the top 1 percent earned on average the equivalent of $428, 200 a year in 2014 dollars — about 27 times more than the typical person in the bottom half, whose annual income equaled $16, 000. By 2014, the average income of half of American adults had barely budged, remaining around $16, 000, while members of the top 1 percent brought home, on average, $1, 304, 800 or 81 times as much. That ratio, the authors point out, “is similar to the gap between the average income in the United States and the average income in the world’s poorest countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Burundi. ” The growth of incomes has probably increased a bit since 2014, the latest year for which full data exists, said Mr. Zucman, who, like Mr. Saez, also teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. But it is “not enough to make any significant difference to our finding, and in particular, to affect the stagnation of incomes. ” He was to present the findings at a workshop at the City University of New York on Tuesday. Tax credits and programs like Medicare and disability payments have helped families at the lower half of the income scale. But they have just nipped at the heels of the underlying trend. “It confirms the surge in income at the top,” said Raj Chetty, an economist at Stanford unaffiliated with the project, who called the work “terrific and very important. And it shows government redistribution doesn’t really change the picture. ” Lawrence Katz, an economist at Harvard who also independently reviewed the research, agreed that the data underscored the inadequacies of programs that try to redress inequities after the fact. “It suggests that if you don’t do something earlier in the market, before distribution, through better education or greater bargaining power, it’s really tough to offset completely,” Mr. Katz said. “Countries with less inequality do some of both. ” Mr. Katz and Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist, have argued that advances in technology, while crucial to improving productivity and generating economic growth, also have exacerbated inequality by driving down wages of workers. The rewards of education are greater than they have ever been, but advancement nationwide has slowed and the system confers many of its favors on the children of the affluent. If there is a bright spot in the new comprehensive research, it is that after taxes and government spending, the middle class is in better shape than previous studies had shown. That earlier research had missed growth in nontaxable income like employee benefits. “The real income of the middle class is a bit better than we thought,” Mr. Katz said. As troubling as some may find inequality, it is not necessarily the fault of a rigged system, said N. Gregory Mankiw, an economist at Harvard who is familiar with the new research. He argues that large disparities in income more often than not accurately reflect widely varying economic contributions. “Inequality is a symptom of a variety of things,” Mr. Mankiw said. Technological progress may be a cause, but it benefits society over all, whereas the weakness of the educational system is clearly negative. Edward Conard, the author of “The Upside of Inequality” and a former business partner of Mitt Romney, agreed. “People say this is game, and you’re taking money that would have gone to the other 50 percent,” he said. “That’s not what happened. ” Instead, Mr. Conard said, entrepreneurs in the United States have been willing to take big risks that have helped foster an infrastructure that promotes innovation, not just in Silicon Valley but in many other growing places around the country. “When rewards go up, people are more inclined to take risks,” he said. Some of those risks pay off and create wealth for everyone. The new research challenges that contention, at least in part. Mr. Piketty, Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman concluded that the main driver of wealth in recent years has been investment income at the top. That is a switch from the 1980s and 1990s, when gains in income were primarily generated by working. That divergence can slow innovation and further entrench inequities, said Heather Boushey, an economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. When labor income provides the primary route to riches, it creates incentives for people to improve their education and work harder, Ms. Boushey explained. But if getting ahead requires already having a stockpile of cash or inheriting a windfall from your parents, then it is much harder to work your way up. “If you’re closing off entryways, then you are basically shutting off avenues to competitiveness, innovation and growth,” Ms. Boushey said, “even if you don’t care about fairness. ” | 1 |
A photo published on the Politico website shows House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi ( ) meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2010 — a direct contradiction to her telling reporters at the website she had not met with the diplomat. [After tweeting on Friday morning that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( . Y.) should be investigated for meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2003, President Donald Trump tweeted that a second investigation into Pelosi’s past should be launched. I hereby demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it. https: . — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2017, “I hereby demand a second investigation, after Schumer, of Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying about it,” Trump tweeted on Friday. “Not with this Russian ambassador, no,” Pelosi told Politico’s Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer during a Playbook interview, when asked if she’d ever met with the Russian envoy. “But a file photo from Pelosi’s 2010 meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev shows Kislyak at the table across from Pelosi — then House Speaker — and Rep. Steny Hoyer ( . ),” Politico reported. “Medvedev had been in the country for a meeting with President Barack Obama a day earlier and stopped in on Capitol Hill to meet with congressional leaders as well. ” “Asked to square Pelosi’s comments with the photo of the meeting, a spokesman said that Pelosi had simply meant she never had a solo meeting with Kislyak,” Politico reported. “Of course, that’s what she meant,” Pelosi’s spokesman Drew Hammill said. “She has never had a private with him. ” Politico reported: Pelosi’s explanation is similar to one offered by Sen. Claire McCaskill Thursday, after she swiped at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for privately meeting with Kislyak in 2016 and failing to disclose it when asked about communications with Russians during his confirmation proceedings in January. Sessions has emphasized that meetings with ambassadors are common for lawmakers and that he met with Kislyak in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCaskill tweeted that in her 10 years serving on the Armed Services Committee she had never “ever” met with Kislyak, but walked back her comment by using the same reasoning as Pelosi, saying she had never met with him . | 1 |
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, would not rule out the possibility of rescinding his endorsement of Donald J. Trump’s presidential bid down the road, and he described the candidate as lacking knowledge in a number of areas in an interview released on Friday. The comments from Mr. McConnell, in an interview with the “Masters in Politics” podcast on Bloomberg Politics, came as Republicans down the ballot continue to face questions about Mr. Trump’s criticism of the federal judge overseeing a case against Trump University as “Mexican. ” Mr. McConnell has been pointed in his criticism of those remarks. It was the first time, though, that Mr. McConnell offered anything less than an ironclad response of sticking with Mr. Trump, despite the numerous controversies that the presumptive Republican nominee has instigated. Asked if there was a line that Mr. Trump could cross that would prompt Mr. McConnell to rescind his endorsement, Mr. McConnell demurred. “I’m not going to speculate about what he might say or what I might do,” said the senator from Kentucky. “But I think it’s pretty clear. I’ve been very clear publicly about how I think he ought to change directions, and I hope that’s what we’re going to see. ” This week, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois, one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the Senate, withdrew his endorsement of Mr. Trump over the remarks about Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel. Senator Lindsey Graham, who has not endorsed Mr. Trump, urged other Republicans to follow Mr. Kirk’s lead. At another point, Mr. McConnell said that he was “comfortable” with supporting Mr. Trump at the moment, suggesting that the candidate would face checks and balances that could curtail him should he get elected. “For all of his obvious shortcomings, Donald Trump is certainly a different direction, and I think if he is in the White House he’ll have to respond to the world which elected him, and the things that we believe in,” Mr. McConnell said. “So I’m comfortable supporting him. ” But he condemned Mr. Trump’s lack of preparedness, and said that he will need to factor that into his choice of running mate. “He needs someone highly experienced and very knowledgeable because it’s pretty obvious he doesn’t know a lot about the issues,” Mr. McConnell said. “You see that in the debates in which he’s participated. It’s why I have argued to him publicly and privately that he ought to use a script more often — there is nothing wrong with having prepared texts. ” | 1 |
BERLIN — Volkswagen’s former chief executive, Martin Winterkorn, yielded no ground on Thursday during a polite grilling by German lawmakers over the carmaker’s deception, but he astonished them by insisting that he had not heard the term “defeat device” before September 2015, when the scandal broke. Appearing in public for the first time since he resigned over the case, Mr. Winterkorn, who worked at the company for more than 35 years, contended, as he has all along, that he had not been aware of any wrongdoing. But his assertions are increasingly difficult to defend after Volkswagen pleaded guilty in the United States last week to criminal charges that included conspiracy to defraud the government, violations of the Clean Air Act and obstruction of justice. The company is paying $20 billion to resolve civil and criminal charges related to the scandal. Mr. Winterkorn, who has not been charged, was chief executive throughout the decade when, as Volkswagen now admits, employees devised software, known as a “defeat device,” that could hide excess pollutants during testing by regulators. The employees, including several managers, covered up the wrongdoing for years. But in his comments on Thursday, Mr. Winterkorn reiterated that he had not known of the efforts to evade emissions rules. “How striving for perfection could end this way” mystified and preoccupied him, Mr. Winterkorn told a parliamentary committee charged with investigating the scandal and with determining if the German government had been aware of it before the news broke. “The unthinkable has happened and we must all deal with it. ” It was doubly difficult to imagine, Mr. Winterkorn said, because he had been in daily contact with employees and “never did I have the impression that anyone was afraid to speak an open word with me. ” Whether Mr. Winterkorn knew of the emissions cheating and is a crucial question for Volkswagen, even though he no longer leads the company. Any culpability on his part would make the company more vulnerable to lawsuits by shareholders, who accuse the leadership of failing to properly disclose the risks it was taking. The lawsuits seek billions of dollars in damages. Volkswagen’s plea agreement with the Justice Department in Washington last week left no doubt that the fraud was the work of dozens, if not hundreds, of employees, rather than the result of a handful of rogue engineers as the company had first claimed. The settlement calls for the carmaker to pay $4. 3 billion in civil and criminal penalties to the American government. The company did not say in the plea agreement that a member of the management board had known of the emissions cheating and cover up. But several people indicted by American authorities last week had reported directly to Mr. Winterkorn, raising questions of what he had known. Those indicted last week are among company employees suspected of a that included feeding reams of false data to federal and state regulators, who in 2014 began asking questions about emissions by diesel cars made by Volkswagen. When it became clear in that accusations of fraud would soon be made public, a company lawyer prompted at least 40 employees to destroy potentially incriminating documents, according to the plea agreement. In 90 minutes of questioning on Thursday, Mr. Winterkorn provided details on a variety of issues related to Volkswagen’s business, but he was vague when asked about the emissions scandal and whom he had informed about it. In part, he was doing the German equivalent of invoking the Fifth Amendment in the United States, citing an investigation by state prosecutors in Braunschweig, a city close to the carmaker’s headquarters in Wolfsburg. The authorities in Braunschweig are considering pursuing a case against Mr. Winterkorn. But the former chief executive also repeatedly replied, “I am not aware,” or “I don’t know,” when asked about conversations with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Ferdinand Piëch, the chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board until late April 2015. Mr. Winterkorn said that he had informed Mr. Piëch in March 2015 about a recall in the United States of up to 500, 000 vehicles, a move consistent with his reputation for staying close to the chairman of the supervisory board. He added, however, that he had not known the exact reason for the recall, and that he therefore could not have relayed it to Mr. Piëch. Members of the parliamentary committee voiced surprise and disappointment over Mr. Winterkorn’s testimony. “He missed a really good chance to shed more light,” said Ulrich Lange, a Christian Social Union lawmaker. Herbert Behrens, the chairman of the parliamentary committee investigating the issue, described being incredulous when Mr. Winterkorn said he had not heard of the term “defeat device” before the scandal broke. There is some reason to doubt Mr. Winterkorn’s assertion. Mr. Gottweis, a Volkswagen executive who specialized in solving technical emergencies around the world, warned in a memo in May 2014 that American regulators were likely to investigate “whether Volkswagen implemented a test detection system in the engine control unit software ( defeat device). ” The memo was included in a stack of weekend reading given to Mr. Winterkorn at the time, but Volkswagen has said it was not clear if Mr. Winterkorn had read it. Mr. Gottweis reported directly to Mr. Winterkorn, however, and it is deemed unlikely that a warning from an executive known internally as “the fireman” would have been ignored. | 1 |
0 |
|
After a week of downloading and trying out various travel and navigation apps, I reached an unfortunate conclusion: Most of them are worthless — clunky, buggy, seemingly desultory efforts by developers rushing a poor product to market. There are a few, though, that provide elegant solutions to some of travel’s more common complications, doing what a good app should do: make life easier. Here are seven free travel apps that are worth your time, and three that are worth your money. Hotspot Shield VPN A VPN, or virtual private network, can be used to bolster online security as well as to access resources that might otherwise be . I’ve found it particularly useful when I’m in countries that block certain websites. When I was in Bulgaria, for instance, the ticket resale website StubHub is blocked, as is Southwest Airlines. Why, I have no idea, but I had a Southwest reservation that I needed to manage. Using the VPN, I could circumvent the block by connecting with a server in a country that doesn’t have those restrictions. It’s not 100 percent reliable, and there are ads you’ll get better service and faster load times with a VPN that you pay for. (Hotspot Shield VPN does have an “Elite” option, with faster servers and no ads, that costs $29. 99 per year.) Memrise Are you going to become fluent in French before your trip to Paris? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean you can’t commit a few choice phrases to memory. Memrise, developed by the memory champ Ed Cooke and Greg Detre, a Princeton neuroscientist, makes learning languages fun and strangely addictive through its mix of flashcards and audiovisual games. Users of the free app can choose from among dozens of language courses, some of which are better than others. The romance languages, including French and Spanish, are all very good. There’s also an entertaining option called “The Partial Polyglot,” which teaches you a few choice words and phrases in multiple languages. (Memrise offers a “Pro” option, with more features, for $59. 99 per year.) Avast Photo Space Many of us have faced the predicament of running out of room on our phones and have been forced to choose pictures to delete. Avast Photo Space is a new app that aims to eliminate this quandary by connecting to Dropbox or a Google Drive account and uploading the original, photos for safekeeping. You’re left with a copy of the picture on your phone. While Avast worked well for me — I was able to upload 100 photos and free up almost 200MB of space on my phone — there are complaints that the app is slow and buggy. An update was introduced on June 25 that clears up some of these issues, but you may want to wait another release or two before investing your time (and photos) in the app. Flight Stats Despite their popularity, you don’t ever need to pay for a flight status app. You can easily Google the information, and if you really need an app to do it for you, FlightStats is the only one you need. The last time I used it, it nailed the time of my flight’s departure, almost down to the minute. FlightStats allows you to search by flight number, airport and route, and provides basic information at your departure and destination cities. Units Plus The interface is a little simplistic, but this is the best free currency and units converter that I’ve used. While the app is open, it downloads currency exchange rates every 15 minutes, keeping it remarkably . It will also convert weight, volume, area, distance and nearly anything else you can think of. There is an version available for $2. 99. 5 Every Day It’s a situation we all find ourselves in from time to time: You just want to be told where to go and what to do. Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt of the indie band Yacht created an app that curates a list of five path events, restaurants and activities in Los Angeles every day of the year. You’ll get suggestions for theatrical productions, hikes, a Chuck Klosterman reading or dive bars you didn’t know about. The app is simple and intuitive, and mines the city’s events calendar for interesting . 5 Every Day is free, but allows for the unlimited “ ” of events (that is, saving them for later) for an additional $1. 99. It’s Los for now, but hopefully will expand to other cities. Mobile Passport This app from Customs and Border Protection does away with the annoyance of that long customs form you get before arriving in the United States — you keep your passport information and answer all the customs questions on this app. Once you land, you submit your to customs — no more paper slips (you will have to do this every time you the United States, however). Best of all, you get to skip the line and use a dedicated mobile passport lane — at least at the airports where this is in place (about a dozen locations right now, including Kennedy, Newark Liberty and Chicago O’Hare, with plans for expansion). Touchnote If you’re no good at remembering to send postcards when you’re traveling, this app will do nearly all the work for you. Select any picture from your camera roll, and Touchnote will turn it into a postcard and mail it to any location in the world with a working postal service. You can add a personalized message on the back, just as you would on an actual postcard. It’s not perfect — a matte finish option would be nice — but that’s a minor complaint. It’s not as exciting as getting a stamp from a foreign country, but if you don’t have time to find a post office, or want to send a customized postcard, this app will do the trick. $1. 50 to $2. 99 per card. Packing Pro Do you like to get organized? Like, really organized? Then Packing Pro is the app for you. It breaks down your routine in such a granular way it’s almost impossible to forget anything. Lists for clothes, accessories, medical needs and toiletries are all available, as well as the ability to set priorities, organize and even photograph clothing and other items you need to bring (or purchase before you leave). Lists can be reused, making it easy to get a solid travel organization regime down pat. $2. 99. Human Resource Machine If you’re anything like me, you occasionally need a puzzle game to get you through a particularly arduous flight or bus trip. Human Resource Machine is perfect for those who like logic puzzles — the game is essentially set up as a series of cartoony programming challenges, and you have to create progressively more complicated lines of “code” to complete them. This is not a Candy game, mind you — it demands brainpower. $4. 99 in the App store. | 1 |
Donald J. Trump wielded his presidential candidacy on Friday as a weapon for savaging detractors and venting personal grievances, attacking the women who have accused him of sexual assault and unwelcome advances and railing against what he described as a vast conspiracy against him by the news media and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. With a campaign speech in North Carolina that whirled from one target to the next, Mr. Trump accelerated his shift away from courting swing voters or delivering a message aimed at the political mainstream. Instead, after weeks on the defensive, battered by disclosures about his treatment of women and about his business dealings, Mr. Trump appeared increasingly consumed with the idea that he has been wronged and bent on convincing his fans that sinister forces are to blame for his political decline. Mr. Trump told the restive crowd that his advisers wanted him to focus on his core economic message, but that he had no intention of allowing his critics to go unanswered. “My people always say: ‘Oh, don’t talk about it. Talk about jobs. Talk about the economy,’” Mr. Trump said. “But I feel I have to talk about them, because you have to dispute when somebody says something,” he added of the allegations against him. “Fortunately, we have the microphone. We’re able to dispute some people can’t. ” Even as two more women came forward on Friday to say he had groped them, Mr. Trump dismissed the mounting accusations as “total fiction” and “lies, lies, lies. ” He assailed the motives of the women speaking out against him, and seemed to mock two of them as not attractive enough to draw his interest. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice,” Mr. Trump said of Jessica Leeds, who said Mr. Trump groped her on an airplane in the 1980s. He referred to Ms. Leeds, now 74, as “that horrible woman. ” He was similarly dismissive of Natasha Stoynoff, a former writer for People magazine, who accused Mr. Trump of physically accosting her during an interview. “Check out her Facebook page, you’ll understand,” he said. Mr. Trump also ridiculed his opponent in the presidential race, Mrs. Clinton, for saying that he had crowded her physically during their last debate, and he seemed to offer an insult about her physique. When Mrs. Clinton walked in front of him, he told a crowd in Greensboro, N. C. “Believe me, I wasn’t impressed. ” And as he blasted the women who have made allegations against him as fabricators, Mr. Trump suggested that perhaps someone should make similar claims against President Obama next. “Why doesn’t some woman, maybe, come up and say what they say falsely about me — they could say it about him,” Mr. Trump said. Though Mr. Trump has said he will provide information to refute his accusers’ stories wholesale, he offered no such evidence in North Carolina. He has also loudly threatened to sue multiple publications for printing the stories of his accusers, but as of Friday evening no such suit had been filed. Mr. Trump made only passing reference to the newest accusations against him. In an interview with The Washington Post, a woman named Kristin Anderson said Mr. Trump had slipped his hand beneath her skirt and grabbed her genitals at a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s. Mr. Trump’s spokeswoman denied the account, and Mr. Trump said in his speech that certain details were implausible because he rarely sits alone at nightclubs. But The Post did not say Ms. Anderson had described Mr. Trump as being alone. A second woman, Summer Zervos, a Republican and a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” said at a news conference in Los Angeles that Mr. Trump had tried to seduce her over dinner at a hotel in 2007, grabbing her breasts and thrusting his pelvis into her body. Ms. Zervos, 41, appeared alongside Gloria Allred, the celebrity litigator and a Democrat who was a delegate for Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Trump denied in a statement several hours later that he ever had a meeting with Ms. Zervos at a hotel or “greeted her inappropriately. ” He again attacked the media and said he would “take my message directly to the American people. ” The claims against Mr. Trump have gained a momentum of their own since the revelation on Oct. 7 of a recording in which he boasted to a television host about sexually assaulting women. That tape led to the direct questioning of Mr. Trump, at Sunday’s debate, about whether he had ever actually done the things he described. Mr. Trump’s denial prompted Ms. Leeds to come forward in an interview with The New York Times Ms. Anderson said Ms. Leeds had inspired her to tell her story. After learning of Ms. Leeds’s story, Ms. Anderson told The Post, she decided: “Let me just back these girls up. ” By lashing out in multiple directions and presenting himself as the target of a corrupt plot, Mr. Trump may deepen his emotional bond with voters who have turned to him as a kind of political wrecking ball aimed at Washington. But it is an unlikely strategy for improving his standing with the majority of voters who say in polls that he is to the presidency and biased against women and minorities. Democrats have called the charges women have made against Mr. Trump disqualifying. On Thursday in New Hampshire, Michelle Obama said she had been shaken by Mr. Trump’s cavalier bragging about assault. Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood and a prominent Clinton supporter, predicted women would revolt against Mr. Trump’s remarks in North Carolina. “If they weren’t already convinced, today proved to Americans that Donald Trump is an abusive and vindictive monster,” Ms. Richards said. “With every ugly and violent insult that comes out of his mouth, Trump loses a vote, and our country gains a feminist. ” Leading Republicans have already pulled back from his campaign, and new signs of distance emerged on Friday between Mr. Trump and the party he nominally leads. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is seeking released a television commercial saying he has “a lot of disagreements” with Mr. Trump. And in a closely fought congressional race in central New York, the National Republican Congressional Committee has an ad vowing that its candidate, Claudia Tenney, will “stand up to Hillary Clinton” — implying that Mrs. Clinton will be the next president. Paul D. Ryan, the speaker of the House, who announced this week that he would no longer defend Mr. Trump, ignored him entirely in a speech to college Republicans in Wisconsin. Mr. Ryan criticized Mrs. Clinton and Democratic policies, but made no case for his own party’s nominee. Mr. Trump, who has savaged Mr. Ryan repeatedly this week, declined to revisit their conflict on Friday afternoon. But Mr. Trump escalated his war on the news media, and unveiled a theory that The New York Times was attacking him at the behest of a Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim, who is the largest individual holder of New York Times Company common shares. Reporters for the newspaper, Mr. Trump said, should be seen as “corporate lobbyists for Carlos Slim and Hillary Clinton. ” “No media is more corrupt than the failing New York Times,” he said. Mr. Trump’s bitter attacks on the news media, and Mr. Slim in particular, seem to echo the precise language used by two of his advisers, Stephen K. Bannon and Roger Stone, who have long cast Mr. Slim as an ominous presence in the American news media. In a statement, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. publisher of The Times, said Mr. Slim had no involvement in the paper’s news coverage. “Carlos Slim is an excellent shareholder who fully respects boundaries regarding the independence of our journalism,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “He has never sought to influence what we report. ” Mr. Trump has spoken in ever more apocalyptic tones in recent days as his poll numbers have fallen: describing Mrs. Clinton as deserving incarceration warning that the election will be rigged and suggesting that international bankers are colluding to bring about his defeat. On Friday, he repeated his pledge to prosecute Mrs. Clinton and encouraged his crowd in chants of “Lock her up. ” “For what she’s done,” he said, “they should lock her up. ” | 1 |
”This is Obamacare lite. It will not pass. Conservatives aren’t gonna take it.” @RandPaul on the House leadership health care plan pic. twitter. Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul ( ) weighed in on the House Republican health care bill, calling it “Obamacare lite. ” Paul also said conservatives are not going to pass it. “This is Obamacare lite. It will not pass. Conservatives aren’t gonna take it,” Paul said on “Fox Friends. ” He added, “Premiums and prices will continue to spiral out of control. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
0 Add Comment
A NATO general has warned today that Russia could invade your fridge within 48 hours, stating that the majority of European homes currently have no real defence plan to repel the invasion.
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, former Prime Minister of Norway, claimed Russia could empty your fridge of food and cold beverages in the ‘blink of an eye’, leaving your entire family starving to death in the kitchen.
“The Russians would probably start on the essential food produce like milk, butter and eggs first, before cracking into the items in the freezer,” claimed Stoltenberg, “Imagine waking up to find no milk for tea? Your whole day would be ruined. That’s Russia for you; they don’t care about your tea. They will invade your fridge and leave you with nothing”.
The NATO chief warned that the failure of countries such as France, Germany and Italy to take the threat of Russian aggression seriously could lead to a future loss of breakfast, lunch and dinner in millions of homes.
Speaking to several fridge owners on the street today, WWN asked whether families are prepared for an imminent Russian fridge invasion, and what they would do if such a terrible thing happened here.
“I’d probably go to the shop and buy more food,” said one frightened woman we spoke to, who will probably purchase some kind of fridge locking mechanism later today, “I could think of worse things to happen, if I’m honest. It’s just a fridge, like”.
Along with today’s fridge warning, NATO has also asked Eastern European countries to check under their beds every night for Russian invaders, and if there is any suspicious activity to contact one of the many local US military bases in the area. | 0 |
Many people believe that there has been a wave of individuals being born in order to change the old ‘Iron’ and industrial way of life to more ‘enlightened’ and spiritual. You’ve probably heard about ‘ Indigo Children ’ and ‘ Lightworkers ’ across the internet.
Lightworkers are just a consequence the ways of the modern world have brought to the human psyche.
A Lightworker is a person who can sense that there’s a lot of healing to be done on a large scale to the world. The modern ways of life are disharmonious and harmful to ourselves and Nature, which we are all a part of. This results in subconscious awareness that something needs to be done, especially in people who are born into the modern society.
Newer generations are unbound from ‘the chains’ people who were constructing the modern society have been imprisoned with. The chains I am referring to are actually their investment of energy, their mindset and character developed in a different era, with far less available information. These new generations can clearly see the bigger picture and what doesn’t work. That’s why they have a heightened sense to fix the world.
Just like there are popular terms in the science community addressing these new generations as ‘generation x’, ‘generation y’and ‘generation z’, there are terms in the spiritual movement addressing these generations as ‘ Indigo Children ’, ‘ Crystal Children ’ and ‘ Rainbow Children ’.
WHAT KIND OF LIGHTWORKER ARE YOU?
Check what kind of lightworker you are.
What aspect has most traits that describe you?
INDIGO CHILDREN:
Born between the 1960s and the 1990s; Rebellious and warrior in spirit; Despises the system; Loves to isolate; Fond to addictions; Stubborn;
CRYSTAL CHILDREN: Born between 1980s and 2000s; Strong and pure hearted; Highly developed imagination and creativity; Extremely empathetic and emotional; Passionate about supernatural phenomena and superheroes; Easygoing;
RAINBOW CHILDREN: Born after the new millennium; Positive and happy; Technologically advanced and easy in understanding new gadgets; Loving and hard to contain; Loves animals, Nature and possibly vegan; Free;
THIS IS WHAT THESE LABELS MEAN:
Indigo children are born between the 1960s and the 1990s really similar as the baby boomers of the generation x.
They are rebellious and unable to conform to dysfunctional situations at home, work, or school. They are warriors in spirit.
They want to rage against the corrupted system that governs society and this trait projected itself into the art, the music, the movies, the movements and the lifestyle of their youth.
They experimented with psychedelic substances, they forced their mind to be opened.
All of this resulted in creation of new businesses and inventions that changed the future forever, like the internet.
Crystal children are most likely to be the children of people from generation x. They are born around 1990s and 2000s slightly differing from generation y which addresses people born between 1980s and 2000s. However, the characteristics of crystal children and generation y individuals are almost exactly the same.
They are intuitive, spiritually aware and passionate about supernatural subjects. They have highly developed imagination and creativity. They understand things easily, they are extremely empathetic and very easy going. This contradictive schism between their emotions forces them to use drugs, to visit psychiatrists, feel high levels of anxiety, have panic attacks and sometimes even more serious issues with their mental health.
They are born in a transition time, in a period where humanity made its biggest leap with technological advancement which affected all areas of society. They grew up in times without internet and times when you cannot imagine how you lived without internet. This transition happened in only 10 years period, which is REALLY small amount of time for such great change. This affected their way of seeing the world. It’s like they were forced to raise their consciousness in an accelerated rate. But that’s ok because they are strong enough, like crystals. They always see the world with pure eyes, which additionally adds to their ‘crystal children’ description.
Because of their imagination, purity of heart and strength, they are attracted to the superhero phenomena. Their art, music, movies, businesses, even their lifestyles are inspired and driven by various superheroes they idolized while they were growing up.
Rainbow children are the newest generation of people, or generation z, born after the new millennium.
They are modern and more technologically advanced than generation x and y because they are raised in a period where humans are more connected than any time in the known human history. They had almost all of the information in the world available to them while they were growing up, only by pushing few buttons.
These kids are happy and positive. They are like a breath of fresh air. They are bringing happiness and joy to the whole world through various inventions, platforms and mediums that the generation x has developed and generation y perfected.
Their light and positivity makes them freer than any generation in modern history. They love traveling, they hate being tied up to one person and they cannot stand the old conformistic ways. It feel like prison to them. Think of them like light; they give warmth, life and cannot be captured. Their whole being is pure and that’s why most of these kids are vegan.
THE GREATEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE 3 GENERATIONS IS THIS:
The Indigos are here to destroy what’s not working and pave the way for a better world.
The crystal children are the ones who need to create, develop and build the new ways uniting the best from the old and the new.
The rainbow children are here to give life and fertilize the new and improved world that’s in harmony with Nature and the human potential.
All of these 3 spiritual archetypes need to work together so there will be a real change to the way humanity further develops.
However, it doesn’t mean that if you are an indigo you cannot be a crystal or a rainbow child. You can evolve through all of these 3 archetypes depending on your environment, understanding and purpose. And a lot of people do.
These are simply 3 different aspects of one larger program called being a ‘Lightworker’ which works to heal the world.
HERE IS HOW WE ARE ALL A PART OF THIS SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION:
This spiritual revolution is a consequence of the collective human psyche. To understand this you must understand how we are all connected. You must grasp the fact that EVERYTHING connects to everything else, even our thoughts.
Émile Durkheim first introduced the collective conscious back in 1893 and described as the set of shared beliefs, ideas and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society. However, just like our collective conscious Carl Jung called a phenomena ‘Collective Unconscious’ which is the subconscious mind shared by all of humanity.
This is how we are all connected. This is how all of us, unintentionally created the perfect environment for ‘Lightworkers’ to be developed and act as an antidote to the virus that could have destroyed us. Maybe that was the defensive mechanism of our collective subconsciounsess or a higher plan of our collective psyche to help us thrive together as species.
Life Coach Code
SOURCE | 0 |
At a time when “endurance running” no longer means mere marathons — and even races are attracting the masses — Karl Meltzer, a former bartender, has proved he can suffer longer and faster than almost anyone else. When he staggered onto Springer Mountain in Georgia before dawn Sunday, Meltzer set a record for completing the Appalachian Trail. He covered the 2, 190 miles over 14 states in 45 days 22 hours 38 minutes. Meltzer, 48, is a little different from other titans of the newly booming scene. He is six years older than Scott Jurek, who was featured in the book about endurance running, “Born to Run” — and who set the former Appalachian Trail record last year (46 days 8 hours 7 minutes). In a sport checkered with mantras like “clean living,” Jurek sustained his trek on a vegan diet. Staples of Meltzer’s diet, by contrast, included Red Bull and Tang. Jurek incurred a $500 fine and public outrage for opening champagne at the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine during his record run. When Meltzer finished Sunday, he walked down the mountain, sat in a chair and sated himself with pepperoni pizza and a beer. It was the latest milestone in an unusual professional racing career. Meltzer moved to Utah to ski in 1989 and started running the next year. He came to racing in his late 20s. Primarily a skier, he worked as a bartender at the Snowbird ski resort but took summers off to run. Now based in Sandy, Utah, he became an ultra runner in 1996 after completing a race nearby in just over 28 hours. In a sport built on comparatives — faster, longer, more, more, more — his trail race portfolio is formidable: He has won 38 of them, more than anyone else in the world. But the Appalachian Trail was a particular challenge. This was Meltzer’s third attempt at the record, and his first since Jurek set it last year. He tried once in 2008, finishing a week off the record in 2014 he dropped out with 600 miles left. This time, he capped each night with one or two beers and left from rest stops with Spree candy, Three Musketeers chocolate bars and bacon in his pockets. To save time and keep his energy up, he typically slept less than seven hours a night and instead had an energy drink every 10 miles, downing about five a day. When on another day his support crew found him napping, they gave him a pint of ice cream for a boost. Though Meltzer averaged 50 miles in 15 hours of running a day, his pace faltered at times. At one point he slept on the trail instead of making it to his support van — and then he slept the next morning on the dirt again. But in the last two days, he gathered strength, running 83 miles nonstop in the final leg to finish Sunday morning at 3:38. His support crew said Meltzer was not available for an interview immediately after completing his run. He was sleeping. | 1 |
Chart Of The Day: The Explosion Of Student Loans Vs. The Implosion Of Home Ownership Under 30 By David Stockman. Posted On Tuesday, November 22nd, 2016
David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman’s latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler’s Daily Data Dive and David’s personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers. | 0 |
Former Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Iran nuclear deal on Monday evening at a gala dinner in San Francisco for the Ploughshares Fund, a George group that was part of President Barack Obama’s “echo chamber” to sell the agreement to the public. [Kerry called the Iran deal’s monitoring processes a “system that’s working,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and criticized President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress for pushing for new sanctions against the Iranian regime. “It doesn’t make sense, folks, to risk a step that gets us nothing,” Kerry said of proposed new sanctions on Iran’s ballistic missile program, according to the Chronicle. Kerry also blasted the Trump administration for withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords, the Obama administration’s other major foreign policy legacy. He reportedly defended his 2014 remark that climate change was a “weapon of mass destruction” and a threat to national security. “Scientists, people whose life is invested in this are telling you, ‘This is growing in instability, and the threat is that whole parts of the ice sheet will break off. ’,” Kerry said, according to the Chronicle. As Breitbart News’ Aaron Klein reported a year ago, the Ploughshares Fund has been sponsoring national security coverage at National Public Radio (NPR) since 2005, as well as several think tanks that supported the Iran deal. It is also, Klein reported, funded in turn by George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. NPR’s ombudsman found it had not disclosed Ploughshares funding in reporting on the group and interviewing its president and sponsored experts. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. Photo: file | 1 |
Released a few days after Halloween in 1976, it’s considered one of the great American horror films. A hit with two Oscar nominations for acting, it contains one of the genre’s most memorable images and an ending that has been ripped off dozens of times. It also gave a career lift to a young novelist named Stephen King. Yet revisit “Carrie” 40 years later, as you can do on a new version from Shout! Factory, and you might think, “This . .. is not that scary. ” A high school drama, yes. A resonant look at the emotional damage caused by bullying, yes. But a horror movie? Not so much. “I never really approached it as a horror movie,” said its director, Brian De Palma, who scored his first hit with the film. “It’s more of a character piece. She does go berserk after she gets hit with the bucket of blood, but until then, not really. What made this really good — both the book and the film — is that it capsulized everyone’s high school experience of being an outsider. ” Mr. King’s first published novel, “Carrie” (1974) focuses on the teenage daughter of a repressed religious mother. She is a loner, a victim of constant mockery and, oh yes, able to move things with her mind. Carrie has her first period in the school shower and is assaulted by classmates. After she goes to the senior prom with one of the most popular boys, then is doused with pig’s blood as a prank, she goes on a telekinetic rampage. Mr. King has written many doorstoppers, but “Carrie” is one of his shortest novels. “It’s really a simple story,” Mr. King said. “And people saw Carrie as an extreme case of what they went through in high school. ” Fresh out of college when he started the book, teaching high school English by day, Mr. King said he understood “it from both sides of the desk. There was a visceral sense that I was writing about something that I understood and felt deeply at the time. ” In the few had heard of Mr. King, a teacher who had mainly published short stories in men’s magazines. Lawrence D. Cohen, then working for a movie producer in New York, had certainly never heard of him when he first came across the manuscript. He was later hired to write the screenplay after it was optioned by the producer Paul Monash. “I understood why critics were perplexed as to what genre ‘Carrie’ belonged to,” Mr. Cohen said. “Was it a high school movie, a novel, a horror piece, a psychological thriller?” The film eventually landed at United Artists with Mr. De Palma as director. Holding joint auditions with George Lucas, who was then casting “Star Wars,” Mr. De Palma found a relatively cast, including John Travolta, Betty Buckley, William Katt, Nancy Allen and Amy Irving. Though written in the novel as a “chunky girl” and a “frog among swans,” the screen Carrie was Sissy Spacek, who had starred in Terrence Malick’s first film, “Badlands” (1973). “The studio didn’t even want me to test Sissy,” Mr. De Palma said of Ms. Spacek, who had come to audition with Vaseline smeared in her hair to look greasy and unglamorous. “It’s probably the part she’ll be best remembered for even though she won an Oscar for another role. ” (Both Ms. Spacek and Piper Laurie, who played her mother, were nominated for “Carrie. ”) After decades of slasher flicks, films and movies, it’s surprising to see how much of “Carrie” is a naturalistic, compelling story about high school: shopping for prom clothes, cruising around town, serving detention, dancing first dances together. That bucket of blood doesn’t fall until the last 20 minutes. United Artists considered marketing it as a . “They wanted to change the title to ‘Pray for Carrie,’ which is a very title,” Mr. Cohen said. “And they ended up taking out an ad that was a poster of Carrie covered in blood, which was a spoiler before that word was used, but a clear way of selling the movie. I remember looking at it going, ‘They’ve lost their minds they’re giving away the whole movie. ’” In retrospect, the poster is a superb example of Alfred Hitchcock’s explanation of the difference between suspense and surprise — knowing a bomb will explode and tensing for it, versus having it blow up with no warning. Bloody Carrie is the bomb the audience saw before the movie even started. One reason “Carrie” is considered such an effective horror movie is its final two minutes, in which Ms. Irving’s good girl, Sue Snell, visits a grave and a hand shoots from the ground, sending audiences from the theater with one more scare. It was the last thing they remembered about the movie and the first thing they told friends. “What the ending did was establish Stephen King as a brand name for horror,” said Mr. Cohen, who also wrote a “Carrie” stage musical and the screenplay for the 2013 movie remake. The success of the original film boosted sales for the novel, and Mr. King’s next novel after the movie, “The Shining,” became his first hardcover best seller, and he was off. But Mr. King has never lost his view of high school as a place like the island in “Lord of the Flies. ” Those hallways are the true dark corridors, and you don’t need to add too much to make it scarier than it already is. “I tell people, ‘If you look back on high school as the high point of your life,’” you’re one American, Mr. King said, using rougher language. “Most of us look at high school as something we escaped. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Hillary Clinton released her tax records for 2015, showing that she and her husband paid an effective rate of 35 percent in federal taxes on income of $10. 6 million. The move increased pressure on Donald Trump to reveal his returns, the subject of political and financial speculation. Both candidates added details to their tax policies this week. Mr. Trump would ease business regulations and lower taxes for the wealthy, aiming to boost the economy. Mrs. Clinton would tax the wealthy more heavily and hold the rate for the bottom 95 percent steady. _____ 2. Mr. Trump said he was being sarcastic in labeling President Obama and Mrs. Clinton founders of the Islamic State, comments that appeared to play well at rallies but confused some conservatives. He held two more rallies in Pennsylvania, which has voted Democratic in the last six presidential elections but is crucial to his strategy. Above, Reince Priebus, the head of the Republican National Committee, introduced him in Erie. Our podcast today features the writer Thomas Friedman, discussing his column on Mr. Trump’s “Second Amendment” comment. _____ 3. Katie Ledecky won another gold in Rio, becoming only the second woman to sweep the and freestyle races. She broke her own world record in the 800, finishing the race in 8 minutes, 04. 79 seconds. The American Maya DiRado upset Katinka Hosszu in the backstroke, catching Hosszu near the wall, and Michael Phelps placed second in the butterfly, finishing behind Joseph Schooling of Singapore. The first track and field gold medal came with a world record: Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia shattered the mark for the women’s 10, 000 meters by more than 14 seconds. Our full Olympic coverage is here. _____ 4. and forces are pouring into Aleppo, Syria, intensifying a battle that has trapped hundreds of thousands of civilians with little or no electricity and dwindling supplies of food and water. A merchant in the city described long lines for gas, bare shelves at groceries and hospitals crammed with wounded soldiers, militiamen and residents. “Hopefully there will be an end to the Syrian civilians’ misery,” a doctor said, “but we can’t see a light in the future. ” _____ 5. Vladimir Putin surprised by dismissing his chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, above left, a trusted aide for over four decades. His replacement, Anton Vaino, fits with a recent pattern of younger loyalists displacing an older generation of Mr. Putin’s peers. The Russian president “does not need advice, he needs people who will carry out his orders with as little fuss as possible,” one analyst said. _____ 6. Fox News started rebuilding its leadership, naming two veteran executives as three weeks after Roger Ailes was forced out over accusations of sexual harassment. One of them, Bill Shine, figured along with other executives in descriptions of a culture of intimidation given by women who accused Mr. Ailes of harassment. Both Mr. Ailes and Mr. Shine have denied any wrongdoing. Rupert Murdoch is expected to continue serving as chief executive until at least the presidential election in November. _____ 7. This is it for . Alex Rodriguez, a player with a roller coaster of a career, played his final game with the Yankees. His goodbye ceremony came right before a home game against the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees won . _____ 8. Remember that Spanish widow’s botched restoration of a fresco of Jesus? Four years after turning into a mocking meme, the work has helped turn its home, the small city of Borja, into a tourist mecca and even inspired a comic opera. The composer said he tried to reflect the tumult of the internet by drawing on “a Gregorian chant, a Spanish fandango, a Renaissance motet, a jota from Zaragoza, a classical chorus, an aria from the Zarzuela, a Flamenco tango, an hook and a bass line. ” _____ 9. For your weekend: Here are some options. On the small screen, Baz Luhrmann’s Netflix series “The Get Down” revels as only he can in the Bronx of the ’70s, the dawn of . Our book critics’ recommendations include “ Stories of God,” by Joy Williams, “a treasure trove of tiny wry masterpieces. ” This Magazine piece, “Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart,” helps make sense of the Islamic State, the Arab Spring, Europe’s migration crisis and much more. And here are 20 recipes that involve little or no cooking, for those days. _____ 10. Finally, the magnificent Perseids meteor shower will go on for days, but it’s lost on most of us because there’s too much light pollution. The former mining town of Westcliffe, Colo. above, and its neighbor, Silver Cliff, have been honored by a nonprofit working to stop light pollution as “ communities. ” You could say they put themselves on the map by keeping themselves in the dark. Have a great weekend. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
DALLAS — As a demonstration against police shootings made its way downtown here on Thursday, it differed from others around the country in one startling way: Twenty to 30 of the marchers showed up with and other types of rifles and wore them openly, with the straps slung across their shoulders and backs. In Texas, it was not only legal. It was commonplace. The state has long been a bastion of sentiment and the kind of place where both Democrats and Republicans openly talk about the guns they own and carry, on their person, in their vehicles, at their offices, at their homes and even in the halls of the Texas Capitol. And in recent years, as gun rights continued to expand, activists have exploited a freedom to openly carry a rifle in public by showing up at demonstrations with their long guns. Advocates have carried their rifles at the Alamo in San Antonio and outside mosques in the Dallas suburbs. But city and county leaders said the presence of armed protesters openly carrying rifles on Thursday through downtown Dallas had created confusion for the police as the attack unfolded, and in its immediate aftermath made it more difficult for officers to distinguish between suspects and marchers. Two men who were armed and a woman who was with them were detained, fueling an early, errant theory by the police that there was more than one gunman. Mayor Mike Rawlings of Dallas suggested in an interview on Sunday that, in the wake of the attack, he supported tightening the state’s gun laws to restrict the carrying of rifles and shotguns in public. “There should be some way to say I shouldn’t be bringing my shotgun to a Mavericks game or to a protest because something crazy should happen,” said Mr. Rawlings, a Democrat. “I just want to come back to common sense. ” The state’s culture, the mayor said, had imperiled people on the streets of Dallas. “This is the first time — but a very concrete time — that I think a law can hurt citizens, police and not protect them,” he said, adding that he was not and that he owned a shotgun himself. “I think it’s amazing when you think that there is a gunfight going on, and you are supposed to be able to sort who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. ” According to the authorities, Micah Johnson, 25, opened fire on police officers who were accompanying marchers protesting policing practices. Mr. Johnson, who had been in the Army Reserve, used a rifle to fire from a parking garage and while on foot on the streets below, killing five police officers. The Dallas police chief, David O. Brown, described to CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday the amount of confusion the armed protesters initially caused. He said the event had attracted “20 or 30 people” who “showed up with rifles slung across their shoulder. ” “They were wearing gas masks,” Mr. Brown said. “They were wearing bulletproof vests and camo fatigues, for effect, for whatever reason. ” When the shooting started, “they began to run,” he said. And because they ran in the middle of the shooting, he said, the police on the scene viewed them as suspects. “Someone is shooting at you from a perched position, and people are running with and camo gear and gas masks and bulletproof vests, they are suspects, until we eliminate that. ” “Doesn’t make sense to us, but that’s their right in Texas,” he said. He did not say whether he supported restricting the carrying of rifles on the streets. On Saturday, President Obama also told reporters that one of the challenges for the Dallas officers who were being shot at was that Texas was an state. “Imagine if you’re a police officer and you’re trying to sort out who is shooting at you and there are a bunch of people who have got guns on them,” Mr. Obama said. One of the state’s most prominent activists, C. J. Grisham, the founder and president of Open Carry Texas, disputed the extent of the confusion caused by marchers carrying rifles. In videos from the scene, he said, “you can see that police are walking right past people who are rifles and it’s not a problem. So obviously it’s not that difficult to tell who the good guys and the bad guys are. ” It was unclear what effect the comments from Mr. Rawlings, Chief Brown and Mr. Obama would have on Texas gun laws. Republicans control the governor’s office, the State Legislature and all but one of the nearly 30 statewide elected offices. Alejandro Garcia, a spokesman for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said that Mr. Patrick was “not surprised the president and forces are once again attempting to use a shooting tragedy to score points for their own political agenda. ” The Rev. Terry Holcomb, an leader and a pastor of the Crossroads Baptist Church in Oakhurst, Tex. said he and others would oppose any efforts to ban the open carrying of long guns as a result of the Dallas attack. “You would expect something like this in New York or California, but it will not see the light of day in Texas,” Mr. Holcomb said. “Let’s just call it for what it is: The liberal left is and . ” Even Democrats said they were not optimistic that substantial changes to Texas gun laws were in store. “From my perspective, I don’t see anything changing in Texas,” said Representative Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, who represents El Paso. The legality of carrying a rifle on the streets is just one element of a gun culture that continues to define and divide the state. It is not just that many Texans are armed. It is that many are allowed to display the fact that they are armed, and more now do so than at any point in modern Texas history. Beyond the carrying of rifles in public — a tactic used by a small group of advocates — more than one million Texans have permits to carry concealed handguns. Last year, the Legislature voted to give those with licenses the option of carrying their weapons unconcealed, in holsters on their hips or on their shoulders. That law, which is now in effect, did not affect the carrying of rifles in public. Lawmakers also allowed students and faculty members at Texas’ public and private universities to carry concealed handguns into classrooms and other campus buildings. The law, which has drawn fierce opposition at many universities, takes effect on Aug. 1. Amid the confusion on the scene, the Dallas police on Thursday released a picture on social media of one of the armed marchers. The police called the man “a person of interest” and asked for the public’s help in identifying him. That man, Mark Hughes, turned himself in and was later released. The other armed man was not allowed to legally carry a gun, and the police arrested him on a misdemeanor charge. He appeared to still be in custody on Sunday. A woman who was with the two men and who was detained was later released. A lawyer for Mr. Hughes said that his client was simply exercising his rights in Texas when carrying his rifle at a demonstration. The lawyer, Michael C. Campbell Jr. said, “He’s within the parameters of the law. ” | 1 |
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions told the Senate Tuesday morning that voters believe immigration policy should prioritize the needs of American workers. [Sessions’ remark came when Democratic Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin claimed Sessions would not support a “humane” rewrite of the nation’s immigration law. “There’s not a spot of evidence in your career to suggest that as Attorney General you would use the authority of that office to resolve the challenges of our broken immigration system in a fair and humane manner,” Durbin said to Sessions. “Tell me I’m wrong. ” “Well, you are wrong, Senator Durbin,” Sessions replied, adding: I’m going to follow the laws passed by Congress. As a matter of policy, we disagreed on some of those issues. I do believe that if you continually go through a cycle of amnesty that you undermine the respect for the law and encourage more illegal immigration into America. I believe the American people spoke clearly in this election. I believe they agreed with my basic view. Throughout the 2016 election, the American people rejected multiple candidates who ran on a position of immigration amnesty in favor of a now Donald Trump, whom Sessions endorsed and who was vocal about his desire to enforce U. S. immigration law. In addition, the American people have considered and rejected various amnesty proposals on multiple occasions, including in 2006, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2014. Ken Palinkas, the former head of the nation’s immigration caseworkers — Citizenship and Immigration Services — has warned that the DREAM Act proposals to give amnesty to illegal aliens who allegedly came to the U. S. as minors, a policy which has been championed by Durbin, would expand birthright citizenship to include the (today it is applied to the U. S. children of illegal immigrants). Palinkas has explained that DREAMer amnesty “extend[s] birthright citizenship in the future to include the foreign citizens of other countries” and represents a promise of “perpetual amnesty. ” Palinkas has argued that the concept of DREAMers was intended to create a permanent loophole to U. S. borders. In other Western countries all foreign nationals illegally residing in the country are subject to immigration laws. In the United States, however, the DREAMer population was created in order to effectively carve out a sector of the illegal alien population who are exempt from immigration law. During his Tuesday confirmation hearing, Sessions went on to tell the Committee that the American people are entitled to a lawful system of immigration that advances their best interests. “It’s a good view, a decent view, a solid legal view for the United States of America that we create a lawful system of immigration that allows people to apply to this country, and if they’re get accepted, they get in. If they’re not accepted, they don’t get it. And I believe that’s right, and just, and the American people are right to ask for it. We have not delivered that for them,” Sessions said. Sessions’ declaration is remarkably similar to prior statements made by civil rights champion and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, who argued in favor of immigration control and explained that, “credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in those who should be kept out, are kept out and those who should not be here will be required to leave. ” Throughout the hearing, Sessions’ emphasized that it is the role of Congress to implement policies supported by the American electorate. “The best thing for us to do,” Sessions said, “[is] let’s fix this system and then we can work together after this lawlessness has been ended and then we can ask the American people and enter into a dialogue about how to compassionately treat people who have been here a long time. ” “I had a responsibility as a member of this body to express my view and vote as I believed was correct on dealing with issues of immigration,” Sessions said. “That’s not the Attorney General’s role. The Attorney General’s role is to enforce the law. ” | 1 |
Donald Trump supporter and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich got into a heated discussion with Kelly File host Megyn Kelly Tuesday while discussing the Republican nominee’s debate performances, poll standing and allegations of sexual indiscretions.
Kelly broached the subject saying, “If Trump is a sexual predator…” at which point Gingrich launched into his defense of Trump.
“He’s not a sexual predator. You can’t say that. You can not defend that statement,” Gingrich retorted.
Related Stories Donald Trump’s Star On Hollywood Walk Of Fame Vandalized Independent Voters Push Trump To The Front In Florida And Ohio O’Reilly Grills Washington Post Columnist Who Says He Is Not A ‘Real’ News Person Following the show, Gingrich posted video of the exchange to Twitter.
My exchange with @megynkelly tonight https://t.co/IZVXeiprJN
— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) October 26, 2016
In the exchange which lasted several minutes, Gingrich said, “I am sick and tired of people like you using language that is inflammatory that’s not true!”
Kelly reminded the speaker that, while she was not taking a position on the allegations, he did not know whether they were true or not.
According to Gingrich, she took a position when she uttered the words.
Gingrich accused Kelly of being “fascinated with sex” and unconcerned about the issues and public policy.
“Me, really?” Kelly said, before adding, “Well, you know what, Speaker, I’m not fascinated by sex. But I am fascinated by the protection of women and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office. And I think the American voters would like to know …”
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook Independent Voters Push Trump To The Front In Florida And Ohio RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Gingrich went on to accuse the media of bias, pointing out the fact that three major networks spent 23 minutes covering the release Trump’s Access Hollywood conversation, while choosing not to cover a speech made by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in which she expressed her hope for open borders in the United States.
The two also discussed certain polls showing Trump trailing behind Clinton with only two weeks to go until Election Day.
While Kelly asserted that many polls have Clinton ahead in the race, Gingrich reminded her that early voting statistics show Republicans outvoting Democrats in Florida and Pennsylvania.
What do you think? | 0 |
Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party presidential nominee, revealed a surprising lack of foreign policy knowledge on Thursday that could rock his insurgent candidacy when he could not answer a basic question about the crisis in Aleppo, Syria. “What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the Syrian city. When pressed as to whether he was serious, Mr. Johnson indicated that he really was not aware of the city, which has been widely covered during the years that Syria has been engulfed in civil war. After Mike Barnicle, an MSNBC commentator who is often part of the “Morning Joe” program panel, explained that Aleppo was the center of Syria’s refugee crisis, Mr. Johnson struggled to recover. “O. K. got it,” he said, explaining that he thinks that the United States must partner with Russia to diplomatically improve the situation there. “With regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess. ” The stumble could be a serious blow to Mr. Johnson’s campaign, just as he is making a final push to improve his standing in the polls. His support needs to reach 15 percent in a series of major national polls to be included in the presidential debates. Mr. Johnson’s support has been hovering around 10 percent. He and his running mate, former Gov. Bill Weld of Massachusetts, have been aggressively making the case that they represent a viable alternative for voters who are not happy with the major party nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Weld are both former Republican governors who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. While Libertarians are very oriented, they are often criticized for being isolationist and lacking interest in foreign policy. Some leading Republicans who oppose Mr. Trump have said openly that they are giving the Libertarian ticket a serious look. On Wednesday night, Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee, publicly called for Mr. Johnson and Mr. Weld to be included in the presidential debates. The stumble could derail such hopes and it was widely mocked on social media. On Twitter the question “What is Aleppo?” was trending, with many critics arguing that Mr. Johnson had disqualified himself from the presidency. Some even attributed the flub to Mr. Johnson’s acknowledged use of marijuana. He is a proponent of legalizing the drug and he was previously the chief executive of a business that marketed and sold recreational marijuana products. Even Hillary Clinton, Mr. Johnson’s Democratic opponent, had a laugh at his expense on Thursday. Asked about the Libertarian candidate’s lack of knowledge about Aleppo during a news conference, she joked, “You can look on the map and find Aleppo. ” Thursday was not the first time that Mr. Johnson has faced such a situation. After speaking at a Politico convention in June, he was being directed to a room that was named after Harriet Tubman, the former slave and abolitionist. According to a report in The New Yorker, Mr. Johnson asked, “Who’s Harriet Tubman?” Mr. Johnson expressed disappointment about the Aleppo lapse in a brief interview that was broadcast on MSNBC and canceled some of his other scheduled interviews that had been planned for later in the day. “I’m incredibly frustrated with myself,” Mr. Johnson said. “I have to get smarter and that’s just part of the process. ” He also released a statement, explaining that he is “human” and that as president he would surround himself with experts and receive daily security briefings to fill any gaps in his knowledge. As for the impact the matter would have on his presidential prospects, Mr. Johnson said that would be up to the voters to decide. In a separate interview on ABC’s “The View” program, Mr. Johnson said that he was just trying to be as forthright about the situation as possible and made no excuses. “For those who believe this is a disqualifier, so be it,” he said. | 1 |
In March we wrote: Reading About Zika May Hurt Your Brain . We listed 35 sensational "news" headlines about potential catastrophes related to a Zika epidemic. The common factor of those panic creating media wave - all those headlines included the miraculous little word may . The pieces were pure speculations with some quoting this or that "expert" who was hunting for 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 Brazilian 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 wide areas where the flue virus occurred outside of the small area in Brazil saw no increase in birth defect numbers. The number of (naturally occurring) microcephality cases stayed constant despite a very 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 very 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. Comment: And Zika -- like Ebola, SARS, bird flu, West Nile, etc. -- will fall down the memory hole...until the next scare comes along. | 0 |
A federal judge sentenced an Illinois immigration lawyer who cheated the immigration system to make sure his clients were granted asylum in the U. S. to 15 months in prison Wednesday. [Prosecutors say Robert Dekelaita, who called himself “Robin Hood” for refugees, would forge the names of his clients seeking asylum on application papers and fabricate their life stories with horrific anecdotes of kidnappings, bombings, and religious persecution that were all false, drawing inspiration from news stories he collected, CBS Chicago reported. U. S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly sentenced Dekelaita to 15 months in prison for conspiracy to commit asylum fraud a year after Dekelaita was convicted, noting that even if he broke the law with noble intentions, he would “have to be willing to pay the price for it. ” Kennelly encouraged Dekelaita, 54, of Glenview, to file a motion to remain free while he appeals his conviction. Dekelaita is an Assyrian Christian who immigrated to the United States from Iraq at as his family fled persecution from the Baath regime, according to his lawyers. His lawyers argued during the trial that illegal immigrants fearing deportation lied to the U. S. government to help them build its case against Dekelaita. Federal prosecutors also say Dekelaita sent his clients a letter after his conviction saying that he “cheated no one and have not told anyone to lie. I have protected my clients as any good attorney should. ” His former clients now face deportation because of the fraud or their lives were ruined because they were forced to live out the lies he created for them, prosecutors say. Dekelaita chose not to make a statement in court and showed no reaction to the verdict during the two hour hearing, the Chicago Tribune reported. Prosecutors also charged two translators who worked for Dekelaita, Adam Benjamin and Yousif Yousif, for intentionally mistranslating answers given by clients and adding testimony they had not given to make sure they were granted asylum. Benjamin, 63, pleaded guilty in July 2015 to one count of fraud and was sentenced to six months in prison for his role in the conspiracy. Prosecutors agreed to defer Yousif’s prosecution so long as he stayed out of trouble, court records show. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — A justice on Brazil’s Supreme Court on Monday night removed the powerful head of the Senate from his post, as tensions have escalated between Congress and the judiciary over efforts by legislators to curb the power of prosecutors and judges overseeing corruption investigations. The justice, Marco Aurélio Mello, based his ruling on the fact that the Senate leader, Renan Calheiros, is going to stand trial in a graft case in which a lobbyist paid for the child support of a daughter Mr. Calheiros, 61, fathered in an extramarital affair. Mr. Mello’s ruling reflects how Brazil’s political tumult is intensifying once again, in a year in which President Dilma Rousseff was ousted and an orchestrator of her impeachment, Eduardo Cunha, the former speaker of the lower house, is now in jail on graft charges. The move by Mr. Mello also comes amid a tense standoff between Congress and the judiciary. Last week, the lower house held a marathon session in which its members gutted a anticorruption bill. The legislation, which would erode the authority of prosecutors and judges guiding graft inquiries, then moved to the Senate, where Mr. Calheiros unsuccessfully tried to hold a vote on it. Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets on Sunday to protest the moves in Congress, venting their wrath especially against Mr. Calheiros. Even as he faces a loss of authority, Mr. Calheiros, from Alagoas State in Brazil’s northeast, is expected to keep his seat in the Senate. For many of the protesters on the streets of Brazilian cities, Mr. Calheiros came to symbolize impunity in the nation’s political system, resurrecting his career despite facing an array of scandals. (In 2007, he was forced to resign as head of the Senate over the same child support case.) It was not immediately clear if the Supreme Court would need to ratify or reject Mr. Mello’s ruling with a full vote of its members. The request for Mr. Calheiros’s ouster came from Sustainability Network, a political party in the opposition. Mr. Calheiros may be able to appeal the decision. “I applaud this ruling,” said Randolfe Rodrigues, a senator from Sustainability Network, which largely blends centrist and leftist ideas. He said that the decision built on previous votes by justices aiming at preventing politicians on trial in corruption cases from remaining in the presidential line of succession. Jorge Viana, a senator from Ms. Rousseff’s leftist Workers’ Party, is expected to ascend to the post as head of the Senate. Mr. Calheiros is a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, the same centrist grouping led by President Michel Temer. Senators from the Workers’ Party said on Monday night that they would seek to delay voting in the Senate on a bill that would place a cap on federal spending, a cornerstone of Mr. Temer’s proposed austerity measures. The Senate already approved the bill in a first round of voting in November, with a second and final round scheduled for . With some in Congress now also calling for Mr. Temer’s impeachment after a scandal involving his support for an ally in a property deal, Brazil’s political establishment is facing the prospect of renewed instability. But at least for now, few observers see Mr. Temer at imminent risk of falling, given his coalition’s control of Congress. | 1 |
A few months ago, I wrote an article here on The Upshot discussing the potential health effects of alcohol. I pointed out that the scientific research said moderate drinking isn’t bad for you indeed, it might even offer some benefits. At the same time, I cautioned that this doesn’t mean I’d treat alcohol like medicine, or advise people to start drinking. The message was that if you’re otherwise healthy, and enjoy no more than two drinks a day, you’re unlikely to suffer from it, and potentially might benefit. However, a new study has been published that is leading some people to write stories proclaiming that “alcohol may not be good for you after all. ” Is that the case? Like any good Bayesian, I use new data and evidence to update my priors. In this case, the recent publication isn’t a new trial or experiment. It’s a new systematic review and that argues that it does a better job than prior work, by excluding a lot of research its authors declared was flawed. The main problem, they argue, is that a lot of prior work lumps people who used to drink but quit and no longer do so with people who never drank. They further assert that many of these people may actually have quit because they were sick, and were told to give up alcohol. This would mean that the sickest patients, who had been drinking alcohol, were being counted as if they were abstainers, which would bias results in a way to make drinking look healthier than not. They also only looked at studies that examined all death from all causes considered together. Of the 87 studies they found that met this criterion, only 13 strictly coded lifetime abstainers (and not quitters) as the reference group. When they looked at those studies and compared lifetime abstainers with everyday drinkers, there wasn’t a statistically significant difference. Only those who drank at least 65 grams of alcohol a day (about 4. 5 drinks) had an increased risk of death. The researchers refined their model further, excluding “lesser quality studies,” to consider only seven. The results were unchanged. They then excluded one more study that had results heavily favoring alcohol the remaining six studies suggested that people who drank two to three drinks a day had a slightly elevated risk of death. But those who drank one to two, or three to 4. 5 drinks, didn’t. When it comes to observational research, that’s a pretty weak finding. But that conclusion is somehow making headlines. If you look closely, it’s clear the authors excluded a lot of studies that seem to have already taken into account their concerns. For instance, one study I cited looked at mortality for those 55 to 65 years old. It found that, after controlling for the prior drinkers, as well as other confounders, those who drank a moderate amount had a lower risk of death than abstainers as well as heavy drinkers. It also cited five different earlier studies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) that accounted for the “former drinker” problem, yet still found the protective effect of drinking against mortality. It’s unclear to me why these studies didn’t factor in to the new analysis. That doesn’t mean the researchers did anything wrong. You’ve always got to make judgment calls about what to include in a . But the researchers don’t clearly explain why they made the judgment calls they did in the text. That makes me concerned they might be . It’s also important to recognize that this is only a study of mortality. Many other outcomes exist. A 2011 for example, looked at mortality from a variety of cardiovascular causes. This analysis also performed a of studies that classified former drinkers correctly. It found that — with or without this adjustment — active drinkers had both a lower incidence and mortality from a variety of cardiovascular disease. In the same vein, other studies have found associations with alcohol and better cognitive function and lower rates of diabetes. (The story for cancer is much more mixed.) On top of that, randomized controlled trials suggest that moderate drinking can help with diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. There’s even a of 63 controlled trials showing alcohol’s positive effects on HDL (good) cholesterol. Authors of articles now declaring alcohol to be will need to explain why they ignored those trials. At best then, this new study shows that for those drinking two or fewer drinks of alcohol a day, there’s no association with higher or lower risks of death. At worst, it’s leaving out trials that show a benefit. In others words, the study doesn’t make me think I should update my priors much at all. The evidence still says that a moderate amount of alcohol appears to be safe, and that it might even be healthy for many people. There’s nothing in this new analysis that would make me change my mind. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. twice voted to save President Obama’s health care law, infuriating his usual allies on the right. Now, conservatives are nervous that the chief justice will disappoint them again in a challenge to another major Obama initiative, this one on immigration. The case, to be argued on Monday at the Supreme Court, presents fundamental questions about executive power against the backdrop of a wrenching national debate over Mr. Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. But Chief Justice Roberts’s record suggests that he may avoid taking a position on such a divisive and partisan issue, focusing instead on the more technical question of whether the states challenging the Obama administration’s immigration plan have suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gives them standing to sue. That jurisprudential would avoid a deadlock or a grand pronouncement from a court on a politically charged issue in a presidential election year. And that may prove attractive to a chief justice who has said he does not want the Supreme Court to be viewed as a forum where “partisan matters would be worked out. ” A narrow ruling would in some ways echo Chief Justice Roberts’s 2012 opinion sustaining the central feature of the health care law on grounds so carefully calibrated that no other justice joined all of his opinion. And it would be consistent with his stated preference for achieving consensus by defining the legal question at issue in a case as narrowly as possible. Chief Justice Roberts, 61, is a patient man and a canny strategist, sometimes to the frustration of his conservative colleagues. In 2007, three years before the Citizens United decision, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, urged him to move faster in deregulating campaign finance law. In 2009, Chief Justice Roberts persuaded seven of his colleagues to duck a challenge to the Voting Rights Act on technical grounds and then used language from that opinion in 2013 to justify striking down the heart of the law in Shelby County v. Holder. David A. Strauss, a law professor at the University of Chicago, said an incremental step will appeal to Chief Justice Roberts all the more in the current political climate. “The chief justice, who has spoken recently about how the confirmation process might affect the court’s stature, may be especially troubled by a split in this case,” Professor Strauss said. A ruling based on standing, he said, “would wipe the slate clean, so the program could be considered in the future by a full Supreme Court. ” Mr. Obama’s plan would allow more than four million unauthorized immigrants who are parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents to apply for a program shielding them from deportation and allowing them to work legally. In the short term, a ruling to dismiss the case on standing grounds would at least temporarily save the plan. A tie vote, on the other hand, would leave in place an injunction blocking the plan and probably deny Mr. Obama any chance of resurrecting it. The case, United States v. Texas, No. was brought by Texas and 25 other states, which say the plan went beyond what Congress had authorized. Lower courts have sided with Texas. The trial judge ruled that the Obama administration should have given notice of the plan and sought public comments on its new program. The appeals court affirmed that ruling and added a broader one: The program, it said, also exceeded Mr. Obama’s statutory authority. The Supreme Court asked the parties to address the even broader question of whether Mr. Obama had violated his constitutional obligations to enforce the nation’s laws. But the court must first address whether Texas has suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave it standing to sue in the first place. “Chief Justice Roberts will be very skeptical of Texas’s standing claims,” said Tara Leigh Grove, a professor of law at William Mary and the author of an article on lawsuits by states against the federal government to be published next month in The Cornell Law Review. Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, said his state had brought the case to settle fundamental questions about presidential power. “Our goal really was pretty basic: defend the Constitution and stop President Obama’s lawlessness,” he said. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. In court papers, the administration has defended its plan as lawful, humane and valuable. A ruling based on standing would sidestep all of those issues. Even lawyers who believe that Texas has demonstrated that it has standing say they are not sure how the chief justice will vote. “It’s no secret that the chief justice is not a fan of expansive standing doctrine,” said Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who filed a brief supporting Texas on the standing issue. Professor Adler, who was an architect of a challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s nationwide tax subsidies that the Supreme Court rejected last year in a majority opinion from Chief Justice Roberts, added that there was a second reason to worry about the chief justice’s vote in the Texas case. “Ways of disposing of cases without addressing the merits do become more attractive on an court,” he said. Texas says it has standing to sue based on the budget shortfalls it would sustain if many unauthorized immigrants applied for driver’s licenses. The state sets fees for driver’s licenses below what they cost and ties eligibility for them to federal determinations about who is lawfully present in the country. “Our standing argument is based on the cost of driver’s licenses, which is obviously not part of our budget at this point,” said Mr. Paxton. “The Legislature meets only every other year, and they put together a budget and all of the driver’s licenses come out of the budget, and there’s no money for it. So our standing is based on that cost. ” Experts on standing law have sharply differing views about whether the cost of driver’s licenses, a consequence of the state’s own choices about fees and eligibility, can confer standing. “Such ‘injury’ has never provided a ticket to federal court,” Walter Dellinger, a former acting United States solicitor general in the Clinton administration, wrote in a supporting brief. Chief Justice Roberts cited Mr. Dellinger’s views on standing in an opinion in an earlier case. Ernest A. Young, a law professor at Duke who filed a supporting brief for Texas, said the state has plainly been injured. “All one has to accept for Texas to have standing,” he said, “is that governments have interests in administering their own legal regimes, and that because these legal regimes are intertwined with federal law in various ways, federal actions often do affect state public administration in a cognizable way. ” Chief Justice Roberts wrote a sharp dissent in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a decision in 2007 that said Massachusetts had standing to challenge the Bush administration’s decision not to regulate emissions. Relaxing standing requirements “because asserted injuries are pressed by a state,” the chief justice wrote, “has no basis in our jurisprudence. ” The “true goal for this litigation may be more symbolic than anything else,” he wrote. “The constitutional role of the courts, however, is to decide concrete cases — not to serve as a convenient forum for policy debates. ” Standing is a neutral legal principle that applies to the right and left alike, he wrote in an influential 1993 law review article. “It restricts the right of conservative public interest groups to challenge liberal agency action or inaction,” he wrote, “just as it restricts the right of liberal public interest groups to challenge conservative agency action or inaction. ” Mr. Dellinger said a rigorous approach to standing was consistent with Chief Justice Roberts’s statement at his confirmation hearings that judges should aspire to be umpires, whose only job is to call balls and strikes. “Before any judge begins calling balls and strikes,” Mr. Dellinger said, “he must first make sure the batter at the plate is an actual player and not just a fan who ran on the field. ” | 1 |
Tuesday 15 November 2016 by Gabe Faulkner ‘Fake news is way better than real news’ insists Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has defended his company from criticism about the proliferation of ‘fake’ news stories on the social network, insisting that real news “absolutely sucks”.
“Let’s face it, in the past year, the UK flushed itself down the toilet of global politics, an orange misogynist was elected leader of the free world, and Alan Rickman died. People really don’t want to hear about that stuff,” Mr Zuckerberg wrote in a statement published on his public newsfeed.
“If everyone just accepted the news on Facebook without question, you’d be living in a world where Barack Obama has been re-elected for a third term, weed is legal everywhere, and democracy actually works.
“The top story today in Facebook news is the release of the tenth Harry Potter book. You can live in that beautiful world.
“Just let go of reality, and submit yourself unconditionally to my will.”
Tech analyst Norman Greenfield commented, “Is Facebook reporting the story about ‘fake news’ on Facebook? If so, how do we know that this ‘fake news’ story isn’t fake?
“This whole situation has to an infinitely escalating set of ‘fake news’ reports that I just can’t get my head around. I’m so tired.”
Facebook users were quick to voice their support of Mr Zuckerberg. Angela Marmot from Wolverhampton commented, “If you like this, then you’ll LOVE our app for Asian hook-ups – click here”. Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
Arthur Hiller, an Academy director whose long career began in live television and flourished in the movies in the 1970s with like the phenomenally successful “Love Story,” died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. He was 92. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced his death. Mr. Hiller, who for a time was one of Hollywood’s most commercially potent directors, piloted nearly 70 feature films, television movies and series episodes in a wide range of genres, from the Holocaust drama “The Man in the Glass Booth” (1975) to the screwball comedy “The ” (1979). He made two hit films from Neil Simon scripts — “ ” (1970) and “Plaza Suite” (1971) — and two with the popular comic team of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder: “Silver Streak” (1976) and “See No Evil, Hear No Evil” (1989). But Mr. Hiller’s greatest commercial success was “Love Story” (1970) which grossed an imposing $106 million when it was released in 1970, the equivalent of about $665 million today. Based on a screenplay by Erich Segal, a Yale classics scholar (who turned it into a novel that sold more than five million copies) the film portrayed the tragic romance of a wealthy Harvard law student (Ryan O’Neal) and a Radcliffe music major (Ali MacGraw) the product of a family. In a time of bruising social upheaval, “Love Story” offered a strong, simple palliative, turning audiences (though some found it sappy) and catapulting the careers of Mr. O’Neal and Ms. MacGraw. Writing about the movie after the novel was published, the critic Roger Ebert was as admiring of one as he was withering about the other. “The film of ‘Love Story’ is infinitely better than the book,” he wrote. “I think it has something to do with the quiet taste of Arthur Hiller, its director, who has put in all the things that Segal thought he was being clever to leave out. Things like color, character, personality, detail and background. ” Mr. Hiller’s emphatic, uncomplicated direction brought home the themes of class and generational reconciliation embedded in Mr. Segal’s story, while Francis Lai’s score took care of the sentiment. The Canadian critic Robert Fulford, writing in The National Post, saw the movie as a product of its time: “Its plot is a checklist of 1970 obsessions: furious generational conflict, a rich and guilty old man symbolizing the Establishment, and death claiming the young and the beautiful. It’s a Vietnam film in which Vietnam remains offscreen. ” Characteristically, Mr. Hiller brought in the production ahead of schedule and under budget, earning his sole Oscar nomination in the process. (Franklin J. Schaffner won the Oscar for “Patton,” that year’s winner.) “Love Story” earned six other Academy Award nominations, including for best actor (Mr. O’Neal) and best actress (Ms. MacGraw). Mr. Lai’s score won an Oscar. Mr. Hiller’s personal favorite among his films, he often said, was “The Americanization of Emily,” a 1964 feature set in wartime London about the tentative love affair between a young war widow (Julie Andrews) and an American naval officer (James Garner) as approaches. Written by Paddy Chayefsky, the film strikes an unusual, precarious balance between social comedy and psychological drama, and drew on Mr. Hiller’s wartime experience as a navigator for the Royal Canadian Air Force, based in Britain. Mr. Hiller teamed with Mr. Chayefsky again in 1971 for “The Hospital,” a satire starring George C. Scott and Diana Rigg, set in a dysfunctional New York medical center. “It isn’t simply that he obtains excellent performances from his stars,” the critic Vincent Canby wrote of Mr. Hiller in The New York Times, “but he has perfectly cast the film down to roles that are so small, they depend — I suspect — as much on natural mannerism as on acting talent. ” Gentle and and famous in later years for his nimbus of long, silver hair, Mr. Hiller was much liked in the film industry. He was president of the Directors Guild of America from 1989 to 1993 and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1993 to 1997. In 2002, he received the Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his philanthropic work. Mr. Hiller was born on Nov. 13, 1923, in Edmonton, Alberta, one of three children of Harry Hiller and the former Rose Garfin, Jewish immigrants from Poland. His father ran a secondhand musical instrument store in Edmonton. His first contact with show business came through his parents, who formed a community theater in Edmonton to present plays in Yiddish. He helped his parents build and paint sets, and made his acting debut at age 11. After high school, Arthur joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and navigated bombers over enemy territory in Europe during World War II. Returning from the war, he enrolled at the University of Toronto, where he studied law and psychology. The lure of the performing life proved irresistible, however, and one day Mr. Hiller walked into the Toronto offices of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and asked a receptionist where to apply for work. “Three weeks later I was directing talk shows,” he was quoted by Robert J. Emery in the 2002 book “The Directors: Take Two. ” Mr. Hiller began in radio but soon graduated to the new medium of television, where he specialized in the risky, work of directing live drama. In 1956 he accepted a job and moved to the United States, where he joined an impressive group of young directors — including John Frankenheimer, Arthur Penn and Sidney Lumet — working on the CBS series “Playhouse 90. ” As live television evolved into filmed programming in the late 1950s, Mr. Hiller became a regular contributor to such series as “Gunsmoke,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and “Route 66. ” His first theatrical film was the 1957 teenage romance “The Careless Years,” based on a script written under a pseudonym by John Howard Lawson and Mitch Lindemann, who were both blacklisted at the time. The tight shooting schedules and tighter budgets of television had taught Mr. Hiller the importance of careful preparation, and his reputation as a fast, filmmaker spread quickly. By the he was well established in Hollywood as a director of light comedies like “Promise Her Anything” (1965) with Warren Beatty and Leslie Caron, and “Penelope” (1966) with Natalie Wood. He went on to direct Alan Arkin in the sentimental comedy “Popi” (1969) and again in “The ” an extravagant farce written by Andrew Bergman. Mr. Arkin played a New York dentist and Peter Falk a loony government agent who enlists him in a plot to assassinate a South American dictator. Then came the Neil Simon films and the Richard Pryor comedies. In between were weightier projects, like the musical “Man of La Mancha” (1972) a troubled production on which he replaced Peter Glenville as director “The Man in the Glass Booth” (1975) for the American Film Theater subscription series, in which Maximilian Schell played a rich Jewish industrialist living in Manhattan who is arrested as a war criminal and “Making Love” (1982) one of the first Hollywood films to present a love affair between two men (Michael Ontkean and Harry Hamlin) in a positive light. Mr. Hiller is survived by his daughter, Erica Hiller Carpenter his son, Henryk and five grandchildren. His wife, Gwen Hiller, a social worker and librarian, died in June, also at 92. She was born in Edmonton 10 days before her husband. Their family has noted that when they were schoolmates, he proposed to her when they were 8 years old. Their marriage lasted 68 years. | 1 |
For those searching for a soul mate, the website WikiHow offers an plan that could be of help. It tells the lovelorn about fruitful places to look for a mate and instructs them to do things such as make a list of the traits sought in a partner and to “start looking. ” But here at The New York Times, we have a better plan, and ours has only two steps: 1. Put on a sweater emblazoned with a cat wearing a Santa hat on the front. (Any kind of cat — calico, Siamese, Abyssinian — will do.) 2. Stand next to an elevator. (It wouldn’t hurt to put on some perfume or cologne this plan needs all the help it can get.) Then, boom! Mr. or Ms. Right will pop up. We can’t swear by this, because our data is admittedly scant. But in two wedding stories published in The Times this year, sweaters have led to love. And in three others, sightings in elevators led to marriages. O. K. we get it that the ugly Christmas sweater craze may have run its course. But you can’t argue with success, which is why these couples lead the list of the most unusual stories for 2016. The catless among us fared just as well, however. Here is our list: Cat People Our cat lovers are Caitlin Taylor Landy and Brandon Travis Ponder, who were married Aug. 27 in Rye, N. Y. and Sarah Callaway and John Rader, who were married July 23 in Birmingham, Ala. Mr. Ponder wore his Christmas cat sweater for the picture he posted on his Tinder profile in summer 2014, and Ms. Landy was intrigued by his sense of humor. Mr. Rader and Ms. Callaway met in December 2013 in Nashville when Mr. Rader and a friend (who was wearing a Christmas cat sweater) were hailing the same cab as Ms. Callaway (who was also wearing a cat sweater) and her friend. “Meow,” Mr. Rader’s friend said to Ms. Callaway, but she wound up with Mr. Rader. Asked recently to explain the romantic allure of sweaters, Mr. Rader said a number of factors came into play. “But No. 1 would be the actual girl wearing the sweater,” he said. “In addition to her, it’s a celebration of the most beautiful and wonderful time of the year, and to have a cat wearing a Santa hat is just something that is friendly and welcoming and cheerful all wrapped into one. ” Which Floor for Love? Our elevator couples are Alyssa Carbone and Jeremy Kees, who married March 19 in Montclair, N. J. Nadia Gaya and Timothy Martin, who were married April 30 in Manhattan and Kaci Lindhorst and Adam Sokoloff, who were married June 18 in New York. Ms. Carbone remembered seeing her future husband in the elevator of their Philadelphia apartment building. “He looked charming, handsome and dapper in his nice suits,” she said. Then the two got the chance to chat when an fire alarm rousted the pair and their fellow tenants and temporarily left them outside. Ms. Gaya recalls hitting the button on her elevator in her Brooklyn apartment building and out walked Mr. Martin. “I said to myself, ‘That’s the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. ’” They were introduced by the woman showing an apartment to Mr. Martin, but she did not get his last name. A few months later, they again met at the elevator and began to get better acquainted. Ms. Lindhorst did not actually spot Mr. Sokoloff in the elevator. But her roommate, a natural matchmaker, had. Ms. Lindhorst, with encouragement from her roommate, then sent a Facebook friend request to “the really attractive guy” she saw there. What is so enticing about an elevator? Jodi Hynes, communications manager of Otis Americas, the elevator company, has given it some thought. “You are instantly put into an intimate setting from the moment you step inside, then the doors close and you can’t help but make eye contact and start talking to the person standing next to you,” Ms. Hynes said. “Where that leads may not always be what you intend, but it forces you into an otherwise unexpected conversation. ” Loving the Wait Anh Tu Dang and Josh Mankiewicz, who were married May 16 in Los Angeles, met while engaged in the most frustrating of activities: waiting in an airport security line. When Mr. Mankiewicz saw Ms. Dang in 2008 at Los Angeles International Airport, suddenly the wait didn’t seem so long. “Standing ahead of me was this stunning woman,” Mr. Mankiewicz, a correspondent for “Dateline NBC,” recalled. “I was staring at her. She didn’t notice. Finally we started talking. Actually, I started talking and she responded. ” A Better View Kelly McKanna and David Hirsch, who were married July 30 in Palo Alto, Calif. had just met and had been chatting briefly at a San Francisco music festival in 2011 when he offered her a perch on his shoulders for a better view. She told him he should sit on hers instead. He hopped on, her back didn’t crumple, and love ensued. The Man Without a Face After Meegan Brooks connected online with Michael Kimiecik, she communicated with him for weeks on end without the benefit of seeing his face. His profile photo was sort of obscure. At one point, she asked him outright to post a more recent photo, and he sent a photo of himself wearing ski goggles and a hood that covered most of his face. She finally got the chance to see him up close when she flew to Michigan, and he picked her up at the airport — without anything covering his face. “He was incredibly handsome,” she said. They were married Aug. 6 in Carmel Valley, Calif. Love at First Shout The first time Akino Brown heard Dr. Dionne Hoskins, she was giving him a good at a Big Lots store in Savannah, Ga. Sparks flew — but not good ones — when she overheard Mr. Brown and a discussing the firing of another employee. Incensed by this breach in protocol, Dr. Hoskins proceeded to tell Mr. Brown just that. He was distracted, though: “All I heard was, ‘Blah blah blah,’” he said. “I drifted off, thinking about how good she looked. ” Rod Serling Would Approve Perhaps the most Twilight of our 2016 involved Allison Gans and Brian Fischer, who were married Sept. 24 in Los Gatos, Calif. The two thought they had first met on JDate in 2013, but when Ms. Gans began looking through her future husband’s childhood photos, she discovered that they had both been in the same large group that had traveled to Israel in 1997 for bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies. More digging revealed a video had been taken of a ceremony there in which a rabbi took a candle held by Ms. Gans and gave it to Mr. Fischer. The future bride and groom, though standing just inches apart, scarcely noticed each other. | 1 |
PARIS (AFP) — Such is Marine Le Pen’s aversion to the European Union that the French right wing leader demanded the removal of its flag from a TV studio before agreeing to a recent interview. [Her chief rival in the race for the French presidency, centrist Emmanuel Macron, pointedly waved an EU flag from the podium at a campaign rally the next day. Love it or loathe it, the European Union has become a issue in the election, fanning fears far beyond France in the wake of Britain’s Brexit vote that a “Frexit” could doom the bloc. “Rarely has the European issue held such a place on all the candidates’ platforms as in this electoral campaign,” said analyst Pierre Vimont of the Carnegie Europe think tank. In the five years since France’s last presidential vote, Europe has seen a massive migrant crisis and a rise in populism, both contributing to the Brexit vote. None of the four main French candidates can afford to be neutral on the EU, whether they portray it as the source of all woes or a guarantee of peace and stability. Like Macron, conservative candidate Francois Fillon is bullish on Brussels, highlighting the leadership axis and defending the euro. Both candidates met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the campaign. Arrayed on the other side are Le Pen, who advocates leaving the EU immediately, and candidate Melenchon, who demands a renegotiation of key treaty provisions. “Positions have hardened,” said Manuel Lafont Rapnouil of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Melenchon was very influenced by what happened to (Greek party) Syriza,” which gave in to European demands after months of crisis. Syriza, the party of Greek premier Alexis Tsipras, endorsed Melenchon, saying he “represents hope for change for France and Europe”. Le Pen, on the other hand, “is riding the wave of Brexit” and Donald Trump’s surprise accession to the White House, he said. The ideological underpinnings of the two candidates’ eurosceptism are worlds apart, however. — ‘Dictatorship of banks’ — Le Pen stresses economic, monetary and territorial “sovereignty” along with a “national preference” for French citizens in the workplace and the allocation of state benefits. Melenchon vows to end the “nightmare” of an EU that submits its members to “the dictatorship of the banks” and the austerity policies they impose. But both promise a showdown with Brussels and say they are certain to come out on top given the strength of France within the bloc. Le Pen says she will launch six months of talks aimed at withdrawing France from the Schengen area, as well as from the euro, before calling a referendum on whether the French want to leave the EU — a “Frexit”. For his part, Melenchon has a approach summed up as “change the EU or leave it”: a Plan A by which France will renegotiate its membership terms and a Plan B for a unilateral Frexit. As for the single currency, a poll carried out in early March found that more than 70 percent of the French oppose quitting the eurozone. On the eve of Sunday’s first round, Melenchon has toned down his euroscepticism, saying that he would prefer for France to stay in the EU and the eurozone. Le Pen has also adjusted her rhetoric, focusing more on FN staple issues such as immigration and security — the latter question surging to the fore after Thursday’s jihadist killing of a policeman in the Champs Elysees. On the side, Macron says he has “Europe at heart” wants to bolster the eurozone and is the only candidate who favours CETA, the agreement between the EU and Canada that will provisionally come into force in a few weeks. Fillon, more protective of French sovereignty, wants a of the balance of power between Brussels and EU members states. Giuliani of the Robert Schuman Foundation said both Fillon and Macron are too complacent with the status quo, calling the EU planks of their platforms “unimaginative”. Candidates should talk about the EU’s renewal and how France needs to revitalise its role within it, Giuliani said. | 1 |
By Janet Phelan A recent cancer symposium, with a surgical focus, met in Boston to discuss how surgical oncology is experiencing “an exciting evolution and... | 0 |
ABC’s decision to cancel its popular comedy series Last Man Standing shocked fans, as it was one of the network’s comedy series in its most recent sixth season. [The series stars (or starred) Tim Allen as Mike Baxter, the marketing director for sporting goods store Outdoor Man and a family man who splits time between work and managing his household, which includes his wife Vanessa (Nancy Travis) and daughters Mandy (Molly Ephraim) Eve (Kaitlyn Dever) and Kristin (Amanda Fuller). The series was unique in that it was one of the few (if not the only) broadcast network shows to explore the life of a politically conservative working man and his experience coming to terms with today’s culture. So when ABC canceled the show last week, fans were quick to accuse the network of making the decision for political reasons. The show is (though reportedly written by liberal writers) and star Allen is himself politically conservative and a supporter of President Donald Trump. ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey held a press call Tuesday morning to discuss the network’s Fall lineup, which, for the first time in six years, does not include its rated comedy. While some reporters asked about Last Man‘s cancellation, the press call raised more questioned than it answered. Here are five questions that remain about the network’s decision to cancel the show. 1. Was the cancellation of the show motivated by politics in any way, either by the series’ own worldview or by star Tim Allen’s own politics? Despite getting this exact question on the conference call, Dungey avoided answering it directly. “I cancelled Last Man Standing for the same business and scheduling reasons I cancelled The Real O’Neals, Dr. Ken, The Catch, American Crime,” Dungey said. “It was challenging because it was a steady performer but when we made the decision not to continue with comedies on Friday, that’s where it landed. ” The Real O’Neals, Dr. Ken and American Crime were ratings disasters (and none of them moved the cultural conversation much, with the exception of O’Neals, which appeared to exist solely to piss off Christians) so there’s no surprise in those cancellations. But Last Man Standing was a ratings highlight in its sixth season, which brings up the next puzzling question … 2. If comedy “remains a priority” for the network, as it said on Tuesday’s call, why would it cancel its comedy series? Last Man Standing was ABC’s comedy only behind the critically adored (and decidedly progressive) Modern Family. The sixth season finale of LMS drew 6. 06 million viewers and a respectable 1. 1 rating in its March 31 broadcast, good enough to make it the primetime program that night in a tie with CBS’ Blue Bloods. In fact, the entire sixth season averaged 6. 41 million viewers, down just five percent from its previous season, a rare feat for a show at this point in its run. When considering Last Man‘s Friday night time slot, that’s a downright miracle, considering Friday night is where broadcast network shows typically go to die a more prolonged death. For comparison, in its second season, Dr. Ken drew an average 4. 41 million viewers, down a steep 16. 3 percent from its first season. The Real O’Neals fared even worse in its sophomore season, drawing an average of 3. 07 million viewers, a drop of 22 percent. Those cancellations were obviously . Which then begs the question … . 3. Why did ABC bring back the perpetually Quantico when it draws of Last Man Standing‘s viewership? If you haven’t seen the network’s government spy thriller Quantico, you’re hardly alone. The show’s second season averaged just 2. 8 million viewers per episode, down a whopping 35. 7 percent in viewership from its first season and an absolutely astonishing 45 percent in the key demo. So what to do when faced with these embarrassingly awful figures? Dungey confirmed Tuesday that ABC was bringing back Quantico for a third season, albeit with a smaller initial order of episodes. We’re “optimistic and excited about it,” Dungey said. She said the smaller episode order would allow the network to “see how it performs for us. ” Of course, there’s no way the renewal has anything to do with the show’s open hostility toward President Donald Trump and his supporters, right? Right? 4. Why would ABC move one of its flagship series, Marvel’s Inhumans, to Friday night, traditionally a wasteland for unwanted shows? Dungey said on the call that the network wants to make Friday night a “destination” for and fantasy fans. To achieve that, ABC set its series Once Upon a Time at 8 p. m. Friday, followed by Marvel’s Inhumans, a superhero and then once Inhumans finishes its run, the network will run Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D. in its place. Here’s the question: Inhumans is set to air its first two episodes in IMAX theaters for two weeks ahead of the show’s launch on TV. It’s ostensibly a show for the network, and undoubtedly costs a ton of money to produce. Why would the network move this show to the 9 p. m. hour on Friday when it is traditionally the time on television? And it isn’t just me who has asked this question: “Did ABC Already Doom Marvel’s Inhumans With Its Timeslot?” wondered CinemaBlend’s Mick Joest on Tuesday. Maybe the network just doesn’t believe it’s going to be very good. The move to Friday does make at least a little bit of sense for Once Upon a Time after a stellar first four seasons and a modest drop in Season 5 (and after the departure of most of its core cast members) the sixth season of the fantasy drama averaged just 3. 2 million viewers and a 0. 94 in the key demo, down 28. 3 percent and 31. 6 percent, respectively. Then again, the network just renewed Once for a total reboot in its seventh season. Why would ABC move its premiere family show from its comfortable Sunday night family slot to be a for Inhumans? Instead, Sunday nights will begin with America’s Funniest Home Videos, then move to To Tell the Truth, then reality show Shark Tank, and then new Kyra Sedgwick drama Ten Days in the Valley. Which seems an odd sort of lineup for a traditional family TV night. 5. Is there any other show in history that has not only retained its audience but has beaten most other comedies of its type that has been cancelled as abruptly? Ever? Tim Allen broke his silence Tuesday to say he was “stunned and blindsided” by ABC’s decision. He likely joins many of the fans of his show (at least 138, 000) who now feel as if the only family entertainment they could enjoy has been taken off the air, for reasons that can’t possibly boil down to ratings and scheduling. A representative for ABC did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the article will be updated if we hear from them. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
MELBOURNE, Fla. — President Trump will interview four candidates on Sunday to replace his dismissed national security adviser, three of them military veterans, but one of America’s most prominent retired generals, whose name had been floated, is not in the running. A White House spokesman said on Saturday that Mr. Trump would speak with Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, a prominent military strategist Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr. the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point and Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general already serving as acting national security adviser. Mr. Trump, who is spending the weekend in Florida, will also interview John R. Bolton, who served as President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and has previously been considered for deputy secretary of state. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters that “potentially others” might also be considered but that David H. Petraeus, the retired general and former C. I. A. director, was not a candidate. The national security adviser is a crucial figure in any White House, but Mr. Trump has struggled to find the right person to fill the post. His first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, lasted only 24 days before Mr. Trump requested his resignation for misinforming Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of a conversation with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. The list of candidates now being considered reflects Mr. Trump’s continued interest in bringing top military officers into his administration. Other generals have served as national security adviser — notably Brent Scowcroft and Colin L. Powell — but the president seems reluctant to cast a net much wider than the officer corps. At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Trump said he was comfortable dismissing Mr. Flynn in part because he had “somebody that I think will be outstanding for the position. ” He seemed to be referring to Robert S. Harward, a retired vice admiral and Navy SEAL, but Mr. Harward later turned down the job. The search for a new adviser has been complicated by uncertainty in the foreign policy world about the role of Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, who has been given a seat on a National Security Council committee. Mr. Harward was said to have expressed concern about how much autonomy he would have had. Mr. Petraeus was said to have similar concerns, although some close to Mr. Trump said he was never a serious candidate. A White House official, who like others insisted on anonymity to discuss the search more candidly, rejected reports that Mr. Harward had been concerned about a lack of autonomy in the role, insisting that he had been promised full personnel and structuring authority to clean house. Mr. Bannon was Mr. Harward’s biggest supporter in the West Wing for the national security adviser role, whisking him into a secret meeting with the president on Monday. On Saturday evening, a senior administration official described General McMaster and General Caslen as the leading candidates. The one candidate who has not emerged from the military is Mr. Bolton, an outspoken conservative respected by Mr. Bannon, although it is unclear if Mr. Bannon is supporting him for the national security job. Mr. Bolton does have support from two important donors to Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the White House process: the casino magnate Sheldon G. Adelson and the philanthropist Rebekah Mercer. Mr. Bolton shares Mr. Trump’s strong antipathy toward the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama, and he would presumably continue the tough approach begun by Mr. Flynn of pressuring Tehran over its ballistic missile program and its sponsorship of terrorist groups. But Mr. Bolton has also taken a stronger position on Russia than Mr. Trump or Mr. Flynn. In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, he seemed to try to reconcile that by agreeing with Mr. Trump’s criticism of Mr. Obama’s New Start arms control treaty with Russia. Mr. Bolton is a favorite of conservatives but an adversary of Democrats, who blocked him for confirmation as ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bush used his recess appointment power to install him anyway, but came to regret it when Mr. Bolton, after leaving office, became a harsh critic for what he said was the president’s unwise willingness to negotiate with North Korea. General McMaster, a highly decorated Army officer, is considered one of the military’s leading intellectuals. He earned something of a cult status in the military as a young major for his influential 1997 book, “Dereliction of Duty,” an indictment of the military’s failure to stand up to Lyndon B. Johnson and other civilian leaders during the Vietnam War. But General McMaster has also proved himself in the field, leading a successful counterinsurgency effort in 2005 to secure Tal Afar in northern Iraq. He was critical of the way the Bush administration went to war in Iraq and became an important thinker behind the strategy change that helped turn the war around. Foreign Policy magazine called him “the brain behind Petraeus. ” General McMaster is now the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center at Fort Eustis in Virginia. General Caslen, who was in the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, and went back into the building after it was hit, served in key roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was commander of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) and commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq. A West Point graduate, he took command of the military academy in 2013. Mr. Bannon is a former naval officer, and his daughter graduated from West Point. Mr. Kellogg served for 36 years in the Army, including two tours in Vietnam, where he earned the Silver Star and other medals. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division and was chief operating officer of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq before retiring in 2003. He advised Mr. Trump on foreign policy during his campaign and was named chief of staff at the National Security Council. | 1 |
WHAT WILL Donald Trump do if he loses the elections in a week and a half from now, as most polls indicate?
He has already declared that he will recognize the results -- but only if he wins.
That sounds like a joke. But it is far from being a joke.
Trump has already announced that the election is rigged. The dead are voting (and all the dead vote for Hillary Clinton). The polling station committees are corrupt. The polling machines forge the results.
No, that is not a joke. Not at all. - Advertisement -
THIS IS not a joke, because Trump represents tens of millions of Americans, who belong to the lower strata of the white population, which the white elite used to call "white trash." In more polite language they are called "blue collar workers," meaning manual workers, unlike the "white collar workers" who occupy the offices.
If the tens of millions of blue collar voters refuse to recognize the election results, American democracy will be in danger. The United States may become a banana republic, like some of its southern neighbors, which have never enjoyed a stable democracy.
This problem exists in all modern nation-states with a sizable national minority. The lowest strata of the ruling people hates the minority. Members of the minority push them out of the lower jobs. And more importantly: the lower strata of the ruling majority have nothing to be proud of except for their belonging to the ruling people.
The German unemployed voted for Adolf Hitler, who promoted them to the "Herrenvolk" (master people) and the Aryan race. They gave him power, and Germany was razed to the ground.
THE ONE and only Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is a bad system, but that all the other systems tried were worse. - Advertisement -
As far as democracy is concerned, the United States was a model for the world. Already in its early days it attracted freedom-lovers everywhere. Almost 200 years ago, the French thinker, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote a glowing report about the "Democratie en Amerique."
My generation grew up in admiration of American democracy. We saw European democracy breaking down and sinking into the morass of fascism. We admired this young America, which saved Europe in two world wars, out of sheer idealism. The democratic America vanquished German Nazism and Japanese militarism, and later Soviet Bolshevism.
Our childish attitude gave way to a more mature view. We learned about the genocide of the native Americans and about slavery. We saw how America is seized from time to time by an attack of craziness, such as the witch hunt of Salem and the era of Joe McCarthy, who discovered a Communist under every bed.
But we also saw Martin Luther King, we saw the first black President, and now we are probably about to see the first female President. All because of this miracle: American democracy. | 0 |
Illegal immigrants are flooding across America’s southern border, driven in part by the looming presidential election .
A CBS News report from McAllen, Texas , noted that large numbers of illegal immigrants have crossed the border from Mexico and turned themselves in. They are released by the Border Patrol after being given ankle monitors while they file paperwork to be granted asylum so they can remain in the U.S.
Border Patrol Agent Chris Cabrera said the rush is triggered by politics.
Related Stories Trump Mocks Biden’s Dare To Take Him ‘Behind the Gym’ Trump Dedicates D.C. Hotel: ‘The Future Lies With The Dreamers’ Trump Sets GOP Fundraising Milestone In Small-Donor Contributions “The smugglers are telling them if [Democratic nominee] Hillary [Clinton] gets elected, that there’ll be some sort of amnesty, that they need to get here by a certain date,” Cabrera said.
“They’re also being told that if [Republican nominee Donald] Trump gets elected, there’s going to be some magical wall that pops up overnight and once that wall gets up, nobody will ever get in again,” he said.
Cabrera said that on some recent days, agents have netted up to 1,000 immigrants around McAllen.
“We’re getting mass spikes of people crossing and turning themselves in,” he said.
For the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, arrests of illegal immigrants crossing to the U.S. along the southern border increased 23 percent , totaling 408,870 people.
Earlier this month, Trump formally accepted the endorsement of the National Border Patrol Council at Trump Tower in New York.
Art Del Cueto, an official with the union who attended the event, said the Obama administration is conscious of the looming election and pushing to have detainees released.
Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Independent Voters Push Trump To The Front In Florida And Ohio “I’ve spoken to several agents in my sector that are in charge of a lot of this processing of these individuals that we apprehended,” he said.
Although some have criminal records, Del Cueto said, “they’re setting them aside because at this point they’re saying immigration is so tied up with trying to get to the people that are on the waiting list, hurry up and get them their immigration status corrected, make them citizens.”
“Why?” asked Trump.
“So they can go ahead and vote before the election,” said Del Cueto.
Trump repeated the claim. “They’re letting people pour into the country so they can go and vote,” he said.
Del Cueto agreed.
“Want to hurry up and fast-track them so they can hurry up and be able to vote for these elections,” hebor said.
What do you think? | 0 |
Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson took on USA Today editorial page editor David Mastio for an editorial that appeared in Monday’s edition of USA Today headlined “What Bannon shares with ISIL leader,” referring to White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and ISIS leader Abu Bakr . After rattling off some of the atrocities committed by ISIS under including beheading journalists, use of chemical weapons, employment of child soldiers, mass execution of Christians and declaration of a caliphate, Carlson pushed back against the characterization of Bannon. However, Mastio doubled down and insisted the visions of the two, which was a war underway between Islam and the West, were similar. “We’re at war with a psychotic death cult, a fringe of the Islamic world,” Mastio said. “Bannon agrees with Baghdadi that it is a war between Islam and the West. We don’t need to give Baghdadi that propaganda victory. ” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox Friends,” while discussing the U. S. economy adding 235, 000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate falling to 4. 7 percent, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said, “This is the beginning of turning the Trump rally into a Trump reality. ” Gingrich said, “Well look, I think this is the beginning of turning the Trump rally into a Trump reality. He’s already working very hard to create jobs. He is going to do a lot more. His deregulation efforts are going to pay off big time. They need to pass tax reform which will really accelerate economic growth. He is going to be very frugal how the government buys things that will bring down the deficit. That will further help economic growth. So I think you’re seeing the beginnings, I emphasize beginnings, of a potential Trump economic era, that could involve great consumer confidence, lots of people starting new businesses and a real boom in American job creation. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN, | 1 |
During her opening statement on Saturday’s edition of the Fox News Channel’s “Justice,” Judge Jeanine Pirro ripped into 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after she blamed WikiLeaks and Jim Comey’s letter on October 28th for losing the election to President Donald Trump. Judge Jeanine called Clinton a “loser” and told her to go back into hiding. “Hillary, snap out of it,” Pirro said. “I’m tired of going through this with you. You’re a loser who lost because you were a lousy candidate, you didn’t have a message, you lied every time you opened your mouth you didn’t know what states to campaign in, you put our national security at risk with your amateur email setup, you were in a foundation that was nothing more than an organized criminal enterprise parading as a charity, four men died under your watch as you lied about a video, and there [were] a billion dollars missing from the State Department when you left. And I could go on and on, but I just don’t have the time. So, stop with the poor me nonsense. We’ve had it with you Clintons always claiming victimhood. The two of you haven’t followed the rules since the day you both showed up in your bell bottoms in Arkansas. ” She later warned, “Be careful, Hillary. Be very, very careful. You pulled the wool over Jim Comey’s eyes once, and you actually got the president to say you’re a nice lady. Don’t be so sure you’re going to get away with your new game, given your illegal, and incompetent instincts. You’re a loser, Hillary. Face it. Face it, and get back in the woods!” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Donald Trump said Saturday that Democratic Georgia Rep. John Lewis should pay more attention to the crime plaguing his district than bellyache over the election results. [“Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad!” Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to … … — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017, mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk — no action or results. Sad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 14, 2017, Lewis’s district encompasses most of Atlanta, named as one of America’s top murder capitals by the FBI. Here are a sampling of crime headlines from the first two weeks of 2017: Lewis declared on Friday he will not attend Trump’s inauguration. “I don’t see the as a legitimate president,” Lewis had told NBC News’ Chuck Todd earlier. Revealing authentic emails from Democrats, including speeches given by Hillary Clinton about her “dream” of open borders, unfairly “destroyed” her candidacy, Lewis complained. “I think the Russians participated in having this man get elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don’t plan to attend the Inauguration,” he said. “I think there was a conspiracy on the part of the Russians, and others, that helped him get elected. That’s not right. That’s not fair. That’s not the open, democratic process. ” | 1 |
A white nationalist group called White Lives Matter, which calls itself an opponent of the Black Lives Matter movement, has been declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that tracks extremist groups in the United States. “The White Lives Matter website says their movement is dedicated to the preservation of the white race. That tells you all you need to know,” said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. “They’re against integration, immigration. This is standard white supremacist stuff. ” The group, which grew out of a social media meme, argues that white Americans are victims of a genocide caused by factors like the immigration of nonwhite people and marriage between white Christians and nonwhites or Jews, Ms. Beirich said. The law center’s designation is meant to draw attention to and increase scrutiny of the group’s activities. Last week, its members held a protest outside the Houston office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to demand that it denounce Black Lives Matter, according to video posted online by the group. The Houston Chronicle reported that some of the protesters carried assault rifles and Confederate flags. Researchers with the law center said White Lives Matter had been promoted by the Aryan Renaissance Society, a group in Texas that is a member of the United Aryan Front, a white nationalist coalition. Ms. Beirich said the center’s designation focused on one chapter of the group based in Nashville that is led by Rebecca Barnette, a leader of the Aryan Strikeforce, a skinhead group, and the National Socialist Movement, America’s largest group. Ms. Barnette did not respond to an email seeking comment on Monday, but White Lives Matter posted several videos criticizing the Southern Poverty Law Center to its YouTube channel in the past two days. One video described White Lives Matter’s members as “just the guy next door. ” Ms. Beirich said the number of white supremacist groups in the United States had grown in the past year and attributed that to the racially charged rhetoric of the presidential campaign. There are 892 active hate groups in the country, the law center said. “Certainly we’ve got people who are much more energized in a way that didn’t exist before, and that’s all because of the presidential campaign,” Ms. Beirich said before specifying Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee “Trump has given these people hope they didn’t have before that they could influence politics or that they would at least be listened to. ” Ms. Barnette described herself as White Lives Matter’s in her profile on Vk. com, a Russian social networking site preferred by white nationalists for its lenient approach to posts that contain racist content. She said the group’s name had “been picked up by several other groups who are doing their own things with it. ” Mark Pitcavage, a researcher at the League, agreed that the phrase had spread beyond the group. “White Lives Matter is a concept around which you can organize an event without necessarily being a formal organization,” he said. “It is essentially the sum of the number of people who have done actions in the name of White Lives Matter. ” “For white supremacists, ‘White Lives Matter’ is an obvious meme, so they will use it,” he said. On Vk. com, Ms. Barnette defended the group, writing that its members were unfairly labeled ”domestic terrorists. ” In other posts she argued that white women represent “the elite of the human species. ” She also shared Nazi memes and frequently used racist, and homophobic slurs. “We do not live by the code of the nonwhites,” she wrote in one post calling for her followers to take action against the federal government, Jews and . “Our forefathers built the nation that is being allowed to be destroyed. ” Later she added, “I wish Hitler were here alive and well today. ” | 1 |
ISTANBUL — When Aynur Barkin became one of roughly 40, 000 teachers purged from Turkey’s education system after last year’s attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, she was not immediately replaced. As a result, her students were forced to join the third grade, tripling their original class size. “I could pay attention to each of them one by one,” said Ms. Barkin, 37, who was fired in February from a school west of Istanbul. “But their new teacher can’t do that. ” That is one example of the administrative upheaval and chaos caused by the government’s vast purge of Turkish institutions since the failed coup in July — the backdrop for a referendum on Sunday to expand the president’s powers. Mr. Erdogan’s government has sought to root out any remaining dissent by targeting nearly every segment of society. It has also used the purge as cover for a crackdown on dissidents of all stripes, including leftists like Ms. Barkin. The numbers are extraordinary. The government has fired or suspended about 130, 000 people suspected of being dissidents from the public and private sectors. Most are accused of affiliations with the Gulen movement, the Islamic followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused of orchestrating the putsch. More than 8, 000 army officers, 8, 000 police officers, 5, 000 academics and 4, 000 judges and prosecutors have been forced out, according to estimates. The social cost has been significant. Watchdogs say that around 1, 200 schools, 50 hospitals and 15 universities have been closed. Affected schoolchildren have usually been able to find places in local state schools — but their purged parents have mostly been frozen out of the job market. Turkey has become “like an prison,” said Sezgin Yurdakul, 40, who was fired from the Istanbul ferry system because his daughter attended a school on a scholarship. Mr. Yurdakul’s name is blacklisted on a national database, so no employer has yet dared to give him a new job. He, like thousands of other purged employees of the state, is now living off his savings. The vacuum left by people like Mr. Yurdakul has prompted many Turks to question which individuals are permitted to fill the void — and which factions, if any, have benefited. Mr. Erdogan’s allies argue that a wide range of groups has filled the void. But some claim that the gaps have been largely plugged by members of other Islamic orders, or loyalists from the president’s Justice and Development Party, known as the A. K. P. “The A. K. P. ’s own cadres are filling the void,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the largest opposition party. “They want to establish a bureaucratic structure that accepts whatever the politicians say. ” Mustafa Karadag, the head of the judges’ union, says that gaps in the judiciary have often been filled by novices who can provide letters of accreditation from a legal guild with links to the A. K. P. “This has allowed access to the judicial and prosecutorial professions to those who receive lower marks but who have a closer relationship to the government, or who are able to procure references from them,” Mr. Karadag said. The government denies this. Ibrahim Kalin, the president’s official spokesman, said in a recent briefing with reporters that those let go had been “replaced by ordinary people” who had “all gone through very transparent, open examinations. ” But even some of the president’s critics say the situation is too chaotic, and the purges too widespread, for one faction alone to have benefited. To fill the holes in the bureaucracy and the political sphere, some say, Mr. Erdogan has had to rely on nationalists, nationalists, novices and recalled retirees, as well as party loyalists and Islamists. “The perception among Turks is that Erdogan rules everything, but that’s not the case,” said Orhan Gazi Ertekin, a judge who heads the Democratic Judicial Association, a liberal legal watchdog. “There are various groups, all different to each other, that previously plotted against each other, but are now in alliance” against the Gulenists. The most striking example may be that of Dogu Perincek, the leader of the tiny Patriotic Party. He was jailed for plotting to overthrow Mr. Erdogan before his conviction was quashed in 2014. Upon his release, Mr. Perincek pledged to “demolish” Mr. Erdogan’s government, which he accuses of undermining Turkey’s secular system. Yet, in a recent interview, Mr. Perincek offered qualified approval of some of Mr. Erdogan’s recent policies. “There’s no reason for us to fight. We became side by side. They are now following our program,” he said, referring to Mr. Erdogan’s government. Mr. Erdogan also has the unlikely support of the Nationalist Movement Party, also known as the M. H. P. a nationalist group whose votes helped him secure parliamentary backing for the referendum. In return, senior officials with the nationalist group privately say, they expect cabinet seats after the referendum. If they get what they want, it would constitute an unlikely for a party whose leader once called Mr. Erdogan a “political disaster. ” In the military, the firings of thousands of officers have led to no obvious ideological victor. Mr. Erdogan raised eyebrows with the appointment last August of Adnan Tanriverdi, a former general, as his new military adviser. Mr. Tanriverdi was expelled from the army in 1996 because of concerns over his religiosity. He has since run a group for other soldiers fired for similar reasons in the late 1990s, known as the Association of Justice Defenders. His appointment as Mr. Erdogan’s adviser prompted claims that the president had enlisted Mr. Tanriverdi to help install loyalists in the army. But Mr. Tanriverdi’s allies said that no other members of his association had been appointed to positions of significance. Other observers have concluded that a mix of factions has benefited from the purge of the military. ultranationalists — known as Eurasianists and sometimes associated with Mr. Perincek — have profited at the expense of officers, according to two military experts at Sabanci University in Istanbul. “It seems for now that the Eurasianists will hold on to their influence and ranks, but for how long remains a question,” Megan Gisclon and Metin Gurcan, a former officer in the Turkish special forces, wrote in a briefing last year. One former military prosecutor says such was the scale of undercover Gulenists’ infiltration over the last two decades that they are still the largest faction in the armed forces. “In the Turkish armed forces,” said Ahmet Zeki Ucok, who once led investigations into Gulenists in the military, “if there is a group that currently is influential, it’s still the Gulenists. ” In some parts of higher education, the vacuum has not been filled. At Ankara University, half of the 14 professors in the university’s human rights law department have been let go, and it has had to scrap more than half its courses. It will not admit new students during the next academic year. The remaining professors have had to triple the number of students in their care, and they have no ability to supervise new arrivals. “How can we write our dissertations?” asked Emine Ay, a master’s student who has been left without a supervisor. Her department head, Prof. Kerem Altiparmak, said: “If our professors are not reinstated, this program will end. These are the last students we will see in this program. ” Some wonder if this, in fact, is the goal: to dismantle one of the country’s liberal strongholds. In the judiciary, the number purged is of Turkey’s 12, 000 judges and prosecutors. “If you purge 30 to 40 percent of the judiciary, in a sense you purge it all,” Judge Ertekin said. “There’s no tradition left and no knowledge left. ” Mr. Karadag, the head of the judges’ union, said the government was filling the vacancies with loyalists. Some say the situation is dangerous for Mr. Erdogan because it leaves him vulnerable to groups beyond his control, just as his relationship with the Gulenist network once did. “As long as he depends on these alliances,” Judge Ertekin said, “a new betrayal may be on the horizon, too. ” Mr. Erdogan’s newfound allies in Parliament, the M. H. P. offer a glimpse of this vulnerability. While the party’s leadership supports expanding the president’s powers, several of its lawmakers do not. Many in the party’s ultranationalist rank and file also have yet to be convinced. In the case of Mr. Perincek, the leader of the party, his support for Mr. Erdogan goes only so far. While he applauds the president’s recent policies, he says the president has eroded the country’s secular character. Significantly, he also vehemently opposes the expansion of Mr. Erdogan’s powers, and therefore opposes the referendum. “Turkey,” Mr. Perincek said, “is not going to carry Tayyip Erdogan on its shoulders. ” | 1 |
SNAPCHAT: 100,000,000 people worldwide , with an estimated 8 billion daily views. YOUTUBE: 1,325,000 people worldwide , who watch 3,250,000,000 hours of videos per month. INTERNET: 3,200,000,000 people worldwide , or just under half the world’s population are surfing the web.
As you can see , Internet usage is huge with tons of room left to grow, and social media accounts is how all those billions of people communicate with each other. NTEB regularly gets emails from South Africa, New Zealand, All of the United States, Israel, Asia, you name it. The prophesied “global community” is not coming…it is, obviously, already here. And if you are reading this right now, either via email or on a website, you are a part of said global community. Now let me start to tie it together for you.
How often does one of your Facebook friends just “disappear”, and then 3 days, a week, 3 weeks later they pop back up and tell you that they were in “ Facebook Jail “? I see it happening a lot, and am sure that you do as well. Many people, when deprived of the ability to post and interact with their global community, get anxious, depressed and experience genuine psychological trauma. Over the last 10 years, we have been retrained to think differently, act differently, and experience life through the filter of the cyber-world. There are gatekeepers who control that world, and when you violate one of their silly rules, you are locked out. This is, in essence, exactly how life will unfold under the Mark of the Beast system.
How many of your social media friends who are frequent visitors of social media jail ever close thier accounts and stop the insanity? Almost none. They want the system, they need the system, and cannot live apart from the system. They rant, rave and rail against Facebook, and yet there they are. Addicted. No matter how often Facebook jails them, they come back.
“The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings’ palaces.” Proverbs 30:28 (KJV)
What happens to things caught in a web? They stay caught until the spider shows up. Social media is the web, and the Spider is on the way. Want to play a fun game? Close your social media accounts, all of them for a month, and see what happens. The results will shock you. How It Works: Internet of Things
Under the rule of Antichrist , in order to be included in the global community, you are required to take the Mark. If you refuse, swift, severe and fatal judgment will be issued and you will cease to exist. The Bible says that people refusing the Mark will be decapitated. There is no forgiveness from God for taking the Mark, but if you don’t take the Mark you can’t feed your babies, pay your bills, or interact with the global community.
“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4 (KJV)
Social media is training you to accept global rules in order to maintain membership in a global community. More people now connect to the web via hand-held devices than through desktop or laptop computers. Those devices control more and more of our daily lives. There are apps to regulate the air conditioning and heating in your home, open your garage door , deposit money to to your bank account , monitor your vital signs , or meet a date for Saturday night . We literally could not function in our society without these things. So will it really be a big leap from having your device on your belt to having your device under your skin? Nope, not at all. People will jump at the chance to do it.
“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 (KJV)
So the next time you try to login to one of your social media accounts, only to receive the dreaded warning of “Your account has been suspended for __ days for violation of our policies”, and you get first angry and then depressed, remember you’re part of the new global community. You have to live and play by global rules set to control the masses. The “secret government file” of yesteryear we all worried the FBI had on us cannot hold a candle to the interactive file that you created on yourself to be spied on with.
“Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;” Titus 2:13 (KJV)
The Mark of the Beast system ? It’s already here and you’re already in it. It will “activate” when the Beast shows up. If you would like to “check out” of here in the Rapture before the Antichrist comes to power, click here for the one thing you need to do.
| 0 |
posted by Eddie It seems that the long wait to receive a signal from outer space has finally paid off because after years of silence two astronomers from the Laval University in Quebec claim to have found 234 signals from alien civilizations. Ermanno Borra and his graduate student Eric Trottier, the astronomers we mentioned, begun analyzing stars and galaxies in search of light emitted at regular intervals. After analyzing 2.5 million of them they found what they were looking for in234 stars which resemble our Sun in size. According to the researchers, the signals are emitted by alien civilizations. The team was focused on the light spectrum’s Fourier Transform (FT). For the uninformed, an FT is a mathematical device that helps scientists to find the origin of the signal’s components and how they came to be. For example, if the light is a muffin, using the FT formula will reveal the recipe, couldn’t be simpler than that. The FT analysis revealed periodic modulated components which the scientists believe are a result of the super quick light pulses (less than a trillionth of a second) sent by Extraterrestrial Intelligence (ETI). Their paper is published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and it reveals that the scientists discard any other possible explanation like instrumental effects, rotation of molecules, rapid stellar pulsations, and peculiar chemistry. They write: “ We find that the detected signals have exactly the shape of an ETI signal predicted in the previous publication and are therefore in agreement with this hypothesis . The fact that they are only found in a very small fraction of stars within a narrow spectral range centered near the spectral type of the Sun is also in agreement with the ETI hypothesis .” Only extremely powerful lasers, such as the one found at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , could generate these superfast pulses. Furthermore, Ermanno Borra has previously published articles where he states that this is the least explored area of astronomy. An inevitable question then arises: Why would these aliens choose such a complex and energy-consuming way to communicate? Surely they could have figured out a better way, after all they’re supposed to be millions of light years ahead of us in terms of technology and science. Although the team believes that the most logical explanation would be that aliens are trying to communicate with us, they are aware that further research is needed to confirm their findings. Breakthrough Listen , a Stephen Hawking-backed project will take up the task of further analyzing the 234 stars the team found, but the UC Berkeley team (the project’s science program base) encourages people to be skeptical regarding the findings, until further proof is available. The Breakthrough Listen team released a statement saying: “ The one in 10,000 objects with unusual spectra seen by Borra and Trottier are certainly worthy of additional study. However, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is too early to unequivocally attribute these purported signals to the activities of extraterrestrial civilizations .” Source: | 0 |
The International Olympic Committee has tried to discourage by the news media and others during the Rio Games — good luck with that — but this hasn’t stopped the people of the internet from spotting a good meme when they see one. Behold, #PhelpsFace. Phelps, the most successful and possibly the most scrutinized Olympian in history, was caught making a grimly determined face that only the internet could love as he prepped Monday for his semifinal in the butterfly. What was Phelps thinking while wrapped in his gear? Perhaps he was trying to telegraph a message to his rivals: “Don’t mess with my medal count, or I will destroy you. ” Such a telepathic challenge might have been meant especially for Chad le Clos of South Africa, who was dancing and jiggling just a few feet away like one of those deflated noodle men often found dancing in front of used car dealerships. In an interview with NBC after his heat, Phelps claimed he had been thinking about “nothing” as le Clos wriggled and shadowboxed in front of him. But the two swimmers have an interesting history. At the 2012 Games in London, le Clos handed Phelps his first international defeat in a decade, in the butterfly. Le Clos later said that watching Phelps collect a record eight gold medals in Beijing in 2008 had been a major source of inspiration as he developed his own program. “He was the reason I swam the butterfly,” le Clos told The New York Times recently. “It’s not a joke. ” Only hours old, images of Phelps’s face seemed to have the potential to go down in the history of ridiculous sports memes. (Somewhere, Michael Jordan is sighing with relief.) Fans even imagined what Phelps was listening to on his headphones: Could it be Eminem, Papa Roach or Alanis Morissette? Though the Games are only a few days in, followers of the United States swim team have been spoiled by a group of athletes who seem at home expressing themselves for the cameras. First, there was the car pool karaoke episode. Then Lilly King directed a finger wag at one of her competitors, Yulia Efimova of Russia, who had failed a test for meldonium. King then made her most definitive statement in the pool, beating Efimova in the breaststroke and setting an Olympic record. For his part, Phelps told NBC that he had been “trying to not really even look at” le Clos’s gyrating. “He does his thing, I do mine,” Phelps said. The rivals were facing each other Tuesday in the finals of the butterfly. Expect material. | 1 |
The ‘Islamic ’ Notre Dame hammer attacker was allegedly radicalised in Sweden and awarded a “Journalist Prize Against Discrimination” by the European Union (EU) for writing articles during his time there. [The Algerian suspected jihadist Farid Ikken, 40, was given the award in 2009 by the European Commission, the EU’s unelected executive branch, for a report about asylum seekers claiming healthcare in Sweden, Expressen reports. The “EU Commission’s National Journalist Prize Against Discrimination” was awarded to him for an article dealing with “asylum seekers who are not entitled to medical care and who are therefore forced to seek medical care, as well as healthcare staff and others who still provide health care to asylum seekers,” the Commission wrote in a statement. Eight years later, this Tuesday, the journalist cried “this is for Syria” while hitting a policeman with a hammer in front of France’s most iconic cathedral. The highly educated, jihadi was shot in the chest and is currently recovering in hospital. He also left a video claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group, according to The Times. VIDEO van de aanval met hamer op politieagent nabij de . (LCI) pic. twitter. — Terreur Nieuws (@DreigingNL) June 7, 2017, The future terrorist came to Sweden to study for a master’s degree, LIC reports, where he had a Swedish wife before getting a divorce. His nephew, Sofiane Ikken, claims he was radicalised during his time. “I think he started to take an interest in religion during his stay in Sweden,” he told a Algerian site. After graduating from university in the Swedish capital Stockholm, he worked as a freelance journalist for various papers and radio stations between 2009 and 2010, when he wrote his article. He then returned to his native Algeria after the 2011 Arab uprising, where he set up a regional news site and worked on Al Watan, a national newspaper, before moving to France in 2013 to study for a PhD. Mr. Ikken regularly wrote about terror and jihad during this time. Describing his work at the Algerian news site, he wrote on his Linkedin profile: “I headed up a small team composed of two permanent journalists, two freelancers and a translator for two years. “My main task was to ensure that the content of our website was updated continuously, and to edit material sent by correspondents or written by journalists. ” He added: “The processing of press releases, the call to civil protection services, hospitals, public institutions and institutions, the translation of Arabic and English content and the correction of texts were also part of my duties. “I also assisted in the writing of news articles and the editorial regularly. ” | 1 |
No, no just leave the gun there and GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN NOW!!! | 0 |
Hillary Clintons E-Mails und die Muslimbruderschaft von Thierry Meyssan Die Ermittlungen des FBI zu den privaten E-Mails von Hillary Clinton sind nicht gegen eine Vernachlässigung der Sicherheitsbestimmungen gerichtet, sondern gegen eine Verschwörung zu dem Zweck, jede Spur ihres Schriftverkehrs, der auf Bundes-Servern hätte archiviert werden müssen, beiseite zu schaffen. Sie könnte den Austausch von E-Mails über illegale Finanzmittelbeschaffungen oder Bestechungen umfassen oder auch über die Verbindungen des Ehepaars Clinton zu den Muslimbrüdern und den Dschihadisten.
Voltaire Netzwerk | Damaskus (Syrien) | 1. November 2016 ελληνικά English Español français Türkçe русский Hillary Clinton und ihre Kabinettschefin Huma Abedin. Die Wiederaufnahme der FBI-Ermittlungen zum privaten E-Mail-Verkehr von Hillary Clinton ist nicht mehr auf Sicherheitsfragen gerichtet, sondern auf Mauscheleien, die bis zum Hochverrat gehen könnten.
In technischer Hinsicht hatte die Außenministerin, statt einen gesicherten Server des Bundes zu benutzen, an ihrem Wohnsitz einen privaten Server einrichten lassen, um das Internet nutzen zu können, ohne auf einem Gerät der Bundesregierung Spuren zu hinterlassen. Frau Clintons privater Techniker hatte vor der Ankunft des FBI ihren Server bereinigt, sodass es nicht möglich war herauszufinden, warum sie diese Einrichtung hatte installieren lassen.
Im ersten Anlauf hatte das FBI festgestellt, dass der private Server nicht die Sicherheitsvorkehrungen des Servers des Außenministeriums aufwies. Frau Clinton hatte also nur einen Sicherheitsverstoß begangen. Im zweiten Schritt beschlagnahmte das FBI den Computer des ehemaligen Kongressmitglieds Anthony Weiner. Er ist der frühere Ehemann von Huma Abedin, der Kabinettschefin von Hillary. Dort sind E-Mails wiedergefunden worden, die von der Außenministerin stammen.
Anthony Weiner ist ein den Clintons sehr nahestehender jüdischer Politiker, der Bürgermeister von New York werden wollte. Nach einem sehr puritanischen Skandal musste er aufgeben: Er hatte erotische SMS an eine junge Frau geschickt, die nicht seine Ehefrau war. Offiziell trennte sich Huma Abedin während dieser Turbulenzen von ihm, in Wirklichkeit verließ sie ihn aber nicht.
Huma Abedin ist eine US-Amerikanerin, die in Saudi-Arabien aufgezogen wurde. Ihr Vater hat die Leitung einer akademischen Zeitschrift – für die sie jahrelang Redaktionsassistentin war –, die regelmäßig die Ansichten der Muslimbrüder wiedergab. Ihre Mutter hat den Vorsitz in der saudischen Vereinigung der weiblichen Mitglieder der Muslimbruderschaft und arbeitete mit der Ehefrau des ägyptischen Präsidenten Morsi zusammen. Ihr Bruder Hassan arbeitet auf Rechnung von Scheich Yusuf al-Qaradawi, dem Prediger der Muslimbrüder und spirituellen Berater von Al-Jazeera.
Anlässlich einer offiziellen Reise nach Saudi-Arabien besucht die Außenministerin in Begleitung der Vorsitzenden der Vereinigung der Muslimschwestern in der Bruderschaft, Saleha Abedin (Mutter der Kabinettschefin), das College Dar al-Hekma. Huma Abedin ist heute eine zentrale Persönlichkeit der Präsidentschaftskampagne Clintons an der Seite des Wahlkampfleiters John Podesta, dem ehemaligen Stabschef des Weißen Hauses in der Amtszeit Bill Clintons. Für die bescheidene Summe von 200.000 Dollar ist Podesta übrigens im Kongress der ständige Lobbyist des saudi-arabischen Königreichs. Am 12. Juni 2016 hatte Petra, die amtliche Presseagentur Jordaniens, ein Interview mit dem arabischen Kronprinzen Mohammed bin Salman veröffentlicht, in dem er die Modernität seiner Familie damit unter Beweis stellte, dass sie illegal zu 20 Prozent die Präsidentschaftskampagne Hillary Clintons finanziert habe, obwohl sie eine Frau ist. Am Tag nach dieser Veröffentlichung zog die Agentur die Meldung zurück und behauptete, ihre Webseite sei gehackt worden.
Laut der amtlichen jordanischen Presseagentur Petra vom 12. Juni 2016 hat die saudische königliche Familie illegal 20 Prozent der Präsidentschaftskampagne von Hillary Clinton finanziert. Frau Abedin ist nicht das einzige mit der Bruderschaft verbundene Mitglied der Obama-Regierung. Der Halbbruder des Präsidenten, Abon’go Malik Obama, ist Schatzmeister des Missionswerks der Bruderschaft im Sudan und Vorsitzender der Stiftung Barack H. Obama. Er ist dem sudanesischen Präsidenten Omar el-Bechir direkt unterstellt. Ein Muslimbruder ist Mitglied im Nationalen Sicherheitsrat, der obersten exekutiven Instanz der Vereinigten Staaten. Von 2009 bis 2012 war dies Mehdi K. Alhassani. Es ist nicht bekannt, wer sein Nachfolger war, aber das Weiße Haus leugnete, dass ein Muslimbruder im Sicherheitsrat sei, bis ein Beweis auftauchte. Auch der Botschafter der Vereinigten Staaten bei der Islamischen Konferenz, Rashad Hussain, ist Muslimbruder. Die anderen identifizierten Brüder besetzen weniger wichtige Ämter. Doch muss Louay M. Safi, zur Zeit Mitglied der Syrischen Nationalen Koalition und ehemaliger Pentagon-Berater, genannt werden.
Präsident Obama und sein Halbbruder Abon’go Malik Obama im Oval Office. Abon’go Malik ist Schatzmeister des Missionswerks der Muslimbrüder im Sudan. Im April 2009, zwei Monate vor seiner Kairoer Rede, hatte Präsident Obama heimlich eine Delegation der Bruderschaft im Oval Office empfangen. Bereits bei seiner Amtseinführung hatte er Ingrid Mattson, die Vorsitzende der Vereinigung der muslimischen Brüder und Schwestern in den Vereinigten Staaten, eingeladen.
Die Clinton-Stiftung hat ihrerseits als Verantwortlichen für ihr „Klima“-Projekt Gehad el-Haddad eingesetzt, einen der globalen Führer der Bruderschaft, der bis dahin Leiter einer Koran-TV-Sendung war. Sein Vater war 1951 einer der Mitbegründer der Bruderschaft bei ihrer Neubildung durch die CIA und den MI6. Gehad verließ die Stiftung 2012 zu dem Zeitpunkt, als er in Kairo Sprecher des Kandidaten Mohammed Morsi wurde, dann offizieller Sprecher der Muslimbrüder weltweit.
Wenn man weiß, dass die Gesamtheit der dschihadistischen Führer auf der Welt entweder aus der Bruderschaft oder aus dem Sufi-Orden der Naqchbandis – die beiden Bestandteile der islamischen Weltliga, der saudischen antinationalistischen arabischen Organisation – hervorgegangen ist, wüsste man gern mehr über die Beziehungen von Frau Clinton zu Saudi-Arabien und den Muslimbrüdern.
Nun befindet sich im Team ihres Herausforderers Donald Trump General Michael T. Flynn, der versucht hatte sich der Gründung des Kalifats durch das Weiße Haus entgegenzustellen und aus dem Vorstand der Defense Intelligence Agency (militärischer Nachrichtendienst) zurücktrat, um seine Missbilligung herauszustellen. Er kommt dort in Berührung mit Frank Gaffney, einem historischen „kalten Krieger“, der jetzt als „Verschwörungstheoretiker“ angeprangert wird, weil er die Anwesenheit der Bruderschaft im Föderalstaat aufgedeckt hat.
Es versteht sich von selbst, dass aus Sicht des FBI jede Unterstützung für die dschihadistischen Organisationen ein Verbrechen darstellt, unabhängig davon, wie die Politik der CIA aussieht. 1991 haben die Polizisten – und Senator John Kerry – den Zusammenbruch der pakistanischen Bank BCCI (obgleich auf den Kaiman-Inseln registriert) bewirkt, die von der CIA für alle Arten von Geheimoperationen mit den Muslimbrüdern und auch mit den Latino-Drogenkartellen benutzt wurde.
Thierry Meyssan Übersetzung
Sabine | 0 |
BNI Store Oct 26 2016 Coming soon, to a French neighborhood near you…7,000 MORE illegal alien Muslim invaders who set fire to their Calais jungle camp as the camp was being shut down Hey, where are all the women and children? Reuters French authorities said on Wednesday they had finished clearing the “Jungle”, a squalid shantytown outside Calais built by Muslim invaders who had hoped to make the passage to Britain but whose last inhabitants are now mostly dispersed around France. The operation passed off peacefully for the most part, though some migrants torched tents and shelters in a last act of defiance as their hopes of a new life in Britain evaporated. Some reports say that British anarchists set fire to the tents. “This is the end of the ‘Jungle’,” Calais regional prefect Fabienne Buccio said. “Mission accomplished.” Earlier in the day, riot police spread out around the camp, and fire trucks moved in to put out blazes that sent plumes of smoke into the sky. Muslim freeloaders from the Middle East, Asia and Africa congregated to Calais hoping to cross the short stretch of sea to Britain by leaping on trucks and trains, or even walking through the tunnel under the Channel. Britain refused to accept the vast majority of them – apart from a number of unaccompanied child migrants (who are actually adults in their 20’s and 30’s) now being processed separately – and high fences were built to keep them away from the port traffic, but still they came. Local opposition to the sprawling slum, along with growing criticism from right-wing politicians, finally stung the French government into action. The British referendum vote this year to quit the European Union was in large part driven by such worries, and stoked by scenes of the Calais migrants trying to force their way in. Hamid, 30, from Afghanistan, said he had been among those setting fire to shelters in the Jungle, and still hoped to cross the Channel to Britain. “We don’t care about problems that are to come after this. We did it because we don’t want to stay in France,” he said. “We want to go to England and England only. It doesn’t matter if I go to jail here.” | 0 |
If Catcalls Were Politically Correct...
October 29, 2016 we interrupt election coverage for this attempt to make you chuckle If men could grow up, what would they say they saw on the street? by Henry Makow Ph.D. "Women are caught in a vice," I remarked to a friend. "They are judged almost entirely on the basis of sex appeal. Nature is cruel." He was telling me how he and a male friend had sat in a cafe rating the women that passed by. "Aren't men pathetic?" I said. "Here we are in our sixties, and we still see women the same way we did when we were 20. We haven't grown up." This got me thinking. What if we could grow up? What would we be saying about them? "I can imagine having a conversation with that one" "She'd be a great mother for my children." "I can see her decorating our house, making it feel very comfortable and homelike." "Yes, she is attractive but what about her character, personality and talent? Can she cook?" If these sentiments were vocalized, they would come under the category of mature catcalls. Catcalls range from vulgar to sweet. Women naturally find the vulgar ones extremely offensive. They are abusive...sexual harassment. But some women find nice catcalls flattering and miss the attention when they stop. Some men see them as compliments as well. They don't understand why women go to so much trouble to look attractive yet resent attention. It's usually the women who have been tainted by feminism who are most easily offended. They have been inverted and fear any kind of male attention. So I've devised some politically correct catcalls. "Honey, I'd sure like to crash through the glass ceiling with you." "If you were a pilot, I'd fly with you!" "If you got a promotion in another city, I'd move for you and look after the kids!" Got any comments or catcalls that fall into either of the above categories? | 0 |
Crack in Earth’s magnetic shield detected 11/04/2016
DNA INDIA
The world’s largest and most sensitive cosmic ray monitor, located in India, has recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays that indicates a crack in the Earth’s magnetic shield, according to scientists.
The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona struck Earth at a very high speed causing massive compression of the Earth’s magnetosphere and triggering a severe geomagnetic storm.
The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research’s Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty in Tamil Nadu recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays of about 20 GeV last year lasting for two hours.
The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona, and moving with a speed of about 2.5 million kilometres per hour struck our planet, causing a severe compression of Earth’s magnetosphere from 11 to 4 times the radius of Earth.
It triggered a severe geomagnetic storm that generated aurora borealis and radio signal blackouts in many high latitude countries, according to the study published in the journal Physical Review Letters this week.
Earth’s magnetosphere extends over a radius of a million kilometres, which acts as the first line of defence, shielding us from the continuous flow of solar and galactic cosmic rays, thus protecting life on our planet from these high intensity energetic radiations.
Numerical simulations performed by the GRAPES-3 researchers, including Pravata K Mohanty, indicate that the Earth’s magnetic shield temporarily cracked due to the occurrence of magnetic reconnection, allowing the lower energy galactic cosmic ray particles to enter our atmosphere.
Earth’s magnetic field bent these particles about 180 degree, from the day-side to the night-side of the Earth where it was detected as a burst by the GRAPES-3 muon telescope around mid-night on 22 June 2015.
The data was analysed and interpreted through extensive simulation over several weeks by using the 1280-core computing farm that was built in-house by the GRAPES-3 team of physicists and engineers at the Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty.
Solar storms can cause major disruption to human civilisation by crippling large electrical power grids, global positioning systems (GPS), satellite operations and communications. | 0 |
Hillary Clinton became the first woman to capture the presidential nomination of one of the country’s major political parties on Monday night, according to an Associated Press survey of Democratic superdelegates, securing enough of them to overcome a bruising challenge from Senator Bernie Sanders and turn to a brutal campaign against Donald J. Trump. In a yearlong nomination fight full of surprise twists, from the popularity of Mr. Sanders to the success of Mr. Trump, the revelation that Mrs. Clinton had clinched the nomination was another startling development — especially coming on the eve of major primaries in California, New Jersey and other states. Mr. Sanders added to the drama by refusing to accept the A. P. survey and vowing to fight on, while Mr. Trump argued that he had done more for women than Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton was ebullient but also restrained as she received the news at an uncanny moment — almost eight years to the day after she ended her campaign against Barack Obama before a crowd of many teary women and girls. On Monday night, she shared the breakthrough with a jubilant audience at a campaign stop in Long Beach, Calif. “I got to tell you, according to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do, don’t we?” Mrs. Clinton said. “We have six elections tomorrow, and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California. ” Like Mr. Obama eight years ago, Mrs. Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination with the support of hundreds of superdelegates — the party insiders, Democratic officials, members of Congress, major donors and others who help select the nominee. Under Democratic rules, these superdelegates — approximately 720 in all — are allowed to back any candidate they wish and can change their allegiance any time before the Democratic National Convention in July. Mrs. Clinton has had relationships with many of the superdelegates for years, and her campaign began seeking their support as soon as she entered the race last spring. Mr. Sanders, by contrast, has struggled to win their backing. Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders competed most aggressively for pledged delegates — the roughly 4, 000 delegates won through state primaries and caucuses. The A. P. declared Mrs. Clinton the presumptive nominee by reaching out to superdelegates who had not announced which candidate they were supporting, and confirming that enough were backing Mrs. Clinton to get her to the magic number of 2, 383. But her aides were reluctant to proclaim the race over, for fear of depressing turnout on Tuesday — especially in California, where the race remains close — or appearing to take the victory for granted. Robby Mook, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, said the A. P.’s call was “an important milestone” but indicated Mrs. Clinton did not intend to declare victory until Tuesday night, when she “will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates. ” Advisers to Mr. Sanders took a dim view of the math. He previously said he would lobby Clinton superdelegates to shift their support to him by arguing that he is the party’s best chance to defeat Mr. Trump, and he particularly plans to target those superdelegates who represent states where Mr. Sanders won primaries and caucuses. The advisers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Mr. Sanders was aiming to win the California primary on Tuesday to bolster his argument to superdelegates that he is the stronger and more popular candidate than Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Sanders, speaking on Monday night at a rally in San Francisco, did not acknowledge the news that Mrs. Clinton had clinched the nomination, and instead defiantly vowed to continue his candidacy to the convention. But he also made clear that Tuesday’s vote was make or break for the future of his campaign. “Tomorrow is the most important primary in the whole Democratic nominating process — we are going to win here in California,” Mr. Sanders said. He added that if he could win the Tuesday contests in California, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Montana and do well in New Jersey, his campaign would be “going into that convention with enormous momentum. ” Moments before Mr. Sanders took the stage, former State Senator Nina Turner of Ohio led thousands of supporters in a chant shouting, “Fight on. Fight on. Fight on. ” It was a sentiment shared by many audience members like Alex Borja, 18, of Castro Valley, Calif. who said he was happy Mr. Sanders had not conceded to Mrs. Clinton and hoped he would remain in the race through the summer. “I don’t think it’s fair that they have basically coronated Hillary as the nominee from the beginning and, at this point, Bernie still has a chance to win the delegates needed to clinch the nomination at the convention,” Mr. Borja said. He added, however, that he would vote for Mrs. Clinton if she were the nominee. Mr. Sanders’s campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, issued a sharply worded statement that refused to accept the A. P. survey. “It is unfortunate that the media, in a rush to judgment, are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually vote at the convention this summer,” Mr. Briggs said. Mr. Trump struck familiar notes on Monday night on Twitter, attacking Mrs. Clinton as unfit for the presidency, but he also put his own spin on making history during an interview with Fox News. “I was the one that really broke the glass ceiling on behalf of women, more than anybody, in the construction industry,” Mr. Trump said. For Mrs. Clinton, becoming her party’s presumptive nominee is the latest chapter in a remarkable career that has taken her from being the first lady to being one election away from returning to the White House as president. She planned a victory rally on Tuesday in Brooklyn, but by the time The A. P. had called the contest, she seemed to already be in a celebratory mood, ending a campaign slog that had been expected to come to a close after the early contests but dragged on to just before the final votes were tallied, at a “She’s With Us” concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles with John Legend, Christina Aguilera and Stevie Wonder. Mrs. Clinton had for weeks hardly hid her eagerness to put the primary contests against Mr. Sanders behind her and to turn her full focus to the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. Trump. Talking to voters at the Hawkins House of Burgers in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Mrs. Clinton promised to take on Mr. Trump “all the time,” and, earlier that day, she urged Mr. Sanders’s supporters to consider the consequences if Mr. Trump captured the White House. “Anyone who’s supported me, anyone who has supported Senator Sanders has a lot at stake in this election in preventing Donald Trump from being our president, which I can barely say,” she told reporters on Monday. But Mrs. Clinton must also work in the coming weeks to improve her own standing with voters, both with Mr. Sanders’s hordes of young supporters and with a majority of registered voters who say they do not like or trust her. Still, many Democratic allies of Mrs. Clinton did not want to wait until Tuesday’s primaries to celebrate, writing Twitter posts and issuing statements hailing her as the nominee and trying to shift the Democratic Party’s focus and the national political conversation to take aim at Mr. Trump. Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor who now advises a “super PAC,” said in an email: “It’s beyond words incredibly moving for me personally — but premature. We don’t want to crush democracy. Still six states tomorrow whose votes must be counted. It’s crucial to encourage people to vote. ” At Mrs. Clinton’s rally on Monday evening in California, several voters expressed exhilaration at her historic victory. “It’s about time,” said Maria Garibay, a retired manufacturing analyst. But others also braced themselves for a final showdown with Mr. Sanders and ferocious fight against Mr. Trump. “I hope Bernie goes out gracefully,” said Helen Satorius, a retired high school counselor. “We need to beat Trump, completely and totally. So I think now he needs to just be willing to unite. ” | 1 |
Laurence M. Vance https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/romney-ryan/
Remember them? They were the Republican presidential candidates in the last election. Aside from the possible repeal of Obamacare (more likely the substitution of a Republican plan), what major thing would be different right now as concerning the welfare state, the warfare state, or U.s. foreign policy? I have been trying all day to think of something. 3:34 pm on October 30, 2016 | 0 |
Originally published at the Tax Justice Network
This blog comes from Johannesburg, South Africa, where investigative journalists from 28 countries are sharing their work at the African Investigative Journalism Conference . One session looked at stories dug out from the Panama Papers leak from offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca and investigations which have revealed a colourful mix of characters involved in looting Africa.
The stories uncovered include a mafia lawyer linked to the film The French Connection , an absentee landowning Russian oligarch , plus, of course, a former politician , and a “millionaire receptionist” who denies knowledge of having owned nine offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The common factor in all these stories is the role of offshore secrecy jurisdictions populated by western banks, western lawyers, western accounting firms, and protected by leading western nations like the United Kingdom, which even as I write is vigorously trying to protect its Crown Dependencies from attempts to crack down on offshore secrecy .
Unsurprisingly the British Virgin Islands – a British overseas territory – feature heavily, as does Switzerland .
The story of the “millionaire receptionist” Letitia Diergaardt, covered by The Namibian newspaper, provides fascinating insights into the duplicity of offshore secrecy. Diergaardt works as a receptionist/clerk in Windhoek, Namibia. Yet according to The Namibian she technically owns or owned nine offshore companies registered in the British Virgin Islands. However, as The Namibian reports, she denies all knowledge of owning these companies, which were registered in the BVI between 13th and 25th April 2007.
Apparently unknown to her, Diergaardt’s identity was used to provide a nominee shareholder for all nine companies. As The Namibian dryly notes: “on face value, the use of her name in these companies is to represent hidden owners . . “
Secretive shell companies are a core part of the secrecy jurisdiction offer. They provide immunity from criminal investigation and prosecution. They are the ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for crooks and their enablers. Secretive shell companies allow nominee owners to front for those known as the ‘ultimate beneficial owners’, as The Namibian comments:
“The secretive offshore industry relies on a network of individuals whose names are used on official records as directors, company secretaries and shareholders. Often, the real owners who call the shots remain invisible, hiding behind dummy directors, who are only owners of these companies on paper.”
Yet despite all the evidence of abuse of offshore companies registered in Road Town, the British Virgin Islands government persists in blocking moves to make a registry of ultimate beneficial ownership available to public scrutiny. In Jersey, another British tax haven, the authorities refuse to make company ownership information available to investigative journalists by claiming that a public registry would “lead to fraud and cybercrime.”
Let’s be frank. For all their pious words about wanting to crack down on corrupt practices, western governments remain deeply implicated in facilitating the looting of Africa .
As Shinovene Immanuel from The Namibian told this blogger earlier today:
“The West must help Africa by locking the doors through which the money flows, and the West must also pull up their socks to make these offshore companies more transparent. If Western countries want to help developing countries, they must stop standing in the way of investigating corrupt business practices.” 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
Celebrated evangelical Rev. Franklin Graham says that it was the “hand of God,” rather than Russian hackers, that determined the outcome of November’s presidential election. [“I think maybe God has allowed Donald Trump to win this election to protect this nation for the next few years by giving maybe an opportunity to have some good judges,” he said. The son of renowned Baptist minister Billy Graham, the Rev. Franklin Graham has been invited by Trump to be one of six clergy to offer the invocation, benediction, and several readings at his ceremony on January 20. In an interview with Religion News Service Thursday, Graham said that beyond mere human factors, the mysterious hand of divine providence was at work in the elections. “All I know is Donald Trump was supposed to lose the election” according to all the polls, Graham said. “For these states to go the way they did, in my opinion, I think it was the hand of God,” he said. “It wasn’t hacking. It wasn’t or whatever. It was God, in my opinion, and I believe his hand was at work, and I think he’s given Christians an opportunity. ” While never officially endorsing Trump, Rev. Graham has been a sharp critic of the Obama administration and a vocal opponent of Hillary Clinton, especially for her uncompromising support of . Shortly before Election Day, Graham declared that the best choice for president “isn’t difficult to figure out if you are a Christian,” in evident reference to Republican candidate Donald Trump. “There’s two different pictures and two different visions for America,” Graham said in early November. “The Democratic Party has a vision, Hillary Clinton has a vision, Donald Trump has a totally different vision for this nation with the Republican Party. This isn’t difficult to figure out if you are a Christian. ” The evangelist acknowledged that for many, voting for Trump might not have been easy, but he insisted that it was, nonetheless, the better choice and that Trump was a “changed man. ” “You may have to hold your nose and vote,” Graham said. “I have people that say, ‘Well I don’t like Donald Trump, I don’t like what he says.’ Well I don’t like what he said either, I promise I don’t like it. But those are things that he said 11 years ago, not something that he said today. ” “I think Donald Trump has changed,” Graham added. “I think God is working on his heart and in his life. But people have to make up their own mind. ” In a Facebook post some weeks earlier, Graham had stated that “the difference between the candidates is night and day. ” “Some candidates have entire political ads talking about how they spent their career fighting for the rights of children,” he said. “Yet they spent their entire career fighting against the rights of unborn children!” Graham said Hillary Clinton’s progressive agenda was “godless” and could not be defended. Following WikiLeaks revelations, the preacher denounced the “depth of corruption” in Washington politics, calling for its eradication. “WikiLeaks is giving us a much clearer picture of the depth of the corruption that is thriving in our nation’s capital,” Graham wrote, calling it “a swamp that needs to be drained. ” “Our political system is broken, and it will take strong, tough leadership to begin fixing some of this,” Graham said. Regarding the inauguration ceremony, Graham says he still has not decided which Scripture passage to read. “I’m taking time just to pray and ask God to give me wisdom and guidance because it’s a responsibility that I take very seriously,” he said. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome | 1 |
defendants associated with a Russian “ ” syndicate were arrested for a host of crimes. The arrests for alleged racketeering, extortion, robbery, fraud, conspiracy, narcotics, and firearms spanned from Brighton Beach to Las Vegas, NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said. [The acting U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joon H. Kim, and officials with the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) U. S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) announced three indictments and one complaint charging the 33 defendants. Acting Manhattan U. S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement: [W]e have charged 33 members and associates of a Russian organized crime syndicate allegedly engaging a panoply of crimes around the country. The indictments include charges against the alleged head of this national criminal enterprise, one of the first federal racketeering charges ever brought against a Russian ‘vor.’ The dizzying array of criminal schemes committed by this organized crime syndicate allegedly include a conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform, the theft of cargo shipments containing over 10, 000 pounds of chocolate, and a fraud on casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices. FBI Assistant William F. Sweeney Jr. said, “The suspects in this case cast a wide net of criminal activity, aiming to make as much money as possible, all allegedly organized and run by a man who promised to protect them. But that protection didn’t include escaping justice and being arrested by the agents and detectives on the FBI New York Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force. ” Court documents obtained allege members of the “Shulaya Enterprise” operated a complicated conspiracy dealing in stolen cigarettes, the illegal sale of firearms to known felons, gambling activities, illegal debt collection, extortion, and other violent activities. “Most members and associates of the Shulaya Enterprise were born in the former Soviet Union and many maintained substantial ties to Georgia, the Ukraine, and the Russian Federation, including regular travel to those countries, communication with associates in those countries, and the transfer of criminal proceeds to individuals in those countries,” prosecutors stated in a indictment. “The Shulaya Enterprise was led principally by two individuals, Razhden Shulaya, “Brother,” “Roma,” and Zurab Dzhanashvili, “Zura,” the defendants, who each coordinated and directed members and associates of the Shulaya Enterprise. ” Many of the counts in the indictment unsealed earlier this week dealt with trafficking stolen cigarettes and the operation of illegal gambling houses. In one count, suspects Shulaya, Dzhanashvili, and Akaki Ubilava ( “Ako”) met in one of the establishments to divide about $70, 000 in proceeds from a poker game. Other counts dealt with members of the syndicate dealing in stolen credit cards and bank account information. In an unusual case, defendant Dzhanashvili allegedly arranged for the transportation and sale of approximately 10, 000 pounds of stolen chocolate confections to a confidential informant working with law enforcement officials. The informant in this case also allegedly negotiated the purchase of multiple firearms from the defendants despite their knowledge he is a convicted felon, ineligible to legally purchase a pistol. Another count in the indictment alleges the suspects’ involvement in the trafficking of cocaine and heroin. Acting CBP New York Director Leon Hayward said, “U. S. Customs and Border Protection is extremely proud to have assisted our federal partners in this operation. It is through our interagency partnerships, and collaborative approaches like the one leading to today’s arrests, that law enforcement successfully combats modern criminal organizations. ” Acting U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York stated, “he dizzying array of criminal schemes committed by this organized crime syndicate allegedly include a conspiracy, a plot to rob victims by seducing and drugging them with chloroform, the theft of cargo shipments containing over 10, 000 pounds of chocolate, and a fraud on casino slot machines using electronic hacking devices. Thanks to the remarkable interagency partnership of FBI, CBP, and NYPD, we have charged and arrested 33 defendants allegedly involved in this criminal enterprise. ” The Shulaya Enterprise operated what is referred to as a “vor v zakonei” or “vor. ” These are Russian phrases which translate to “ ” or “thief. ” New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neil referenced the translated Russian phrase, stating on Wednesday, “The allegedly established an extensive cross country criminal enterprise from Brighton Beach to Las Vegas that engaged in bribes, gambling, and murder for hire. Thanks to all whose work resulted in the arrest and indictment of 33 today. ” Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. U. S. v. Shulaya Et Al Indictment on Scribd, Us v. Jikia and Complaint on Scribd, | 1 |
WATCH: Joe Biden senses ‘Danger’ for Hillary in this PRICELESS reaction to #WeinerGate development Posted at 9:14 am on October 29, 2016 by Doug P.
Joe Biden pretty much inadvertently summed up the fresh round of trouble that arose yesterday for Hillary Clinton’s campaign in just a few seconds yesterday: You gotta see Biden's reaction to #WeinerGate on CNN! pic.twitter.com/9jwYY9IKNa | 0 |
Share on Facebook
One of the biggest reasons Donald Trump was able to win enough votes to take over the White House was his relentless attacks of corruption against Hillary Clinton, all while the media virtually ignored the accusations of corruption against Donald Trump. In fact, it’s looking more and more likely that by his very first day in office, Donald Trump will be the most corrupt president ever.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and MSNBC’s Chief Legal Analyst, Ari Melber are among several who are beginning to wake up to the reality that Trump plans on using the presidency in the very worst way possible, in a way that would have the Founding Fathers rolling in their graves. Our first self-described billionaire President Elect plans on using the presidency to make himself and his family even more wealthy.
One of the biggest problems, as Matthew sees it, is that Trump wants to give his children national security clearance and everything that goes along with it, all while letting them take the reigns of the Trump fortune. This is illegal in so many ways.
As Melber points out, hiring family was banned in an anti-nepotism law passed in 1967. Proponents of the law were especially concerned because a President should be free to fire staff and cabinet members, but that can be tough to do if staff or cabinet members are family. Trump’s workaround for the nepotism law, though, is to not give his family members official titles, but still, he hopes to include them in his decision making processes and let them sit in on critical meetings.
Here’s the thought and anger provoking video:
While Matthews’ and Melber’s discussion was mostly theoretical, there are already real-life consequences to Trump’s glaring conflicts of interests.
The Washington Post on Friday reported that about 100 foreign diplomats are trying to curry favor with the Trump administration by booking rooms in Trump’s Washington DC hotel, sometimes at rates of up to $20,000 a night. If you recall, the Clinton Foundation was accused of offering access in exchange for donations. The evidence that that ever happened was weak, but still, it was something that Trump didn’t let go of during his entire campaign. The idea that Trump would be hosting diplomats, in his hotel, to profit his company, is way beyond anything Clinton is accused of.
That’s not even the tip of the iceberg. While he did settle the Trump University fraud case, Trump apparently Underreported:
Trump owes millions to Deutsche Bank
which is being fined for $14 billion by DoJ
which Trump will oversee as POTUS pic.twitter.com/vd724yNjYZ
— Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) October 7, 2016
” target=”_blank”>owes millions to Deutsche Bank, a bank which is being fined by the Department of Justice. Will Trump drop the fines in exchange for Deutsche Bank dropping their claim? Perhaps Trump will uncharacteristically take the high road (doubtful), but no president should have that power to begin with.
I’m sure as we turn over even more rocks, we’ll find far more conflicts of interest and evidence that Trump only ran for office for personal enrichment.
There’s a reason elected officials are supposed to put all their assets into blind trusts (and handing them over to their kids is the exact opposite of a blind trust). Governments are not in the business of making money. Trump is. That’s a conflict of interest and it should be deemed unacceptable by all Americans. | 0 |
Aspartame Corporation Searle Created First Birth Control Pill: American Eugenics and Big Pharma, a History
( Era of Wisdom ) Did you know that Aspartame producing corporation Searle also manufactured the first birth control pill ?
After Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford , he was the CEO of Searle , engineering their merger with Monsanto. A testament to his influence, he became Secretary of Defense again during the Bush Administration, participating in atrocious torture and war crimes such as the ones at Abu Ghraib.
One of the most veracious proponents for forced sterilization of blacks , the poor, and “imbeciles,” Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger , was a main contributor to what would culminate into Searle’s manufacture of “Enovid”: the first hormonal birth control pill. This philosophy is commonly known as “ eugenics ,” sometimes referred to as “dysgenics” or “epi-eugenics.”
Well summarized by the Embryo Project : “ Enovid was the first hormonal birth control pill. G.D. Searle and Company began marketing Enovid as a contraceptive in 1960. The technology was created by the joint efforts of many individuals and organizations, including Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick , Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Syntex , S.A. Laboratories, and G.D. Searle and Company Laboratories. Although there were many pieces and contributors to the final product, it was first conceived of and created by Gregory Pincus and Margaret Sanger through the Worcester Foundation in Worcester, Massachusetts, and was distributed by Searle, located in Chicago.”
To illustrate historical ties between “big pharma” and eugenics, let’s take a look at the legacy of Dr. John Hurty, an early chemist at Prozac producer Eli Lilly and Company in the 1870’s.
Hurty would go on to influence the passage of the United States’ first mandatory sterilization law, in 1907 Indiana .
He was a tireless eugenicist , who believed that the poor, colored people , the disabled, ect. were a burden to the state and society, unfit for reproduction, and should be sterilized.
Upwards of 60,000 Americans were involuntarily sterilized through to even the 1970’s , while Dr. John Hurty, Margaret Sanger, David Starr Jordan and others made major contributions. Reading from an article by renowned author Edwin Black : “Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies,” and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning.”
Dr. John Hurty, first president of Stanford David Starr Jordan, and Margaret Sanger were members of the scientific, academic class which birthed eugenics, and eventually the world we live in today where Searle had a hand in both birth control, and suspicious toxins such as Aspartame.
Reading from this document, which is based on the 1946 book “ The Hoosier Health Officer: A Biography of Dr. John N. Hurty “ : “In 1873, John Newell Hurty went to work for Col. Eli Lilly in his newly established Eli Lilly and Company Pharmaceuticals in Indianapolis as his chief chemist. Then in 1879, Hurty opened his own drug store at the corner of Ohio and Pennsylvania streets. In the basement of that establishment, he set up one of the first analytical laboratories in the state. Among the variety of things he tested for purity was water for the Indianapolis Water Company. In 1884, Dr. Hurty established, and for a time taught at, the School of Pharmacy at Purdue University. In 1891, Hurty earned his medical degree from the Medical College of Indiana. In 1899, Dr. Hurty wrote a bill that became the first comprehensive food and drug legislation to be enacted in the United States. It was not only used as a model by other states, but the Federal Law of 1906 is taken almost word for word from Dr. Hurty’s bill.”
This article/video seeks to pose the question: was birth control created as part of eugenics, population control, as part of something that goes beyond money or some alleged philanthropic agenda? Are certain chemicals or pharmaceuticals in circulation designed to fulfill an agenda that goes beyond money, an agenda perhaps that extends into eugenics?
We are not suggesting people do one thing or another with their bodies, we are not asking you to make a decision about your health, but we are presenting you with historical info to better make decisions for yourself.
We’re making the case that Searle profited from the eugenic ambitions of people such as Margaret Sanger: while it is unclear at this moment whether Searle cared about simply money or something deeper. This should raise suspicion about why they pushed so hard for the legalization of Aspartame after the FDA had already banned it , under the direction of powerful Donald Rumsfeld.
Given all of this history, we would be wise to ask: could Aspartame possibly have roots in eugenics? Could certain pharmaceutical drugs have ties to eugenics? It is not a wild accusation or unreasonable question to ponder.
To take it even further: FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg is the daughter of not one, but two directors of the American Eugenics Society, which later was quietly renamed the “ The Society for Biodemography and Social Biology .” | 0 |
An woman says she was able to talk her way out of being raped after she lied to her attacker and said she was . [Helen Reynolds was in her apartment in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania Feb. 17 when a man dressed as an apartment complex worker forced his way inside her home and bound her mouth and hands with duct tape, the Daily Mail reported. “He wrapped it all around my face and my nose and my eye glasses. He had a piece in my mouth,” Reynolds told WPVI. She said he took $40 from her purse and was about to rape her when she struck up a conversation with the man. Despite having duct tape in her mouth, she was able to talk the man out of raping her. “I said to him, ‘Well it’s like this,’” Reynolds recalled. “‘You might as well know the truth.’ I said, ‘I have HIV and my husband died from it,’ which is a lie. ” She said as soon as she told him that he walked out of the bedroom. “That’s the comment that saved my life,” she said. No suspects have been found yet in connection with the attack on Reynolds. Authorities say there have been a string of home invasions in Chester County, including a one that left a woman assaulted, tied up, and locked in a closet for four days. Police arrested a who had escaped from a nearby behavioral facility in that case. When WPVI asked Reynolds if she had anything to say to her attacker who’s still on the loose, she said she had “nothing good to say about him. ” “I have nothing good to say about him. Nothing at all. Put him in jail, and leave the sucker there,” Reynolds said. | 1 |
Click Here To Learn More About Alexandra's Personalized Essences Psychic Protection Click Here for More Information on Psychic Protection! Implant Removal Series Click here to listen to the IRP and SA/DNA Process Read The Testimonials Click Here To Read What Others Are Experiencing! Copyright © 2012 by Galactic Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpts may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Alexandra Meadors and www.galacticconnection.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material on this website without express and written permission from its author and owner is strictly prohibited. Thank you.
Privacy Policy
By subscribing to GalacticConnection.com you acknowledge that your name and e-mail address will be added to our database. As with all other personal information, only working affiliates of GalacticConnection.com have access to this data. We do not give GalacticConnection.com addresses to outside companies, nor will we ever rent or sell your email address. Any e-mail you send to GalacticConnection.com is completely confidential. Therefore, we will not add your name to our e-mail list without your permission. Continue reading... Galactic Connection 2016 | Design & Development by AA at Superluminal Systems Sign Up forOur Newsletter
Join our newsletter to receive exclusive updates, interviews, discounts, and more. Join Us! | 0 |
MYTILENE, Greece — Pope Francis made an emotional visit into the heart of Europe’s migrant crisis on Saturday and took 12 Muslim refugees from Syria, including six children, with him back to Rome aboard the papal plane. The action punctuated the pope’s pleas for sympathy to the crisis confronting the refugees just as European attitudes are hardening against them. Those taken to Rome were three families — two from Damascus and one from Deir — whose homes had been bombed in the Syrian war, the Vatican said in a statement as the pope departed the Greek island of Lesbos, where he had visited the Moria refugee camp. “The pope has desired to make a gesture of welcome regarding refugees,” the statement said. The announcement capped a brief trip by the pope to Greece that again placed the plight of migrants at the center of his papacy. “We have come to call the attention of the world to this grave humanitarian crisis and to plead for its resolution,” Francis said during a lunchtime visit to the Moria camp, where leaders of Eastern Orthodox Christian churches joined him. “As people of faith, we wish to join our voices to speak out on your behalf,” Francis continued. “We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity. ” While the announcement had the appearance of a surprise, Francis told reporters on the plane ride home that the relocation of the refugees had involved planning and paperwork by the governments of the Vatican, Italy and Greece. In Rome, the Catholic charitable association Sant’Egidio will help care for the families and try to find them work. The pope did not explain how the families had been chosen, but said: “They are guests of the Vatican. ” Francis also showed reporters two drawings given to him by children in the Moria camp. One showed children drowning in the sea. The other showed the sun crying. “The children have these things in their minds, and it will take time before these memories go away,” the pope said. “If the sun is able to cry, so can we. A tear will do us good. ” While papal visits to refugee camps are not new, religious scholars said Francis’ rescue of the 12 Syrians sent an important signal that reflected his long history of affinity with the world’s most vulnerable, dating to his roots as a Jesuit priest in Argentina. “Welcoming the stranger is the heart of the Christian message,” said Charles Camosy, a professor of Christian ethics at Fordham University in New York. While Francis is often seen as a progressive pope, Mr. Camosy said, he also is “pushing a more traditional understanding of what Christianity is all about. ” Francis’ first papal trip in 2013 was to the Italian island of Lampedusa, to call attention to the refugees who were arriving there from Libya — or drowning before they reached shore. During his February visit to Mexico, Francis prayed beneath a large cross erected in Ciudad Juárez, just footsteps from the border with the United States, and then celebrated Mass nearby, where he spoke about immigrants. Upon landing in Lesbos on Saturday, Francis held a brief private meeting with Greece’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, before traveling across the island to the detention center in Moria, where people are held as they await rulings on their asylum applications — or as they wait to be deported under a recent agreement struck between the European Union and Turkey to curb migration. Beginning last summer, hundreds of thousands of migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, have poured into Lesbos after paying smugglers to make the short sea journey from Turkey. The procession through Greece and the Balkans toward Germany plunged the European Union into a political crisis and eventually led several countries to restrict or close their borders. The deal with Turkey includes a provision under which migrants arriving in Greece can be swiftly deported back to Turkey. Since the deal took effect last month, the number of migrants arriving in Lesbos has dropped sharply (even as the numbers arriving in Italy are steadily rising). Critics say the agreement has trampled on the civil rights of refugees fleeing war and betrayed the ideals of the European Union. At the migrants camp, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Christians, reminded Europeans and their leaders that Christians and others are judged on how they treat the powerless. “The world will be judged by the way it has treated you,” Bartholomew told the refugees. “And we will all be accountable for the way we respond to the crisis and conflict in the regions that you come from. The Mediterranean Sea should not be a tomb. ” Thousands of migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean, including a young child whose limp body washed ashore last year on the Turkish coast. A photograph of the child became a searing icon of the refugee crisis. “I hope that we never see children washing up on the shores of the Aegean Sea,” said Archbishop Ieronymos II, the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, who called for a greater response by the United Nations. “I hope to soon see them there, untroubled, enjoying life. ” At the Moria center, Francis slowly walked down a line of migrants, many of them Muslims, greeting people as some waved handwritten signs with slogans like “Freedom of Movement. ” Others propped their children above their shoulders or held out smartphones to photograph the pope. Inside a large white tent, Francis greeted a woman in a head scarf as she cradled her baby, as well as other refugee families. A small boy stepped forward and handed him a picture drawn with crayons. An Iraqi mother asked Francis to help her find medical care for her child’s bone cancer. At one point, a man began wailing as Francis placed his hands on the man’s head. “Please, Father, bless me!” the man shouted. “Please, Father, bless me!” Francis and the other religious leaders offered special praise on Saturday for ordinary Greeks who have welcomed refugees, taken some into their homes or provided food and clothing, even as they endure hardship amid the country’s financial crisis. Mr. Tsipras and other Greek leaders have called on the European Union to provide more help to the country as it has borne the brunt of the migrant crisis. Across Europe, the mood has soured in recent months, as many countries have closed or restricted their borders amid mounting public anxiety over the chaotic influx of more than a million refugees last year. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels have also darkened public attitudes and stirred sentiment in some areas, even as many refugees say they are trying to escape extremist violence. parties have seized on the crisis to make gains, most recently in regional elections in Germany. By appearing with the two Orthodox Christian leaders, Francis also took another small step in healing the breach between the Eastern and Western branches of Christianity. Francis has made ecumenical outreach a priority and in February became the first pope to meet with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. Carlo Pioppi, a professor of church history at Santa Croce University in Rome, said the appearance by the three leaders showed they could put aside doctrinal and theological differences to highlight their shared concern about refugees. The three men described the refugee influx as one of Europe’s most serious crises since the end of World War II. “Regular people will understand the sign these three religious leaders are sending,” Professor Pioppi said in an interview on Friday. “To see them have lunch with refugees, all together, is a strong message of humanity. ” The British charity Oxfam released a statement on Friday calling for a moratorium on deportations of refugees from Greece to Turkey until the authorities can guarantee that asylum processes are followed. The group also raised questions about new “fast track” processes to review asylum cases that the Greek Parliament recently approved under pressure from the European Union. “Thousands are being held in squalid detention centers on the Greek Islands — this is the state of Europe in 2016,” Farah Karimi, the executive director of Oxfam Novib, the Dutch affiliate of Oxfam, said in the statement. “Shame on the E. U. for prioritizing detention and deportation over people’s rights to safety and dignity. ” | 1 |
From newly installed gold drapes in the Oval Office to golden decor in his New York penthouse, it’s well known that the new occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania can’t get enough of his favorite color. [Now President Trump, who claims to own a few club championship trophies, has a new gold weapon of choice on the golf tee thanks to a gift from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In @POLITICO Playbook: Palm Beach update: pix of Trump on driving range + inside Steve Schwarzman’s 70th bday bash: https: . pic. twitter. — Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) February 12, 2017, Trump looks in good form, swinging his gold Honma Beres driver on the range in Palm Beach. Abe gifted the new club to the president after he won the election in 2016. Hopefully, the new driver will give America’s 45th president a few more yards off the tee and help him keep his golf ball on the fairway. With a retail price of $3, 755 it better. | 1 |
Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sen. John McCain ( ) said President Donald Trump should release his tax returns. Host Jake Tapper asked, “Given that President Trump is proposing changes that could benefit him personally by tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars, do you think that the American people have a right to see his tax returns so that they can know how this plan would affect his bottom line?” McCain answered, “I think I’ve said all along I thought every candidate for president should disclose their tax returns. I haven’t changed. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
By Eric Margolis October 28, 2016
As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized “liberation” of Mosul is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I’ve seen.
Islamic State(IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media. IS is, as this writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious fanatics, and modern-day anarchists. At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military experience.
These former officers of Saddam Hussain are bent on revenge for the US destruction of their nation and the lynching of its late leader. But IS rank and file has no military training, little discipline, degraded communications, and ragged logistics.
In fact, today’s Islamic State is what the Ottoman Empire used to term, ‘bashi-bazouks,” a collection of irregular cut-throats and scum of the gutter sent to punish and terrorize enemies by means of torture, rapine, looting, and arson.
What has amazed me about the faux western war against ISIS is its leisurely nature, lack of élan, and hesitancy. In my view, ISIS was mostly created by the US and its allies as a weapon to be used against Syria’s government – just as the Afghan mujahadin were used by the US and the Saudis to overthrow the Soviet-backed Afghan government. Israel tried the same tactics by helping create Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both were cultivated to split the PLO.
ISIS is an ad hoc movement that wants to punish the West and the Saudis for the gross carnage they have inflicted on the Arab world.
Western and Kurdish auxiliary forces have been sitting 1.5 hours drive from Mosul and the IS town of Raqqa for over a year. Instead, western – mainly US – warplanes have been gingerly bombing around these targets in what may be an effort to convince breakaway ISIS to rejoin US-led forces fight the Damascus regime.
Note that ISIS does not appear to have ever attacked Israel though it is playing an important role in the destruction of Syria. Some reports say Israel is providing logistic and medical support for IS.
The siege of Mosul is being played up by western media as a heroic second Stalingrad. Don’t be fooled. IS has only 3-5,000 lightly armed fighters in Mosul and Raqqa, maybe even less. The leaders of IS are likely long gone. IS has few heavy weapons, no air cover at all, and poor communications. Its rag-tag fighters will run out of ammunitions and explosives very quickly.
Encircling Mosul are at least 50,000 western-led soldiers, backed by heavy artillery, rocket batteries, tanks, armored vehicles and awesome air power
The western imperial forces are composed of tough Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Iraqi army and special forces, some Syrian Kurds, Iranian ‘volunteers’ irregular forces and at least 5,000 US combat troops called “advisors”, plus small numbers of French, Canadian and British special forces. Hovering in the background are some thousands of Turkish troops, supported by armor and artillery ready to ‘liberate’ Iraq – which was once part of the Ottoman Empire.
For the US, current military operations in Syria and Iraq are the realization of an imperialist’s fondest dream: native troops led by white officers, the model of the old British Indian Raj. Washington arms, trained, equips and financed all its native auxiliaries.
The IS is caught in a dangerous dilemma. To be a political movement, it was delighted to control Iraq’s second largest city. But as a guerilla force, it should not have holed up in an urban area where it was highly vulnerable to concentrated air attack and being surrounded. This is what’s happening right now.
In the mostly flat Fertile Crescent with too few trees, ground forces are totally vulnerable to air power, as the recent 1967, 1973 Israel-Arab wars and 2003 Iraq wars have shown. Dispersion and guerilla tactics are the only hope for those that lack air cover.
IS forces would best advise to disperse across the region and continue their hit-and-run attacks. Otherwise, they risk being destroyed. But being mostly bloody-minded young fanatics, IS may not heed military logic and precedent in favor of making a last stand in the ruins of Mosul and Raqqa.
When this happens, western leaders will compete to claim authorship of the faux crusade against the paper tiger of ISIS. The Best of Eric Margolis Tags: | 0 |
Man Wearing ‘Jewmerica’ T-Shirt Never Dreamed He’d See This Day SAND SPRINGS, OK—Feeling a mixture of intense pride and abject disbelief after news networks called the 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump, local man Terry Williams, who is currently wearing a T-shirt adorned with the word “Jewmerica,” told reporters late Tuesday night that he never dreamed he’d see this day during his lifetime. Nation Throws Off Tyrannical Yoke Of Moderate Respect For Women WASHINGTON—Political experts are hailing Donald Trump’s historic presidential victory early Wednesday as a resounding declaration that the nation is finally ready to cast off the tyrannical yoke of moderate respect for women that has suffocated the citizens of this country for generations. | 0 |
TEL AVIV — Amid the flurry of reports about the Trump administration and Russia — largely innuendo that has yielded no documented connections between the two sides — it may be instrumental to review the largely unknown history of how President Obama’s administration adopted defense budget recommendations by the Institute for Policy Studies, a radical organization known for its close associations with the Soviets during the Cold War. [In fact, throughout the Cold War, the Institute for Policy Studies, or IPS, was repeatedly accused of holding positions that undermined U. S. national security and serving as a de facto Soviet propaganda institution. Yet that same group and contributed to an annual report titled “Unified Security Budget for the United States,” an extensive yearly list of U. S. military defense spending recommendations compiled by progressive think tanks. The report seeks to the Defense Department to “strengthen our capacity to prevent and resolve conflict by means,” according to one IPS description of the report. A 2011 report on the IPS’s taskforce for the “Unified Security Budget” reveals how previous Unified reports influenced Obama administration defense proposals: The Unified Security Budget project has contributed to this debate by outlining a set of cuts in unneeded military programs that formed the core of a proposal by the Sustainable Defense Task Force for $1 trillion in cuts over 10 years. A majority, though not a supermajority, of the members of the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform adopted the annualized figure of $100 billion, and many of the recommendations from this proposal. The IPS’s influence over Obama administration military proposals remains largely unreported except for previous investigations by this reporter. The annual Unified Security Budget was several times by the Center for American Progress, which was founded by John Podesta, who served as counselor to President Obama and later chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. A sampling of the IPS’s defense spending recommending can be seen in its 2012 “Unified Security Budget” report. That extensive report was previously summarized by this reporter: The 2012 budget, reviewed in full by (this reporter) called on Obama to use the U. S. Armed Forces in part to combat “global warming,” fight global poverty, remedy “injustice,” bolster the United Nations and increase “peacekeeping” forces worldwide. The budget called for massive, slashes to the military budget. The savings are to be used to invest in “sustainable energy” and in fighting worldwide climate change. The report makes clear the stated objective of transforming the U. S. Armed Forces to stress conflict resolution and diplomacy. The report takes issue with the use of forces on the ground in various countries to secure or influence the strategic position of other nations. It recommends scaling back all U. S. ground forces by 20 percent and reducing the Navy’s surface fleet by 20 percent, including two carriers and carrier combat air wings. It also calls for reducing the Air Force by two combat air wings while cutting standing peacetime overseas deployments in Europe and East Asia by up to 50, 000 troops at a time. The budget’s authors strongly argue for the reduction of the U. S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 292 deployed nuclear weapons and the complete elimination of the Trident II nuclear missile. It’s a process Obama already initiated in April 2010 when he signed a deal with Russia reducing stocks of plutonium. The report further recommended the U. S. cease all missile defense development, among other cut backs. Here is more of my previous summary: The report goes through a list of current missile defense programs, including Midcourse Defense, Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptors and a number of others, pushing for all programs to be cut. “It is unwise to fund more advanced systems for missile defense while current ones have yet to be proven effective against their targeted threats,” complains the report. The military’s vital Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation program is to be cut by $10 billion across the board. Next on the chopping block is the complete cancellation of the second Virginia Class submarine. While the Unified Security Budget describes the new model as “unnecessary to address any of the threats facing the United States today” and “a weapon looking for an enemy,” the is designed for covert collection of intelligence, transportation of special operations teams and launching of tactical Tomahawk missiles — flexible capabilities tailored to rapid responses required by the ’s conflicts with irregular combatants. Similarly targeted for cancellation are the Osprey helicopter and the Navy and Marine Corps versions of the Joint Strike Fighter. A closer look at IPS, which influenced Obama administration policy, is warranted. The organization was founded in 1963 by former government workers Marcus Raskin and Richard Barnet, both of whom were known for their ties to groups and activism on behalf of communist regimes. Discover the Networks relates that after the group was founded, “IPS headquarters quickly became a resource center for national reporters and a place for KGB agents from the nearby Soviet embassy to convene and strategize. ” Indeed, Ladislav Bittman, a former KGB agent, claimed in his book, The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insider’s View that the IPS worked as a de facto Soviet disinformation operation. Harvey Klehr, professor of politics and history at Emory University, documented the close links between the IPS and Soviet ideology in his 1988 book, Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today. During the Cold War, IPS fellows “consistently maintained that the Soviet threat is largely and a product of the complex in the United States,” he wrote. Just like their 2009 defense budget recommendations, the IPS during the Cold War pressed for the U. S. to “dangerously” downsize its military, Klehr related. He wrote: This view encouraged the IPS to demand dangerously steep cuts in American defense efforts and to claim that they would represent no danger to American security. At the request of congressmen, IPS made a study of the federal budget in 1977. In addition to recommendations for a socialist housing program and health system, and altering capitalist control over the educational system, the IPS suggested a fifty percent cut in defense spending, an end to the American role in the Middle East, and withdrawal from NATO. Klehr further documented numerous IPS links to alleged Soviet front groups. IPS signed an agreement in 1982 with the Soviet’s Institute of the USA and Canada, headed by Georgiy Arbatov, for exchanges on peace and disarmament. Since then IPS has sponsored an annual meeting of American experts and Soviet officials. Although portrayed by the Soviets as an “independent” “think tank,” the Institute of the USA and Canada has been widely identified as an instrument of Soviet foreign policy influence. Located in Moscow, the IUSAC is nominally under the direction of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In practice, however, it operates under the direction of the International Department of the Soviet Communist Party Central Committee. According to the testimony of John McMahon, then deputy director of Central Intelligence (during the House Selected Committee on Intelligence Hearings on Soviet Active Measures in 1982) the International Department “directs Western dialogue activities of Soviet organizations such as the Institute” with a view toward influencing Western perceptions of peace and disarmament. In his book, Shadow World: Resurgent Russia, The Global New Left, and Radical Islam, author Robert Chandler further documents FBI memos describing the IPS as a nerve center. The FBI produced thousands of documents on IPS’s activities. Some are available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI withheld hundreds of documents. The documents collected by the FBI described IPS as a “Think Factory,” which “helped train extremists who incite violence in the United States and whose educational research serves as a cover for intrigue and political agitation” (FBI file ) or “the Rand Corporation of the Left,” and “IPS apparently exercises considerable influence in the New Left Movement and may have as its goal the destruction of the United States Government. ” In this context, the mainstream media described the IPS in the 1970s and 1980s as follows: Wall Street Journal — “A funnel for disinformation,” Forbes — “A radical Washington propaganda mill,” National Review — “The perfect intellectual front for Soviet activities which would be resisted if they were to originate openly from the KGB. ” This reporter previously documented the Cold activities of the IPS. The IPS has been implicated in activity. The Center for Security Studies was a 1974 IPS and strove to compromise the effectiveness of U. S. intelligence agencies, according to Discover the Networks. The mastheads of two and publications, Counterspy and the Covert Action Information Bulletin, were heavy with IPS members. Further, the group’s former director, Robert Borosage, penned a book shortly out of college attacking the CIA and ran the CIA watchdog, Center for National Security Studies. The group has been particularly concerned with researching U. S. defense industries and arms sales policies. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With research by Brenda J. Elliott. | 1 |
milk may not be the best option for kids, though many experts recommend it to fight obesity for children over 2. Canadian researchers collected height and weight data on 2, 745 healthy children ages 1 to 6 years. They took blood samples, and their parents reported how much skim, 1 percent, 2 percent and whole milk the children drank. After controlling for age, sex, outdoor play and other factors that affect both vitamin D levels and weight, they found that children who drank one cup of whole milk per day had a vitamin D level comparable to that of children who drank 2. 9 cups of 1 percent milk, but their body mass index was lower by 0. 79 points. The higher the fat content of the milk they drank, the lower the children’s B. M. I. and the higher their vitamin D levels. The study is in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Why this happens is unknown, but the senior author, Dr. Jonathon L. Maguire, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto, suggested that vitamin D is better absorbed with fat, and drinking milk may leave a child hungrier for more food. “These two things together may make it a double whammy for milk,” he said. “But this is a small piece of the puzzle. We really need to do the research to answer these very basic questions. ” | 1 |
By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor on October 28, 2016 Russian money by Seth Ferris , …with New Eastern Outlook , Moscow Battle of Trafalgar [ Editor’s note : What on earth are the English doing, and why should anybody care? Well, we must and do care, because on English soil stands one leg of the NWO Triad. I recall reading that it was at the Battle of Trafalgar when twenty-seven British ships led by Admiral Nelson, defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships, capturing 22 Franco-Spanish vessels without losing a single British ship. This decisive naval battle of the war stopped French plans for invading England and graphically illustrated English resolve. One of VT’s standard bearers of analytical thinking, Seth Ferris presents a lucid explanation of what went on this month when His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, visited Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Parts of Europe, particularly Rome, must have been keenly interested. As Seth Ferris notes, Patriarch Kirill is far from being an apologist for Russian politics, but it is his church’s potential to destabilize the state, given “the potential willingness of members of the officially Anglican Royal Family to embrace” the Orthodox Church, that comes under scrutiny. And to further translate this into an American dialect, Queen Elizabeth II is currently the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England and her role is largely ceremonial.” Yet, the Queen occupies a special pulpit in the fabric of English life, and the preferences of the Queen’s family subtly influence English hearts and minds. It is the similarities between the Church of England and the Orthodox Church that has the NWO and Rome on high alert, rather than the differences, because if the NWO is to seat a One-World One-Religion Ruler, such as the Bishop of Rome, then it will need to firmly discourage any alternatives. And, under the Orthodox Church, the Bishop of Rome’s authority is no greater or less than any of his fellow Bishops in the church, so he does not have primacy in the Orthodox Church. And, before the pope could have jurisdiction within Orthodoxy, the papacy would need to be reformed in accordance with Orthodoxy. One of the stumbling blocks is that, in the Orthodox Church, papal infallibility is rejected because it is believed that the Holy Spirit acts to guide the church into truth — for instance, via ecumenical councils. Without further ado, VT presents another fine article by Seth Ferris. You will find his exceptional analysis only on VT and New Eastern Outlook … Jim W. Dean and Erica P. Wissinger ] – First published … October 26, 2016 –
As the world now knows, British bank NatWest, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland group, has told Russian media outlet RT that it should take its business elsewhere.
Initially it was reported that the bank had “frozen” RT’s accounts, meaning it had impounded the money, but it now says that the accounts have merely been closed, meaning that RT can withdraw its money – provided it then takes it to another bank.
NatWest, and the rest of the Royal Bank of Scotland group, are effectively owned by the British government, which acquired the majority share in 2008 to prevent it collapsing. As RT is also state-owned, it has been inferred that this is another form of sanction. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson denies this, but he also denies several of his children, several parts of his ancestry and practically everything else he has ever written or been recorded saying.
It has also been suggested that this move, which came without warning, was connected with potential fines against the bank for holding money considered “dirty” by association with Russia – though the government fining itself to pay itself seems unlikely. It may therefore be simply a publicity stunt – the UK has to be seen to be acting against Russia as part of the sanctions regime, and may be perfectly happy for RT to take its business to a private UK bank, or even another publicly-owned one, having done its bit of public posturing. However the real reason for this move is not sanctions against the Russian state. It is because a seemingly unimportant event has the potential to shake the foundations of the United Kingdom – and those in the corridors of power have just woken up to it.
The closing of RT’s accounts, if it finally happens, may simply be a symbolic gesture, but it may be the precursor to a more serious crisis, which no one thought they would ever see again. The subtext beneath the subtext The Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kirill, holds a service in London’s Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God and All Saints in a visit to London, marking the 300th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox Church’s presence there. ( © Sergey Pyatakov)
From October 15-18 Kyril, Patriarch of Moscow , visited the United Kingdom. There is a growing Orthodox diaspora in the UK, as there is in all Western countries, and also a small but well-established British-born Orthodox community and a number of majority British, English-language parishes.
However, Orthodoxy is still a very small religion there – though figures are hard to come by, no more than 7% of the population would currently identify themselves as Orthodox, despite the large Greek Cypriot community which owns the plurality of the UK’s Orthodox churches.
The Church of England adheres to a doctrine called Branch Theory – the idea that various different Christian “denominations”, as they call them, are branches of the same basic church. Consequently religious leaders in general are treated with respect, even if people greatly disagree with their faith.
When Pope John Paul II visited the UK in 1982 he was treated as a pop star, despite a few insignificant protests by Protestant or far-right groups. No particular fuss is made when leaders of other faiths enter the country from abroad, despite the hysteria surrounding so-called “Muslim hate preachers” who are no more radical than the Bible-bashers who have the greatest objection to them.
But how was Patriarch Kyril treated? With respect by those who met him – but not by the media or the political class.
When Archbishop Makarios, who had been a politician in public office contrary to the Canons of the Church, visited the UK in the 1970s, he was shown entering churches and attracting crowds who cheered him so hard they damaged the buildings. Patriarch Kyril was presented as an apologist for Vladimir Putin and Russia’s alleged actions in Syria, who had been sent on a propaganda mission. Queen Elizabeth II has held an historic meeting with Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, during his official visit to the UK to mark the 300th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox Church’s presence there. The meeting was held behind closed doors in Buckingham Palace, and lasted for about a half-hour, according to the Patriarch’s secretary
The Patriarch was not in the UK to talk politics , and there is no suggestion that he actually did so. The focus of his visit was to finally consecrate the Russian cathedral at Ennismore Gardens, London, a former Anglican church which the Russian church has been using since the 1950s.
But the thing which most upset certain commentators was the fact that he was due to have an audience with the Queen, as visiting dignitaries usually do.
The implication of the widespread concern about the Queen agreeing to this private meeting was that she was sympathetic to Russia’s position on Syria. The UK has a constitutional monarchy, and consequently the Queen does not dictate government policy.
If the Queen has a personal position on anything she will only make it public if she feels her government is making a serious error and will not listen to reason – which has happened only once during her 64-year reign, when she famously let it be known that she felt Margaret Thatcher’s policies were damaging the social fabric of the country.
So why should the press and politicians be so outraged about the possibility of Patriarch Kyril giving the Queen opinions she can read on the internet, or in some of the hundreds of letters she receives daily from disgruntled citizens?
It is because they are trying to disguise the real reason for their fear. It has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the Orthodox Church, which happens to be the majority religion in Russia. No one minds ordinary citizens taking an interest in Orthodoxy. But the Royal Family? That’s a different question entirely. The invisible heart of the state The politically entrenched Church of England ~ Salisbury Cathedral
The Queen is not only a monarch but the head of the Church of England. Though it seems anomalous to others that a church is run by a secular ruler, who could not even be ordained a bishop in that church if she wanted to, this is the way it has been since Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534 so he could get a divorce.
The state that became the UK was built on the Anglican faith and the political assumptions that went with that, despite the non-Anglican majorities in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. For three hundred and fifty years the “Catholic Powers” were seen as national enemies in the same way the “Iron Curtain” countries were in the second half of the twentieth century. Consequently each member of the Royal Family is also obliged to uphold the primacy of the Church of England, whether they are religious or not. From time to time, this has created problems. The Abdication Crisis of 1936 was caused by the King of England wanting to marry a twice-divorced woman, which the church considered a no-no at the time.
Similarly, Tony Blair only announced his conversion to Roman Catholicism after he had resigned as Prime Minister, because the PM is included in the line of succession to the throne, and could be an atheist but not a Papist in that role.
The question of whether the Church of England accepts divorce and remarriage – which is not at all clear cut – has reared its head several times in recent years due to the marital problems of the Royal Family. Prince Charles and Princess Anne have divorced and remarried, each time conducting their second marriages outside the Church of England. If Charles does eventually succeed to the throne, the question of whether he can be head of the Church of England whilst divorced and remarried outside it will come back to the forefront. Above the altar – Orthodox church
In 1977, a story went round the press that Charles was about to marry Princess Marie Astrid of Luxembourg. According to sources close to the action a marriage had actually been arranged behind the scenes, but did not proceed because the princess refused to give up her Roman Catholic faith, as she would be obliged to do to marry the future king under the Act of Succession of 1701.
However Buckingham Palace responded to the reports by saying that Charles didn’t even know the princess, a ridiculous assertion, as all Europe’s royals are related and attend functions where they meet each other. This demonstrates how deep the fear of rocking the constitutional boat by not supporting the C of E runs. Putin and Patriarch Kirill exhibition
The Queen’s husband, Prince Philip , was born and baptised Orthodox, as a Prince of Greece. He renounced his Faith to marry Princess Elizabeth, as she then was, and regularly attends Anglican services with the rest of the family.
However it is an open secret that he has returned to Orthodoxy privately. He is known to make very generous donations to Orthodox churches and causes and is a patron of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge.
Prince Charles also has a longstanding interest in Orthodoxy: amongst other expressions of it, he has refused to join the Freemasons, despite this being expected of members of the British upper class.
When the Queen met the Pope on his 1982 visit, it caused some comment, but nothing like the controversy provoked by her meeting Patriarch Kyril.
If the UK ever started to support Putin’s position on anything, it would not be the end of civilization as we know it.
If the heir to the throne converted to his father’s ancestral faith, and the link between the state and the Church of England was forcibly broken, it would call the whole political basis of the UK into question. That is a can of worms no one dares open – for which RT is now being made the scapegoat, because no one is prepared to publicly discuss just how big a question this seemingly abstruse point really is. Foreign is the new cancer Are Russian and Syrian air power crushing the NATO-supported rebel attacks?
British banks are entitled to freeze accounts under certain circumstances. If an account contains the proceeds of crime, these can now be impounded by the courts. Similarly it is a criminal offence in the UK, under the Terrorism Act 2000, to provide financial or any other support to terrorists, regardless of what the UK government itself does.
Banks are terrified of this law, and interpret it with a strictness which is itself illegal. There have been many instances of ethnic minority community organisations being unable to open bank accounts unless they sack their officers and appoint British people, on the grounds that simply by being run by foreigners they might be laundering money for terrorists.
If there is any hint of impropriety about an organisation run by a foreign state, they will naturally review that information to protect themselves. But it is usually the courts who impound the proceeds of crime. The arbitrary closure of RT’s accounts, without explanation, therefore implies that it is being accused of sponsoring terrorism.
Theresa May’s response that “it is for them [the bank] to decide who they offer services to based on their own risk appetite” suggests that this is exactly what the government wants to accuse it of. Who said anything about risk being the reason, and how does the government know about the decisions the bank makes on individual accounts and the reasons for them? So the assumption that this is about Syria suits the narrative we have heard to date. But if so, why now? Has the bank only just become nervous of being fined by its own owners? Is it only now aware of the sanctions regime, or the British government’s position on this conflict?
The Church of England, the pillar on which the British state was built, has long had ostensibly good relations with the Orthodox communities in the UK. Many Orthodox parishes worship in former or still-functioning Anglican churches, and successive Archbishops of Canterbury have expressed their respect for Orthodoxy. Until, that is, the Church stops being a weird foreign sect. Then it becomes a threat which has to be dealt with, and always is. Methodios Fouyias
In 1988, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in the UK, Archbishop Methodios, was deposed for “coveting other thrones”, whatever that may mean. It was widely believed that the real reason was because the Church of England objected to him receiving a number of its priests and many ordinary parishioners.
He was replaced by Archbishop Gregorios, who began by stating publicly many times that he did not encourage people to convert to the Church he served.
A student in Greece wrote a thesis about the deposition of Archbishop Methodios, which the university not only refused to publish but used as an excuse to kick him out of university. The website of the Greek Archdiocese in the UK makes no mention of why Methodios ceased to be bishop, or what he did subsequently, despite the fact he lived another eighteen years as a titular bishop.
Now the head of another Orthodox national jurisdiction has visited the UK and been vilified in a way unprecendented for a religious leader since Catholics were allowed back into the country. Rather than being met with protests from angry Britishers, he was received with the traditional courtesy of religious leaders.
His potential to destabilise the state does not derive from his connections but from the potential willingness of members of the officially Anglican Royal Family to embrace his Faith. So that Faith must be presented as politically dangerous, its hierarchs as political stooges, to scare people, and their Royal Family, away from it.
RT has been inundated with messages of support from UK citizens. Most of these assume that the bank’s decision is politically motivated.
Indeed it is – but it is the identity of the UK and its institutions, rather than whether you think Assad is a terrorist, which is the political issue driving it. Seth Ferris , investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook ”. We have added this link to the consecration of the Cathedral in London as a special treat on Seth’s article. Some might see it as a beautiful ceremony. | 0 |
Can I finally admit that my role model was a sitcom character? Mary Richards — played to perfection by the beloved Mary Tyler Moore — was more than a role model, she was a template. Even in fashion and home décor — my choices mimicked hers. Mary Tyler Moore had shown up just when everything about women’s lives was about to change. Her show debuted in 1970, when I was 19, still in college and not imagining a career in television — or a career in anything. But two years after Mary first joyfully threw her tam hat up in the air and joined in Minneapolis, I began my television career in a city also ending in ’apolis. That part is coincidental, of course — but my home? Mary lived in a studio apartment with a pullout sofa bed, and not coincidentally so did I. And if my apartment was not quite so charming, it wasn’t for lack of copying. I didn’t yet have a style of my own, so whenever possible I borrowed Mary’s. A few years later, when to outward appearances, I was making it on my own, I was on the cover of Chicago Tribune magazine holding a find — a large gold number “5” — for Channel 5, my new broadcast home. But in truth, the inspiration was Mary. She had a big “M. ” It was affixed to the wall, part of the furniture, just like her highboy chest of drawers. I also had one of those. In Chicago, I moved up into a condo in a high rise. Mary had also moved out of her studio and into a condo where she gives herself a housewarming. Her parties — this was a running gag — were always dull. Sitting alone on the floor after her last guest has left, she surveys her modern new home and says, “I HATE IT. ” I loved her for that. The ’70s were my formative years, and when my career got way out ahead of me, I still had Mary to fill in some gaps. We viewers were never given a peek inside her closet, but Mary would walk out of it in one cute outfit after another usually a smart knit. I gravitated in that direction, too — if not with the same effect. For my farewell show in Chicago, on the eve of my debut on the “Today” show, I chose a knit ensemble in alternating wide stripes of brown, orange and white — possibly inspired by the colorations of a clown fish. I was thinking of Mary. Not long after, Tom Brokaw looked at me across the anchor desk one morning and said, “Burn the dress. ” Not Mary’s fault. I’m sometimes described as a “pioneer” in broadcast journalism — which is preposterous. The chair I settled into in 1976 had been recently vacated by the real thing, Barbara Walters. Barbara was indisputably the woman in television news at that time, but she was not the best known or most beloved. That distinction belonged to “Mary. ” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” started several years before two words, “and women,” were inserted into an F. C. C. affirmative action clause pertaining to television station hiring. That might have helped women like me get a job, but Mary Richards may already have opened as many doors she had made a woman in the newsroom seem normal. Mary was ahead of her time, but not too far. She was not superwoman she was someone you could be. She was someone you wanted to be. Mary was plucky, but not driven. When starting a new life in Minneapolis, she was just looking for a job, not a career. And though uncommonly beautiful, Mary made it O. K. to be dateless on a Saturday night — which I often was. (I wasn’t alone. On Saturday nights, as Oprah recalled, she would put the conditioner in her hair during “The Bob Newhart Show” and rinse it out before “Mary. ”) Mary Tyler Moore, was “our Mary. ” She was the right woman at the right time. And I loved her for it. | 1 |
49ers Fans Care More About Victories Than Kaepernick Elliott Almond, Mercury News, October 24, 2016
Colin Kaepernick’s first home start in a year didn’t stop the pessimism that has left red-jerseyed 49ers’ patrons in a football funk.
Thousands of empty red seats at Levi’s Stadium underscored San Francisco’s freefall that continued unabated Sunday in a 34-17 defeat to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Few were thinking about Kaepernick’s season-long activism in which he again kneeled during the national anthem to protest oppression against minorities. These days, fans just want to see their team win a game after six consecutive defeats.
{snip}
After leading the 49ers to a promising 14-0 first-quarter lead, Kaepernick and the offense sputtered. He completed just 16 of 34 passes for 134 yards with one touchdown and one interception.
Kaepernick’s scrambling–he led the team with 84 rushing yards on nine carries–and occasional flashes of accurate downfield passing, weren’t enough, even with the 49ers firmly in the game midway through the fourth quarter.
{snip}
Kaepernick donned a T-shirt Sunday paying tribute to the Black Panther Party, an Oakland activist group that celebrated its 50th anniversary this weekend. The quarterback said the shirt was a gift from his girlfriend, MTV host Nessa Diab.
Last week, he wore a shirt with Muhammad Ali’s face before the game at Buffalo.
Kaepernick’s protest against police shootings of unarmed African Americans has been divisive because some say it is disrespectful to veterans. A recent survey by Yahoo Sports and YouGov found that a decline in NFL ratings partially is attributed to the quarterback’s action.
“I don’t know much about ratings and how they are affected,” he said in a postgame interview. “But I don’t understand why ratings would go down fighting for justice for people, to try to stop oppression, especially in the league that is predominately black.”
{snip} | 0 |
BERLIN (AP) — German authorities are taking action against 36 people suspected of posting hate speech online, most of them accused of incitement. [The Federal Criminal Police Office said police across the country searched homes of suspects, questioned them and took unspecified “further measures” early Tuesday. There was no word of any arrests. The “day of action against hate postings” followed a similar exercise last year. The police office said most of the postings targeted Tuesday had a motivation, but authorities also targeted a suspected extremist, two suspects and one case where the victim’s sexual orientation was attacked. In April, the Cabinet approved a bill to punish social networking sites if they fail to swiftly remove illegal content such as hate speech. Parliament has yet to approve it. | 1 |
Blame government, not markets for monopoly Corporate mergers and “hostile” takeovers can promote economic efficiency By Ron Paul - November 1, 2016
When Time-Warner announced it planned to merge with another major communications firm, many feared the new company would exercise near-total monopoly power. These concerns led some to call for government action to block the merger in order to protect both Time-Warner’s competitors and consumers.
No, I am not talking about Time-Warner’s recent announced plan to merge with AT&T, but the reaction to Time-Warner’s merger with (then) Internet giant AOL in 2000. Far from creating an untouchable leviathan crushing all competitors, the AOL-Time-Warner merger fell apart in under a decade.
The failure of AOL-Time-Warner demonstrates that even the biggest companies are vulnerable to competition if there is open entry into the marketplace. AOL-Time-Warner failed because consumers left them for competitors offering lower prices and/or better quality.
Corporate mergers and “hostile” takeovers can promote economic efficiency by removing inefficient management and boards of directors. These managers and board members often work together to promote their own interests instead of generating maximum returns for investors by providing consumers with affordable, quality products. Thus, laws making it difficult to launch a “hostile” takeover promote inefficient use of resources and harm investors, workers, and consumers.
Monopolies and cartels are creations of government, not markets. For example, the reason the media is dominated by a few large companies is that no one can operate a television or radio station unless they obtain federal approval and pay federal licensing fees. Similarly, anyone wishing to operate a cable company must not only comply with federal regulations, they must sign a “franchise” agreement with their local government. Fortunately, the Internet has given Americans greater access to news and ideas shut out by the government-licensed lapdogs of the “mainstream” media. This may be why so many politicians are anxious to regulate the web.
Government taxes and regulations are effective means of limiting competition in an industry. Large companies can afford the costs of complying with government regulations, costs which cripple their smaller competitors. Big business can also afford to hire lobbyists to ensure that new laws and regulations favor big business.
Examples of regulations that benefit large corporations include the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) regulations that raise costs of developing a new drug, as well as limit consumers ability to learn about natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals. Another example is the Dodd-Frank legislation, which has strengthened large financial intuitions while harming their weaker competitors.
Legislation forcing consumers to pay out-of-state sales tax on their online purchases is a classic case of business seeking to use government to harm less politically-powerful competitors. This legislation is being pushed by large brick-and-mortar stores and Internet retailers who are seeking a government-granted advantage over smaller competitors.
Many failed mergers and acquisitions result from the distorted signals sent to business and investors by the Federal Reserve’s inflationary monetary policy. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the AOL-Time-Warner fiasco, which was a direct result of the Fed-created dot.com bubble.
In a free market, mergers between businesses enable consumers to benefit from new products and reduced prices. Any businesses that charge high prices or offer substandard products will soon face competition from businesses offering consumers lower prices and/or higher quality. Monopolies only exist when government tilts the playing field in favor of well-connected crony capitalists. Therefore those concerned about excessive corporate power should join supporters of the free market in repudiating the regulations, taxes, and subsides that benefit politically-powerful businesses. The most important step is to end the boom-bust business cycle by ending the Federal Reserve. | 0 |
Donald Trump Rushed Off Stage In Reno After Possible Assassination Attempt Donald Trump Rushed Off Stage In Reno After Possible Assassination Attempt
This account syndicates news from other media outlets. November 5, 2016 News
Via Breitbart :
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was rushed offstage at a Reno, Nevada campaign rally as a protester in the audience was involved in an extended incident near the stage.
It was not immediately clear what was occurring in the crowd, but several members of what appeared to be law enforcement or U.S. Secret Service jumped down into the area where the protester was, as could be seen on Right Side Broadcasting Network’s video livestream of the event.
Video of Trump being rushed off stage was posted online:
In the video it appears Trump pauses to look out into the crowd for the event disrupter. Two U.S. Secret Service agents can be seen rushing in to remove Trump from the stage and two other agents also facilitate his removal.
During his absence someone announced to the crowd that Trump would return. The protester was eventually seen being removed from the crowd, although there appeared to be a struggle with several law enforcement or Secret Service agents to secure the protester’s removal. It was several minutes before Trump was able to take the stage again.
As Trump returned to the stage, he thanked the crowd, which cheered him back.
“Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped, never ever be stopped,” said Trump. Here is the man in question, in handcuffs, being searched by officers after he was escorted out of the rally area. pic.twitter.com/pjoMCtM39K | 0 |
On Friday Gov. Chris Christie (R) commuted the prison sentence for former Marine Sergeant Hisashi Pompey, arrested six years ago for possessing a legally owned gun that was unregistered in the state of New Jersey. [On April 13 Breitbart News reported that Pompey brought his handgun into New Jersey while visiting from Virginia. Following an altercation at a nightclub, one of Pompey’s friends retrieved the gun and was arrested. Pompey was also arrested because the gun was not registered in the state of New Jersey. ABC 7 reported that Pompey did “three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan for which he received medals for bravery. ” He was a military police sergeant who now has a wife and young children at home. Until Christie intervened on Friday, Pompey was preparing to surrender to authorities for what would have been a minimum sentence for possession of an unregistered firearm. When news of the commuted sentence reached Pompey, he responded by making sure it was not a joke. Pompey said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, this isn’t April Fools, right? I don’t know how to react. I’m grateful, grateful. ” Pompey’s wife said, “I just said, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. It’s like you’ve given us our life back. ” Christie’s decision to commute Pompey’s sentence does not expunge the arrest from his record, it simply removes the punishment that resulted from the arrest. In April 2015, Christie pardoned Pennsylvania mother Shaneen Allen, who was arrested in October 2013 for carrying a legally owned handgun in her car. Allen had a Pennsylvania permit to carry, but New Jersey does not recognize Pennsylvania’s permit. And on December 23, 2015, Christie pardoned U. S. Marine Joshua Velez, a Massachusetts concealed carry permit holder who was arrested over a year earlier for bringing his 9mm handgun into the state of New Jersey. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Hope Solo stood in front of the American net on Friday afternoon, desperately needing to block a shot. She had been the target of derision from Brazilian fans from the moment the Olympics tournament began, and now she needed to rescue her teammates, who had quickly fallen behind in a penalty shootout against Sweden in a quarterfinals match in Brasília. And Solo did step up. Guessing correctly on Sweden’s third shot, she leapt to her right to swat away the ball. Now the Americans were even. Moments later, Solo nearly blocked another shot, which would have put the United States ahead. But when that ball just eluded her outstretched left hand, it became one of the last bits of agony in a disastrous afternoon for the Americans. Christen Press missed the next shot for the United States, Lisa Dahlkvist converted for Sweden and, just like that, the United States was out of an Olympics tournament it had captured the last three times it was staged. It was a stunning ending for the American women, who only a year ago had captured the World Cup to great acclaim and then been honored with a parade in Manhattan. On Friday, they dominated play against a team no one thought was their match, and yet, after 90 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of overtime, all they could show for their efforts was a tie. Then came the shootout, and the Americans were done. Or just beginning, depending on who was doing the talking after the game. Solo, whose flippant Twitter posts last month about the Zika virus had led to the jeers she encountered here, had trouble containing herself when she spoke to reporters. After praising her teammates for tying the game in the 75th minute, saying it ”showed a lot of heart,’’ she ripped into the Swedes, saying they had played like “a bunch of cowards. ’’ “The best team did not win today,’’ she added. “I strongly and firmly believe that. ’’ Solo’s gripe was that Sweden, under the guidance of Pia Sundhage, had sat back for much of the game, content to let the Americans push the action. But Sundhage had good reason to take that approach. She had coached the American team through the 2012 Olympics, knew that it was faster and generally more talented than her group and that it would be best for her players to defend, be patient and look for a chance to counterattack. That opportunity came in the 61st minute when a clever series of passes created a breakaway for Sweden’s Stina Blackstenius, who drove the ball past Solo and into the right corner of the net for a lead. With the pressure now building on the Americans, Coach Jill Ellis summoned Megan Rapinoe, the astute playmaker, who had sat out for eight months after ripping up her knee before finally playing 30 minutes on Monday against Colombia. But Rapinoe could contribute little. And when the United States finally did tie the score, it was with a bit of luck, with a pass from Tobin Heath striking a Swedish defender in the face and bouncing right toward Alex Morgan, who quickly drilled it home. Then came overtime, and in the 115th minute Carli Lloyd, so often the American hero in recent years, headed the ball past Swedish goalie Hedvig Lindahl for what looked to be the . Offside, said the referees. A minute later, Lotta Schelin scored for Sweden. Offside was the ruling again. Neither ruling may have been correct, but they had the effect of canceling each other out. The shootout quickly followed. Morgan, going first for the United States, had her shot blocked. Lindsey Horan, Lloyd and Morgan Brian all beat Lindahl, but Press faltered, floating the ball over the net. Which left Solo to figure out a way to block one more shot, and keep the shootout going. A year ago, in the World Cup semifinal against Germany, Solo had stalled before a penalty kick, hoping to unsettle the German player who was taking the shot. When the shot was eventually taken, it went wide, and the Americans went on to win.’ ”Now Solo tried to stall again. She fiddled with her gloves and then changed them. She took her time, making Dahlkvist wait. But as with everything else with the American team, what seemed to work in 2015 didn’t on Friday. Dahlkvist beat Solo easily and it was over.” ’“I’m incredibly disappointed,” Ellis said. “I told the players that there is no way to remove the pain they are feeling, but that there will always be a next game. ” Which left Sundhage to offer her thoughts. So many key Americans — Solo, Lloyd, Morgan, Rapinoe — had prospered under her. Solo had been her goalie in previous shootouts with everything on the line. They had celebrated and suffered together, though Sundhage had told The New York Times in 2015 that Solo was one of the most challenging players to coach because of her tendency to create trouble for herself off the field. Now, a year later, Solo was essentially accusing her old coach of cowardice. The unflappable Sundhage took it in stride. “It’s O. K. to be a coward if you win,’’ she said. “They played more attacking football than we did. We defended very well. ’’ And when the game finally went to a shootout, she added, she looked at her players and was confident they would prevail. “I’m so happy,’’ she said, words that will linger as the Americans go home. | 1 |
We Are Change
We will being keeping track of all election anomalies, poll rigging, blocking of the polls, and other shady voting fraud tricks throughout the day that may be used to rig the election this will be updated periodically all day so check back for new information. To make this easy to read and to inform you the voter we will break this down into sections by state in alphabetical order just like I did in August, for the Democratic primary . We really hope that we won’t have fill up this whole list and that many remain blank oh yeah and oh good friend James O`Keefe and crew are out there want to become famous? Go ahead rig the election we dare you..
If you're committing #VoterFraud , we're going to find you. #VeritasIsEverywhere #ElectionDay pic.twitter.com/qHULNMuEQ4
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 8, 2016
If you have a tip regarding any type of electioneering you may email me at [email protected] or [email protected].
Edward Snowden shows how easy it is to HACK into a US voting machine with a £24 memory card ALABAMA:
ALASKA:
ARIZONA:
ARKANSAS:
CALIFORNIA:
COLORADO:
CONNECTICUT:
DELAWARE:
Washington District of Columbia:
FLORIDA:
GEORGIA:
HAWAII:
IDAHO:
ILLINOIS:
INDIANA:
IOWA:
KANSAS:
KENTUCKY:
LOUISIANA:
MAINE:
MARYLAND:
MASSACHUSETTS:
MICHIGAN:
MINNESOTA:
MISSISSIPPI:
MISSOURI:
MONTANA:
NEBRASKA:
NEVADA:
Clinton’s Campaign Just Got Busted Impersonating Union Nurses in Nevada
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
NEW JERSEY:
NEW MEXICO:
NEW YORK:
Misleading NYC Election Mailer Could Be Bad News for Trump, Sanders
NORTH CAROLINA:
NORTH DAKOTA:
OHIO:
VOTER FRAUD! Before The OH Primary, Voters Noticed Something STRANGE On The Ballot… Do You See It?
OKLAHOMA:
OREGON: PENNSYLVANIA:
View post on imgur.com "My name is Brittany Foreman… and today I witnessed Voter Fraud." #VoterFraud ILLEGAL. Please SHARE pic.twitter.com/5Plk8FszuT
— Philly GOP (@PhillyGOP) November 8, 2016
In Philadelphia tailing a pastor's bus that's bussing people to the polls. #VeritasIsEverywhere & we will catch your #VoterFraud . @PhillyGOP pic.twitter.com/FY9UPOQolp
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 8, 2016
Puerto Rico:
RHODE ISLAND:
SOUTH CAROLINA:
SOUTH DAKOTA:
TENNESSEE:
TEXAS:
UTAH:
VERMONT:
VIRGINIA:
Virgin Islands:
WASHINGTON:
WEST VIRGINIA:
WISCONSIN:
WYOMING:
The post Live Blog: Voting Fraud Exposed Nationwide appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
0 комментариев 0 поделились Фото: AP
Видеокадры, которыми подкрепляется эта информация, представляют собой видеомонтаж, склеенный из 10 разных видеоотрезков, снятых, к тому же, в разное время суток и с разным разрешением. Об этом заявил официальный представитель Минобороны генерал-майор Игорь Конашенков.
По данным ведомства, для проверки информации ЮНИСЕФ российское военное ведомство тщательно проанализировало данные всех средств объективного контроля воздушной обстановки северной части Сирии.
"Мы проанализировали фото и видеокадры якобы "свидетельств" разрушения школы. Опубликованные в ряде зарубежных СМИ видеокадры якобы нанесения удара по н. п. Хасс являются склейкой более 10 смонтированных отрезков, снятых с различным разрешением в разное время суток... В среду 26 октября ни один самолет ВКС России в данный район не заходил", - сказал Конашенков.
На опубликованной зарубежными СМИ фотографии видно, что повреждена только одна торцевая стена здания, причем все парты в классе стоят на своих местах, отметил он, а через пролом в стене отчетливо видно совершенно целое, без следов осколочных повреждений, ограждение розоватого цвета напротив, что невозможно при взрыве авиационного боеприпаса.
"Ограда и все стены здания в этом случае должны были быть разрушены и посечены осколками, а мебель сметена ударной волной", - пояснил Конашенков.
Для подтверждения этой информации в четверг утром в район Хасса был направлен российский беспилотник. Аэрофотосъемка ВКС РФ, проведенная в районе якобы авиаудара по школе, установила отсутствие характерных повреждений для воздушных бомбардировок.
"Как видно на фотографии с российского БПЛА, никаких повреждений крыши школы или воронок от взрыва авиабомб в прилегающем к школе районе нет... Кстати, аналогичные сведения могут быть запрошены у наших американских коллег", - отметил представитель Минобороны.
В это время в данном районе российскими средствами контроля воздушного пространства сопровождался американский разведывательно-ударный БПЛА MQ-1B Predator, отметил Конашенков.
Напомним, как сообщала Правда.Ру, 26 октября в сирийской провинции Идлиб в результате авиаудара, который был нанесен по школе, погибли 22 ребенка и 6 учителей.
«Это трагедия. Если это было сделано намеренно, то это - военное преступление»,- приводит AFP слова директора ЮНИСЕФ Энтони Лейка. До этого правозащитники сообщали, что «военные самолеты или российские, или сирийские нанесли шесть ударов» по деревне Хасс Лэйк отметил, что произошедшее является трагедией или военным преступлением.
Официальный представитель МИД РФ Мария Захарова, заявила, что Россия не имеет никакого отношения к атаке на школу в сирийском Идлибе, и все международные институты должны срочно подключиться к расследованию этой трагедии.
Чем ближе взятие Алеппо, тем яростнее будут обвинения в адрес России , считает сотрудник Центра анализа стратегий и технологий Максим Шеповаленко. Информационные вбросы, подобные истории об российском ударе по школе в провинции Идлиб , будут продолжаться до конца войны. "Все пошло враздрай: никаких мирных переговоров, вступил в силу План Б - по вооружению боевиков. Значит, информационная война в самом разгаре" - сказал аналитик в беседе с Pravda.Ru
Читайте последние новости Pravda. Ru на сегодня | 0 |
Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. MENU | 0 |
Federal corruption charges were announced on Thursday against two former close aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a senior state official and six other people, in a blow to the governor’s innermost circle and a repudiation of the way his prized upstate economic development programs were managed. The charges against the former aides, Joseph Percoco and Todd R. Howe, and the state official, Alain Kaloyeros, were the culmination of a federal investigation into the Cuomo administration’s efforts to lure jobs and businesses to upstate New York’s limping economy by furnishing billions of dollars in state funds to developers from Buffalo to Albany. In doing so, says a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday, Mr. Percoco and Mr. Howe sought to enrich themselves through bribes, using their positions to help particular companies receive “hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts and other official state benefits. ” The charges mark the second major inquiry of the Cuomo administration by the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan eight months ago, after investigating Mr. Cuomo’s handling of an anticorruption panel that he had created and abruptly shut down, Mr. Bharara said there was “insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime. ” At a news conference at which he announced the charges, Mr. Bharara was asked if he would essentially give Mr. Cuomo a “clean bill of health” again. “There are no allegations of any wrongdoing or misconduct by the governor, anywhere in this complaint,” Mr. Bharara replied. “That’s all I’m going to say. ” If the charges did not hit Mr. Cuomo directly, they did hit him in a peripheral and personal manner: Mr. Percoco and Mr. Howe were both loyalists of Mr. Cuomo and his father, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, for whom they had also worked. Andrew Cuomo once referred to Mr. Percoco as “my father’s third son, who I sometimes think he loved the most. ” Mr. Cuomo had also spoken highly of Dr. Kaloyeros, depicting him as a visionary in the field of nanotechnology, which Mr. Cuomo has heralded as a potential boon for the state economy. Mr. Bharara’s office and F. B. I. agents in Buffalo had been examining whether state officials awarded lucrative projects to a few favored developers who had donated to the political campaigns of Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat. One major area of interest was the administration’s plan to inject $1 billion in state funds into factories, research facilities and other projects, known together as the Buffalo Billion. The resulting investigation yielded a rich narrative of three trusted counselors to Mr. Cuomo conspiring to help the favored contractors, rigging bids and doling out other favorable treatment. The complaint also portrayed the defendants as trying to conceal the schemes, sometimes in unusual ways. In emails and other correspondence, Mr. Percoco and Mr. Howe referred to bribe money as “ziti,” a term used in “The Sopranos,” the complaint says. Mr. Percoco, Mr. Howe and others also called one another “Herb” as a term of endearment, while discussing the arrangement. Mr. Bharara said at a news conference on Thursday that he hoped the case would go to trial “so that all New Yorkers can see, in gory detail, what their state government has been up to. ” Mr. Percoco, who had served as Mr. Cuomo’s executive deputy secretary, is accused of soliciting and taking more than $315, 000 in bribes from 2012 to 2016 from two companies: Competitive Power Ventures, an energy company that was seeking state approval to build a power plant in the Hudson Valley, and COR Development, a major developer in the Syracuse area that ended up with several large economic development projects. The bribes were arranged by Mr. Howe, who counted both companies among his clients, the complaint said. Mr. Howe is cooperating with the investigation, prosecutors said, and pleaded guilty this week to extortion, wire fraud and related conspiracy charges. His lawyer, Richard J. Morvillo, would say only that his client “has accepted responsibility for his actions and will testify truthfully if called upon. ” In one instance cited in the complaint, prosecutors say Mr. Howe sent an email to Dr. Kaloyeros saying he had “vitals for Buffalo and Syracuse friends. ” He was working with a prominent corporate donor, LPCiminelli, a builder based in Buffalo, to create a request for proposals that effectively made LPCiminelli the only eligible bidder. Neither the energy company nor the developers in Buffalo and Syracuse are named in the complaint, but several defendants charged are among the companies’ top officials. They include Peter Galbraith Kelly Jr. who oversaw lobbying and public relations for Competitive Power Ventures, which is based in Maryland and Massachusetts Steven Aiello, the president of COR Development and Joseph Gerardi, another executive at COR. The complaint also charges Louis Ciminelli, the founder of LPCiminelli and Michael Laipple and Kevin Schuler, two other LPCiminelli executives. Mr. Kelly is accused of offering and paying Mr. Percoco more than $287, 000 in bribes in exchange for Mr. Percoco’s help. The payments were made to Lisa Mr. Percoco’s wife, who was ostensibly employed as a consultant to Competitive Power Ventures’s educational outreach arm starting in 2012. Competitive Power Ventures wanted Mr. Percoco’s help obtaining a state contract worth approximately $100 million to finance its power plant in the Hudson Valley, as well as millions of dollars in energy credits for a power plant it was building in New Jersey. The COR executives, Mr. Aiello and Mr. Gerardi, were accused of giving Mr. Percoco about $35, 000 in bribes to use his position in the governor’s office to promote the company’s economic development projects. According to the complaint, they sought Mr. Percoco’s help in reversing a decision by the state’s economic development agency that would have forced COR — Mr. Cuomo’s largest donor in central New York — to make an expensive labor peace agreement pushing the state to release payments that it owed to COR and getting a $5, 000 raise for Mr. Aiello’s son, who worked for Mr. Percoco at the governor’s office. The charges in the complaint included bribery, extortion under color of official right, and wire fraud and honest services fraud conspiracies. The defendants appeared in federal courts in Manhattan, Syracuse and Buffalo on Thursday and were ordered released on bond. The expected charges against Mr. Percoco were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Percoco’s lawyer, Barry A. Bohrer, characterized the prosecution as “an overreach of classic proportions,” adding that a Supreme Court decision in June that overturned the corruption conviction of former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia established that his client’s conduct was lawful. “Mr. Percoco performed services honestly and within the bounds of the law at all times,” Mr. Bohrer said. A lawyer for Mr. Aiello and Mr. Gerardi declined to comment. Mr. Kelly’s lawyer, Daniel M. Gitner, said his client was innocent and “will be exonerated. ” LPCiminelli, citing its three executives named in the complaint, said it was “confident that all company officials acted appropriately and legally” and would be vindicated. Virtually all the projects were shaped under the umbrella of the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute and its subsidiaries. The institute is headed by Dr. Kaloyeros, a physicist who has become something of an economic development guru in Albany. Dr. Kaloyeros had been given free rein by Mr. Cuomo to conceive of economic development projects that could create jobs across the state. Michael C. Miller, a lawyer for Dr. Kaloyeros, said his client was innocent and “looks forward to being exonerated. ” Dr. Kaloyeros also was hit with separate charges on Thursday filed by the New York attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman. Dr. Kaloyeros and Joseph Nicolla of Columbia Development, an firm, were accused of colluding to make sure Columbia was awarded contracts to build multiple SUNY Polytechnic projects. Mr. Cuomo said Dr. Kaloyeros had been suspended without pay. When news of the investigation into the governor’s former aides broke in April, his office quickly cut ties to both men and ordered its own internal investigation. The results of that inquiry have not been released. Mr. Cuomo said in a statement on Thursday that if the allegations were true, he would be “saddened and profoundly disappointed. ” “I hold my administration to the highest level of integrity. I have zero tolerance for abuse of the public trust from anyone,” he said. “If anything, a friend should be held to an even higher standard. ” | 1 |
CNN asked the Democratic National Committee to prepare questions for Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Donald Trump, according to emails released by Wikileaks.
In an April 25 email entitled “Trump Questions for CNN,” the DNC’s Lauren Dillon asked fellow Democrats for questions Blitzer could ask Trump.
“Wolf Blitzer is interviewing Trump on Tues ahead of his foreign policy address on Wed,” she wrote. “Please send me thoughts by 10:30 AM tomorrow. Thanks!”
The DNC came up with a lengthy set of questions for CNN :
– Who helped you write the foreign policy speech you’re giving tomorrow? Which advisors specifically did you talk to? What advice did they give you? Did they give you any advice that you chose not to take?
– CIA Director Brennan and former CIA Director Hayden have both said that our military and intelligence officers might refuse to follow some of your orders if you were president. What would you do if the military refused to listen to you? Should they be court-martialed if they refuse to follow orders?
– You’ve said you look to Ambassador John Bolton for military advice and called him “terrific,” but he was one of the architects of the Iraq war. How do you explain your praise for Bolton if you also claim the war was a mistake? What advice have you taken from him?
You can read the rest here , but there’s a few other gems:
– Do you think American victims of 9/11 should be able to sue Saudi Arabia in court? What role, if any, do you think Saudi Arabia had in the 9/11 attacks?
– You’ve said we should have bombed the “right people” after 9/11 and have suggested that the government has evidence Saudi Arabia was involved. Do you think we should have instead bombed Saudi Arabia?
This is smoking gun, undeniable proof that CNN is in the tank for Hillary Clinton – and the rest of the mainstream media is no different.
In fact, the Clinton campaign is acting as an assignment editor for the establishment media by telling reporters what to cover – and what to bury from public view that would otherwise hurt Hillary.
Previous Wikileaks emails revealed that campaign staffers are directly working with mainstream “journalists” to develop news stories favorable to the campaign – before they’re published!
“Huffington Post is doing a piece on our treasurer Jose Villareal — will likely focus at least partially on him sitting on the Walmart board,” said campaign communications staffer Jesse Lehrich in a 2015 email , which reads like a reporter assignment list at a major newspaper. “Other outstanding stories include: [Buzzfeed correspondent] Ruby Cramer on our grassroots organizing, Anita Kumar (McClatchy) on where we have organizers and how we’ve spent our money during Q2, and [Washington Post reporter] Phil Rucker on HRC talking about gun violence prevention.”
Source
| 0 |
SAN FRANCISCO — The West Coast has long prided itself as an engine for reinvention and progressive ideals, distinct from the rest of the country. But after Tuesday’s election, the states bordering the Pacific Ocean feel increasingly like an island unto its own. While large parts of the American electoral map, particularly in the industrial Rust Belt, turned more Republican in Tuesday’s election, California went more Democratic, with 61. 5 percent of voters choosing Hillary Clinton, the highest percentage for a Democratic presidential nominee since the of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. On social policies, the election made the Rockies look more like a border than a mountain range. In a raft of ballot measures, voters embraced causes like bilingual education, stricter gun control and taxes on sugary drinks. Amid Donald J. Trump’s promises to slash taxes, voters in the West decided the opposite, raising taxes and voting to pour billions of dollars into schools and transportation. And the entire West Coast has legalized marijuana, now that California joined Washington and Oregon. While there have been gestures of conciliation in Washington toward Mr. Trump, political leaders in the West were defiant. Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor of California, said the election inspired him to team up with “enlightened” leaders in the West to “push back aggressively” against policies on immigration and the environment from the future Trump administration. “We are a nation state,” Mr. Newsom said, referring to the state’s diversity and vast, dynamic economy. “In so many ways, we are America,” he said. “But we are just ahead of the curve. ” The election of Mr. Trump prompted street protesters in the liberal bastions of California to call for secession from the union — and a promise from Shervin Pishevar, a Silicon Valley investor, to fund a #calexit campaign, as it has become known on social media. A petition for Oregon to secede was filed with the Oregon secretary of state’s office on Thursday, allowing backers to start gathering signatures. The notion of West Coast states leaving the United States is fanciful and often . But it reflects a sentiment here that after Mr. Trump’s unexpected victory on Tuesday, the West increasingly sees itself as separate — a place of innovation, economic dynamism and a belief that government can be an agent of change. Abby Ginzberg, a documentary filmmaker who lives in Albany, Calif. said she felt both deflated by the result but somewhat insulated from its consequences. “Right now, I am depressed and upset and aware we live in a bubble,” she said. “Thank god for the bubble!” In Oregon and Washington, Mrs. Clinton’s margin of victory was close to President Obama’s four years ago. She received about 73 percent of the vote in Oregon’s biggest urban county, Multnomah, which includes the Portland area — with most of the votes counted in an election. In Washington, the concentrations of blue intensified from the last presidential election. In King County, which includes Seattle and is the most populous in the state, Mrs. Clinton did better than Mr. Obama, with nearly three out of four residents voting for her, compared with 69 percent for Mr. Obama in 2012. Mayor Ed Murray of Seattle, a Democrat, described his city in recent days as almost like a fortress under siege, scanning for attack on the ramparts. Fighting, he said — in defense or offense — seems inevitable. “This country has elected a president who, during the campaign, demonstrated outright misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism, racism and authoritarian tendencies,” he said. “We also have to challenge what we believe is wrong. ” Mr. Murray, the city’s first openly gay mayor, said he believed Mr. Trump, based on his comments as a candidate, could also aim to “trim back” gains that places like Seattle have made in gay rights. “Let me tell you, this city is committed that we will not lose the things that we have gained, the rings that we wear on our fingers,” the mayor said. Not every result was so liberal. Californians voted to keep the death penalty, and some inland counties clearly supported the Trump candidacy. Still, one reason Mr. Trump’s populist revolt bypassed the West is that the economic landscape did not reflect decades of decay and job losses. Yes, there are areas of anger and strain, from the ranches of eastern Oregon to coal towns in northwestern Colorado to strawberry farms in the Central Valley of California to steel towns struggling to reinvent themselves. But there are also new solar and wind farms, tourist towns and cities from Denver to San Jose, Calif. to Seattle that are buzzing with businesses, construction cranes and swarms of new residents. “Places like Colorado, we have a robust economy,” said Representative Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents the Denver area. “What you see in the West is the development of a new economy that they’re not seeing the Midwest and the South. ” Over all, Colorado sided narrowly with the Democrats on Tuesday, but the state embraced liberal ballot measures like a rise in minimum wage and a law allowing medical assistance in dying for terminally ill people. Voters rejected a health care system, however. Like states across the nation, California is unsure to what extent Mr. Trump’s promises to slash government programs such as the Affordable Care Act will be carried out. Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco and for decades a major player in state Democratic Party politics, said he did not believe California would be singled out for its support of Mrs. Clinton. “I don’t think there will be a Trump jihad on California,” he said. “He’s not so much into policy. He’s into saying what he thinks people want to hear. ” Kevin de León, Senate president pro tem of California, said that his staff was not taking any chances and had begun a “comprehensive review” of all federal programs that had an impact on California, and that it was looking at the impact that “draconian cuts” would have. Kamala Harris, California’s newly elected senator and a Democrat, said on Thursday that she would fight to protect immigrants and push back against Mr. Trump’s proposed policies. Some mayors in the West vowed to push ahead with plans to protect salmon, to limit greenhouse gases, to feed undocumented immigrants and to outlaw discrimination against gay and transgender residents. “Our agenda here in Colorado, our agenda here in Denver, does not change,” said Michael B. Hancock, the mayor of Denver. “We’re trying to design policies that are more inclusive. States like Colorado, cities like Denver, are ahead of the curve. We’re trying to forge a future where we say, ‘How do we not leave people behind? ’” Other West Coast political leaders said they did not necessarily envision a war with the Trump administration and its allies but more a kind of competition for hearts and minds. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat who was elected to her first term in Congress on Tuesday representing part of Seattle, said that whispers of what might be called West Coast values — particularly a higher minimum wage — found echoes on Tuesday in states like Arizona that also voted for Mr. Trump. West Coast states, she said, should look for those allies and cultivate them. Voters in Colorado, Maine and Washington State also voted to raise their minimum wages. “I absolutely believe that we can pull people toward this model,” said Ms. Jayapal, the first woman to serve in Congress. “I think we are showing how to do things — we passed gun control legislation for the second time in three years on the ballot. We passed a statewide increase, the highest in the country. ” On Thursday, as Mr. Trump visited the White House for the first time as city officials in Portland, Ore. and environmental activists met to discuss a restriction on export terminals for coal, oil and other fossil fuels. “Regardless of whether we have climate deniers in charge at the national government, it doesn’t change the facts,” said Mayor Charlie Hales of Portland. He said he was “heartsick” over the election, calling it a “national catastrophe. ” “Rivers flood. Droughts persist. We don’t have the luxury of living in an ideological bubble on this,” he said. The Obama years had given Portland a close partner in Washington. That relationship could be upended if Mr. Trump follows through on promises to cut off all federal funding for cities deemed to be “sanctuary cities” for undocumented immigrants. Federal money flows to everything from rail lines to crime fighting to school lunch programs for poor children. “We’ve built a better place, and the world is beating a path to our door,” Mr. Hales said. “We’ll figure out how to feed people with or without the federal government’s help. ” In other liberal towns across the West, students joined protests against Mr. Trump, chanting what has now become a familiar motto, “Not Our President. ” In Portland, some of the protests turned violent on Thursday night. In Boulder, Colo. Mrs. Clinton had a bigger win than Mr. Obama four years earlier. High school students streamed out of classes on Wednesday afternoon there to protest the election results, as they have in a several secondary schools across the West. On the pedestrian Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Heidi Ames, 41, kept a lonely vigil with a sign that said, “Trump Is Not My President. ” “There are a lot of shocked and depressed people right now,” she said. “I wanted to show other liberal people I’m doing something. I’m not just talking on Facebook. ” On the day after the election, Mr. de León, of the California Senate, sent out a statement written with a colleague in the Legislature that said the victory of Mr. Trump made them feel like “strangers in a foreign land. ” In an interview on Thursday, Mr. de León said he felt a mix of disillusionment and defiance. “California has long set an example for other states to follow,” he said. “We are not going to allow one election to reverse generations of progress. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Zar Mohammad Stanikzai remembers the promise made to him when he became a translator supporting the United States military in 2012: Help us, and we will keep you safe. Four years later, his fear of Taliban reprisals has made him a prisoner in his Afghan home, he said, and he is still waiting for the Americans to honor their commitment. Instead, Congress is bickering over the program meant to be his deliverance. Republican infighting, infused with nativist tones, has left in question whether a special visa program for translators and interpreters who assisted the military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be renewed, a potentially devastating blow to approximately 12, 000 Afghans whose immigration applications are in limbo. “We’ve really been trying to reinforce the fact to Afghans that we are committed to you, and this gives the enemy some propaganda to say, ‘Hey, these people really aren’t committed to you,’ ” said Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan. “It’s our credibility that is on the line,” he added. Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a longtime champion of the visa program, was blunt. “People are going to die,” Mr. McCain said on the Senate floor, challenging a fellow Republican who was blocking more visas. “Don’t you understand the gravity of that?” For more than eight years, the State Department has offered a visa program designated for many of those who face an “ongoing serious threat” as a result of having provided critical linguistic support — whether in oral interpretation or written translation — in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the last two and a half years, officials say, they have issued visas to more than 8, 000 Afghans and their immediate families through the program, which members of the armed services, military officials and lawmakers from both parties have hailed as indispensable to national security. Congress has responded to the State Department’s program parsimoniously, allocating the special visas piecemeal through its annual defense policy bill. Since the end of 2014, lawmakers have set aside about 7, 000 visas for Afghan translators and interpreters. As of July 10, fewer than 3, 000 of those visas remained, but about 12, 000 individuals have at least started the application process, according to the State Department. Applicants must apply by Dec. 31 in order to be considered. Then this year, something changed: A few Republicans said no, asking whether more visas were necessary when the State Department still had visas from previous years that could be distributed. Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee — which has jurisdiction over immigration matters — also questioned the cost of adding the 4, 000 visas that the Obama administration requested this year, pointing to a Congressional Budget Office estimate of $446 million over the next 10 years. After Congress failed to approve more visas in the House and Senate defense bills, a bipartisan group of senators tried again last month with a compromise that would have added 2, 500 visas — only to be blocked by Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, who said his quarrel was not with the visa program but rather with the fact that it was getting a vote while one of his own, unrelated measures was not. Mr. McCain responded by accusing Mr. Lee of “signing the death warrants” of people who had put their lives on the line to help the United States. Mr. Stanikzai would agree. Now 24, he first applied in 2013 for one of the visas, writing to American officials later that year that an imam had warned his father that his son must stop working for the Americans or be killed. He then described how he came under fire as he drove home from his mosque, his car hit by three rounds from an he said. If the Taliban find him — or any of the Afghans hoping the United States will grant them visas — “they will kill us,” he said in an interview. Yet with neither the House nor the Senate approving more visas in their competing defense policy bills, lawmakers hashing out a compromise this fall may be unlikely to step in. Much of the resistance seems to stem from a growing discomfort with immigrants, said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire and one of the visa program’s most active supporters. One Republican counterproposal this year would have offset each special visa by deducting one visa from the 50, 000 allocated every year to ordinary immigrants. “What that said to me is that the issue here is not really the special immigrant visas for our interpreters,” she said. “It was, ‘How do we keep from allowing more people into the United States?’ ” In an election year in which many voters have cheered Donald J. Trump’s call to keep out migrants from Muslim countries, Ryan C. Crocker, who served as ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, saw more troubling motivations. “I haven’t heard members say that openly, but I sometimes wonder if behind a reluctance to move in a positive fashion lurks that sentiment,” he said. John Kirby, the State Department’s spokesman, said the vetting of applicants included fingerprint and facial recognition checks as part of a full counterterrorism screening. The government has struggled to keep pace with the influx of Afghan and Iraqi applications for special visas and changes to the eligibility rules made by lawmakers, mistakenly disqualifying some applicants and trapping others in a holding pattern that lasts months or even years. That is time, several translators and interpreters said, that the applicants cannot afford to waste as they face serious threats to their lives every day. As the Obama administration works out those problems, congressional inaction would turn off the spigot at the end of the year and shut out any new applications. That has horrified program supporters, including many military officers. Gen. David H. Petraeus and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, former commanders of the United States forces in Afghanistan, as well as Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. the current commander, have pressed Congress to renew the program. Simply debating whether to help those who helped the United States is damaging, Mr. Crocker said, because it leaves people wondering, as he put it, “What kind of people are those Americans?” Mohammad Nasim Hashimyar, 29, said he worked with the American Special Forces in Afghanistan for a little more than a year, but his visa was rejected because of a “lack of faithful and valuable service,” according to the letter he received from the American Embassy. He kept it along with a handful of certificates of appreciation and letters of recommendation from soldiers he helped, including one who wrote that Mr. Hashimyar was “the key to success” in many of their efforts. He has appealed his rejection. Facing threats to him and his family, he said he avoided leaving his home when possible, and he carried a gun. “I wish I have never worked with them,” he said. “I destroyed my life. ” | 1 |
Gawker Media, whose fierce independence afforded it an unsparing approach to web journalism that influenced news organizations across the internet and the wider media world, was sold to Univision at auction on Tuesday, giving the freewheeling company an outside owner for the first time since its founding 14 years ago. Univision bid $135 million to beat out the digital media publisher Ziff Davis, according to three people with direct knowledge of the deal who spoke on condition of anonymity because the price had not been made public. A bankruptcy judge is to officially approve the sale at a hearing later this week. The sale came two months after Gawker filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a concession to the financial pressure the company faces from a $140 million legal judgment in an lawsuit by the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea. Making matters worse for Gawker was Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who acknowledged after the Hogan trial that he had funded the lawsuit and was providing financial support for other legal cases against the company. Univision will not assume the $140 million judgment. Univision, best known for its television network, has recently moved aggressively to expand its online portfolio, and adding Gawker’s sites fits with its plans to extend its reach beyond viewers. Univision bought a large stake in The Onion this year and acquired full control of Fusion, the news site and cable channel that it started with the Walt Disney Company in 2013. Univision also owns other digital media companies, including The Root, a site focused on issues. In a statement, Nick Denton, Gawker’s founder and chief executive, said: “I am pleased that our employees are protected and will continue their work under new ownership — disentangled from the legal campaign against the company. We could not have picked an acquirer more devoted to vibrant journalism. ” Univision declined to comment. For Gawker, the sale is the end of an era. Founded in 2002 by Mr. Denton, a former journalist for The Financial Times, the site attracted young journalists who took on articles that traditional media organizations were sometimes reluctant to pursue. The company had its critics, who said its sites skirted the boundaries of good taste. It initially had only two sites — Gawker, a news and gossip site that largely covered New York media and society, and Gizmodo, a gadgets and technology blog. What journalists initially lacked in monetary compensation, they made up for in a kind of industry cachet. Employees went on to found influential sites like The Awl and work at publications like The New Yorker and Time. “One thing that has always been true about Gawker is that it was an amazing incubator of talent,” said Adam Moss, the editor in chief of New York magazine, which has hired many former Gawker journalists. He added, “To a large extent, the voice that they worked out at the beginning became a kind of template for the way people talk on the web. ” Mr. Denton was known for saying that journalists too often share the most interesting stories they know only with each other at the bar after work, and the company held the value of entertaining readers seemingly above all else. Over the years, Gawker Media espoused a gossipy, wry tone that often made much of the traditional media seem . The company blogs now include Jezebel, which is aimed at women, and Deadspin, the sports site. But Gawker’s approach has also been to its detriment. Mr. Bollea sued Gawker Media in 2012 over its publication of a video that showed him having sex with the wife of a friend. He has been unable to collect from Gawker on the $140 million judgment because of its bankruptcy filing. Mr. Denton, who is personally liable for $10 million and jointly liable for $115 million, filed for bankruptcy this month, listing $10 million to $50 million in assets and $100 million to $500 million in liabilities. Gawker had revenue of $17. 8 million for the year through July 21, according to filings in connection with the bankruptcy. It reported $48. 7 million in revenue in 2015 and $43. 8 million in 2014. Mr. Thiel’s battle with the company began in 2007, when Valleywag, one of Gawker’s blogs, wrote a post saying he was gay. “I had begun coming out to people I knew, and I planned to continue on my own terms,” Mr. Thiel wrote in an in The New York Times that was published online on Monday. “Instead, Gawker violated my privacy and cashed in on it. ” He wrote that he was “proud to have contributed financial support” to Mr. Bollea’s case and would continue to support him “until his final victory. ” Last summer, after Gawker published and then removed an article about a married male media executive who sought to hire a gay escort, the company was thrown into turmoil over disagreement about whether the post should have been taken down. Two top editors resigned, and Mr. Denton vowed to make the site nicer. Since the verdict in the Hogan case was handed down by a Florida jury in March, Gawker’s typical defiance has been tinged with resignation. During a party in July at The Box, a burlesque club in Lower Manhattan, the drinks flowed freely, and so did cheeky jokes about Mr. Thiel and the company’s bankruptcy. Last week, at its offices near Union Square, Gawker held its final party as an independent company. It was billed as a affair — the wine and beer were gone by 8 p. m. — and the mood was somewhere between reunion and Irish wake. “We have shown with our backs against the wall the kind of character and determination and verve and style that I think we can absolutely be proud of,” Mr. Denton told a crowd that had assembled on the large area that has become the company’s default gathering place. “In a week, we’re going to know the identity of the company’s new owner, and I’m hopeful and confident that the parent company that the sites will be under will allow them to thrive. ” In a note to employees, Vivek Shah, the chief executive of Ziff Davis, said his company had withdrawn from the auction “once we felt the price and terms exceeded our threshold. ” When Gawker filed for bankruptcy, Ziff Davis submitted a $90 million offer for the company. A stalking horse bidder, Ziff Davis would have assumed ownership of Gawker if no other bidder had emerged. As part of its agreement for being the first bidder, Ziff Davis will collect a $2. 475 million breakup fee. It was not clear what the sale would mean for Mr. Denton. Whether he stays on at Univision may not be up to him, and there have been indications that he may be ready to step away. In the last year, Heather Dietrick, Gawker Media’s president and general counsel, has taken on more of a leadership role. It was also not clear whether Univision would hold on to Gawker. com, the flagship site that was at the center of the Hogan suit. Under Univision, Gawker will become a relatively small part of a large company. That could work in Gawker’s favor if it is allowed to operate on its own, without too much oversight from its new parent. But Univision, which has indicated in the past that it planned to go public, could also reshape Gawker in its own image. Gawker’s business was also a draw for Univision. Univision and Gawker had been in discussions about a potential investment before the Hogan trial, but those talks collapsed. | 1 |
Roger Wilkins, who championed civil rights for black Americans for five decades as an official in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, a foundation executive, a journalist, an author and a university professor, died on Sunday in Kensington, Md. He was 85. His daughter Elizabeth confirmed his death, at a care facility. The cause was complications of dementia. A black lawyer in the corridors of power, Mr. Wilkins was an assistant United States attorney general, ran domestic programs for the Ford Foundation, wrote editorials for The Washington Post and The New York Times, taught history at George Mason University for nearly 20 years and was close to leading lights of literature, music, politics, journalism and civil rights. Roy Wilkins, who led the N. A. A. C. P. from 1955 to 1977, was his uncle. Roger Wilkins’s early mentor was Thurgood Marshall, the renowned civil rights lawyer who became the Supreme Court’s first black associate justice. And he organized Nelson Mandela’s triumphant visit to the United States in 1990 as millions turned out to see that living symbol of resistance to apartheid after his release from 27 years in prison in South Africa. Beyond attending a segregated elementary school as a boy and being arrested once in a protest against apartheid, Mr. Wilkins had little personal experience with discrimination. He waged war against racism from above the barricades — with political influence, jawboning, court injunctions, philanthropic grants, legislative proposals, and commentaries on radio and television and in newspapers, magazines and books. Outwardly, he was a successful, popular black man with more white acquaintances than black friends. The second of his three wives was white. A lean, intense, intellectual, he grew up in a genteel family. The customs, attitudes and social currencies of everyday black life “evolved away from me,” he said in a memoir. “I didn’t know how to talk, to banter, to move my body,” he said. It mattered. As he rose to prominence, he came to regard himself as a token black in institutions and social circles that were overwhelmingly white and privileged. It troubled him deeply. In the memoir, “A Man’s Life: An Autobiography” (1982) he cited struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts and drinking problems, and acknowledged years of unease with his blackness, of trying to live up to the expectations of whites. “Instead of standing with my nose pressed to the window, I often found myself inside rooms with people whose names were Mailer, Vidal, Javits, Kennedy or Bernstein,” he wrote. He was surrounded at work by white men, while “my night world was virtually ” he added. “It was as if, by entering that world at night, I was betraying everything I told myself I stood for during the day. ” A University of Michigan Law School graduate, Mr. Wilkins went to Washington on a wave of New Frontier fervor in 1962 to join the Kennedy administration. He became special assistant to the head of the Agency for International Development. He was soon spotted as a savvy, if outspoken, Democratic asset, and joined campaigns for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson named him the administration’s chief troubleshooter on urban racial issues. He became an assistant attorney general, ostensibly to calm the unrest racking cities. He spoke dutifully against violence and met mayors and community leaders, but did not see his principal task as the suppression of disturbances. “I am a firm believer in the view that the riots are not the real problem,” Mr. Wilkins said, calling for more jobs, housing and help for the poor. “The real threat to American life is our inattention to the really depressed and anguished conditions of the minority group people who live in the ghettos of this country. ” In 1966, he and a Justice Department colleague went to Chicago to see the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As he admitted later, Mr. Wilkins harbored suspicions that Dr. King might be an opportunist, Louis Menand wrote in The New Yorker in 2013. The visitors found Dr. King in an airless railroad flat in a slum, talking to 40 or 50 young gang members about nonviolence. “For hours this went on,” Mr. Wilkins was quoted as saying. “There were no photographers there, no newsmen. There was no glory in it. He also kept two assistant attorneys general of the United States waiting for hours while he did this. ” It was 4 a. m. when Dr. King finished. He woke his wife, Coretta, and she made coffee. “We sat and we talked,” Mr. Wilkins said. “He was a great man, a great man. ” When Richard M. Nixon became president in early 1969, Mr. Wilkins detected a “turning away from the paths of cultural decency” and left government to join the Ford Foundation in New York. For three years, he oversaw funding for job training, education, drug rehabilitation and other programs. But he was powerless to support many projects he considered worthy and became disillusioned with the work. In 1972 he began a new career in journalism, writing editorials for The Washington Post. He also began to put aside what he called his “desperate search for white approval. ” His editorials on the Watergate scandal that drove Nixon from the presidency, along with reporting by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and cartoons by Herbert Block, helped The Post win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1973. Mr. Wilkins joined The Times editorial board in 1974 and later became an page columnist. In 1977, he and other minority journalists accused The Times in a federal lawsuit of racial discrimination in hiring and promotions the case was settled for cash and pledges of improvements. He left the newspaper in 1979 and was an associate editor and columnist for The Washington Star in 1980 and 1981. From 1979 to 1989 he was a member of the board that awarded journalism’s Pulitzer Prizes. He was also on an advisory panel that recommended Janet Cooke of The Washington Post for a Pulitzer in 1981, for her article on an heroin addict. It was exposed as a fabrication after she won the prize. He said the episode had harmed “blacks in newsrooms all over the country. ” Ms. Cooke, who returned the prize and resigned, is black. From 1982 to 1992, Mr. Wilkins was a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank. From 1988 until his retirement in 2007, he was the Clarence J. Robinson professor in history and American culture at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. During his teaching years, he wrote for newspapers and magazines and was a frequent commentator on radio and television. Roger Wilkins was born in Kansas City, Mo. on March 25, 1932, to Earl and Helen Jackson Wilkins. Some of his ancestors were slaves in Virginia. His father was a journalist and his mother was the first black national president of the Y. W. C. A. she helped desegregate the organization in the 1960s. In Kansas City, Roger attended the Crispus Attucks School, founded in 1893 and named for a slave killed by the British in the Boston Massacre of 1770. After his father died in 1941, the boy and his mother joined relatives in Harlem, and three years later settled in Grand Rapids, Mich. where he graduated from high school. At the University of Michigan, he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1953 and a law degree in 1956. He tried social work in Cleveland briefly, practiced law in New York City for several years, then joined the Kennedy administration. Mr. Wilkins had a home in Washington. His marriages to Eve Tyler and Mary Myers ended in divorce. His third wife, Patricia A. King, a law professor at Georgetown University, survives him. Besides her and his daughter Elizabeth, from his third marriage, he is survived by another daughter, Amy Wilkins, and a son, David, both from his first marriage two half sisters, Sharon Peters and Judith Claytor and two grandsons. Mr. Wilkins wrote “Jefferson’s Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism” (2001). He produced and narrated two PBS documentaries, “Keeping the Faith” (1987) about black churches, and “Throwaway People” (1990) about a poor black neighborhood. “In a sense,” Mr. Wilkins wrote in his memoir, “I have been an explorer, and I sailed as far out into the white world as a black man of my generation could sail. ” | 1 |
Anyone who thinks there is a proper government in Ukraine needs to watch this. Joe Biden? Senator McCain?
French subtitles: Thalie Thalie
English subtitles: Tom Winter
Follow us on Facebook!
Follow us on Twitter!
Donate!
| 0 |
PARIS — Former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been ordered by a judge to stand trial on charges of illegally financing his failed 2012 campaign, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, the latest impediment for a politician who not long ago was hoping for a comeback. Mr. Sarkozy, 62, a mercurial politician who was president of France from 2007 to 2012, has denied any wrongdoing. His lawyer said he would appeal the decision, after which the case would be referred to another court for a final ruling. Mr. Sarkozy, who could face up to a year in prison and a fine of 3, 750 euros, or about $4, 000, is out of the running for presidential elections this spring after a poor showing in a November primary for the center and right candidates, and he no longer leads the Republican Party. His diminished role in French politics would limit the fallout from a trial, but the judge’s decision comes amid growing anger against the political establishment and reflects increased scrutiny of its financial and personal arrangements. Mr. Sarkozy would be the second French president since 1958 to go on trial for a financial scandal. Jacques Chirac, who was president from 1995 to 2007, was given a suspended sentence in 2011 after being convicted of embezzlement and misuse of public funds when he was mayor of Paris. More recently, Christine Lagarde, a former economy minister for Mr. Sarkozy who went on to head the International Monetary Fund, was convicted in December of negligence for misusing public funds, but the court did not impose a fine or a sentence. François Fillon, Mr. Sarkozy’s former prime minister and the Republican presidential candidate, is bearing the brunt of the current outrage after revelations that he used taxpayer money to pay family members for parliamentary work that might not have been genuine. In Mr. Sarkozy’s case, the prosecution asserts that he knowingly authorized his 2012 campaign to surpass the strict spending limits set by French law. At the time, the limit for presidential campaigns was about $18. 6 million per candidate in the first round of the elections, and about $5 million on top of that in the second round for the two top who included Mr. Sarkozy. The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday that Mr. Sarkozy was suspected of spending at least $45 million, nearly twice the limit, and that he had ignored warnings from his campaign accountants. The case against Mr. Sarkozy is part of what is known as the Bygmalion affair, named for the public relations company suspected of issuing false invoices to Mr. Sarkozy’s party in 2012 for events that were actually for his presidential campaign. The prosecution asserts that the goal of the fraud was to hide the overspending by Mr. Sarkozy’s campaign from the electoral authorities. Mr. Sarkozy has repeatedly denied being aware of any false billing, and the prosecutors have not charged him with wrongdoing in that regard. Instead, the charges of illegal campaign financing relate only to the overspending, for which he has already paid a fine. Thirteen other people — including former party officials, aides close to Mr. Sarkozy and former executives at Bygmalion — were also ordered to stand trial on charges of involvement in the fraud, the prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday. Thierry Herzog, Mr. Sarkozy’s lawyer, noted in a statement that the decision was signed by only one of the two judges investigating the case, a potential sign of uncertainty about the evidence. “The clear disagreement between the two magistrates in charge of the matter is such a rare event that it is worth underlining,” he said, “as it illustrates the inanity of the decision. ” Mr. Sarkozy tried a political comeback last year, steering his presidential primary campaign rightward and hoping that the French electorate would look past his legal entanglements. But he was knocked out of presidential primaries in November. Mr. Fillon was recently embroiled in legal problems of his own, after revelations in the French news media that he used taxpayer money to put his wife and children on the payroll, ostensibly as parliamentary aides. The revelations are especially damaging for Mr. Fillon because he has portrayed himself as a virtuous politician, who, unlike his opponents — Mr. Sarkozy primarily — was untainted by legal scandals. “There is no point in talking about authority when you are not yourself irreproachable,” Mr. Fillon said in August during the primary campaign. “Who can imagine for a single moment General de Gaulle placed under formal investigation?” he added, a clear swipe against Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Fillon has denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to stay in the presidential race, despite opinion polls showing that he is no longer the favorite and might not advance to the second round of the elections. | 1 |
After a season that saw temperatures soar at the North Pole, the Arctic has less sea ice at winter’s end than ever before in nearly four decades of satellite measurements. The extent of ice cover — a record low for the third straight year — is another indicator of the effects of global warming on the Arctic, a region that is among the hardest hit by climate change, scientists said. “This is just another exclamation point on the overall loss of Arctic sea ice coverage that we’ve been seeing,” said Mark Serreze, the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, a research agency in Boulder, Colo. “We’re heading for summers with no sea ice coverage at all. ” Dr. Serreze said that such a situation, which would leave nothing but open ocean in summer until fall begins, could occur by 2030, although many scientists say it may not happen for a decade or two after that. The melting of sea ice does not raise sea levels, but loss of ice coverage can disrupt ecosystems. For example, it can affect the timing of blooms of phytoplankton, the microscopic organisms at the bottom of the ocean food chain. Less ice coverage also means that there is more dark ocean to absorb more of the sun’s energy, which leads to more warming and melting in a feedback loop called Arctic amplification. The data center said on Wednesday that sea ice in the Arctic had reached maximum extent, of about 5. 5 million square miles, on March 7. That is an area nearly twice the size of Australia, but about 470, 000 square miles less than the average maximum from 1981 to 2010. Much of the ice also appears to be thinner than normal, Dr. Serreze said, another result of the unusually warm temperatures in the Arctic this winter. Late last fall, parts of the Arctic were more than 35 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than observed averages, and at the pole itself, mean temperatures for November were 23 degrees above normal. There were similar temperature spikes in December and this year. “The Arctic Ocean was extremely warm over the winter, and there was a very impressive series of heat waves,” Dr. Serreze said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. ” Less coverage and thinner ice mean that this summer’s minimum, which is expected to occur in September, is likely to be low. But there is no direct link between the maximum in March and the minimum after the melting season, said Walt Meier, a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory. “Just because it’s a record low maximum, there’s no prediction it will be a record low minimum in September,” Dr. Meier said. “But while a lot can happen in the summer, when you start out at such a low level, you’re not going to get a very high minimum. ” Dr. Meier said that in addition to the low overall ice extent, some parts of the Arctic were almost completely devoid of ice this winter, including the Barents Sea off Norway and Russia. “We haven’t seen much there at all,” he said, “and what there is will melt very quickly. ” | 1 |
Family members from the U.S. side wore blue and those from the Mexican side wore white, but the colors of the shirts didn’t matter on this important, emotional day. After being burdened with... | 0 |
Toddlers become spherical for winter 10-11-16
TODDLERS have expanded into their spherical outdoor forms for the winter months.
Children aged two to four, who usually resemble humans on a smaller scale, protect themselves from harm in winter by becoming perfectly round and rollable.
Paediatrician Dr Carolyn Ryan said: “It’s a protection mechanism which both insulates them from the cold and prevents any injuries from slipping on ice.
“Their stubby legs still protrude from the bottom so they can waddle along and their hands can still just about clutch a plastic dinosaur, but otherwise they’re perfect spheres until the onset of spring.”
Father-of-two Martin Bishop said: “It’s one of those little things nobody tells you about being a parent but which seems completely obvious once you are.
“And it’s a massive timesaver on the nursery run because instead of trudging you can just bowl them along at quite a pace.
“Shit, I didn’t notice the hill.”
Share: | 0 |
100 oz Sunshine Silver Bars Just $0.29/oz Over Spot ANY QTY! Posted on Tweet Home » Silver » Silver Coins » 100 oz Sunshine Silver Bars Just $0.29/oz Over Spot ANY QTY! You must be logged in to post a comment. Today's Top Articles Privacy Policy THE ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION PROVIDED ON SILVERDOCTORS IS FOR YOUR EDUCATION AND ENTERTAINMENT ONLY, IT IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR TRADING PURPOSES. THE DOC IS NOT AN INVESTMENT ADVISER AND INFORMATION OBTAINED HERE SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN FOR PROFESSIONAL INVESTMENT ADVICE. THE COMMENTARY ON SILVERDOCTORS REFLECTS THE OPINIONS OF THE DOC AND OTHER CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS. YOUR OWN DUE DILIGENCE IS RECOMMENDED BEFORE BUYING OR SELLING ANY INVESTMENTS, SECURITIES, OR PRECIOUS METALS. WE DO NOT SHARE IN YOUR PROFITS, AND THUS WILL NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR LOSSES AS WELL. Search | 0 |
Mark Landler writes in the New York Times that President Trump’s latest trade initiatives mark a return to the populist policies of the campaign and a victory for Steve Bannon and the economic nationalist wing of the Trump administration. [From the New York Times: From Mr. Trump’s “buy American, hire American” rallying cry in Wisconsin this week to Vice President Mike Pence’s warnings to Japan and South Korea about the need to rewrite trade deals, the Trump administration is moving against free trade on multiple fronts. A senior White House official said there would be two events a week for the next few weeks. “He’s manically focused on these trade issues,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist. The flurry of activity amounts to a comeback by nationalists like Mr. Bannon, who views trade as crucial to Mr. Trump’s populist appeal but whose star has dimmed after clashes with aides like Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s and Gary D. Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs banker and lifelong Democrat who is head of the National Economic Council. The outcome of the debate between nationalists and globalists remains far from settled. Last week the globalists appeared to be winning when the administration decided not to formally designate China a currency manipulator, despite Mr. Trump’s vow to do so during the campaign. Mr. Trump also offered President Xi Jinping of China other concessions on his trade agenda in return for China’s help in curbing North Korea’s nuclear program. Read the rest here. | 1 |
Channel list
Following hurricane Matthew's failure to devastate Florida, activists flock to the Sunshine State and destroy Trump signs manually
Tim Kaine takes credit for interrupting hurricane Matthew while debating weather in Florida
Study: Many non-voters still undecided on how they're not going to vote
The Evolution of Dissent: on November 8th the nation is to decide whether dissent will stop being racist and become sexist - or it will once again be patriotic as it was for 8 years under George W. Bush
Venezuela solves starvation problem by making it mandatory to buy food
Breaking: the Clinton Foundation set to investigate the FBI
Obama captures rare Pokémon while visiting Hiroshima
Movie news: 'The Big Friendly Giant Government' flops at box office; audiences say "It's creepy"
Barack Obama: "If I had a son, he'd look like Micah Johnson"
White House edits Orlando 911 transcript to say shooter pledged allegiance to NRA and Republican Party
President George Washington: 'Redcoats do not represent British Empire; King George promotes a distorted version of British colonialism'
Following Obama's 'Okie-Doke' speech , stock of Okie-Doke soars; NASDAQ: 'Obama best Okie-Doke salesman'
Weaponized baby formula threatens Planned Parenthood office; ACLU demands federal investigation of Gerber
Experts: melting Antarctic glacier could cause sale levels to rise up to 80% off select items by this weekend
Travel advisory: airlines now offering flights to front of TSA line
As Obama instructs his administration to get ready for presidential transition, Trump preemptively purchases 'T' keys for White House keyboards
John Kasich self-identifies as GOP primary winner, demands access to White House bathroom
Upcoming Trump/Kelly interview on FoxNews sponsored by 'Let's Make a Deal' and 'The Price is Right'
News from 2017: once the evacuation of Lena Dunham and 90% of other Hollywood celebrities to Canada is confirmed, Trump resigns from presidency: "My work here is done"
Non-presidential candidate Paul Ryan pledges not to run for president in new non-presidential non-ad campaign
Trump suggests creating 'Muslim database'; Obama symbolically protests by shredding White House guest logs beginning 2009
National Enquirer: John Kasich's real dad was the milkman, not mailman
National Enquirer: Bound delegates from Colorado, Wyoming found in Ted Cruz’s basement
Iran breaks its pinky-swear promise not to support terrorism; US State Department vows rock-paper-scissors strategic response
Women across the country cheer as racist Democrat president on $20 bill is replaced by black pro-gun Republican
Federal Reserve solves budget crisis by writing itself a 20-trillion-dollar check
Widows, orphans claim responsibility for Brussels airport bombing
Che Guevara's son hopes Cuba's communism will rub off on US, proposes a long list of people the government should execute first
Susan Sarandon: "I don't vote with my vagina." Voters in line behind her still suspicious, use hand sanitizer
Campaign memo typo causes Hillary to court 'New Black Panties' vote
New Hampshire votes for socialist Sanders, changes state motto to "Live FOR Free or Die"
Martin O'Malley drops out of race after Iowa Caucus; nation shocked with revelation he has been running for president
Statisticians: one out of three Bernie Sanders supporters is just as dumb as the other two
Hillary campaign denies accusations of smoking-gun evidence in her emails, claims they contain only smoking-circumstantial-gun evidence
Obama stops short of firing US Congress upon realizing the difficulty of assembling another group of such tractable yes-men
In effort to contol wild passions for violent jihad, White House urges gun owners to keep their firearms covered in gun burkas
TV horror live: A Charlie Brown Christmas gets shot up on air by Mohammed cartoons
Democrats vow to burn the country down over Ted Cruz statement, 'The overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats'
Russia's trend to sign bombs dropped on ISIS with "This is for Paris" found response in Obama administration's trend to sign American bombs with "Return to sender"
University researchers of cultural appropriation quit upon discovery that their research is appropriation from a culture that created universities
Archeologists discover remains of what Barack Obama has described as unprecedented, un-American, and not-who-we-are immigration screening process in Ellis Island
Mizzou protests lead to declaring entire state a "safe space," changing Missouri motto to "The don't show me state"
Green energy fact: if we put all green energy subsidies together in one-dollar bills and burn them, we could generate more electricity than has been produced by subsidized green energy
State officials improve chances of healthcare payouts by replacing ObamaCare with state lottery
NASA's new mission to search for racism, sexism, and economic inequality in deep space suffers from race, gender, and class power struggles over multibillion-dollar budget
College progress enforcement squads issue schematic humor charts so students know if a joke may be spontaneously laughed at or if regulations require other action
ISIS opens suicide hotline for US teens depressed by climate change and other progressive doomsday scenarios
Virginia county to close schools after teacher asks students to write 'death to America' in Arabic
'Wear hijab to school day' ends with spontaneous female circumcision and stoning of a classmate during lunch break
ISIS releases new, even more barbaric video in an effort to regain mantle from Planned Parenthood
Impressed by Fox News stellar rating during GOP debates, CNN to use same formula on Democrat candidates asking tough, pointed questions about Republicans
Shocking new book explores pros and cons of socialism, discovers they are same people
Pope outraged by Planned Parenthood's "unfettered capitalism," demands equal redistribution of baby parts to each according to his need
John Kerry accepts Iran's "Golden Taquiyya" award, requests jalapenos on the side
Citizens of Pluto protest US government's surveillance of their planetoid and its moons with New Horizons space drone
John Kerry proposes 3-day waiting period for all terrorist nations trying to acquire nuclear weapons
Chicago Police trying to identify flag that caused nine murders and 53 injuries in the city this past weekend
Cuba opens to affordable medical tourism for Americans who can't afford Obamacare deductibles
State-funded research proves existence of Quantum Aggression Particles (Heterons) in Large Hadron Collider
Student job opportunities: make big bucks this summer as Hillary’s Ordinary-American; all expenses paid, travel, free acting lessons
Experts debate whether Iranian negotiators broke John Kerry's leg or he did it himself to get out of negotiations
Junior Varsity takes Ramadi, advances to quarterfinals
US media to GOP pool of candidates: 'Knowing what we know now, would you have had anything to do with the founding of the United States?'
NY Mayor to hold peace talks with rats, apologize for previous Mayor's cowboy diplomacy
China launches cube-shaped space object with a message to aliens: "The inhabitants of Earth will steal your intellectual property, copy it, manufacture it in sweatshops with slave labor, and sell it back to you at ridiculously low prices"
Progressive scientists: Truth is a variable deduced by subtracting 'what is' from 'what ought to be'
Experts agree: Hillary Clinton best candidate to lessen percentage of Americans in top 1%
America's attempts at peace talks with the White House continue to be met with lies, stalling tactics, and bad faith
Starbucks new policy to talk race with customers prompts new hashtag #DontHoldUpTheLine
Hillary: DELETE is the new RESET
Charlie Hebdo receives Islamophobe 2015 award ; the cartoonists could not be reached for comment due to their inexplicable, illogical deaths
Russia sends 'reset' button back to Hillary: 'You need it now more than we do'
Barack Obama finds out from CNN that Hillary Clinton spent four years being his Secretary of State
President Obama honors Leonard Nimoy by taking selfie in front of Starship Enterprise
Police: If Obama had a convenience store, it would look like Obama Express Food Market
Study finds stunning lack of racial, gender, and economic diversity among middle-class white males
NASA: We're 80% sure about being 20% sure about being 17% sure about being 38% sure about 2014 being the hottest year on record
People holding '$15 an Hour Now' posters sue Democratic party demanding raise to $15 an hour for rendered professional protesting services
Cuba-US normalization: US tourists flock to see Cuba before it looks like the US and Cubans flock to see the US before it looks like Cuba
White House describes attacks on Sony Pictures as 'spontaneous hacking in response to offensive video mocking Juche and its prophet'
CIA responds to Democrat calls for transparency by releasing the director's cut of The Making Of Obama's Birth Certificate
Obama: 'If I had a city, it would look like Ferguson'
Biden: 'If I had a Ferguson (hic), it would look like a city'
Obama signs executive order renaming 'looters' to 'undocumented shoppers'
Ethicists agree: two wrongs do make a right so long as Bush did it first
The aftermath of the 'War on Women 2014' finds a new 'Lost Generation' of disillusioned Democrat politicians, unable to cope with life out of office
White House: Republican takeover of the Senate is a clear mandate from the American people for President Obama to rule by executive orders
Nurse Kaci Hickox angrily tells reporters that she won't change her clocks for daylight savings time
Democratic Party leaders in panic after recent poll shows most Democratic voters think 'midterm' is when to end pregnancy
Desperate Democratic candidates plead with Obama to stop backing them and instead support their GOP opponents
Ebola Czar issues five-year plan with mandatory quotas of Ebola infections per each state based on voting preferences
Study: crony capitalism is to the free market what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity
Fun facts about world languages: the Left has more words for statism than the Eskimos have for snow
African countries to ban all flights from the United States because "Obama is incompetent, it scares us"
Nobel Peace Prize controversy: Hillary not nominated despite having done even less than Obama to deserve it
Obama: 'Ebola is the JV of viruses'
BREAKING: Secret Service foils Secret Service plot to protect Obama
Revised 1st Amendment: buy one speech, get the second free
Sharpton calls on white NFL players to beat their women in the interests of racial fairness
President Obama appoints his weekly approval poll as new national security adviser
Obama wags pen and phone at Putin; Europe offers support with powerful pens and phones from NATO members
White House pledges to embarrass ISIS back to the Stone Age with a barrage of fearsome Twitter messages and fatally ironic Instagram photos
Obama to fight ISIS with new federal Terrorist Regulatory Agency
Obama vows ISIS will never raise their flag over the eighteenth hole
Harry Reid: "Sometimes I say the wong thing"
Elian Gonzalez wishes he had come to the U.S. on a bus from Central America like all the other kids
Obama visits US-Mexican border, calls for a two-state solution
Obama draws "blue line" in Iraq after Putin took away his red crayon
"Hard Choices," a porno flick loosely based on Hillary Clinton's memoir and starring Hillary Hellfire as a drinking, whoring Secretary of State, wildly outsells the flabby, sagging original
Accusations of siding with the enemy leave Sgt. Bergdahl with only two options: pursue a doctorate at Berkley or become a Senator from Massachusetts
Jay Carney stuck in line behind Eric Shinseki to leave the White House; estimated wait time from 15 min to 6 weeks
100% of scientists agree that if man-made global warming were real, "the last people we'd want to help us is the Obama administration"
Jay Carney says he found out that Obama found out that he found out that Obama found out that he found out about the latest Obama administration scandal on the news
"Anarchy Now!" meeting turns into riot over points of order, bylaws, and whether or not 'kicking the #^@&*! ass' of the person trying to speak is or is not violence
Obama retaliates against Putin by prohibiting unionized federal employees from dating hot Russian girls online during work hours
Russian separatists in Ukraine riot over an offensive YouTube video showing the toppling of Lenin statues
"Free Speech Zones" confuse Obamaphone owners who roam streets in search of additional air minutes
Obamacare bolsters employment for professionals with skills to convert meth back into sudafed
Gloves finally off: Obama uses pen and phone to cancel Putin's Netflix account
Joe Biden to Russia: "We will bury you by turning more of Eastern Europe over to your control!"
In last-ditch effort to help Ukraine, Obama deploys Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson's Rainbow Coalition to Crimea
Al Sharpton: "Not even Putin can withstand our signature chanting, 'racist, sexist, anti-gay, Russian army go away'!"
Mardi Gras in North Korea: " Throw me some food! "
Obama's foreign policy works: "War, invasion, and conquest are signs of weakness; we've got Putin right where we want him"
US offers military solution to Ukraine crisis: "We will only fight countries that have LGBT military"
Putin annexes Brighton Beach to protect ethnic Russians in Brooklyn, Obama appeals to UN and EU for help
The 1980s: "Mr. Obama, we're just calling to ask if you want our foreign policy back . The 1970s are right here with us, and they're wondering, too."
In a stunning act of defiance, Obama courageously unfriends Putin on Facebook
MSNBC: Obama secures alliance with Austro-Hungarian Empire against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine
Study: springbreak is to STDs what April 15th is to accountants
Efforts to achieve moisture justice for California thwarted by unfair redistribution of snow in America
North Korean voters unanimous: "We are the 100%"
Leader of authoritarian gulag-site, The People's Cube, unanimously 're-elected' with 100% voter turnout
Super Bowl: Obama blames Fox News for Broncos' loss
Feminist author slams gay marriage: "a man needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"
Beverly Hills campaign heats up between Henry Waxman and Marianne Williamson over the widening income gap between millionaires and billionaires in their district
Biden to lower $10,000-a-plate Dinner For The Homeless to $5,000 so more homeless can attend
Kim becomes world leader, feeds uncle to dogs; Obama eats dogs, becomes world leader, America cries uncle
North Korean leader executes own uncle for talking about Obamacare at family Christmas party
White House hires part-time schizophrenic Mandela sign interpreter to help sell Obamacare
Kim Jong Un executes own " crazy uncle " to keep him from ruining another family Christmas
OFA admits its advice for area activists to give Obamacare Talk at shooting ranges was a bad idea
President resolves Obamacare debacle with executive order declaring all Americans equally healthy
Obama to Iran: "If you like your nuclear program, you can keep your nuclear program"
Bovine community outraged by flatulence coming from Washington DC
Obama: "I'm not particularly ideological; I believe in a good pragmatic five-year plan"
Shocker: Obama had no knowledge he'd been reelected until he read about it in the local newspaper last week
Server problems at HealthCare.gov so bad, it now flashes 'Error 808' message
NSA marks National Best Friend Day with official announcement: "Government is your best friend; we know you like no one else, we're always there, we're always willing to listen"
Al Qaeda cancels attack on USA citing launch of Obamacare as devastating enough
The President's latest talking point on Obamacare: "I didn't build that"
Dizzy with success, Obama renames his wildly popular healthcare mandate to HillaryCare
Carney: huge ObamaCare deductibles won't look as bad come hyperinflation
Washington Redskins drop 'Washington' from their name as offensive to most Americans
Poll: 83% of Americans favor cowboy diplomacy over rodeo clown diplomacy
GOVERNMENT WARNING: If you were able to complete ObamaCare form online, it wasn't a legitimate gov't website; you should report online fraud and change all your passwords
Obama administration gets serious, threatens Syria with ObamaCare
Obama authorizes the use of Vice President Joe Biden's double-barrel shotgun to fire a couple of blasts at Syria
Sharpton: "British royals should have named baby 'Trayvon.' By choosing 'George' they sided with white Hispanic racist Zimmerman"
DNC launches 'Carlos Danger' action figure; proceeds to fund a charity helping survivors of the Republican War on Women
Nancy Pelosi extends abortion rights to the birds and the bees
Hubble discovers planetary drift to the left
Obama: 'If I had a daughter-in-law, she would look like Rachael Jeantel'
FISA court rubberstamps statement denying its portrayal as government's rubber stamp
Every time ObamaCare gets delayed, a Julia somewhere dies
GOP to Schumer: 'Force full implementation of ObamaCare before 2014 or Dems will never win another election'
Obama: 'If I had a son... no, wait, my daughter can now marry a woman!'
Janet Napolitano: TSA findings reveal that since none of the hijackers were babies, elderly, or Tea Partiers, 9/11 was not an act of terrorism
News Flash: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) can see Canada from South Dakota
Susan Rice: IRS actions against tea parties caused by anti-tax YouTube video that was insulting to their faith
Drudge Report reduces font to fit all White House scandals onto one page
Obama: the IRS is a constitutional right, just like the Second Amendment
White House: top Obama officials using secret email accounts a result of bad IT advice to avoid spam mail from Nigeria
Jay Carney to critics: 'Pinocchio never said anything inconsistent'
Obama: If I had a gay son, he'd look like Jason Collins
Gosnell's office in Benghazi raided by the IRS: mainstream media's worst cover-up challenge to date
IRS targeting pro-gay-marriage LGBT groups leads to gayest tax revolt in U.S. history
After Arlington Cemetery rejects offer to bury Boston bomber, Westboro Babtist Church steps up with premium front lawn plot
Boston: Obama Administration to reclassify marathon bombing as 'sportsplace violence'
Study: Success has many fathers but failure becomes a government program
US Media: Can Pope Francis possibly clear up Vatican bureaucracy and banking without blaming the previous administration?
Michelle Obama praises weekend rampage by Chicago teens as good way to burn calories and stay healthy
This Passover, Obama urges his subjects to paint lamb's blood above doors in order to avoid the Sequester
White House to American children: Sequester causes layoffs among hens that lay Easter eggs; union-wage Easter Bunnies to be replaced by Mexican Chupacabras
Time Mag names Hugo Chavez world's sexiest corpse
Boy, 8, pretends banana is gun, makes daring escape from school
Study: Free lunches overpriced, lack nutrition
Oscars 2013: Michelle Obama announces long-awaited merger of Hollywood and the State
Joe Salazar defends the right of women to be raped in gun-free environment: 'rapists and rapees should work together to prevent gun violence for the common good'
Dept. of Health and Human Services eliminates rape by reclassifying assailants as 'undocumented sex partners'
Kremlin puts out warning not to photoshop Putin riding meteor unless bare-chested
Deeming football too violent, Obama moves to introduce Super Drone Sundays instead
Japan offers to extend nuclear umbrella to cover U.S. should America suffer devastating attack on its own defense spending
Feminists organize one billion women to protest male oppression with one billion lap dances
Urban community protests Mayor Bloomberg's ban on extra-large pop singers owning assault weapons
Concerned with mounting death toll, Taliban offers to send peacekeeping advisers to Chicago
Karl Rove puts an end to Tea Party with new 'Republicans For Democrats' strategy aimed at losing elections
Answering public skepticism, President Obama authorizes unlimited drone attacks on all skeet targets throughout the country
Skeet Ulrich denies claims he had been shot by President but considers changing his name to 'Traps'
White House releases new exciting photos of Obama standing, sitting, looking thoughtful, and even breathing in and out
New York Times hacked by Chinese government, Paul Krugman's economic policies stolen
White House: when President shoots skeet, he donates the meat to food banks that feed the middle class
To prove he is serious, Obama eliminates armed guard protection for President, Vice-President, and their families; establishes Gun-Free Zones around them instead
State Dept to send 100,000 American college students to China as security for US debt obligations
Jay Carney: Al Qaeda is on the run, they're just running forward
President issues executive orders banning cliffs, ceilings, obstructions, statistics, and other notions that prevent us from moving forwards and upward
Fearing the worst, Obama Administration outlaws the fan to prevent it from being hit by certain objects
World ends; S&P soars
Riddle of universe solved; answer not understood
Meek inherit Earth, can't afford estate taxes
Greece abandons Euro; accountants find Greece has no Euros anyway
Wheel finally reinvented; axles to be gradually reinvented in 3rd quarter of 2013
Bigfoot found in Ohio, mysteriously not voting for Obama
As Santa's workshop files for bankruptcy, Fed offers bailout in exchange for control of 'naughty and nice' list
Freak flying pig accident causes bacon to fly off shelves
Obama: green economy likely to transform America into a leading third world country of the new millennium
Report: President Obama to visit the United States in the near future
Obama promises to create thousands more economically neutral jobs
Modernizing Islam: New York imam proposes to canonize Saul Alinsky as religion's latter day prophet
Imam Rauf's peaceful solution: 'Move Ground Zero a few blocks away from the mosque and no one gets hurt'
Study: Obama's threat to burn tax money in Washington 'recruitment bonanza' for Tea Parties
Study: no Social Security reform will be needed if gov't raises retirement age to at least 814 years
Obama attends church service, worships self
Obama proposes national 'Win The Future' lottery; proceeds of new WTF Powerball to finance more gov't spending
Historical revisionists: "Hey, you never know"
Vice President Biden: criticizing Egypt is un-pharaoh
Israelis to Egyptian rioters: "don't damage the pyramids, we will not rebuild"
Lake Superior renamed Lake Inferior in spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness
Al Gore: It's a shame that a family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of polar bears
Michael Moore: As long as there is anyone with money to shake down, this country is not broke
Obama's teleprompters unionize, demand collective bargaining rights
Obama calls new taxes 'spending reductions in tax code.' Elsewhere rapists tout 'consent reductions in sexual intercourse'
Obama's teleprompter unhappy with White House Twitter: "Too few words"
Obama's Regulation Reduction committee finds US Constitution to be expensive outdated framework inefficiently regulating federal gov't
Taking a page from the Reagan years, Obama announces new era of Perestroika and Glasnost
Responding to Oslo shootings, Obama declares Christianity "Religion of Peace," praises "moderate Christians," promises to send one into space
Republicans block Obama's $420 billion program to give American families free charms that ward off economic bad luck
White House to impose Chimney tax on Santa Claus
Obama decrees the economy is not soaring as much as previously decreeed
Conservative think tank introduces children to capitalism with pop-up picture book "The Road to Smurfdom"
Al Gore proposes to combat Global Warming by extracting silver linings from clouds in Earth's atmosphere
Obama refutes charges of him being unresponsive to people's suffering: "When you pray to God, do you always hear a response?"
Obama regrets the US government didn't provide his mother with free contraceptives when she was in college
Fluke to Congress: drill, baby, drill!
Planned Parenthood introduces Frequent Flucker reward card: 'Come again soon!'
Obama to tornado victims: 'We inherited this weather from the previous administration'
Obama congratulates Putin on Chicago-style election outcome
People's Cube gives itself Hero of Socialist Labor medal in recognition of continued expert advice provided to the Obama Administration helping to shape its foreign and domestic policies
Hamas: Israeli air defense unfair to 99% of our missiles, "only 1% allowed to reach Israel"
Democrat strategist: without government supervision, women would have never evolved into humans
Voters Without Borders oppose Texas new voter ID law
Enraged by accusation that they are doing Obama's bidding, media leaders demand instructions from White House on how to respond
Obama blames previous Olympics for failure to win at this Olympics
Official: China plans to land on Moon or at least on cheap knockoff thereof
Koran-Contra: Obama secretly arms Syrian rebels
Poll: Progressive slogan 'We should be more like Europe' most popular with members of American Nazi Party
Obama to Evangelicals: Jesus saves, I just spend
May Day: Anarchists plan, schedule, synchronize, and execute a coordinated campaign against all of the above
Midwestern farmers hooked on new erotic novel "50 Shades of Hay"
Study: 99% of Liberals give the rest a bad name
Obama meets with Jewish leaders, proposes deeper circumcisions for the rich
Historians: Before HOPE & CHANGE there was HEMP & CHOOM at ten bucks a bag
Cancer once again fails to cure Venezuela of its "President for Life"
Tragic spelling error causes Muslim protesters to burn local boob-tube factory
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu: due to energy conservation, the light at the end of the tunnel will be switched off
Obama Administration running food stamps across the border with Mexico in an operation code-named "Fat And Furious"
Pakistan explodes in protest over new Adobe Acrobat update; 17 local acrobats killed
White House: "Let them eat statistics"
Special Ops: if Benedict Arnold had a son, he would look like Barack Obama | 0 |
2016 elections by Danny Haiphong
Fears of Trump should not obscure the fact that Barack Obama’s reign was a disaster. “Black America is in a worse condition than before, working class people as a whole have lost ground to a low-wage economy, and the world is closer to a World War III scenario than at any point prior.” The struggle continues, but “it is important to ensure that the protests against Trump are not allowed to be channeled back into the Democratic Party graveyard.” Obama's Departure is One Reason to Feel Optimism for Trump's Arrival by Danny Haiphong
“Only gridlock saved Social Security and Medicare from being privatized during his Presidency.”
Thousands have taken to the streets across the country to protest Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 elections. The protests have mainly centered on Trump's racism, sexism, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric spewed during his campaign. Protesters have yet to wrestle with Trump's positions on foreign policy and trade that made him a pariah to the majority of the ruling class. The struggle against capitalism and imperialism in the US remains immature even in the midst of positive growth in the movement against police brutality and racism in recent years. While Trump's overt bigotry gives cause for protest, there is one benefit of the Trump moment that should not be understated. That benefit is the much needed conclusion of the Obama era.
Democrats across the US are in a state of mourning over the departure of Obama. Democrats heralded Obama as the quintessential professional and consummate politician. His celebrity was peppered by the appearance of intelligence and rationality in the face of so-called Republican "obstructionism." Obama's rule was advertised as a victory for the Black Freedom movement. His Administration possessed a vast marketing apparatus that defended him as the lesser-evil alternative to the racist vitriol of the White Man's Republican Party.
“Obama's rule was advertised as a victory for the Black Freedom movement.”
Black Agenda Report was one of the few on the left that warned of the dangers of Obama in 2008. Once elected, Obama became virtually untouchable. Criticisms of his policies were condemned as racist and insensitive to the needs of Black America. The needs of Black America and the entire left for that matter suddenly became aligned with whatever Obama did. Obama moved forward to protect the banks, escalate war, and erect the largest national security state ever assembled. He instantly became the austerity President, waging a war of privatization on public education with the expressed plans to do the same to Social Security. Only gridlock saved Social Security and Medicare from being privatized during his Presidency.
The full scope of Obama's legacy has been discussed in earlier issues and will not be analyzed here. What is important is that the left will no longer have Obama to defend its alignment with US imperialism. No longer will the left be able to fall back on the first Black President to sanitize his record. Obama's immigration policies deported nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants with little protest. His Administration painted itself as a friend of women and LGBTQ identified people despite the fact that his policy of proxy and drone warfare murdered tens of thousands of women and children in Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Honduras.
“The left will no longer have Obama to defend its alignment with US imperialism.”
Obama was able to conduct a greater assault on oppressed people than the prior Bush Administration, making him the most effective evil Wall Street could buy. Obama took over as President in a period where the US was mired in two unpopular occupations abroad and an economic crisis at home. These conditions prompted the ruling class to choose Obama as the required form of counterinsurgency necessary to crush resistance before it started. After making a number of promises to end "dumb wars" and institute a single payer healthcare system, Obama entered office ready to the bidding of the ruling class. Eight years later, Black America is in a worse condition than before, working class people as a whole have lost ground to a low-wage economy , and the world is closer to a World War III scenario than at any point prior.
The massive protests to Trump's victory are in part a release of popular energy brought on by the departure of Obama. Unrest began with the formation of the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements. However, neither of these movements articulated Obama's role in creating the conditions for social insurgency and movement. The 2016 elections changed the landscape dramatically. The Sanders and Trump campaigns set millions into motion in protest of the two-party establishment. Obama's departure will be another breath of fresh air into the internal rot of the imperialist system. It is thus important to ensure that the protests against Trump are not allowed to be channeled back into the Democratic Party graveyard.
“After making a number of promises to end "dumb wars" and institute a single payer healthcare system, Obama entered office ready to the bidding of the ruling class.”
Obama will leave Trump a set of conditions that he cannot possibly maintain without popular unrest. Obama departs office only inches from World War III with Russia and China. Poverty and wealth inequality worsened under his administration . Not even clever distortions of statistics could hide the large number of workers currently unemployed or underemployed in the low-wage economy. School closures, food stamp cuts, and bank bailouts have unleashed the neo-liberal wasteland that Trump spoke about in his campaign.
It appears early on that the left has rejected the viability of Trump's calls to regulate the banks and renegotiate trade deals in favor of working people. Many have ignored Trump’s “populist” rhetoric and have focused all the energy of resistance on his white supremacist proposals to ban Muslims and deport millions of undocumented people. However, this moment is just as much about Obama's departure as it is Trump's arrival. The US imperialist system is facing multiple crises that relate directly back to the economic stagnation of global capitalism. It would be a mistake not to demand Trump stay true to his “populism” just as it was a mistake when the left failed to demand Obama stay true to his promises. Whatever the case, the departure of Obama is a welcome site, and the left should use the room afforded by it to wage an intensified effort to build the organizational basis for social revolution in our time. Danny Haiphong is an Asian activist and political analyst in the Boston area. He can be reached at [email protected] | 0 |
3 Comments on "Hillary Validators brought to you by the National Jewish Democratic Council" Leave a Reply Click here to get more info on formatting (1) Leave the name field empty if you want to post as Anonymous. It's preferable that you choose a name so it becomes clear who said what. E-mail address is not mandatory either. The website automatically checks for spam. Please refer to our moderation policies for more details. We check to make sure that no comment is mistakenly marked as spam. This takes time and effort, so please be patient until your comment appears. Thanks. (2) 10 replies to a comment are the maximum. (3) Here are formating examples which you can use in your writing:<b>bold text</b> results in bold text <i>italic text</i> results in italic text (You can also combine two formating tags with each other, for example to get bold-italic text.)<em>emphasized text</em> results in emphasized text <strong>strong text</strong> results in strong text <q>a quote text</q> results in a quote text (quotation marks are added automatically) <cite>a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited</cite> results in: a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited <blockquote>a heavier version of quoting a block of text...</blockquote> results in: a heavier version of quoting a block of text that can span several lines. Use these possibilities appropriately. They are meant to help you create and follow the discussions in a better way. They can assist in grasping the content value of a comment more quickly. and last but not least:<a href=''http://link-address.com''>Name of your link</a> results in Name of your link (4) No need to use this special character in between paragraphs: ; You do not need it anymore. Just write as you like and your paragraphs will be separated. The "Live Preview" appears automatically when you start typing below the text area and it will show you how your comment will look like before you send it. (5) If you now think that this is too confusing then just ignore the code above and write as you like. uncle Bob 1 November 4, 2016 11:36 pm
No surprise here. From Israels POV ,” what’s not to like” about her. She’s there biggest supporter. The darling of the neo-con warmongers. The favorite of both the Democrat and “Republican” establishment elites (hence McCain in the video). I did have to gag a little at the praise about her moral,principled,leadership qualities though. And especially with Peres talking about her knowing that “peace” required time to accomplish. The Israelis know a “thing or two” about the “time issue”.They’ve stalled any moves for peace for over 60 years already. And will for another 60 if they can. Reply - Share | 0 |
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — Probably Wrote by the Rothschilds Lucifer Triumphant, Mankind Enslaved Many people think " The Protocols of the Elders of Zion ... http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/the-protocols-of-elders-of-zion.html Lucifer Triumphant, Mankind Enslaved Many people think " The Protocols of the Elders of Zion " is anti Semitic "hate literature" and a fraud. Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote that the book exhibits "the mind of genius." This is pretty unusual for a fraud. Solzhenitsyn said it exhibits, "great strength of thought and insight...Its design...(increasing freedom and liberalism, which is terminated in social cataclysm)...is well above the abilities of an ordinary mind...It is more complicated than a nuclear bomb." I'm afraid Protocols may be genuine They are lectures addressed to Jewish Luciferians ( Illuminati , Freemasons ) detailing an incredible plan to overthrow western civilization, subjugate mankind, and concentrate, "all the wealth of the world... in our hands." The book , typical of similar Illuminati documents, was leaked to the Czarist Secret police and published in Russia in 1905. The issue of anti Semitism diverts attention from this plot which has been unfolding for over 200 years and is behind world government, September 11, Iraq, Homeland Security and the bogus "War on Terror." FAIT ACCOMPLI. The plotters control the world's wealth. Their multinational corporations have Freemason symbols for logos. Shell and Citibank have the rising sun; Exxon the double cross, CBS and Time Warner the eye of Horus; Alcan and AOL, the circle in the triangle. The mass media, education and politics all create an illusion of democracy in order to control and defraud humanity. The Great Seal of the United States reflects the unhappy truth. It is also a Freemason symbol and bears the inscription "We have achieved New World Order ." Almost all American Presidents including George W. Bush are Freemasons or Illuminati. Israel's Star of David (interlaced triangles) is the Masonic symbol for the double divinity, Adonai and Lucifer. The issue of anti Semitism is irrelevant because Jewish and non-Jewish Luciferians have intermarried. (See Milan Martin, Lucifer's Children p.74) The elite now consists of humanity-haters of all stripes. No wonder corruption is endemic. As the Greeks say, the fish rots from the head. ROTHSCHILD — Meyer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) played a key role in advancing this monstrous conspiracy. He was a follower of the occult Cabbalism (or Lucifer worship) that is the basis of Illuminism and Freemasonry. (See Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry ) Researchers have speculated that Adam Weishaupt or Asher Ginzberg penned Protocols. I think it may have been Rothschild himself. I came to this conclusion after reading Protocols 20-23 , the "financial program... the crowning and the decisive point of our plans." These lectures require considerable knowledge of banking and finance. Moreover the author states that all power ultimately will reside in the "King of the Jews," which is how Rothschild was known. THE SOURCE OF POWER The author makes clear that whoever creates money is sovereign. He ridicules the goyim kings for forfeiting this power and says he doesn't intend to repeat this mistake. "When we come into our Kingdom," the government will change from being "a payer of tribute by loan operations...into a lender at a profit." "This measure will stop the stagnation of money, parasitic profits, and idleness which were useful for us among the goyim so long as they were independent but are not desirable under our rule." The Protocols is full of Talmudic contempt for non-Jews. "How clear is the undeveloped power of thought of the purely brute brains of the goyim... What could have been simpler than to take the money they wanted from their own people? "... We "will put an end to those abuses to which we owe our mastery over the goyim, but which cannot be allowed in our Kingdom." (I am using the L. Fry edition of The Protocols, entitled Waters Flowing Eastward, available from [email protected]) COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM, LIBERALISM, FEMINISM Similarly the bankers have financed intellectuals and politicians to promote a mania for, "senseless utopian principles" like "collectivism," "freedom of conscience, equality and the like." They are designed to bring down the Old Order but will have no place in the New. "We have set them on the hobbyhorse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by ... collectivism... "They have never yet and they never will reflect that this hobbyhorse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality..." "The purely brute mind of the goyim is incapable of analysis and observation...Their eyes are open but see nothing before them..." "Everything in this world is in a state of submission... to what is stronger. And so shall we be this something stronger for the sake of good." THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION Estonian journalist Juri Lina has examined the recently opened Soviet archives and documented the connection between the Bolshevik Revolution and Jewish Illuminism in his book " Under the Sign of the Scorpion ." (1994) I will probably devote a separate column to this book. Suffice to say here that Communism was the outcome of the plan outlined in Protocols. No wonder this book was banned in the USSR on pain of death! Its informal ban in America is a measure of our condition. Karl Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, were all Jewish Freemasons, dysfunctional losers who were employed by the Illuminist bankers to hoodwink the masses. Lenin for example had been an unsuccessful lawyer who had only six cases in which he defended shoplifters. He lost all six cases. A week later he gave up the law to become a highly paid revolutionary. Lenin declared: "Peace means quite simply the domination of Communism over the entire world." His reign of terror caused nine million deaths but you never see him compared with Hitler. The secret police, the Cheka, dominated by Jews, published the names of 1.7 million people they murdered in 1918-1919, including 300,000 priests. "A river of blood flowed through Russia," Lina writes. "According to official Soviet Reports, 1,695,904 people were executed from January 1921 to April 1922. Among these victims were bishops, professors, doctors, officers, policemen, lawyers, civil servants, writers... Their crime was 'anti social thinking'" CONCLUSION Jews will never understand anti Semitism until they realize it is not always based on irrational prejudice. In 1920, Winston Churchill made a distinction between national and "International Jews." He said the latter have been behind, "a worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality... "It played ... a part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band... have gripped the Russian people by the hair and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire." ( Ref. ) Our culture, not The Protocols , is a fraud. Communist Jews set an example for the Nazis . Luciferians like Rothschild, Lenin and Hitler still control the planet and are determined to enslave humanity. I'm afraid that this will become increasingly evident. I pray I am wrong. By Henry Makow Ph.D. Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
Stay updated via Email Newsletter: Related | 0 |
Politics US actor Robert De Niro (Photo by AFP)
Hollywood actor Robert De Niro, who had criticized Americans for putting an “idiot” like Donald Trump in a position where he might become the US president, now says he respects him because he is the president-elect of the United States.
Before the November 8 presidential election, De Niro had been enlisted along with several other actors to speak in a non-partisan video encouraging Americans to vote in. But the 73-year-old actor defied script and delivered a scathing rebuke of Trump.
“He's so blatantly stupid. He's a punk, he's a dog, he's a pig [...] a mutt who [...] doesn't do his homework, doesn't care. He's an idiot. Colin Powell said it best: He's a national disaster. He's an embarrassment to this country,” the Raging Bull actor said.
“It makes me so angry that this country has gotten to this point that this fool, this bozo, has wound up where he has,” he stated.
“He talks how he wants to punch people in the face? Well, I'd like to punch him in the face,” De Niro said.
But after the Republican presidential nominee was declared the 45th president-elect on Wednesday, De Niro clarified that he would no longer like to punch Trump because the man was elected to the highest seat in political office.
The veteran actor, however, told Jimmy Kimmel on his late-night show on ABC News that he is “not feeling good” after Trump’s victory, which caused protests and student walkouts across the country.
Protesters on Wednesday slammed Trump’s divisive campaign rhetoric against immigrants, refugees, Muslims and ethnic minorities.
De Niro said he has to respect Trump because of his new position - which means no punching.
“Are you still going to punch Donald Trump in the face?” Kimmel asked the actor, “because you could now get arrested for that, I think."
“I can’t do that now, he’s the President,” replied De Niro. “And I have to respect that position, although we all know what he… We have to see what he’s gonna do and how he’s really gonna follow through on certain things. As we can see now in a lot of cities, a lot of people are getting very upset and protesting.”
Many renowned figures, including some heads of states and other high-ranking officials, had publicly denounced Trump -- some even used abusive language against him -- in the run-up to the November 8 presidential election. But several of them have now softened their stance and some even sent messages of congratulations to the president-elect. Loading ... | 0 |
According to Quinnipiac University : Four-way races which list both presidential and vice-presidential candidates, except Georgia and North Carolina, where Green Party candidate Jill Stein is not on the ballot, show:
Georgia: Trump at 44 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent, with 8 percent for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. This compares to a 47 – 40 percent Trump lead September 22;
Iowa: A 44 – 44 percent Clinton-Trump tie, with 4 percent for Johnson and 1 percent for Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Trump led Clinton 44 – 37 percent September 22;
North Carolina: Clinton edges Trump 47 – 43 percent, with 5 percent for Johnson. On October 3, Clinton had 46 percent to Trump’s 43 percent;
Virginia: Clinton tops Trump 50 – 38 percent, with 4 percent for Johnson and 2 percent for Stein. Clinton was up 45 – 39 percent September 22.
Contrary to some Republican hopes, Donald Trump’s slide has not stopped. Trump continues to lose support with men in Iowa and Georgia. North Carolina appears to be slipping away from Trump, and the Republican nominee has blown his leads in Iowa and Georgia.
The Trump campaign has gone as far as to admit that if they lose Florida, they will lose the election, but the signs are evident in the polling that the Republican Party is much closer to experiencing a landslide than they are to winning the White House in November.
A Trump landslide defeat could trigger a disaster for Republicans that leads to additional Democratic Senate pickups beyond the four seats needed to take back the majority. Republicans could see their current record House majority gutted in a Clinton landslide.
The election is not getting better for Republicans. The landscape is getting worse. If this polling continues for another week at the state level, Democrats could be looking at their best case scenario of a Democratic White House, House and Senate being in play. | 0 |
BREAKING : Trump Takes Nearly 6-Point NATIONAL LEAD BREAKING : Trump Takes Nearly 6-Point NATIONAL LEAD Breaking News By Amy Moreno November 6, 2016
Trump takes his largest lead yet in the LA Times-USC Dornsife poll.
Trump now leads Hillary Clinton by 5.6 points. 48.2 to 42.6
If Trump maintains this margin he will win in a LANDSLIDE. Link to the poll. This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
Tweet Widget b y BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
The world’s most reactionary regime, the head-chopping, terror-sponsoring Saudi Arabian kleptocracy, was awarded the chair of the UN Human Rights Council, while Russia has been kicked out. The travesty was engineered by the Superpower of Lies to punish Moscow for resisting the U.S.-led war of sectarian massacre and regime change in Syria. The War Party is on the march, to the cheers of corporate media – and Hillary hasn’t even been elected yet. Freedom Rider : Russophobia: War Party Propaganda b y BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“ All attempts to stop the fighting were rejected by the U.S. and NATO and sealed the fate of the Syrian people.”
Did Russia invade Iraq and kill one million people? Does Russia have a greater percentage of its population behind bars than any other country in the world? Did Russia occupy Haiti after kidnapping its president? Are Russian police allowed to shoot children to death without fear of repercussion? Is Russia entering its 20 th year of a terror war against the people of Somalia? All of these crimes take place in or at the direction of the United States. Yet the full force of propaganda and influence on world opinion is directed against Russia, which whatever its shortcomings cannot hold a candle to America in violating human rights.
The dangers presented by a Hillary Clinton presidency cannot be overstated. She and the war party have been steadily working towards a goal that defies logic and risks all life on earth. Regime change is once again their modus operandi and they hope to make it a reality against Russia.
Nearly every claim of Russian evil doing is a lie, a ruse meant to put Americans in a fighting mood and lose their fear of nuclear conflagration. It isn’t clear if Clinton and the rest of the would-be warriors actually realize they are risking mushroom clouds. Perhaps they believe that Vladimir Putin will be easily pushed around when all evidence points to the contrary.
“ Regime change is once again their modus operandi and they hope to make it a reality against Russia.”
The unproven allegations of interference in the presidential election and casting blame on Russia as the sole cause of suffering in Syria are meant to desensitize the public. It is an age old ploy which makes war not just acceptable but deemed a necessity. The usual suspects are helping out eagerly. The corporate media, led by newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post , are front and center in pushing tales of Russian villainy. Human Rights Watch and other organizations who care nothing about abuses committed by the United States and its allies are also playing their usual role of choosing the next regime change victim.
Russia lost its seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council in part because of American pressure and public relations assistance from the human rights industrial complex. The UNHRC is now chaired by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that funds the jihadist terrorist groups who caused 500,000 Syrian deaths. The Saudis are causing dislocation, death and starvation in Yemen, too, but they are American allies, so there is little opposition to their misdeeds.
The openly bigoted Donald Trump has been the perfect foil for Hillary Clinton. That is why she and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership preferred him as their rival. He made the case for the discredited lesser evilism argument and his sensible statements about avoiding enmity with Russia made him even more useful.
“ Newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, are front and center in pushing tales of Russian villainy.”
The United States and its allies are the cause of Syria’s destruction. Their effort to overthrow president Assad created a humanitarian disaster complete with ISIS and al Nusra fighters who love to chop off heads for entertainment. Far from being the cause of the catastrophe Russia left its ally to fight alone for four years. They even made overtures to negotiate Assad’s fate with the United States. All attempts to stop the fighting were rejected by the U.S. and NATO and sealed the fate of the Syrian people. The people of east Aleppo are being shelled by American allies but one wouldn’t know that by reading what passes for journalism in newspapers and on television. The American role in the slaughter is barely mentioned or is excused as an effort to protect the civilian population. The bloodshed was made in the U.S. and could end if this government wanted it to.
The anti-Russian propaganda effort has worked to perfection. NATO is massing troops on Russia’s borders in a clear provocation yet Putin is labeled the bad guy. He is said to be menacing the countries that join in threatening his nation. The United States makes phony claims of Russian war crimes despite having blood on its hands. The latest Human Rights Watch canards about prosecuting Assad come straight from the White House and State Department and have nothing to do with concern for Syrians living in their fifth year of hell.
“Donald Trump has been the perfect foil for Hillary Clinton.”
There is no lesser evil between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. She is fully supported by the war party in her desire for a more “muscular” foreign policy. That bizarre term means death and starvation for millions more people if Clinton wins in a landslide. She must be denied a victory of that magnitude and any opportunity to claim a mandate. Peace loving people must give their votes to the Green Party ticket of Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka. They are alone in rejecting the premise of an imperialist country and its endless wars.
The United States is the most dangerous country in the world. If it has a reckless and war loving president the threat becomes existential. That is the prospect we face with a Hillary Clinton presidency. If the role of villain is cast on the world stage she is the star of the show. Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com. | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.