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VIA Conservative 101 According to Politico , some of those names include Gingrich for Secretary of State, Mnuchin, a 17 year veteran of Goldman Sachs for Treasure Secretary and Mayor Giuliani for Attorney General. And of course Sheriff David Clarke as the Homeland Security Secretary. He has been an incredible patriotic American and leader in Blue Lives Matter. CNN was terrified by this. “I think the one major flag I have is that someone like Sheriff Clarke would be considered as his Homeland Security secretary? Someone who I very much see as if he’s not a terrorist inciting terrorism?” said CNN commentator Angela Rye. “If people are afraid of Sheriff Clarke, afraid of the policies which he represents, I think that’s terrorism,” she stated. Naturally, this is ridiculous. It is just outrageous to name someone as a terrorist just because you disagree with them. Watch the video below and be sure to let us know what you think of it in the comment section.
If you haven’t checked out and liked our Facebook page, please go here and do so. Leave a comment... | 0 |
Waking Times
Now that the establishment corporate and liberal media have declared open war on so-called ‘ fake news ,’ already rolling out plans to flag, censor, robotically restrict and demonetize the efforts of independent journalists, the world waits with bated breath to see exactly what form the control of information will take.
The 24/7 talking heads on cable news are already repeating ad nauseam the ‘fake news’ talking points, as they do whenever there is a top-down agenda to push onto our supposedly free society.
In this case: America is divided because of fake news, fake news is a dangerous threat to democracy, fake news looks just like real news and we need experts to tell us what’s what, if we don’t stop fake news then people will be misled, fake news causes confusion and disrupts society, facts have no meaning when there’s fake news, fake news is information warfare and needs to be treated like terrorism.
You may be wondering, what, then, is real news?
Here’s an example, hot off the press.
At the ongoing Standing Rock civil disobedience action in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline, some 167 people were injured last night by militarized police forces who assaulted a bridge occupied by peaceful protestors including men, women, children and elderly persons. The temperature was well below freezing and for hours the police sprayed the crowd water cannons, fired many rounds of flash bang grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas, and used the LRAD acoustic weapon to disperse dissidents.
Here’s a video of the assault, from TYT .
During the assault, at least one elder was left in critical condition and it is reported that 13-year old girl suffered serious injuries when shot with a rubber bullet.
This is happening in America, to Americans, by American police, which makes it quite newsworthy to Americans.
We know without question, without even having to ask, that any crackdown on ‘fake news’ will not in any way apply to mainstream, corporate news sources such as the major newspapers and the major cable news networks.
A scan of ‘real news’ sources the morning after this major confrontation between police and resistors at Standing Rock reveals that stories like this, stories of resistance to corporate rule and government authoritarianism.
These Sources Did Not Report On This:
CNN.com – Although the homepage of CNN features around a hundred stories, as of the time of this post, there was no mention whatsoever about the Standing Rock confrontation last night.
MSNBC.com – No mention whatsoever of this event on this mainstream news site. The top 6 posts at the time this article was written were all about Donald Trump, his cabinet picks, and how his administration was going to be terrible.
CBS News – No coverage of this story on the CBS News homepage.
DrudgeReport.com – This story has not been aggregated on the Drudge Report.
These Sources Did Report on This:
FoxNews.com – The confrontation did make it the homepage of Fox, but not as a headline story. A short video was included, and the coverage was short and to the point. | 0 |
Posted on October 30, 2016 by WashingtonsBlog
By Gaius Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius , Tumblr and Facebook . Originally published at at Down With Tyranny . GP article archive here .
Proposed pipeline routes through the Middle East to gas markets in Europe. The purple line is the Western-supported Qatar-Turkey pipeline. All of the nations it passes through — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey (all highlighted in red) — have agreed to it … except Syria. The red line is the “Islamic Pipeline” from Iran through Iraq into Syria. See text below for further explanation. (Source: MintPress News ; click to enlarge)
Summary first: We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase.
I’m not sure most Americans have figured out what’s happening in Syria, because so much of what we hear is confusing to us, and really, we know so little of the context for it. Is it an insurgency against a brutal ruler? Is it a group of insurgencies struggling for power in a nearly failed state? Is it a proxy war expressing the territorial and ideological interests of the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Iran?
Or something else?
According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. it is something else — a war between competing national interests to build, or not build, a pipeline to the Mediterranean so natural gas can be exported to Europe. Inconveniently for Syria, that nation lies along an obvious pipeline route.
Which makes it another war between interests for money — something not very hard to understand at all.
Here’s Kennedy’s argument via EcoWatch. This is a long piece, well worth a full read, but I’ll try to present just the relevant sections here.
The Historical Context: Decades of CIA-Sponsored Coups and Counter-Coups in Syria
Kennedy’s introductory section contains an excellent examination of the history of U.S. involvement in Syria starting in the 1950s with the Cold War machinations of the Eisenhower-appointed Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA. Together, they effectively ruled U.S. foreign policy.
Kennedy writes (my emphasis):
Syria: Another Pipeline War
… America’s unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria—obscure to the American people yet well known to Syrians —sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic Jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIS. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely to only compound the crisis. Moreover, our enemies delight in our ignorance.
… [W]e need to look at history from the Syrians’ perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent Jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.
During the 1950’s, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a cold war neutral zone and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism—which CIA Director Allan [sic] Dulles equated with communism—particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the CIA’s Director of Plans, Frank Wisner, and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in September of 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, “We should do everything possible to stress the ‘holy war’ aspect.”
The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 —barely a year after the agency’s creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March of 1949, Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes , CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation, the CIA engineered a coup , replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA’s handpicked dictator , a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za’im. Al-Za’im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him , 14 weeks into his regime.
Kennedy then details the history of coups and counter-coups in and against Syria, and concludes this section with this:
Thanks in large part to Allan Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, sat on a secret committee charged with investigating CIA’s clandestine mischief in the Mid-East . The so called “Bruce Lovett Report,” to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the American people who believed, at face value, their government’s denials.
The report blamed the CIA for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root “in the many countries in the world today.” … A parade of Iranian and Syrian dictators, including Bashar al-Assad and his father , have invoked the history of the CIA’s bloody coups as a pretext for their authoritarian rule, repressive tactics and their need for a strong Russian alliance. These stories are therefore well known to the people of Syria and Iran who naturally interpret talk of U.S. intervention in the context of that history.
While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Syrians see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics. Before rushing deeper into the conflagration, it would be wise for us to consider the abundant facts supporting that perspective.
So much for our supposed interest in “humanitarian” intervention in Syria. From a Syrian point of view, it has never been thus. It has been about pipelines since 1949, and they understand that, even if we don’t.
The Current Conflagration
Kennedy then turns to the present, or the near-present. Refer to the map above as you read:
A Pipeline War
In [the Syrians’] view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000 when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey .
Qatar shares with Iran, the South Pars/North Dome gas field, the world’s richest natural gas repository. The international trade embargo, until recently, prohibited Iran from selling gas abroad and ensured that Qatar’s gas could only reach European markets if it is liquefied and shipped by sea, a route that restricts volume and dramatically raises costs.
The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin’s stifling economic and political leverage. Turkey, Russia’s second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia’s conservative Sunni Monarchy by giving them a foothold in Shia dominated Syria.
The Saudi’s geopolitical goal is to contain the economic and political power of the Kingdom’s principal rival, Iran , a Shiite state, and close ally of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S. sponsored Shia takeover in Iraq as a demotion to its regional power and was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against the Iranian backed Houthi tribe.
Which puts the Qatari pipeline squarely opposite to Russia’s national interest — natural gas (methane) sales to Europe.
Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat. In Putin’s view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria “to protect the interests of our Russian ally.”
That was likely the last straw vis-à-vis the U.S. Which brings us to another pipeline, the so-called “Islamic Pipeline” (see map above):
“Assad further enraged the Gulf’s Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved “Islamic pipeline” running from Iran’s side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran’s influence in the Mid-East and the world. Israel also was understandably determined to derail the Islamic pipeline which would enrich Iran and Syria and presumably strengthen their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Another, competing pipeline which would run through Syrian territory, but this time carrying Iranian gas instead of Qatari gas. Thus the demonizing of Assad as evil in the mold of Saddam Hussein, instead of just a run-of-the-mill Middle East autocrat, as bad as some but better than others. Kennedy includes a good section on the history of the al-Assad family’s rule of Syria, including this information from top reporters Sy Hersh and Robert Parry:
According to Hersh, “He certainly wasn’t beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca.” Another veteran journalist, Bob Parry, echoes that assessment. “No one in the region has clean hands but in the realms of torture, mass killings, civil liberties and supporting terrorism, Assad is much better than the Saudis.”
In September 2013, the Sunni states involved in the Qatar-Turkey pipeline were so determined to remove Syrian opposition to the pipeline that they offered, via John Kerry, to carry the whole cost of an U.S. invasion to topple al-Assad.
Kerry reiterated the offer to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL27): “With respect to Arab countries offering to bear the costs of [an American invasion] to topple Assad, the answer is profoundly Yes, they have. The offer is on the table.”
Obama’s response:
Despite pressure from Republicans, Barrack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate . Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to “moderate insurgents.” But by late 2011, Republican pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray.
The rest is a history of provocation and over-reaction — a great deal of both — and chaos and death in Syria. Kennedy provides much detail here, at one point adding:
[Syria’s] moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war . They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad’s Russian backed tyranny and the vicious Jihadi Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing pipelines . You can’t blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation minted in either Washington or Moscow. The super powers have left no options for an idealistic future that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline.
I’ll leave it there, but again, do read the entire piece if you want to truly understand what’s going on in Syria, and what is about to go on.
Bottom Line
Bottom line, it’s as Kennedy said: “No one wants to die for a pipeline” … but many do and will.
I’ll offer three thoughts. One , if we weren’t so determined to be deeply dependent on fossil fuels, this would be their war, not ours. Two , we are deeply dependent on fossil fuels because of the political machinations of the oil companies, their CEOs, and the banks and hedge funds who fund them, all of whom pay our government officials — via campaign contributions and the revolving door — to prolong that dependence. We’re here because the holders of big oil money want us here.
And three , keep all this in mind during the term of the next president. It will help you make sense of the phony warrior- cum -humanitarian arguments we’re almost certain to be subjected to.
We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase. | 0 |
CANNES, France — Last year’s Cannes Film Festival was abuzz with the “heel gate” microscandal after a security guard reportedly wouldn’t let women wearing flats onto the red carpet. This year, Julia Roberts strode up the steps for the premiere of Jodie Foster’s “Money Monster” and revealed that beneath her gown she was barefoot. The gesture seemed to capture the spirit of this year’s festival, where women of substance were much in evidence. After years in which the festival was criticized for favoring male auteurs, this year three female directors have strong films in competition, including Maren Ade, a German whose poignant comedy “Toni Erdmann” is seen as a likely contender for the top prize, the Palme d’Or. (Jane Campion is the only woman to have won that award, in 1993, for “The Piano. ”) Besides Ms. Ade, the other women with films in competition are the British director Andrea Arnold, whose “American Honey,” a road movie starring Shia LaBeouf and the actress Sasha Lane, has been receiving rave reviews (along with some pans) and the French Nicole Garcia, whose “From the Land of the Moon” stars Marion Cotillard as a troubled, Frenchwoman in the 1950s and has received mixed reviews. “It’s great there are three women directors here, but there’s still a lack of women making films,” Ms. Arnold said after a news conference for “American Honey. ” Lizzie Francke, a senior production and development executive at the British Film Institute’s Film Fund, echoed those sentiments. “It’s obvious that this year is a pretty good year,” she said, “but I also still feel it’s not good enough. ” She called Cannes “a venerable old man’s festival, but with a cutting edge. ” Even if Cannes’s selection, like the film industry itself, hardly achieves gender parity, there’s been more conversation this year about the challenges of getting more women behind the camera and in front of it, an issue that has heated up since the American Civil Liberties Union last year called for an investigation into gender discrimination in Hollywood hiring practices. At an event where the luxury consortium Kering gave an award to Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis 25 years after the release of “Thelma and Louise,” Pierre Lescure, president of the festival, said that maybe in a few years there would be a woman in his place and in the place of Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s director. The audience applauded. “I think more and more women starting production companies” would help, Ms. Sarandon said, adding: “Hollywood isn’t political one way or another — that’s the good news and the bad news. They just go with the money. ” Ms. Davis, who founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, recalled how after “Thelma and Louise” came out in 1991, the film was hailed as groundbreaking there were suggestions it might lead to more films women. That hasn’t entirely happened. “I think we have to stop saying, ‘Now this will change everything,’” she said. “If you can’t measure the change, it hasn’t happened. ” Ms. Davis said that she advised studios and TV networks to “Make what you’re already going to make,” but “before you cast it, just go through and change a bunch of names to female. ” Ms. Foster, whose “Money Monster” (playing out of competition) is her fourth feature as a director, said that the technological changes of recent years, like the advent of streaming services, had made studio executives and producers far more . That, she said, led them to tend to take big bets on projects they hope will draw huge audiences rather than investing in smaller films by unknown directors, including women. Before investing millions of dollars, “you’re going to go with the guy who looks like you,” Ms. Foster said at a Kering Women in Motion talk. She said that many scripts written by and for women were just not being produced. “It’s a financial issue, it’s where art and commerce come together and commerce is winning,” she said. “It used to be that the investment was not as large, so the risk was not as large. ” This week at Cannes, We Do It Together, a nonprofit film company started last year by Juliette Binoche and others aimed at making work by women for film and television, announced its first project: “Together Now,” a film of seven short episodes by different directors, including Robin Wright and Catherine Hardwicke, and starring Freida Pinto and Ms. Binoche, among others. At this year’s festival, even the starlets seem to have more edge. Kristen Stewart, called “the queen of Cannes” by Mr. Frémaux because she is starring in two films here, changed into a miniskirt and sneakers for the dinner following the film last week, Woody Allen’s “Café Society,” in which she plays against the girlish confines of her role. At a news conference, Mr. Allen said he had chosen Ms. Stewart, whose character is caught between those played by Steve Carell and Jesse Eisenberg, because “I needed someone who could play an adorable little secretary from Nebraska with little white socks on and little dresses,” but who could also transform into “a sophisticated beauty in cosmopolitan Manhattan. ” Ms. Stewart, whose range far exceeds adorable, elaborated on Mr. Allen’s description. “The way he describes this lightness and this feminine nature, it does suggest that it’s a little thoughtless,” she said at a lunch with the news media. “I think he has a tendency in interviews to say, ‘It was an idea and I had the idea and I wrote the idea and I hired the girl and she did it,’” Ms. Stewart added, imitating Mr. Allen’s cadences. “But there’s more going on,” she said. (Ms. Stewart also stars in “Personal Shopper,” by the French director Olivier Assayas, which screens in the competition here on Tuesday.) Vanessa Redgrave said that she didn’t envy young women starting out today. “I feel very respectful of them and tender toward them,” Ms. Redgrave said at an event to promote a newly restored version of “Howards End,” the 1992 Merchant and Ivory film set in the early 20th century in which her character doesn’t think women should be allowed to vote. “It’s like a voracious sort of market,” Ms. Redgrave added of the fame machine. “It’s grotesque. ” Carrie Fisher, who grew up in the public eye, said she still found it difficult that women in Hollywood are judged by their looks far more than men are. She was at Cannes for the premiere of “Bright Lights,” a documentary about her and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, directed by Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens. “Someone wrote a review that both my mother and I look exhausted,” Ms. Fisher said over tea while her dog sat in the next chair. “And they can say that. They are at liberty to say that,” she added. “In L. A. you’ll find more people saying, ‘You look great,’ not ‘You seem great,’ ‘How are you?’ ‘What are you doing? ’” The only women on most sets are still mainly actresses and hairdressers, she said, adding that that was also the case for the new “Star Wars” movie, which she is now shooting. “I’m a female in it,” Ms. Fisher said just one notch up from deadpan, of her role as General Leia. “An exhausted female. ” | 1 |
Search Zineb el Rhazoui, Charlie Hebdo Survivor, Discusses Why the World Needs to ‘Destroy Islamic Fascism’ Undeterred by fatwas and death threats, the author has released an incendiary and thoughtful new book, bound to provoke debate. October 28, 2016
Reprinted from NyTimes.com.
She leads a clandestine existence, on the move and under 24-hour guard as France’s most protected woman. Yet Zineb El Rhazoui, the Charlie Hebdo journalist who happened to be in Casablanca on January 7 last year, the day terrorists “avenging the Prophet” massacred nine people at the satirical magazine in Paris, believes she has a duty to defy Islamists desperate to silence her.
Shaken but undeterred by the fatwas and relentless, precise death threats issued via social media to “kill the bitch” since she helped produce the publication’s first survivors’ issue following the attack — and spoke about it in Arabic for the Arab press — the Moroccan-French writer refuses to assume an anonymous identity. Fleeing Paris or abandoning her human rights activism, and her unforgiving critiques of the religion she grew up with, are also out of the question.
“I don’t have the right to renounce my struggle, or to give up my freedom,” says the reporter and sociologist of religion in an interview with Women in the World, during a recent trip to New York, as part of French president Francois Hollande’s delegation when he received the Appeal of Conscience Foundation’s World Statesman Award for 2016. “If the French state protects me it is not little individual me: What is being protected is my freedom to be irreverent, and freedom of expression, so I should exercise this even more because I enjoy this protection.”
“It’s totally crazy. I have done nothing against the law and have nothing to hide, yet I live with security while those who threaten us are free,” El Rhazoui declares with an air of shock and anger that underscores the arbitrariness and brutality visited on a 34-year-old woman condemned to living on the run and mostly in the shadows. “And if you call them by their names you are Islamophobic and racist. I am racist? I can teach them a few things about Arab culture. I can show them how to discover its richness and the diversity of their culture. I believe this culture deserves universality because you can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker.”
Resisting terror
Sweeping in to the offices of Women in the World in Manhattan, accompanied by bodyguards, the world-renowned journalist is living proof of her pledge to keep “living her life beyond its limits” as a key way of resisting terror. Elegant and beautiful, with her long, wavy hair flowing freely and in an impeccably tailored black dress, El Rhazoui is reminiscent of 1940s cinema’s cerebral heroines — her eloquence and composure only occasionally betraying the trauma of the past 20 months. Each time we speak about the aftermath of the massacre at her magazine and how she is coping personally her voice quavers, but when the subject comes back to her fight for reform in Islamic civilization she is fearless.
In this spirit, El Rhazoui, obliged to spend most of her time in hiding, like Salman Rushdie after his 1989 publication of The Satanic Verses , has taken the high-risk option of publishing an explosive new book about Islam.
Detruire Le Fascisme Islamique ( Destroy Islamic Fascism ), being released in France this week, takes the battle of ideas directly to the ideologically-driven zealots who inspired the assassins of her dear friend Charb (Stephane Charbonnier), late editor of Charlie Hebdo who preferred “to die standing than to live on my knees.”
Obtained exclusively by Women in the World, the book dedicated to “Muslim atheists” is an unapologetic strike against the strict application of Islam by imitating the first Salafists or “pious ancestors.” The Prophet Mohammed and his companions, whose violent exploits are contained in “bellicose texts from a barbaric 7th-century Bedouin tribal context,” exhibited codes of behavior El Rhazoui insists have no place in the modern world and can be directly connected to terrorism. “The most abject crimes of Islamic State are but a 21st-century remake of what the first Muslims accomplished under the guidance of the Prophet,” she writes, noting that sexual and domestic slavery, the massacre of non-Muslims (notably Jews), pedophilia, pillage, polygamy and summary executions were all adopted from pre-Islamic societies. The book is also the journalist’s way of carrying on the legacy of her dead comrades, who reveled in their right to mock established religion and fanatics everywhere — with Islam no exception to their traditional French anti-clerical ridicule — through satire and caricature.
Formerly the magazine’s religion writer, El Rhazoui is in the throes of joining the exodus of staff breaking from the magazine under its new management. Flush with cash from international donations, the fundamentally altered publication, she disappointedly explained, “ will probably never again draw the Prophet ” out of fear of more reprisals.
“[And] those who think that only a handful of madmen are capable of killing for a cartoon of Mohammed forget that everywhere that Islam reigns as the religion of the state, caricatures and cartoons in the press are repressed”. El Rhazoui’s book, dedicated to “Muslim atheists,” is an unapologetic strike against the strict application of Islam. Religion of peace and love?
“We need to admit that Islamism today is applied Islam,” El Rhazoui — who describes herself as an “atheist of Muslim culture” –writes, responding to politicians, religious figures, Islamophobia opponents and media commentators who claim after every jihadist attack that “real Islam” has nothing to do with such terror.
“When we apply Islam to the letter it gives Islamism, and when we apply Islamism to the letter it gives terrorism. So we need to stop saying Islam is a religion of peace and love. What is a moderate Islamist? An Islamist who doesn’t kill?”
The essay-length book is in the grand French polemical tradition of Emile Zola whose J’accuse denounced the anti-Semitism of the French state and establishment during the Dreyfus Affair, on the eve of the 20th century. El Rhazoui, who holds Moroccan and French citizenship, takes aim at a very 21st-century phenomenon: what she abhors as the “intellectual fraud” of Islamophobia, which pretends to be about anti-racism but in her reckoning is used as a weapon to silence all critics of Islam and the ideas behind it as automatically hostile towards all Muslims. Epitomized by the French Collective Against Islamophobia (CCIF), this deliberate strategy vilifies as Islamophobic voices such as El Rhazoui’s who dare question the religion the CCIF and fellow travelers define only through the prism of their own fundamentalism.
The notion of Islamophobia doesn’t even exist in Muslim countries, the author points out, because outside the West, criticism of the religion or Mohammed is officially “categorized as blasphemy.”
“Unable to pass blasphemy laws in Europe, groups like the CCIF employ a dangerous “semantic confusion,” she said. On the CCIF site it is written “Islamophobia is not an opinion: it is an offense.”
“This is very dangerous because it has even entered the dictionary as hostility towards Islam and Muslims. Yet criticism of an idea, of Islam or of a religion cannot be characterized as an offense or a crime. I was born and lived under the Islam of Morocco and live in France and I have the right criticize religion and this dictatorship of Islamophobia that says I have no right to criticize! If we criticize Christianity it doesn’t mean we are Christianophobes or racist towards the ‘Christian race.’”
The widespread pressure to self-censor is severe, El Rhazoui says.
“You can no longer speak about Islam without saying it’s a religion of peace and love. But when you open any book in Islam what do you find? Violence, blood, oppression of women and hate for other religions.
“Of course you can find this in other religions, however we are talking about something written many centuries ago during a barbaric time for humanity. As long as we don’t talk about this, and keep repeating that Islam is a religion of peace and love, many people will continue to believe the Koran is a constitution, and that rather than being a book written 15 centuries ago reflecting a particular context, it is a legal constitution to apply today.”
Zineb El Rhazoui feels she is carrying on the legacy of her dead Charlie Hebdo comrades.
After completing high school in Morocco, El Rhazoui studied languages and the sociology of religion, obtaining a Master’s degree from Paris’s prestigious social science graduate school EHESS. In her twenties she returned to the country of her birth to work as a journalist at Le Journal Hebdomadaire, becoming a campaigner for secular liberties, such as the right to break the fast and even snack in public during the month of Ramadan. This act of non-violent resistance earned her her first fatwa, ahead of her involvement in the movement supporting the Arab Spring in 2011. The wave of personal attacks and threats that came after her collective protest against Ramadan rules prompted her to leave Morocco again for France where she began to report for Charlie Hebdo, bringing her memories of having “vomited up compulsory religious classes” in a country where “being Muslim is not a choice” unless you’re Jewish or Christian.
Extreme personality cult
So-called Islamic fascism, seen in its most extreme form in groups like ISIS, shares characteristics in common with all extreme-right fascisms, El Rhazoui argues, because it combines an intense personality cult around Mohammed as the incarnation of the nation. It also employs widespread systems of suspicion and denunciation, exemplified by “sartorial branding” — for example Burkinis or niqabs — that allow for immediate identification and targeting of non-adherents. There are also familiar fascist tropes of repressive sexism against women and homosexuals, armed militias, adoption of a flag, and a strategy that confers the benign status of ‘Muslim women’ to heavily veiled adherents in the West, and characterizes them, disingenuously, as victimized objects of exclusion.
“The literary corpus of Islam is so stuffed with damning accounts it would be difficult to cleanse it without altering the fundamentals of dogma,” El Rhazoui writes.
“If the terrorists of Daesh [ISIS] behead those they judge to be miscreants, that is because they draw on their legislation in the texts like the 8th surah of the Koran, al-Anfal, verse 12: “Remember what Your Lord revealed to the angels : I am with you, so support those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. You can strike them above the neck and strike off every fingertip”.
‘You can be Arab, Muslim and a free thinker’
Drawing on her personal experience and scholarly knowledge of Islam’s core Arabic texts, the politics of the post-Arab Spring Middle East, and the wellspring of reformism and dissidence embraced within the multi-faceted Islamic civilization, El Rhazoui’s book is an impassioned response to all the extremists who want to see her and her fellow opponents of politico-religious repression dead.
The greatest racism is, El Rhazoui argues, the racism of the Islamist ideology that forbids marriage with people who are not Muslims, and that rejects women. “That is the definition of racism and fascism and we must say it,” the writer adds.
“Today Islam in the world only has a role as a civilization. A civilization is defined by many things and not uniquely by religion — but also by its geographical heritage, its artistic, culinary and sartorial traditions and by literature.
“The Muslim religion has its place in the modern world if it submits itself fully to the laws that rule humanity today: universal principles of equality between men and women, sexual and individual freedom, and equality for all, no matter your creed or religion. Until Islam has admitted this and accepted that the freedom of men and women is superior to it, Islam will not be acceptable.”
‘Islamophobia whiners’
Destroy Islamic Fascism aims to puncture the hypocrisy and faux-intellectual “fakery” (the author’s word) of “Islamophobia whiners” and other “collaborationists” from across the political spectrum — particularly the hard left, “Crypto-Islamist” anti-racists on a quest for a new “Muslim proletariat,” certain feminists, cultural relativists and so-called moderate Imams. All these “willing accomplices” do is distort the noble cause of fighting racism to give undeserved legitimacy to an ideology that at its most extreme results in the horrors of Islamic State, the author says, but also makes the lives of millions of Muslims living in Islamic countries downright miserable.
“What do these Islamophobia whiners say to the millions of individuals who live in Islamic theocracies and dream of liberty?” El Rhazoui concludes in her book. “Who speaks about the nightmare of a woman who decides to cross the streets of Algiers, Casablanca or Cairo in a skirt?… those who would like to drink a glass of alcohol in countries where you have to flout the law to do it? … about homosexuals, pariahs of Muslim societies, who often only have the choice of death, prison or exile? Who speaks about this youth born Muslim but dreaming of a normal life, these teens attacked for having had a romance?”
The summer furore over Burkini bans in France agitated the author who deplored the cynical rush of Islamists and their Western sympathizers in the media, academia and politics to celebrate the controversial swimsuit as a form of “liberation” and simultaneously a banal piece of cloth preferred by “Muslim women,” even though most never wear it.
“Western media, in an intolerable readiness to oblige, have defended the Burkini as a ‘freedom’ and a legitimate cultural expression of a part of humanity,” she said, but pointed out that “in Muslim countries the beaches are not filling up with Burkinis, but they are emptying themselves of women. From one year to another, they are disappearing from the public space, because the veil has never been anything except an extension of the walls of their harem to the exterior.”
As for mainstream or moderate Muslim clerics, El Rhazoui tells Women in the World that during the Burkini debate in France not one Imam stood up and said “Hey, wait a minute, you can be Muslim and wear a [regular] bathing suit.”
History will judge those who have monopolized the debate, given a platform to Islamist fundamentalism and even given it a guarantee of acceptability, the author of Destroy Islamic Fascism told Women in the World. “This is just betrayal and it is collaboration with one of the worst forms of fascism that exists today,” she said.
According to the writer, who is repeatedly accused of bigotry, the “Islamophobia ruse” is driven by “great ignorance” and a lack of understanding of the culture of Islam and what Islam with a big ‘I’ is — “they ignore its complexity and that there have always been opposition currents and progressive and liberal pushes from within.”
“The accomplices don’t recognize the struggles playing out today in Arab countries will inevitably be won by the democrats and free people. No fascism or totalitarianism has ever been able to win in the long haul of history. The people who are the allies and collaborators of this totalitarianism today will be judged by history and seen as accomplices to this criminal ideology to which they have given a veneer of respectability.”
For El Rhazoui the true racism emerges from a condescending approach to Islamic culture that decrees an Islamic woman in a burqa is congenitally not free and that her “race” is the burqa. “We present the fundamentalists as being a race and this only shows the contempt we have for this culture. It is absolutely intolerable,” she says.
Survivor syndrome
Women in the World asked El Rhazoui how she manages to keep up her spirits, and continue her struggle for the freedom to dissent after everything that has happened since January 2015.
“It is a question people often ask me,” she said with a perceptible tremor in her voice. “But when you live through these moments in which you are confronted by a reality as cruel and simple as life and death, you realize can put many things in perspective.
“Straight after the attacks, like many of my colleagues I felt guilty for having stayed alive. I said to myself ‘Those who are dead are dead for all our work, and some are dead when it wasn’t even their work. But it was my work because I am a journalist and I am still here.’ And then you understand this is all part of survivor syndrome, which is normal when you survive a massacre like that.
“As you start to heal you say, ‘I am lucky to be alive and if I am still here perhaps that is because I still have something to do.’ I understood long before the attack on Charlie, when I engaged in a struggle for individual liberties and democracy in Morocco, that when you fight against totalitarianism, whether it is political or religious, you should never give your enemies the pleasure of stopping living. We fight so that everyone can have a free and happy life and we must continue to live this same life.
Zineb El Rhazoui (C) attends the funeral of French cartoonist and Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, on January 16, 2015 in Pontoise, outside Paris. (MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images)
Still a day doesn’t go past when she doesn’t think of her old colleague Charb and their many heated discussions.
“He was someone who was extremely lucid and for whom the concepts were clear. He was a true humanist who didn’t fear being accused of being racist because for him it was absurd.”
El Rhazoui’s deconstruction of Islam is also a defense of Muslims, she reasoned, as “salvation will come when we stop aligning the identity of an entire community with the most fundamentalist people who pretend to represent it.”
“We have to extend a hand to all these Muslims who are free people, who have questioned their heritage, and who are fighters for liberty, battling for the same values as us but in a context controlled by Islamists,” she says.
Life in a moving jail
Since January 2015, the survivor from Charlie Hebdo has traveled frequently to speak at universities and meetings of the Freedom Forum, in Europe and the U.S., under the protection assured by the French state and the countries that receive her. She says she would never complain about living under permanent armed guard and having her freedom of mobility curtailed, because so many other writers and political figures around the world — and especially in Islamist-controlled or influenced countries — are taking the brave decisions to do as she does but without any security.
“I always find some spaces of freedom. There are always little escape hatches. Life continues!” says the woman who has just written her second book since the Charlie attacks, and recently became a first-time mother, in what she laughingly called the surprise “baby boom” at a publication that used to have “one of the lowest birthrates in French media.”
“Today I wander around in a moving jail — it’s a moving cage — but in reality I am more free in my head than those who threaten me. Because their cage is inside their head. They have this cage in their brain and even if they have freedom of movement it is their spirit and their reason and intelligence that is imprisoned. I am much freer than them.”
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Two out of every three Donald Trump voters turn off awards show when actors, singers and other entertainers start preaching politics, according to new data published by the Hollywood Reporter. [The National Research Group surveyed 800 people — half who voted for Hillary Clinton and half who pulled the lever for Donald Trump. The data revealed that 66 percent of Trump voters changed the channel whenever an actor began to lecture about politics, compared to just 19 percent of Clinton voters. Another 44 percent of Trump voters said awards show speeches are “too political,” compared to Clinton backers who said they want more politics at the Academy Awards. About 39 percent of Clinton voters want to hear about women’s rights, while another 34 percent indicated they want to hear artists speak about Trump’s executive order temporarily suspending the United States’ refugee program. More than or 68 percent, of Trump voters say they “dislike” political speeches at the Oscars, while just 23 percent of Clinton voters said they felt the same. Interestingly, about 25 percent of Trump and Clinton voters stated that they don’t find awards show speeches to be persuasive. The survey also found that 79 percent of Clinton voters plan to watch this year’s Oscars, compared to just 66 of Trump voters. Asked if Trump should be invited to this year’s Oscars, 62 percent of Trump voters said yes, while 84 percent of Clinton supporters said no. Of the major awards shows so far this season, the Golden Globes, the Grammy Awards and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards all heavily featured speeches, with most centering on opposition to President Trump and his policies. The 89th Academy Awards airs Sunday, February 26 on ABC, with Jimmy Kimmel set to host. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Six weeks before the Summer Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro, the laboratory that was set to handle drug testing at the Games has been suspended by the World Agency in a new escalation of the doping crisis in international sports. WADA — the global regulator of doping in sports that oversees three dozen testing labs around the world — confirmed the suspension Friday, citing the Rio lab’s “nonconformity” with international standards. The lab has a prior disciplinary record and is one of a handful of labs that have had their certification to conduct drug testing revoked in WADA’s history. Among those is Moscow’s antidoping lab, which was disciplined last fall following accusations of a doping program in Russia. Those allegations have prompted global sports officials to bar Russian track and field competitors from the Rio Games. At the urging of Olympic officials, 27 other Summer Olympics sports organizations are scrutinizing athletes from Russia and Kenya, another country facing accusations of widespread doping, ahead of the Games. The Rio suspension not only presents new logistical hurdles to testing at the Games but also highlights growing concern over an antidoping system in disarray that extends to how WADA itself operates. WADA has come under scrutiny for taking years to act on tips about doping in Russia and for approving Russia’s antidoping lab to lead testing at the Sochi Olympics in 2014 even amid questions about that lab’s integrity. On Friday, WADA did not specify the issues with the Rio facility that had prompted the suspension. A person familiar with the lab’s operations, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the investigation centered on a specific case. The Rio lab was previously suspended in 2013 — the year before Brazil hosted soccer’s World Cup — and was reinstated by WADA last year. To win back its certification, the lab had spent roughly 200 million Brazilian reais ($60 million) to train more than 90 technicians and retrofit three floors of facilities at a federal university in Rio. That project necessitated a substantial commitment of government money in the face of a serious recession. In an interview last spring, Francisco Radler de Aquino Neto, a chemical scientist and the director of the Rio facility, credited firm support from the federal government for improvements. Dilma Rousseff, who was removed as Brazil’s president this year amid a sweeping graft scandal, signed a measure in March to ensure that the lab’s policies were changed to conform with global standards so that its certification to run Olympic testing was not revoked. The new suspension took effect on Wednesday, according to WADA. The lab has the option of filing an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland within 21 days. While under suspension, the lab is barred from conducting any antidoping analysis on urine and blood samples. It was unclear Friday if the issue would be resolved — and the suspension lifted — in time for the Olympics, though officials expressed skepticism that such a reversal could happen so quickly. In the meantime, WADA said that it would transfer any samples at the lab to a facility outside Brazil for testing. “WADA will work closely with the Rio laboratory to resolve the identified issue,” Olivier Niggli, WADA’s incoming director general, said in the organization’s statement. “Athletes can have confidence that the suspension will only be lifted by WADA when the laboratory is operating optimally. ” The lab’s previous suspension coincided with the 2014 World Cup, forcing organizers to send athletes’ doping samples to Switzerland for testing. FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, bore the cost. If the Rio lab is not recertified in time for the Olympics, the International Olympic Committee would be responsible for arranging to have doping samples taken to another lab. Earlier this month, WADA’s president, Craig Reedie, stressed the necessity of a local testing lab at the Olympics. Compared to the World Cup, he said, the pace of Olympic testing and competition is far more intense. “You’re in the first round of the 100 meters at 10 o’clock in the morning and the second round at 2 o’clock in the afternoon,” Mr. Reedie said. “We need a laboratory on site at the Olympic Games. ” Just two years ago, facing enormous pressure to have an laboratory at Sochi, Mr. Reedie permitted the Russian lab to conduct testing for the Games despite suspicious test results that had prompted a WADA investigation. The longtime director of Russia’s lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, told The New York Times that after he was cleared to run the Sochi lab, he had tampered with roughly 100 of the 1, 917 urine samples the facility tested. He said he had substituted out the urine of dozens of Russian athletes, at least 15 of whom won medals at Sochi — where Russia placed first in the overall medal count. Mr. Reedie, who signed a certificate in January 2014 that allowed Dr. Rodchenkov to direct testing at Sochi, has defended that decision. “The suspension was suspended provided they met certain tests over a short period, which they did,” Mr. Reedie said in an interview in Switzerland this month. “Hindsight is an exact science. ” In 2014, WADA’s independent observation team called the Sochi lab “a milestone in the evolution of the Olympic Games antidoping program. ” But in recent months — as attention has focused on the global regulator, and after new rules took effect in 2015 — WADA has announced an unusual flurry of new disciplinary actions. About a quarter of the lab suspensions published on WADA’s website have taken place in 2016. In the last three months alone, WADA announced more suspensions than it had in the preceding three years combined. Those suspensions — of antidoping labs in Beijing Lisbon Madrid Bloemfontein, South Africa and now Rio — affect more than 10 percent of WADA’s testing facilities. The agency, which oversees individual countries’ antidoping programs as well, has also disciplined national antidoping agencies at significantly higher rates since last fall. “We’re seeing a whole lot more scrutiny now,” said Joseph de Pencier, the founding chief executive of the Institute of National Organizations, a trade group that has been funded by WADA. “WADA is realizing it should function like a financial regulator. ” At a November meeting in Colorado — days after WADA had published an explosive report on Russia — WADA’s board resolved to be stricter, and Mr. Reedie said in a statement that the organization would have a “greater focus” on ensuring countries played by the rules. Since then, the antidoping agencies of countries including Kenya and Russia have been sanctioned, either because the countries’ policies were out of line with global standards or because the agencies made technical mistakes such as sending doping samples to an unapproved lab. For a national antidoping agency to be disciplined by WADA means little in itself, but depriving a country of WADA’s endorsement is a powerful signal. Still, in an interview in Los Angeles last month, Dr. Rodchenkov minimized the rigor of WADA’s scientific vetting process during the 10 years he headed Russia’s lab. “WADA is a kindergarten,” Dr. Rodchenkov said. But he called WADA’s seal of approval crucial to delivering on the cheating scheme he said he had carried out on orders from the Russian government. “You cannot do doping without access to accredited laboratory,” he said. Though WADA revoked the accreditation of Russia’s lab in the wake of the accusations, the agency cleared the facility last month to resume testing on blood samples. Mr. de Pencier, the head of the consortium of antidoping agencies, said the antidoping authorities had begun to appreciate the need for more robust regulation. “The antidoping community as a whole is still a work in progress,” he said. “We’re still developing. ” | 1 |
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Every public housing complex in America is filled with individual tales of struggle and survival. This is the story of a dapper man in a black fedora who lives in unit 16G in the Bronx. His name is Souleymane Guengueng, and he brought down a murderous African dictator. In the 1980s, Mr. Guengueng was one of numerous people imprisoned and tortured during the brutal reign of President Hissène Habré in Chad, a landlocked country in central Africa. When he was released from prison after two and a half years, Mr. Guengueng began a quest for justice, meticulously recording the testimonies of survivors and the relatives of those who had been killed at the direction of Mr. Habré. He wound up with records detailing the abuse and murder of more than 700 people. Human rights advocates collected his accounts and used them as critical pieces of evidence to pursue criminal action against Mr. Habré. The legal case was not an easy one. Finding a court to prosecute a head of state proved difficult. For more than 16 years, the case bounced between nations and continents, with Mr. Guengueng offering his personal plea for justice to anyone who would listen. In May, in Dakar, Senegal, where Mr. Habré had lived in exile, the dictator was finally convicted. Next week, a court there will hear his appeal. On the day of the guilty verdict, a defiant Mr. Habré, wearing dark glasses and with his head wrapped in white scarves as though he were bracing for a desert storm, raised his fists and yelled to supporters in the courtroom. Mr. Guengueng was in the courtroom, too, his trademark hat on the seat beside him, flanked by human rights advocates who had pursued justice against other dictators. He had been a key witness in the trial. Tears spilled from his eyes, a mix of pride and revenge and sadness and relief. “It was like an experience for me,” Mr. Guengueng, 67, said. “Habré is in prison now. Habré must be saying, ‘Look at me now, he’s in this place and I’m in prison.’ ” For Mr. Guengueng, “this place” is a tidy, apartment in the Bronx, one of 160 apartments in a towering public housing complex on a busy, nondescript New York City street. In the human rights world, Mr. Guengueng is a celebrity, sometimes even stopped on the street by people who recognize him when he travels across the globe. In New York, he is another face in the crowd. Mr. Guengueng first came to the United States in 2002 from his home in Ndjamena, the capital of Chad, to accept a human rights award. He met the actor Samuel L. Jackson, cruised California’s State Route 1 along the Pacific coast in a convertible and detoured to check out Calif. (“Très chic!” he said, eyebrows raised.) He returned to Chad, where most people live on less than $5 a day, to his job as an accountant at the Lake Chad Basin Commission, a multinational group that manages resources around the lake. His vocal activism in pursuing legal action against Mr. Habré was wearing on the commission, Mr. Guengueng said, and he lost his job. Mr. Guengueng blames his work with the commission for getting him into trouble with Mr. Habré’s government in the first place. At one point during Mr. Habré’s presidency, the commission had moved its headquarters to nearby Cameroon, and Mr. Guengueng presumes that Mr. Habré’s supporters passing through must have labeled the civil servants there political enemies. In 2005, while living in Chad, Mr. Guengueng had a tear in his retina. He had long worn glasses because of vision problems, and he said he suspected his time in prison had aggravated his condition. Reed Brody, a former Human Rights Watch lawyer who doggedly pursued the case against Mr. Habré, arranged for Mr. Guengueng to fly to New York for medical care. He recovered in Mr. Brody’s apartment in Brooklyn, taking long walks in Prospect Park. While his eyes were healing he started hearing from friends and family members that his life might be at risk if he returned home. Mr. Habré was ousted in a 1990 coup, but he still had many supporters in Chad. With the help of Human Rights Watch, Mr. Guengueng successfully applied for asylum in America. Soon, he brought his wife and seven children to New York. Then financial troubles and bad luck set in. Mr. Guengueng was on the Human Rights Watch payroll, working on the criminal case from New York. But that work ran out. He was hired as a night watchman. But in 2007 during a stroll on the Coney Island Boardwalk, he fell and broke his leg. His recovery was long, and he lost his job. His oldest daughter supported the family with a restaurant job. But she became ill and died, leaving the family with little income. Home life was tense. Mr. Guengueng is trilingual, but English has been difficult. Taking classes has not helped. In New York, his wife felt as if she had lost her independence living in an unfamiliar place where she did not speak the language. And New York was cold. In Chad, afternoon temperatures rarely dipped below 90 degrees. Mr. Guengueng did not give up. He and some friends pooled their resources to buy a deli but lost the money when the deal fell apart. He enrolled in a course to learn medical coding and billing but could not find a job in that field. He tried driving a taxi but the work aggravated his leg, which has never been the same since the break. His wife took a babysitting course but had no space to care for children. Back in Chad, another daughter died in a fire. Mr. Guengueng was interspersing his daily tribulations with work on the Habré case, flying with Mr. Brody to courts worldwide to personally plead for justice. “He’s a hero,” Mr. Brody said. “He’s done so much to change history. Yet his life is one of hardships and heartbreaks. ” The family moved from a friend’s home on Long Island to a tiny rental in Queens. They could not keep up with the $2, 000 a month rent and were evicted. Three and a half years ago, Mr. Guengueng’s family had to move into a homeless shelter, where they were crammed into two rooms. Determined to find something better, he practically memorized the intricacies of New York’s housing laws as he searched for housing. Finally, in March, the family left the shelter and moved into their current apartment in the Bronx. He lives there with three of his children the others are now grown and have moved out. Most speak English, and one son, Jacob, 25, graduated from college and is an Uber driver. On a recent afternoon at Mr. Guengueng’s apartment, a film from Ivory Coast was on the television. Mr. Brody arrived to see his old friend. Mr. Guengueng insisted on pulling his dusty human rights awards and statuettes from his closet. He carefully fingered them like gemstones. Mr. Guengueng will be in court next week for the appeal, but his long obsession with the case is finished. “It’s like a psychological healing has taken place,” said Mr. Guengueng, whose face is marked by deep tribal scars. “If I had just allowed this situation to persist and had a normal life I would have felt incomplete. Like I was half a man. ” The case also was for Mr. Brody. He left his job with Human Rights Watch this past summer and has taken on volunteer legal work for now. “We’re both unemployed,” Mr. Guengueng said, nudging Mr. Brody and laughing. Despite the hardships in New York, Mr. Guengueng calls his time in America a success. His family has health care. His children have an education. He and most of his family have become American citizens. And Mr. Guengueng is thrilled with his new apartment. “We’re in paradise now,” he said. Mr. Guengueng, who says he is too old to find a good job, spends his days shuffling between municipal offices for food stamps and housing allowances. Every once in a while, the grind is broken by a dinner in Manhattan where he receives awards for his work. He wants to create a foundation where he can advise other victims like himself, but he has yet to find a major donor. His own hardship is over. “Now,” he said, “I think about the others. ” | 1 |
What Is Jill Stein Up To?
Jill Stein’s candidacy is unaffected by a vote recount. How was she able to raise more money overnight for vote recounts in 3 states won by Trump than she was able to raise for her presidential campaign?
Stephen Lendman http://sjlendman.blogspot.com and investmentwatchblog.com http://investmentwatchblog.com/jill-stein-has-just-raised-more-money-in-24-hours-for-her-wi-mi-and-pa-recount-initiative-than-she-did-for-her-entire-2016-presidential-campaign/ raise questions.
It is strange that the Green Party candidate would prefer Hillary, who would raise tensions with Russia, to Trump, who says he will restore normal relations. One thermo-nuclear war and the climate is history along with the rest of us.
The post What Is Jill Stein Up To? appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
November 10, 2016 Long-term Effects of the Presidential Election
The reverberations from Donald Trump’s election as the 45th president of the United States are being felt around the world. A number of Hollywood’s celebrities are saying they will move out of the country. Many political pundits are decrying the overthrow of the international order that globalists have worked so hard to build since World War II.
On the other hand, one politician from Israel is saying that Trump’s election heralds the coming of the Messiah. One thing is certain. The election of Mr. Trump to lead the world’s greatest nation will definitely change things dramatically. What will the long-term effects of America’s election actually be? We’ll talk about on today’s edition of End of the Age. Join the Conversation | 0 |
President Obama will use an Oval Office meeting with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Thursday morning to delicately nudge the losing Democratic presidential hopeful toward a full embrace of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and a unified party effort to defeat Donald J. Trump in the fall, according to administration aides. The conversation, the fifth that Mr. Obama will have had with Mr. Sanders since the primaries began, is to be part of a choreographed series of moves Mr. Obama set in motion this week that are designed to quickly bridge the divide between the two Democratic presidential candidates laid bare in the last few months. The strategy will culminate with the president’s formal endorsement of Mrs. Clinton in the coming days, followed by an appearance with her on the campaign trail soon after. Mr. Obama’s message is intended to be unmistakable: The time has come for Mr. Sanders to harness his formidable constituency in support of his onetime rival even as he continues to press for the progressive policies that animated his base. But it is also clear to the White House that Mr. Obama must broker this particular intraparty peace treaty with patience and respect, or risk angering Mr. Sanders and his millions of supporters. To that end, the president will delay any endorsement of Mrs. Clinton until after the meeting with Mr. Sanders. And a joint appearance is unlikely until after the Democratic primary in the District of Columbia on Tuesday. Mr. Obama will not pressure Mr. Sanders to make a concession before that contest, the final one in the long primary season, advisers said. “We should be a little graceful and give him the opportunity to decide on his own,” when he wants to leave the race, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said of Mr. Sanders on Wednesday. White House aides said Mr. Obama was eager to help Mr. Sanders find a way to continue elevating the causes he championed for more than a year — including addressing income inequality and college tuition affordability, raising the minimum wage and changing campaign finance rules — but without the comments that could threaten the Democratic cause. “You’ve built this enormous movement what do you want to do with that?” said Jen Psaki, Mr. Obama’s communications director, describing what was likely to be the tenor of his conversation with Mr. Sanders. “There’s a recognition of the energy and enthusiasm that he built, and that that is going to be needed to win in November. ” Finding a way to help guide Mr. Sanders past his disappointment is the president’s chief goal during the next few days, Obama aides said. During a remarkable and at times bruising political campaign, Mr. Sanders has built an enormous list of Democratic voters that would be invaluable to Mrs. Clinton and to Democratic Senate and House candidates. Aides said Mr. Obama would remind Mr. Sanders that he could receive much of the credit for big Democratic wins if he helps redirect his newfound political energy toward helping Mrs. Clinton. Democratic strategists said the president would play a pivotal role in reaching out to Mr. Sanders’s coalition, although Mrs. Clinton will have to make a visible effort to appeal to her former adversary’s supporters — much as Mr. Obama did in 2008 after he won a prolonged and at times bitter primary with Mrs. Clinton. “He’ll be a great surrogate among those Democrats who were supportive of him but are less supportive of her, particularly younger Democrats, in making the case as to why consolidating behind her is important and what’s at stake in the election,” said David Axelrod, a former senior adviser in Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign and his White House. Mrs. Clinton “needs to approach those folks with open arms, but there is a reality element of this that he may be better suited for,” Mr. Axelrod added. Some supporters of Mr. Sanders on Wednesday said that they hoped that Mr. Obama would not pressure their candidate to quickly leave the race. “Bernie Sanders and the political revolutionaries behind him have more than earned the time and the space, just as Secretary Clinton and her supporters did eight years ago, to determine the best steps we can take together to help unite our party against Donald Trump in the days and weeks ahead,” said Jim Dean, the chairman of Democracy for America, which endorsed Mr. Sanders in December. Adam Green, a founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which stayed neutral in the race, said Democrats should not “guilt trip” Sanders voters by warning them of the risks of electing Mr. Trump, but instead incorporate their ideas, including expanding Social Security benefits and breaking up big banks, into the party platform. In a taped appearance on “The Tonight Show” that is to be broadcast Thursday night, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Sanders, saying he brought “enormous energy” and “new ideas” to the campaign. The president said Mr. Sanders pushed his rival, making her a better candidate. “She is whip smart, she is tough and she deeply cares about working people and putting kids through school,” Mr. Obama said, citing some of Mr. Sanders’s main concerns about Mrs. Clinton. “My hope is over the next couple weeks, we’re able to pull things together. ” The president said Mr. Sanders and his supporters deserved some time to become used to the fact that he did not win. He said that people who poured their hearts into campaigns often became “a little ouchy” and bruised, and needed time to recover. Asked whether he thinks the Republicans are happy with their choice of Mr. Trump, Mr. Obama joked, “We are!” He then added, “Actually, you know what, that was too easy,” and said he was worried about the Republican Party because democracy works when “you have two parties that are serious. ” | 1 |
Obama Should Just Pardon Hillary for Every Conceivable Crime November 4, 2016
Don't look now, but #PardonHer talk is growing.
Just as the Clinton campaign and its media allies rage against the FBI, some are looking for a pardon solution. And a way to spin that pardon as something other than a straight admission of guilt. How about political reconciliation and a way to defy those mean Republicans and take the issue of all the crimes that Hillary committed off the table? Here you go.
It does not take much clairvoyance to predict that Clinton's most strident opponents may seek to extend the use criminal investigations as a political tactic to undermine her presidency if she wins the election next week. That prospect triggers a startling idea: Should President Barack Obamasimply pardon Clinton if she wins the election?...
A presidential pardon could short circuit some of this maneuvering. The Constitution gives the president the power "to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States," and it could be used here. The public is aware of the allegations against Clinton, yet she has continued to lead in election polls. If voters choose her for the presidency, their decision that the allegations are not disqualifying deserves respect. A presidential pardon could ratify that assessment.
Yes, but what should Obama pardon Hillary Clinton for? Corruption, bribery, abuse of classified information? How about everything. Let's just print up a list of every possible crime and pardon Hillary for all of them. It would save time, energy and raise Hillary above the law. It would be a clear statement that she could get away with murder.
Literally. | 0 |
A tidal wave of revelations is pouring out of the Clinton campaign as the 2016 presidential election draws to a close.
‘MELTDOWN’– The Clinton campaign continues to unravel following a series of troubling details. (Photo illustration 21WIRE)
Over the weekend, it was discovered through a Wikileaks email dump, that Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress , John Podesta ‘s top aide, had an email exchange with Michael Lux of Progressive Strategies revealing that the Democratic consultant Robert Creamer of Democracy Partners, was closely allied with Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook .
‘POLITICAL BOMBSHELL’– Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook had close ties to disgraced DNC consultant Robert Creamer. (Image Source: Lockerdome )
Creamer gained national attention when he became the subject of video sting operation captured by the investigative non-profit Project Veritas . Not only was it revealed that the Creamer discussed ways to commit voter fraud and violence at Donald Trump rallies on camera – he also met with White House officials some 342 times over the past year, including 47 private meetings with President Obama or other senior officials.
‘DNC SCANDAL’– Robert Creamer of Democracy Partners and Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky. (Image Source: National Vanguard )
Creamer’s visits to the White House also included his wife, a 9-term Illinois Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky .
White House visitor records have shown that Schakowsky took 47 “private meetings with Obama or his senior staff,” over the past year. The consultancy Democracy Partners appears to have applied Schakowsky as a political buffering point, in the event of a fallout over their operations at a grassroots level. The nature of this type of procedural separation is to keep certain high-ranking officials of the hook in case of a massive upheaval over various underhanded campaign tactics , potentially giving the Clinton campaign and the DNC plausible deniability.
The Mook fallout is the latest in a laundry list of problems for the Clinton campaign and comes at a time when interim DNC chair Donna Brazile , is embroiled in controversy of over leaked debate questions prior to at least two 2016 town hall debates. Brazile stepped down from her role at CNN earlier in October. Here’s a passage from the Daily Caller describing the scenario:
“Donna Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, began providing town hall and debate questions to the Clinton campaign earlier than previously known, emails released by WikiLeaks on Monday show.”
The article continued by stating that the revelations expose that the interim DNC chair was more deeply involved than previously outlined:
“In the March 12 exchange, Brazile mentions [Roland] Martin by name and offers to provide more than just the one town hall question that she is known to have shared with the campaign.
“I’ll send a few more. Though some questions Roland submitted,” Brazile wrote to Palmieri in the March 12 email thread, which is entitled “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”
Martin, is a commentator for TV One and the host of News One Now , as well as a CNN contributor.
In another matter, the Wall Street Journal revealed the following , while disclosing an apparently contentious relationship between the FBI and DOJ, while the FBI appears to be somewhat fractured over the latest email server case developments:
“The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe [of the Terry McAuliffe campaign contribution scandal], the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a teenage minor, they had recovered a laptop. Many of the 650,000 emails on the computer, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Some critics have called for McCabe to recuse himself after it was revealed his wife received $675,000 from a well-known Clinton confidant, Terry McAuliffe . This was further underlined after the House Oversight Commitee wanted more information about the Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe and its ties to the Clintons.
The alleged internal feud among agencies was compounded when Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates ‘objected’ to FBI Director James Comey reopening the Clinton email server case this past week – something that added to the Lynch/Clinton tarmac meeting before the first FBI ruling in the Clinton case.
According to a report filed by Zero Hedge , a close friend of Podesta, Peter Kadzik , the Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice (DOJ), will be in charge of a probe into Huma Abedin , Clintion’s closest aide.
Interestingly, as a mountain of controversy envelops the Clinton campaign, the FBI is now conducting an early inquiry into former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort , over his alleged foreign business connections.
Back in August, the following business connection was revealed by NBC news :
“In 2008, according to court records, senior Trump aide Paul Manafort’s firm was involved with a Ukrainian oligarch named Dmytro Firtash in a plan to redevelop a famous New York hotel, the Drake. The total value of the project was $850 million. Firtash’s company planned to invest over $100 million, the records say.
That same year, Firtash acknowledged to the U.S. ambassador in Ukraine that he got his start in business with the permission of a notorious Russian crime lord, according to a classified State Department cable. Other cables say Firtash made part of his fortune through sweetheart natural gas deals between Russia and the Ukraine.”
Although the US State Department has determined that Firtash may have ties to a criminal enterprise in Russia – so far, there’s nothing directly linking Manafort to any underground element at this time.
Watch this space – as the Russia/Trump meme fostered by mainstream media or some other politically polarizing element will look to deflect from the Clinton campaign meltdown.
More from LifeZette below…
‘OUT OF CONTROL?’– Wikileaks reveals Robby Mook’s links to DNC contractor who discussed ways to commit voter fraud and violence. (Image Source: Slate )
WikiLeaks: Trump Rally Agitator and Clinton Campaign Manager Are ‘Close’
Top Clinton aides discussed Bob Creamer and his ‘grassroots/netroots’ operation
by Jim Stinson LifeZette
Robert Creamer, the operative behind sending provocateurs to Donald Trump rallies, was close to Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, according to new emails released by WikiLeaks.
Creamer, who allegedly spearheaded the dirty tricks for the Democrats, wasn’t just consulting for the Democratic National Committee, according to videos made by Project Veritas. He was sending people to provoke Trump at events.
Creamer has thus become a red-hot issue in the campaign. And now it’s apparent he is close to Mook. That surprising detail came out Sunday morning when WikiLeaks posted hundreds more emails from John Podesta’s Gmail account. Podesta is Clinton’s campaign chairman whose account was hacked in March.
More from LifeZette here …
READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 Files
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President Trump, in an extraordinary rebuke of the nation’s press organizations, wrote on Twitter on Friday that the nation’s news media “is the enemy of the American people. ” Even by the standards of a president who routinely castigates journalists — and who on Thursday devoted much of a news conference to criticizing his press coverage — Mr. Trump’s tweet was a striking escalation in his attacks. At 4:32 p. m. shortly after arriving at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Trump took to Twitter to write: The message was swiftly deleted, but 16 minutes later Mr. Trump posted a revised version. Restricted to 140 characters, he removed the word “sick,” and added two other television networks — ABC and CBS — to his list of offending organizations. The president has referred to the media as the “opposition party” to his administration, and he has blamed news organizations for stymieing his agenda. But the language that Mr. Trump deployed on Friday is more typically used by leaders to refer to hostile foreign governments or subversive organizations. It also echoed the language of autocrats who seek to minimize dissent. “Oh boy,” Carl Bernstein, the journalist who helped to uncover the Watergate scandal, said on Friday, after a reporter read him Mr. Trump’s tweet. “Donald Trump is demonstrating an authoritarian attitude and inclination that shows no understanding of the role of the free press,” he added. Historians pointed out similarities between Mr. Trump and Richard M. Nixon, who in 1972 told his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, “The press is the enemy. ” Mr. Bernstein said the president’s language “may be more insidious and dangerous than Richard Nixon’s attacks on the press. ” “But there is a similarity in trying to divide the country, and make the conduct of the press the issue, instead of the conduct of the president,” he said. Mr. Trump and his top advisers strongly believe that an elitist news media lost its credibility by failing to anticipate his political rise. Still, the notion of the news media as an enemy of the public — especially when voiced by a sitting president — went a step beyond Mr. Trump’s usual rhetorical turns. Mr. Trump’s tactic of pitting the press against the public was mirrored in a survey distributed by the president’s team on Thursday, which urged Trump supporters “to do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions. ” Survey questions included, “Do you believe that the mainstream media has reported unfairly on our movement?” and “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply. )” Mr. Trump has deleted tweets in the past, sometimes to correct for typos or to refine his message, and publications are keeping track of these fleeting missives. On Thursday, Mr. Trump expressed his distaste for journalists in more populist terms, saying, “much of the media in Washington, D. C. along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests. ” “The public doesn’t believe you people anymore,” Mr. Trump added. “Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you. ” | 1 |
54 Views November 10, 2016 GOLD , KWN , KWN II King World News IMPORTANT: The King World News network communications have been attacked relentlessly today. All communications have been shut down for the network. KWN has 3 global networks it can join for communications and all three have been taken down for most of the day, including all phone lines. Is it a coincidence that this happened just after the election? Who knows? But if you are worried about the action in the gold market, just read this. “Gold was not selected arbitrarily by governments to be the monetary standard. Gold had developed for many centuries on the free market as the best money; as the commodity providing the most stable and desirable monetary medium.” — Murray Rothbard By Ronald-Peter Stoeferle, Incrementum AG Liechtenstein November 10 ( King World New s) – Gold And The Illusion Of Monetary Value
Have you ever been to the Disney World Magic Kingdom in Florida? Or maybe you’ve drunk beer out of a glass boot at Oktoberfest? Or if you’re not the type of person to spend your money on something so extravagant, you’ve probably at least bought a loaf of bread in your life?
The reason I am asking these questions will become clear in a second. But first let’s talk about the dollar… IMPORTANT: To hear which legend just spoke with KWN about $8,000 gold and the coming mania in the gold, silver, and mining shares markets CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
As consumers we are used to pricing goods in dollars (or whichever currency you use). However, using the dollar as a benchmark is less than ideal because it has lost more than 95% of its value over the last 100 years. In fact, most of the rise in prices over the last century can be attributed to a loss in the purchasing power of the dollar. Austrian economists take a different, and better, approach to measuring purchasing power, they use gold.
After 1971 the growth in fiat money has outpaced the growth in gold production. As a result gold has protected investors in the long term against the loss of purchasing power caused by persistent money supply inflation. Rather than looking at higher gold prices as a gain in the precious metal’s value, they should be seen as a consequence of monetary inflation.
Even though the gold price in US dollar terms is currently not (yet) in the vicinity of its all time high, the data are clear: the price of gold in terms of the dollar has increased by a factor of 34 since 1971. In the long term the gold price is rising against every paper currency.
The growth in the gold price is simply a side effect of monetary inflation. But how has this monetary growth affected our purchasing power? Most investors will know that the price of oil has grown considerably over the last decades, however if we price oil in real money, gold, the cost per barrel has remained surprisingly stable.
In the chart below we show on the one hand the gold/oil ratio (i.e., how many barrels of oil can be bought with one ounce of gold), and on the other hand it shows the inverse of the oil price (i.e., how many units of oil can be bought with one US dollar). One can see that while the price of oil in terms of gold tends to be relatively stable over time and gold’s purchasing power currently stands actually 40% above the level of 1971, the US dollar has lost has more than 95% of its purchasing power relative to oil over the same time period. “For the naive mind there is something miraculous in the issuance of fiat money. A magic word spoken by the government creates out of nothing a thing which can be exchanged against any merchandise a man would like to get. How pale is the art of sorcerers, witches, and conjurors when compared with that of the government’s Treasury Department!” — Ludwig von Mises
Another instructive indicator is the price of bread measured in gold. The chart below shows historically how much bread you could buy for one dollar (blue histograms) vs. how much bread you could buy with an ounce of gold (gold line). Gold’s purchasing power has remained stable, while the amount of bread you could buy with one dollar has decreased drastically.
The contrast between the purchasing power of gold and paper money becomes especially obvious when looking at the prices of leisure attractions. The entrance fee for the Disney World Magic Kingdom in Florida is used as a proxy for leisure attractions in the US (I told you we would return to Disney).
At the time of its opening in 1971, the ticket price stood at USD 3.50 per day, today the entrance fee amounts to USD 110 per day. That equates to an average annualized price increase of 7.96%, twice the official inflation rate. If one looks at these ticket prices in gold terms, it can be seen that a median of 12 tickets could be purchased with an ounce of gold over time. Currently this figure stands at 10.9, which is quite close to the long-term average.
What Disneyland is for Americans, the Oktoberfest is for Bavarians. A regular feature of our chart collections is the “beer purchasing power” of gold. While a liter of beer (a “Maß” in German) at the Munich Oktoberfest in 1950 cost the equivalent of EUR 0.82, the average price in 2015 was EUR 10.25. The annual price inflation of beer since 1950 thus amounts to 4.2%.
If one looks at the price of beer relative to the gold price, then one ounce of gold could buy 100 liters of beer in 2015. Historically the average is 87 liters – thus the “beer purchasing power” of gold is currently slightly above the long-term average. The peak was however reached in 1980 at 227 liters per ounce. We believe it is quite possible that this level will be reached again. Beer drinking gold hoarders should revel in this development.
Conclusion The evidence above shows that fiat currencies have historically been woefully inadequate at maintaining their purchasing power. Gold by contrast has a track record of successfully preserving value and purchasing power over thousands of years. In the course of human history, the market has naturally chosen gold as the superior form of money.
The slow and steady growth in its supply from mining (the global stock of gold is growing at approximately the same pace as the population) ensures stability and confidence. These unique characteristics are making gold one of the best hedges against excessive money supply expansion and Black Swan events.
And if you have an adversity to gold, you should consider picking up some Disney dollars. They have been excellent at maintaining purchasing power, as they sell for far above face value on Ebay. Anything is better than dollars.
***KWN has now released the extraordinary audio interview with Egon von Greyerz, where he gives KWN listeners a look what is really happening behind the scenes globally and in the gold market, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO JUST RELEASED: After Trump Shocker, One Market Is In Freefall! And What Is Happening In The Gold Market Is Unbelievable! CLICK HERE.
© 2015 by King World News®. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the articles is permitted and encouraged. About author | 0 |
This is vintage M. Kelly. People have been calling for her ouster for over a year. Her coquettish pandering to the camera is absolutely nauseating. One cannot take her seriously. Mr. Gingrich crushed her. She was outmatched, outsmarted and never responded to his request. Thank God a station break saved her from further embarrassment. She's more fluff than fodder. | 0 |
Maybelline has made makeup model Manny Gutierrez the American brand’s first male makeup ambassador. [Gutierrez announced the news to his three million Instagram followers earlier this week: “Honestly I couldn’t be more honored [or] thrilled! ,” Gutierrez said. “Thank you to Maybelline for taking a chance on me!” 2017 you are off to an AMAZING START OMG! So excited to finally announce that I am part of the @maybelline #bigshotmascara campaign! Honestly I couldn’t be more honored thrilled! Thank you to Maybelline for taking a chance on me! I look forward to working together so much more 😍😍😍 #Maybellinepartner #IworkedwithMaybellineOMG #pinchme #notthathardthough, A video posted by 🌙Manny Gutierrez (@mannymua733) on Jan 3, 2017 at 6:01pm PST, Gutierrez, a social media star on YouTube as “MannyMua,” will be starring in Maybelline’s “That Boss Life” campaign promoting Big Shot Mascara alongside fellow beauty blogger Shayla Mitchell and contest winner Jackie Flowers. The says “I believe makeup is GenderLESS and has no rules” and “boys deserve just as much cosmetic recognition. ” Mua was raised by “liberal Mormons,” according to Marie Claire, and came out publicly in a YouTube video in August that’s since drawn more than a million views. Wearing the new @kyliecosmetics @kyliejenner Burgundy Palette … filmed a review and demo too 😏 Who wants to see it?! 😍 Ps lashes — @lillylashes Miami use code Mannymua to save some coin! #kyliecosmetics #kyliejenner #lillylashes, A photo posted by 🌙Manny Gutierrez (@mannymua733) on Oct 21, 2016 at 5:59pm PDT, Today’s been a longggg and hectic shoot day! Can’t wait for you guys to see the action next year! 😍 Thank you @ijosephzee for killing it and helping me vamp up my style 😏 Which outfit do you guys like better? Left or right? Soft glam or sporty spice lmfao 🌙Left🌙 Top, jacket, pants all from @hm Shoes — @nike 🌙Right🌙 Pants — #hm Top — @kenzo Shoes #Nike, A photo posted by 🌙Manny Gutierrez (@mannymua733) on Dec 16, 2016 at 7:16pm PST, Maybelline’s hiring of Gutierrez comes on the heels of fellow cosmetic giant CoverGirl’s decision to name James Charles its first CoverBoy. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
UNIONDALE, N. Y. — Seeking to meet growing electric demand in the Hamptons with renewable energy, the Long Island Power Authority approved the nation’s largest offshore wind farm on Wednesday, set for the waters between the eastern tip of Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. The farm, with as many as 15 turbines capable of powering 50, 000 average homes over all, is the first of several planned by the developer, Deepwater Wind. It will be in a parcel, with room for as many as 200 turbines, that the company is leasing from the federal government. “It is the largest project to date, but it will not be the last project,” the power authority’s chief executive, Thomas Falcone, said before the vote as a crowd of supporters erupted in whoops and applause. Wind power has struggled to take off in the United States, but the Long Island project signals that the promise of a new, source of electricity is poised to become part of the national energy mix. It has been given new life by New York’s push to meet Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s goal of drawing 50 percent of the state’s power from renewable sources by 2030. That goal includes 2. 4 gigawatts of offshore wind, enough to power 1. 25 million homes. It is the largest commitment to offshore wind in the country and is part of the state’s way of showing the nascent industry it is serious about developing the resource. “This project will not only provide a new, reliable source of clean energy but will also create jobs, continue our efforts to combat climate change and help preserve our environment,” Mr. Cuomo said Wednesday in a statement, two weeks after he publicly called for the power authority to approve the proposal. The project’s cost was projected at $1 billion but is now expected to be $740 million. Deepwater plans to finance the project with loans and equity investments, according to Jeffrey Grybowski, the company’s chief executive. Mr. Grybowski expressed confidence that the project would qualify for an investment tax credit, set to phase out at the end of 2019, that is worth 24 percent of the development’s cost. Whether it does, however, could be open to interpretation by the Treasury. The turbines, each roughly 600 feet tall, would be connected to a substation in East Hampton by a undersea cable. The town has a goal of its own: meeting all of its electric demand with renewable energy by 2020. Other offshore wind projects, notably one off Cape Cod, have encountered opposition over their effect on ocean views. But Deepwater has said the turbines supplying East Hampton would not be visible from Montauk, on the tip of Long Island, and would barely be visible from Martha’s Vineyard, 15 miles away. The approval comes six weeks after the nation’s only other functioning offshore farm — a Deepwater project in Rhode Island state waters off Block Island — began serving customers on the grid. Big multinational developers like Statoil and Dong Energy are also investing in the business, snapping up leases for ocean parcels with the aim of competing for utility contracts in Maryland, Massachusetts and New York. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is putting together an offshore wind master plan to guide development, including a swath south of the Rockaways. The projects have all faced some opposition, some of it from commercial fisheries concerned that the turbines, attached to the seafloor, will disrupt their businesses and consumers worried about higher electricity prices. The power authority, which plans to buy all of the Long Island farm’s output over 20 years, says the cost is about the same as its other renewable energy projects, about 16 cents a . Its average electricity price is 7. 5 cents a so the project is expected to add $1. 19 a month to the average customer bill. No opposition was in evidence as the authority voted at a public meeting at its headquarters here. Several supporters praised the proposal as a way to move the electric system off fossil fuels to slow climate change, and as an engine for jobs. But much remains to be done before those benefits materialize. First, the developers must study and map the ocean floor to determine precisely where and how to anchor each turbine, and then go through the federal and state permitting processes. The farm is to begin transmitting power by the end of 2022, so Deepwater would need to start construction no later than 2020. “We think that thousands of megawatts are going to be built off the coast of the United States in the coming decades,” Mr. Grybowski said. “It’s an enormous clean energy resource. It’s easy for us to tap into it, but we need projects to get from essentially one project to these thousands of megawatts. ” | 1 |
During the opening monologue of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson offered his thoughts on last week’s controversy involving Kathy Griffin holding up a severed bloodied mannequin head of President Donald Trump. After apologizing, Griffin later held a news conference and declared herself to be the victim, to which Carlson said was a signal of her embodiement of the left. Transcript as follows: Earlier this week, as you just saw, Kathy Griffin released a video of herself posing with a bloody mannequin head made up to look like President Trump, comedy that failed completely, nobody thought it was funny. As performance art, it was lame, least creative stunt of the week by far. As a political statement it didn’t even make any sense but it did have the effect of briefly making Griffin famous again and of course, that was likely the whole point. Today, Griffin elbowed her way back into the news cycle holding a press conference with celebrity misery chaser Lisa Bloom, here’s part of what she said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KATHY GRIFFIN, COMEDIAN: Imagine that I participated in. That apology absolutely stands. I feel horrible. I have performed in war zones, the idea that that people think of this tragedy, have been touched by this tragedy is horrifying and it’s horrible. Thrust me, if I could redo the whole thing, I would’ve had a blowup doll and no catch up. I’m going to make fun of the President and, you know, what, I’m going to make fun of him more now, more. I’m not afraid of Donald Trump, he’s a bully. I’ve dealt with older white guys trying to keep me down my whole life, my whole career. I just wanted to say, you know, if you don’t stand up, you get run over. And what’s happening to me has never happened ever in the history of this great country. Which is that a sitting president of the United States and his grown children and the First Lady are personally I feel personally trying to ruin my life forever. This is America, and you shouldn’t have to die for it. The death threats that I’m getting are constant and they are detailed and they are serious and they are specific. And today it’s me, and tomorrow it could be you. I don’t think I will have a career after this. I think he — I’m going to be honest, he broke me. And then I was like, no, this isn’t right, it’s just not right. There’s a bunch of old white guys trying to silence me and I’m just here to say that’s wrong. CARLSON: That’s just unbelievable, I don’t know where to begin. Kathy Griffin isn’t particularly talented or amusing, he does have a point, it’s a little disproportionate for all of us to keep so much attention on someone who probably shouldn’t be famous in the first place, so why are we doing this segment? Because whether she realizes it or not and I bet she has no idea, Griffin is an important figure in American life and that she’s the perfect embodiment of what the modern left beliefs. Consider carefully what she said today. Griffin publicly fantasizes violently about murdering the President yet she holds a press conference to announce she’s the one who has been wronged. Trump and his family bullied her she says, so have unnamed older white guys who have oppressed her despite giving her a series of very high paying jobs. In other words, she is the real victim here. Of course she is, liberals are always the victims. Being the victim is virtually what it means to be a member of the progressive America. It has more benefits it turns out than AAA and it’s free. It means never having to say you’re sorry, it also means being right even when you’re wrong. Victimhood is the modern equivalent of holiness, it excuses anything. That’s why liberals will say almost anything no matter how ludicrous to get it. Do you remember when President Obama the most powerful human being in history use to imply that he was somehow the victim of racial bias? Did you catch Hillary Clinton the other day, a woman so rich and pampered, she hasn’t driven her own car in 30 years complain that sexism prevented her from becoming even richer and more pampered. Before you laugh, remember that overpaid sports figures make these kinds of claims all the time, entertainers — even TV anchors and now even unfunny comedians. We see a trend here because there is one. Wait, if the most powerful and richest people on the planet can be victims, who can’t be a victim? Good question. The most remarkable thing about victimhood as that it allows the alleged victims to commit to the very offenses they are complaining about. They will punch you in the face and accuse you of assault. Or more specifically smash you in the head with the bike lock and then complain you’re making them feel unsafe. They’ll crush a bible club at a school that never even been to and then tell you that other people’s beliefs oppressed them. They will take over a college campus forcing spineless administrators to enact every one of their demands and then claimed to be powerless victims of a climate of racism. And then they will conduct a nationwide for Christian small businesses trying to shut them down if they don’t violate their own faith. They will throw illiterate refugees into public schools and call you a bigot for questioning it. Oh, well, they fled a $50, 000 a year private schools for their own kinds. And then of course, they will fly private even as they berate you for destroying the world with your SUV. It used to be that the point of running a country was to make things better for the people who live there. That has changed. Now the goal, it’s almost explicit is to achieve moral superiority over the population often while making their lives worse. It’s quite a trick and victimhood makes it possible. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
A new study conducted by Duke University found that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has not contaminated the groundwater in West Virginia. [Duke’s study found that the claim by many environmentalists that fracking contaminates the groundwater does not hold up, because the groundwater was already contaminated from methane and salts before the fracking occurred. “Based on consistent evidence from comprehensive testing, we found no indication of groundwater contamination over the course of our study,” Avner Vengosh, the professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, said. Vengosh and other scientists concluded that, while fracking did not contaminate the groundwater, accidental spills of fracking wastewater could pose a threat to surface water in the area. ”However, we did find that spill water associated with fracked wells and their wastewater has an impact on the quality of streams in areas of intense shale gas development,” Vengosh added. “The assessment,” he continued, “is that groundwater is so far not being impacted, but surface water is more readily contaminated because of the frequency of spills. ” Researchers collected water samples from 112 drinking wells in northwestern West Virginia and studied them over a three year period. They sampled 20 of the water wells before drilling or fracking started in the area in order to obtain a baseline for later comparisons. Duke’s study draws similar conclusions to the scientific studies from regulatory bodies, academics, and the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) that determined that fracking has not contaminated groundwater or drinking water. | 1 |
Like hundreds of young dancers before her, Phoebe Pearl dropped everything to become a Rockette. Ms. Pearl was 19 when she quit the Boston Conservatory in 2009 to join the elite group of dancers — strong, athletic and poised — who are as emblematic of New York City as the Empire State Building and the yellow taxi cab. For eight years, she was proud to be a Rockette, and the company treated her well, with generous pay and health insurance. But in when management announced that the dancers would perform at the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, Ms. Pearl did something that a Rockette is never supposed to do. She stepped out of line, breaking with the silent, smiling solidarity that defines the institution, to denounce the idea of celebrating a man with a history of objectifying women. In a rare collision of presidential politics and a venerable arts organization, current and former Rockettes find themselves in a new kind of spotlight — a position both painful and empowering — as they take sides over the inauguration, a split illustrating the cultural divide that Trump has cleaved through the country. “We are a group of women that is encouraging young girls to be strong, independent women, to fulfill their dreams, to go for it,” Ms. Pearl, 27, said in her first interview since the inaugural uproar began. “It’s about women’s rights. ” But Patty DeCarlo Grantham, the president of the Rockette Alumnae Association, which has about 550 members, said that many of them are upset about the furor and support the Rockettes performing at the inauguration, as they did in 2001 and 2005. “So many people wrote to me and said, ‘I feel so ashamed about what’s going on,’” said Ms. Grantham, 76. “We feel like it’s a great honor to be asked to dance. ” Best known as a Christmastime tourist attraction at Radio City Music Hall, the Rockettes are also regarded in artistic circles as some of the finest dancers in New York City. But the controversy has reignited sensitivities within the corps that they are seen as beauty pageant contestants more than skilled performers and that they are easy to lampoon. On last weekend’s episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Alec Baldwin, portraying Mr. Trump, said of the inauguration lineup, “Best of all, we’ve got the one Rockette with the least money in her savings. ” Dottie a former Rockette, said, “Here you have the most sophisticated women that are so well respected in this country. ” She added, “To put them on the same stage as this man, to me, is reprehensible. ” The individual Rockettes had no say in the inauguration booking: It was ultimately the decision of James L. Dolan, the executive chairman of the Madison Square Garden Company, which manages the Rockettes. Mr. Dolan is a longtime friend of Mr. Trump and donated to his campaign he has supported both Democrats and Republicans in the past. A company spokesman, Barry Watkins, declined requests for interviews with Mr. Dolan and current leaders and members of the Rockettes. Mr. Watkins, in response to written questions about the Rockettes as well as the inauguration performance, wrote by email, “The New York Times has had an Trump agenda for quite some time and now the Rockettes are on the receiving end of their bias. ” This article is based on interviews over the last three weeks with Ms. Pearl, who was a Rockette until this month, and nine former Rockettes, as well as others in the extended Rockette organization. Several people spoke anonymously for fear that if they were to speak publicly, the Madison Square Garden Company would take legal action against them. The backlash over the inauguration performance began on Twitter and Facebook after Ms. Pearl wrote a private Instagram post. “I am speaking for just myself, but please know that after we found out this news, we have been performing with tears in our eyes and heavy hearts,” Ms. Pearl wrote. She believes a friend of hers shared her photo with the celebrity gossip blog Perez Hilton. She and her fellow performers would later learn that their performance at the inauguration would not be mandatory, as some feared, but it was too late to stop criticism from strangers who took to social media to tell her to shut up and dance. Supporters wondered whether she and her fellow dancers were under a gag order. A news crew, Ms. Pearl said, showed up at her Harlem apartment. That sort of attention came as a shock within the world of the Rockettes, which is devoted to a particular kind of synchronicity, where no one person dominates the stage. A Radio City Rockette is a specialist in precision dance technique, a rare, regimented and intricate style that requires both athleticism and artistry. Rockettes must stand between and and uphold a standard of elegance, along with an expertise in tap, modern dance, jazz and ballet. They must hit positions with military exactitude. It’s a style that requires a dancer to step into a line — not to take over and not to be left behind. It takes fortitude and humility. “You don’t realize how much individuality you have as a dancer until you’re asked to dance like 35 other women,” said Jessica McRoberts, 39, a former Rockette. “Things down to your pinkie finger. ” Under the leadership of Linda Haberman, who began directing and choreographing touring productions of the “Christmas Spectacular” in 1993, the Rockettes gained artistic respect and became modernized with more challenging choreography. Ms. Haberman left the organization in 2014 and declined a request for comment. Despite requests, the Madison Square Garden Company did not make the troupe’s current director, Karen Keeler, available for interviews. The rigors of performing and traveling as a company often allow dancers to form close and lasting bonds, according to Ms. Grantham, the alumnae president, who was a Rockette from 1959 until 1970. Ms. Grantham said that the Rockettes have a long history of performing for presidents and at events in New York City hosted by both Republicans and Democrats. “One time we did benefits for both parties in one night,” she said. “One was at the Sheraton, and the other was at the Hilton. ” This wouldn’t be the first time the Rockettes performed for a controversial president, but the volatile media climate surrounding Mr. Trump’s inauguration is unusual. Rhonda Malkin, a former Rockette who worked as a personal trainer to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner for two years, said that the Trump and Kushner families were supportive of her career as a Rockette. Once, they attended a performance to see her dance. “I think they would like to see the Rockettes perform at the inauguration,” she said of the Trump family. “Whether or not that causes a rift throughout the brand is yet to be seen. ” Ms. Malkin, 38, said that several of the current Rockettes she knows are upset that a crew of 13 Rockettes were initially told by their union, the American Guild of Variety Artists, that they would be forced to perform. “There are some career Rockettes who are very upset about this,” Ms. Malkin said of the inauguration plans. “I’ve also heard the women of color are very upset. From what I have heard, it has just caused a real rift in the company. ” Ms. Malkin, who was a Rockette for 12 years, said Ms. Pearl “took a real risk” for speaking out, but she doubts that the controversy surrounding the inauguration has caused any lasting damage to the brand. “I would honestly say that the majority of our audience members are white Christian conservative people,” Ms. Malkin said. “And those folks probably supported Trump. ” Of Mr. Dolan, the Madison Square Garden chairman, she added, “He knows those are the people who buy tickets to those shows. ” While the Rockettes are an American symbol — as much as Radio City Music Hall or Mr. Trump and his branded buildings — the group’s individual dancers remain fairly anonymous. They don’t speak unless deemed by the Madison Square Garden Company, which has fiercely protected them against criticism surrounding the inauguration. “For a while we weren’t allowed to say, ‘I’m going to be on the ‘Today’ show with the Rockettes tomorrow morning,’” said Naomi Kakuk, 40, a former Rockette. “You’d say: ‘Watch the ‘Today’ show tomorrow — you might see a familiar face.’ We couldn’t even say we were on a show that was promoting the show. ” Mr. Dolan has been criticized for making the inauguration deal and guarding the Rockettes from media requests, but several former dancers praised his management style, which include generous benefits. Being a Rockette is among the most lucrative jobs a dancer can get in New York, complete with health insurance even though the company performs on a seasonal basis. Ms. Kakuk, who loved her time as a Rockette, said, “You get six months of pay for three months of work, and it is six months’ worth of work in three months because it’s so incredibly intense. ” She added that some of the dancers live in New York during the Christmas show and then go home to Wisconsin or Florida to teach. “You have insurance for the year, you have a great paycheck, you do all these fun gigs and side things, and you’re doing the show and dancing on the great stage,” Ms. Kakuk said. “You’re skinny as hell when you get out. You’re bikini ready in January. It’s amazing. ” Cheryl Cutlip, who danced as a Rockette for 15 years and left the company in 2008, said that benefits were ushered in quickly after the TV company Cablevision bought Radio City Music Hall in 1997. Ms. Cutlip, 45, remembered Mr. Dolan meeting with the Rockettes to go over their basic needs. She said he gave them his personal email address. Soon, Rockettes no longer had to rush out of the door to find coffee and a bagel in the space between performance preparations. “He started bringing food in,” Ms. Cutlip said of Mr. Dolan. “Once he saw the practical needs of the Rockettes, he started meeting them. ” For other former Rockettes, the current controversy reminded them of clashes between the dancers, their union and their corporate employer. Lora Pavilack, a former Rockette, said she had been locked out of the building twice, once for talking to the news media and, another time, during contentious negotiations over a union contract. “That’s the culture,” she said, “and that’s why they’ve lined up with the . ” Ms. Malkin said that she was also locked out with Ms. Pavilack during contract negotiations in 2005. Madison Square Garden officials declined to comment for this article, but they have said in the past that no one had been locked out during contract negotiations. More than enough Rockettes wanted to perform at the inaugural, but Ms. Kakuk also knows some who are not participating. “I think some of them are done anyway,” she said, “and they were like, ‘This is the last straw, I’m out. ’” Ms. Pearl is one of them. On a recent evening, she ended weeks of silence by taking part in a toast to the First Amendment presented by the Bessies, or the New York Dance and Performance Awards. “People have been calling me courageous,” Ms. Pearl said at the toast, her voice cracking. “But I don’t see it that way. I’m just standing up for human rights. ” Many in the dance world, including Yvonne Rainer, the postmodern giant who was part of the toast, and several former Rockettes, including Ms. Kakuk, have voiced enthusiasm for Ms. Pearl’s action and her talent as a dancer. “When you see her onstage as a Rockette, you watch her,” Ms. Kakuk said. “She’s outspoken but less so than others. It was a bit of a surprise. ” With the latest holiday season behind her, Ms. Pearl has decided to leave the organization and forge a path in film and television. She found inspiration in the actress Meryl Streep, who spoke out against Mr. Trump at the Golden Globes. “She can speak freely,” Ms. Pearl said. “I wish to have the opportunity to speak as freely as I can, without any repercussion. ” But stepping out of the line is just not the Rockettes’ way. “Usually artists are more outspoken,” Ms. Kakuk said, “but Rockettes as a brand is not very outspoken. You work for a giant corporation, and a lot of girls don’t realize that. They just think they’re dancing. ” | 1 |
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Derrick Wilburn writes that with each passing day, more compromising of national security, self-serving and self-enriching behaviors, frauds, scams and general malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton come to light via new Wikileaks data dumps. But the news media’s obsession with things Donald Trump has said consistently overshadows things Hillary Clinton has actually done.
Revelations have now surfaced that Clinton backed the Puerto Rico Debt Relief Bill , a plan to help the financially struggling U.S. commonwealth deal with a $70 billion debt it managed to rack up, after a top Clinton fundraiser –who just happens to be a lobbyist for the Puerto Rican treasury— emailed his brother to discuss the situation.
Who is this brother? None other than John David Podesta, Chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.
The brother, Tony Podesta, has been well-compensated by Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican treasury department has paid Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman’s brother’s firm nearly two million dollars!
The email in question is from March 2015. At that point Puerto Rican treasury had already paid Tony’s firm, The Podesta Group, the $1.9 million since enlisting the firm’s services, whatever those are, in 2013. How does a government $70 billion in debt cough up $1.9 million to pay a consultancy firm, and what consulting or services was that firm providing? Specifically.
Tony Podesta, serving as President of The Podesta Group, emailed his brother with a subject line of “Puerto Rico.” The body of the email asked, “Can you call me today re PR. Need advice not action.” At the time Tony Podesta and other lobbyists in the firm were pushing for passage of congressional legislation to allow Puerto Rico to restructure its debt through a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing.
A few months after the email between the Podesta brothers, Clinton officially backed congressional legislation authorizing Chapter 9 proceedings. Amazing timing.
So Hillary formally backed legislation to relieve Puerto Rico of billions of dollars in debt after her campaign manager’s brother emailed him seeking “advice” and after his client had paid him $1.9 million for “services.”
What could those services be? Could they be… using one’s connections in Washington to help see to it the passage of a debt relief bill is assured?
If this doesn’t sound like influence peddling, read on.
In addition to being her campaign manager’s brother, Tony Podesta is a high-dollar Clinton donor and fundraiser. According to Federal Election Commission filings he has provided “ reportable bundled contributions ” of about $200,000 for the campaign.
He has also donated between $25,000 and $50,000 to –surprise, surprise– The Clinton Foundation. Is there anyone too shady for this foundation to accept cash from?
How many instances of cash contributions to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for favors, …allegedly… have there been now? One can barely keep track. We also just learned (also through Wikileaks) that the government of Qatar gave the Clinton Foundation a $1 million check for Bill’s birthday .
Why would a foreign government, any foreign government, let alone one in the Middle East, give a million dollars as a birthday gift? The secrecy, corruption, payoffs and general level of suspicious activity that surrounds this couple is astounding.
Exactly what the Podestas talked about isn’t known, but other hacked emails show that Clinton specifically asked her staff to craft public statements in support of Puerto Rican debt relief after the Podesta brothers apparently discussed the issue, but before Hillary publicly backed Chapter 9 proceedings. Could it be that some of that $1.9 million made it into Clinton Foundation bank accounts?
Congress eventually passed and the president signed a Puerto debt relief package. As of this writing, neither the Clinton campaign nor the Podesta Group had responded to requests for additional information.
This cozy, cash-laden exchange typifies exactly what Donald Trump has tapped into. Americans by-and-large believe there is so much corruption, so much cronyism, so many snakes in the grasses around Washington that everyone is on the take, everyone is into someone’s pockets and the entire brood is wallowing around in the muck of get-rich politics. Wikileaks having hacked John Podesta’s email account and putting this information into the public domain only confirms the suspicions.
Of course the other suspicion is that our “mainstream media” is equally corrupt and will not cover stories like this one. Sadly, the American public is mostly right on both counts. | 0 |
By Chris “Kikila” Perrin Flint, MI — Like any moment of catastrophe that flitters through the mainstream media, the Flint Water Crisis cannot be boiled down to a moment. With media focus... | 0 |
WikiLeaks TOP 44: Election defined Julian Assange November 08, 2016 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange makes a speech from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy, in central London, Britain February 5, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
This election will clearly be remembered as the year citizen journalists rocked the status quo. Below are 44 of the most shocking revelations which have come out through WikiLeaks in 2016.
(WASHINGTON, DC) WikiLeaks has published tens of thousands of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails. This is what The Daily Caller believes are the most important findings from them. They expose a corrupt press, Clinton Foundation play for play, cronyism, and the Clintons’ real thoughts on the issues. The Clintons In Private:
Hillary Told Goldman Sachs America Is Arming Countries That Fund Jihadists ( link )
Hillary In Goldman Sachs Speech: People Who Oppose Immigration Are ‘Un-American’ ( link )
Bill Clinton Mocked Working Class Voters At Private Fundraiser ( link )
Leaked Transcript: Bill Clinton Says ‘Political System Is Rigged’ And Hillary ‘Deserves’ The White House ( link )
Leaked Speech: Bill Clinton Calls ‘Coal Country’ Most ‘Anti-Immigrant’ Part Of America ( link )
Bill Clinton Told Donors The Border Won’t Be Secure ‘For A Very Long Time’ ( link )
Leaked Bill Clinton Speech: Obama Years Left No Hope For White Working Class ( link )
Podesta Email: It Would Have Been ‘Better’ If San Bernardino Shooter Had A Stereotypical White Name ( link )
Podesta Email: It Would Have Been ‘Better’ If San Bernardino Shooter Had A Stereotypical White Name ( link )
Hillary Tells Bankers: ‘My Dream Is Open Borders’ ( link )
Hillary Called Saudi Arabia The Number One Exporter Of ‘Extreme Ideology’ In Private, Paid Speech ( link )
When Speaking To Donors, Bill Clinton Sounds A Lot Like Donald Trump ( link )
Clinton Campaign Knew TPP Switch Was ‘A Huge Flip Flop’ ( link ) Clinton Foundation:
Clinton Foundation Donors Expected ‘Benefits In Return For Gifts’ ( link )
Hillary Wants Clinton Foundation To Keep Accepting Foreign Donations ( link )
Clinton Foundation Memo Shows Meetings With Bill Clinton Cost $100,000 ( link )
Clinton Campaign Found ‘Huge’ Gender Pay Gap At Clinton Foundation ( link )
Bill Clinton Receives ‘Expensive Gifts,’ Is Personally Paid By Clinton Foundation Sponsors ( link ) Clinton Cronyism:
Clinton Campaign Took Money From Agents For Foreign Interests ( link )
Hillary Got $12 Million for Clinton Charity As Quid Pro Quo For Morocco Meeting ( link )
Clinton’s Aide’s For-Profit Firm Illegally Raised $150 Million For Clinton Charity ( link )
Huma Abedin Granted Access To Hillary Based On Clinton Global Initiative Donor Status ( link )
DOJ Official Who Is Friends With John Podesta Offered A ‘Heads Up’ On Clinton Email Developments ( link )
Podesta Suggested Coordinating With State Dept. To ‘Hold’ Hillary’s Emails With Obama ( link )
Here’s How The Clinton’s Free Private Jet Scam Works ( link )
Leaked Emails Show Clinton Campaign Coordinating With Soros Organization ( link )
Emails Show Starbucks CEO Advising Clinton Campaign About Hillary’s ‘Brand’ ( link )
REVEALED: Liberal Money’s Longterm Strategy To Control Public Opinion And Secure ‘Advantageous’ Demographics ( link )
iPay-For-Play: Apple VP Pledges To Play ‘Public Role’ In Exchange For HRC’s ‘Nuanced Encryption Stance’ ( link )
Leaked Email Reveals Google Chairman Wanted To Be Clinton Campaign’s ‘Head Outside Advisor’ ( link )
Facebook COO In Leaked Email: I Still Want Hillary To Win Badly ( link )
Clinton Campaign Planned To Work With Media Matters, Leaks Reveal ( link )
Emails Reveal Clintons’‘Sleazy’ And Intricate Relationship With Major Chemical Manufacturer ( link )
Clinton Campaign Chair Met With Soros To Talk TPP, Immigration Policies, Leaked Emails Show ( link ) The Cozy Press:
Leaked Emails: CNN Journalist Refers To ‘GOP Hell,’ Calls Podesta A ‘Star’ ( link )
CNN Source Fed Clinton Camp Information ( link )
Politico Reporter Sends Story To Hillary Aide For Approval, Admits He’s A ‘Hack’ ( link )
Hill’s Shills: Leaks Have Exposed Journalists In Clinton’s Corner ( link )
Politico Reporter Was ‘Glad’ Hundreds Of Superdelegates Backed Hillary ( link )
Politico Reporter Gets Caught AGAIN Sending A Story To A Clinton Staffer For Approval ( link )
Donna Brazile Shared CNN Town Hall Questions With Clinton Camp ( link )
Donna Brazile Shared Additional Debate Questions With Clinton Campaign, Identified Her Tipster ( link )
Debate Moderator Congratulates Podesta On Nevada Caucus Victory ( link )
Chuck Todd Hosted Swanky Dinner Party At His Home For Top Clinton Campaign Official ( link )
Clinton Campaign And Harry Reid Worked With NYT To Smear State Dept Watchdog ( link ) | 0 |
shorty THE DUOPOLY WATCH | Steven Jonas, MD, MPH Special to The Greanville Post | Commentary No. 63: “The Cometization of the 2016 Elections: The Role of the Ruling Class ” O n July 5, 2016, The Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, shooting like a comet over Washington, D.C., announced that after an extensive investigation, no criminal charges relating to the improper use/protection/transmission of classified documents would be brought against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the same time, he launched into an extensive negative analysis of what had been done with emails, sensitive or not, on State Department or private servers, by Mrs. Clinton and members of her staff. That statement, very unusual for an FBI Director to make, had a transitory effect on Clinton’s poll numbers. But at the same time, the Director, in a highly unusual action, little noticed at the time, told leading Republican on the House Intelligence Committee that it would keep them informed of any further developments. As is well-known, just now there have been further developments. Mr. Comey announced publicly that there would be a further investigation of (possible) Clinton emails. He made this announcement before any investigation had begun, much less concluded and before his agents had obtained even so much as a warrant for seizing a lap-top belonging to the estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, of one of Mrs. Clinton’s closest aides, Huma Abedin. This action by Comey was considered to be highly unusual, to say the least, by a variety of sources/authorities, including, for example, The New York Times editorial page . It was even unclear as to whether, after some kind of preliminary evaluation, the previous formal inquiry would be reopened. The U.S. Justice Department strongly discouraged Comey from making such an speculative announcement (as in “their might be a further investigation after we’ve had a look at Mr. Weiner server which — who knows — might simply be filled with photos of Mr. Weiner’s private parts taken from a wide variety of angles”). It appeared as if Mr. Comey himself might be violating the law, that is the 1939 Hatch Act , which prohibits government employees from taking actions close to elections which might influence their outcomes. A Republican, Richard Painter, who worked as the Chief Ethics Officer in the Bush White House (and a Clinton supporter this time around), went so far as to file a formal ethics complaint against Comey, for apparent violation of the Hatch Act (which would be a criminal offense). There have been a variety of political outcomes from the Comey action, ranging from no change in the Clinton/Trump poll numbers to significant changes in them, from no change in the generally predicted Clinton lock on the Electoral College vote to possibly enough of a Trump swing in the swing states to give the election to him. Most observers are not attributing ulterior motives to Mr. Comey. “He made a simple mistake.” “He was trying to be open about what is going on, but he was premature in making such an announcement — poor judgement.” “He was under pressure from Congressional Republicans. Suppose that he had not announced the further investigation [of a bunch of emails that might not even be Clinton’s] in advance of its being undertaken, and then something had come of it after the election? Boy, would they be mad [or worse].” Well, folks, I don’t buy any of it. I think that what Comey did, from the July “even though we have nothing criminal on you you’re a bad girl” speech to the present “we are announcing that an investigation will be starting [once we get a warrant], without any idea that anything further that might be incriminating might be found” is all part of a plan. (And yes, this is a conspiracy hypothesis, but not quite the kind that Alex Jones would come up with.) In 2013 Mr. Comey was given the customary ten-year term appointment as FBI Director by President Barack Obama. (Wonder why in all of this bruhaha from the Democrats Obama gave him a vote of confidence?) A career Federal prosecutor and occasional corporate lawyer who eventually became Deputy Attorney General under Bush , he is a Republican. He has had a reputation for highly ethical behavior. He does not live in a bubble, however. He had to have known that what he was doing when he gave his totally unnecessary speech when he announced “no criminal findings” in the original Clinton emails/server case. While it did not seem to have any long-term political effects, it did stir the political pot at the time. This announcement has the pot boiling. It could swing the election to Trump. Although the conventional wisdom as of Nov. 1, when this column is being written, is that it won’t, because of Clinton’s heavy advantage in the Electoral College, Glenn Beck, an arch-reactionary who happens to be anti-Trump, thinks that Comey’s announcement is “one of the most irresponsible things to ever happen” and could swing the election to Trump. And although unlikely, it could. So how did this happen? Well, Comet Comey has a phone (you can sure that the doesn’t do political stuff by email), and it is as secure a one as can be found. As I have pointed out previously, there is an increasingly large sector of the ruling class, led by some very wealthy hedge fund managers like the one who came to the Trump campaign along with Steve Bannon (from the Cruz campaign). They REALLY want Trump to win: further huge tax cuts for the wealthy and the end of regulation as we know it. My guess is that they got to Comey. What they offered or promised him, if anything at all, is impossible to know. But I do believe that that is what happened. Comey is a long-time Federal lawyer. He is now the Director of the FBI. He had to know about the Hatch Act, and that he would be violating it. He also knows that regardless of the outcome of the election he is never going to be prosecuted for doing so. Until last Friday, Trump was sinking and a number of down-ticket Republicans were going with him. Now, as the result of the “announcement” of something that might or might not happen, Trump is making huge hay of it and could win, and even more importantly the Republicans have a much better chance of holding on to the Senate. This did not happen by accident. An unprecedented announcement in October goes back to an unprecedented speech in July. Unprecedented once? Well, maybe by happenstance. Unprecedented twice? Well, not so much. Postscript: According to the FBI, there is no direct connection between Donald Trump and the Russian Government/business sector. According to a long-time counter-intelligence operative of another country, there are numerous documents showing just such relationships and he gave them to the FBI . Here’s one excerpt: “ Mother Jones has reviewed that report and other memos this former spy wrote. The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer’s conversations with Russian sources, noted, ‘Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance.’ It maintained that Trump ‘and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals.’ It claimed that Russian intelligence had ‘compromised’ Trump during his visits to Moscow and could ‘blackmail him.’ ” This is stuff for an actual investigation. Is there any evidence that one is underway? Well, it would be improper for the FBI to comment on investigations that are still in process (only on those that have not yet begun). But the media are not letting go on this one . Do stay tuned (and remember, I wrote this on November 1). ABOUT THE AUTHOR Senior Editor, Politics , Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 30 books. In addition to being Senior Editor, Politics, for The Greanville Post , he is: a Contributor for American Politics to The Planetary Movement ;a“Trusted Author” for Op-Ed News.com ; a contributor to the “ Writing for Godot ” section of Reader Supported News; and a contributor to From The G-Man . He is the Editorial Director and a Contributing Author for TPJmagazine .us . Further, he is an occasional Contributor to TheHarderStuff newslette r , BuzzFlash Commentary , and Dandelion Salad . Dr. Jonas’ latest book is Ending the ‘Drug War’; Solving the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach, Brewster, NY: Punto Press, available on Kindle from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Drug-War-Solving-Problem-ebook/dp/B01EO9RGKO/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461783388&sr=1-4&keywords=Ending+the+Drug+War His most recent book on US politics is The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel ( Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013 , Brewster, NY), and available on Amazon. | 0 |
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Rescuers navigated submerged streets and neighborhoods in parts of southern Louisiana on Monday, plucking people to safer ground and trying to stay ahead of the waterways spilling over into new areas. At least eight people died in the flooding, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference on Tuesday. Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes had reported two deaths each by Monday. East Baton Rouge Parish reported three. More than 11, 000 people were in 70 shelters as of Monday, and many more are expected, said Mike Steele, a spokesman for the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “The floodwaters are drifting downstream below Baton Rouge,” Mr. Steele said. “That’s the biggest concern now. ” “We have additional rain in the forecast all week, and it is still a threat each day,” he added. The National Weather Service said Monday that significant flooding would continue along bayous and streams that feed into the Amite River through three parishes south of Baton Rouge — Iberville, Ascension and St. James. Residents of the Iberville Parish were urged to evacuate on Monday. More than 20, 000 people have so far been evacuated in flooded areas, and that number is expected to continue to rise as rain this week falls on saturated ground, he said. The floods have turned roads into surreal lakes in which the tops of cars and other structures are barely visible, breaking the surface of brown, muddy waters. The rescue of one woman was captured on video and broadcast by a local TV station, WAFB. Rescuers drew up near her submerged convertible car in floodwaters in Baton Rouge over the weekend, but they were unable to extract her from the vehicle until one of them got access through its fabric rooftop. “Oh, my God, I’m drowning,” the woman can be heard saying from inside the car, the station reported. Citizens are helping out, volunteering their time and boats to go house to house to pick up residents in trouble. Firefighters, the National Guard and the Coast Guard, using helicopters and small boats, were among those who have also joined the effort. President Obama has declared four parishes north and east of Baton Rouge — Tangipahoa, St. Helena, East Baton Rouge and Livingston — as disaster areas, making them eligible for federal assistance. Mr. Steele said additional parishes were likely to be added to the federal emergency funds list and he urged residents to take advantage of the assistance. State government offices were closed in at least 27 parishes, nearly half of the state’s 64 parishes, officials said. The floods submerged neighborhoods and highways after days of heavy storms in southern Louisiana, stretching from the parishes to the north and east of Baton Rouge west past the city of Lafayette over the weekend. Those stranded by the waters found themselves further marooned by a huge cellular network failure. Two of the victims of the flooding were in vehicles that were swept off the road one was a man who drowned after he slipped and fell in the waters during a rescue and the fourth was a man who had been swept away on Friday and whose body had been found on Sunday morning, a reporter for a local news station, said on Facebook. The Town Talk of Alexandria, La. reported that a fifth person died on Sunday when her car was swept into a ditch. Ms. Faulkner had no further details about the sixth death. Law enforcement officers in the areas have told state officials they expect the death toll to climb. Many houses have lost power and cellphone service, complicating the rescue process as emergency workers rely on . Jim Hawthorne, a retired radio broadcaster, stood on his front porch in floodwaters nearly up to his hips on Sunday, saying “hey, hey” to capture the attention of a passing boat motoring down the street in the Park Forest neighborhood of Baton Rouge where he lived with his wife, Carol. “I heard the boat. We were laying there reading. I had the windows open. I said, ‘Carol, that boat is real close,’” Mr. Hawthorne told The Advocate. “I waded through the water and went out the front door. I could still see the waves rippling from the boat. “I yelled as loud as I could, and they heard me,” the said. “I was in water up to my . I was yelling, ‘HEY! HEY!’ The motor stopped and they came around and came back. ” They were rescued. | 1 |
Mike Pence's Plane Slides off Runway at LaGuardia page: 1 Mike Pence's campaign plane has slid off a runway at LaGuardia. No injuries have been reported at this time. This is a developing story. Campaign plane carrying Gov Mike Pence skids off runway while landing at LaGuardia Airport Watch on facebook edit on 27-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) he was going to a fundraiser and it appears he is not going anymore. edit on 27-10-2016 by reldra because: (no reason given) | 0 |
16-Years-Old smdh. He’s Only a Child.
Andrew Anglin October 27, 2016 Click to enlarge
As I’ve said for a long time now, it appears that Neo-Nazi satirists have infiltrated the Jewish media and are using their positions to mock the insane depths to which Jew lies have sunk.
Seriously, if I was running the Guardian, I would absolutely run this on the cover: a picture of a 40-something Negro crying, with the headline that he’s a child and a caption saying he’s 16-years-old.
If I was going to push it further than this, I would print the lyrics to Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” in the sidebar. And I am predicting now that they are going to use this song in a video about Calais migrants having no where to go now that the French Nazis burned their camp. Or rather, now that they burned their own camp because the French Nazis told them they had to leave and it is “their tradition” ( IRL quote from French official ) to burn their homes when they leave them.
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would it be the same If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong‘Cause I know I don’t belong Here in heaven
Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven? Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven?
I’ll find my way Through night and day‘Cause I know I just can’t stay Here in heaven
Time can bring you down Time can bend your knees Time can break your heart Have you begging please, begging please
Beyond the door There’s peace I’m sure And I know there’ll be no more Tears in heaven
Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven? Would you be the same If I saw you in heaven?
I must be strong‘Cause I know I don’t belong Here in heaven | 0 |
In fact, the media jumped all over the false narrative the Miller and his wife were tied to the Bundy's, labeling them right wing extremist terrorists , and attempting to use the propaganda for advancing attacks on the Second Amendment . The media never mentioned the fact that the Millers were involved in the Occupy Movement and it never informs the public that they were Vegas police informants .
What's worse is that this attempt to smear patriots for standing against the illegal and unconstitutional acts of the DC government and their willing accomplices in the Bureau of Land Management, FBI, and corrupt politicians, both in DC and local, is the fact that this was already dealt with once as Constitutional Sheriff Richard Mack was wrongly connected to the Millers.
Deb Jordan adds , "Las Vegas Metro Police and the Clark County Sheriff's Department cannot produce any report of violence or destruction of property during the Bundy Civil Rights Protest, except in those instances where the Bureau of Land Management were the perpetrators."
"Sheriff Douglas Gillespie, the then Sheriff of Clarke County said at the time, there was no direct link to the couple's killing spree and Cliven Bundy – noting that the two had arrived in Las Vegas in January of 2014 and that they had their own agenda for starting a revolution," she added. "Gillespie made clear he had seen NO evidence that the Miller's had come to Nevada seeking out Cliven Bundy."
Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore also took time to call out this injustice .
"This mailer is completely unacceptable she said, and somebody needs to be held accountable for putting this false narrative in Nevada mailboxes," she said. "Clearly the Bundy's Civil Rights were being violated by a United States Government – Terrorist Organization – known as the BLM, and we all saw it happening with our own eyes. I was not the only elected official at that protest and what I want to know is, where the hell are they now?"
Fiore also said :
The level of propaganda being allowed by the Democratic Party must come to an end. We have men whose lives are on the line here in Nevada, and poisoning the jury pool with a downright lie must be dealt with. Not only do we have a case here that is already out of balance because it is being overseen by Judge Gloria Navarro, a left winger who was recommended by Harry Reid and appointed by Barack Obama, and Steven Myhre a Liberal Prosecutor who could obviously care less about fairness and truth, now we add to that more unfairness by allowing a left-wing propaganda machine to send out the message, that Cliven Bundy is directly responsible for the death of two of our Metro Police officers.
This case should be awarded a change in venue in the fairness of law, and my peers should stop being cowards and get back to representing the truth about this case.
Cliven Bundy held a peaceful protest on his own property and even though the Federal Government was not invited, they came anyway.
They literally beat up on his family, set trained snipers on hillsides overlooking his ranch, came at them with stun guns and dogs, tried to restrict them to a first amendment area, killed and buried their cattle on public lands – in mass graves, threatened everyone who came to a lawful protest with lethal force, had armed helicopters and drones flying all over the place, and now they honestly want the American people to believe the Bundy's were the bad guys — come on …
The Government has stacked the odds against these men, and I am telling you right now;
I will not stand by and watch them be railroaded by a bunch of left-wing extremist and sent to prison for crimes they did not commit.
This case should not only be moved out of the State of Nevada, it should be dismissed altogether.
I have no regrets for doing the right thing here when it comes to the Bundy's — As hard as it is, I would rather lose every single race for office, before I would lose one nights sleep knowing I had betrayed them ."
Fiore is correct. The men in Nevada were more peaceful than the agents who surrounded them. So, what are you going to do America? Will you sit quietly by at your keyboard and rage at the machine, or will you take action?
You can contact the responsible party here: Address : 6233 Dean Martin Dr, Las Vegas, NV 89118 | 0 |
“The earth is gold to farm,” said Dean Foster, who learned before he was in kindergarten how to drive a tractor on his family’s potato farm in Sagaponack, N. Y. As a child, he never questioned going into the family business, which has been growing potatoes on the East End of Long Island for generations. “But now we have an influx of people who realize this earth is gold to build on. ” In 2015, Sagaponack, a village in the Hamptons, was listed by Forbes as the second most expensive ZIP code in the country. Not great news for the humble potato farmer. If they had been looking to sell, the Fosters would have been set for life local brokers estimated the value of their 150 acres at over $100 million this past summer. That may seem like a gold strike, but it would have required them to give up the family’s legacy. “Our land values have gone through the roof,” Mr. Foster’s sister, Marilee Foster, said. “And most of our adult lives, we’ve worried. ” The answer to their problems, unexpectedly, has turned out to be vodka. “The New York Craft Act really kicked me in the pants,” Mr. Foster said, referring to the law signed in late 2014 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which eased regulations on producers. It was a call to the hipsters who had been making bathtub gin, but it was also a call to farmers who had been searching for a way to survive. “It opened the doors to one of the best products you could bring forward,” Mr. Foster said, “and allowed us to step up the game. ” He is betting the farm on Sagaponacka, the vodka produced in his new Sagaponack Farm Distillery. Thirty years ago, the Fosters’ biggest business was exporting potatoes to Puerto Rico, and they sent out five trailers a day, five days a week. This year, the Fosters have shipped only three trailer loads since the start of the harvest in . “That market really disappeared with Nafta,” Mr. Foster said, referring to the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in the United States, Canada and Mexico in 1994. “That was the beginning of the end for exports. ” And the local market has been no kinder. Last year, the Fosters were getting 11 cents, at the most, for a pound of potatoes, down from an average of 22 cents a pound in 2009. Add to that the rising minimum wage, the cost of machinery and an impending inheritance tax, and the farmers felt doomed. “The inheritance tax reflects on our net worth regarding this very expensive land we reside on,” Mr. Foster said. “After all is said and done, we’ll have given away 60 percent of our net worth to the government. ” Even though the New York Agricultural Districts Law, enacted in 1971, eased the strain of the property tax on the farmer, the Fosters won’t have the cash to pay the inheritance tax when the farm changes hands. A potato farmer’s income just doesn’t line up with Sagaponack prices if they don’t find a way to make their land more profitable, they will have to sell it. “If the farm wasn’t worth so much,” Mr. Foster said, “we wouldn’t be lying awake at night trying to figure out how we can save it. ” So Mr. Foster decided to shift his focus from the plate to the martini glass by developing a premium vodka made with Foster potatoes. He collaborated with Matt Beamer, who has stood at the forefront of the craft beer movement in Utah, brewing at companies like Uinta Brewing and Wasatch Brewery. In 1997, Mr. Beamer began Park City Brewery, which was subsequently purchased by Moab Brewery and has continued to grow. “Craft brewers changed the beer world in the last 30 years,” Mr. Beamer said. “And a lot of people like me are getting into spirits now. ” For Mr. Beamer, the appeal of the project is the story behind the vodka, which is usually made from grain and doesn’t often have ingredients that distinguish one batch from another. “The ingredients are unique to here, and have their own terroir,” he said. “We’re trying to capture Sagaponack. ” To be a farm distillery in New York, 75 percent of the ingredients used must be sourced within the state. Brooklyn has become a frontier for budding distillers, where nine of New York City’s 13 farm distilleries have appeared since 2010. Kings County Distillery, established that year, has the distinction of being the first distillery in the city since prohibition. Now the movement is booming. In fact, the Fosters and their Sagaponack potatoes are a little bit late to the party. “There’s a new brand fatigue,” said Colin Spoelman, of Kings County Distillery and a master distiller. “It’s harder to get on the shelf unless there’s something really compelling, something very different than what everyone else is doing. ” And Sagaponack Farm Distillery has something that others do not. Unlike the vast majority of distilleries in New York, which source ingredients from farms all over the state, Mr. Foster and Mr. Beamer are trying to gather all of their ingredients from Foster Farm, where their distillery is also located. There they have total control over the process, growing, harvesting, washing, peeling and then grinding the potatoes for distillation, on the property. They opened their research and development distillery in May 2015. The large still, a tower of gleaming copper, was completed this summer. The distillery recently received federal approval to make vodka from this year’s potato harvest, which is currently underway. Soon, it will start producing up to 70, 000 gallons of sellable spirits a year. Mr. Foster and Mr. Beamer hope to have the tasting room open by next summer. In the meantime, several restaurants and liquor stores in the city and across the East End are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the vodka with the Sagaponack terroir. David Loewenberg, who owns three Hamptons restaurants, is already brainstorming what cocktails will best suit the newest vodka on the block. “I’m sure it will make an outrageous Bloody Mary,” he said. Whether it’s the wine tap stocked with local wines or the Pine Barrens single malt from the North Fork of Long Island, Mr. Loewenberg supports what he calls “local swill. ” “At one point this was all farmland,” he said. “And the Fosters have found a way to keep farming by being creative with the product. Making vodka is still living off the land, and I support it. ” Mr. Beamer sees distributing their products to city restaurants and bars as crucial to the company. “Given the size of our equipment,” he said, gesturing to the towering copper stills, “a major part of our vision is distributing in the city. ” Last year the Fosters grew 180 acres of potatoes this year they grew 75. In 2017, that number will dwindle to 20 as they focus production on the distillery and a handful of restaurants, eliminating sales on the open market entirely. The rest of their land will be turned to grain, which will be used to produce more strains of premium alcohol at Sagaponack Farm Distillery. Wheat, rye, barley, oats and corn will all find a place in their soil. The hope is to eventually produce enough grains to sell to other New York farm distilleries. “This is an effort to continue in something we see value and purpose in,” Ms. Foster. “We don’t imagine stopping farming. ” | 1 |
Before breathing a sigh of relief that, unlike Western Europe, we don’t have Muslim rapists pouring into our country, recall that we have Mexican rapists pouring into our country. [Almost all peasant cultures are brimming with rapists, pederasts and child abusers. Latin America just happens to be the peasant culture closest to the United States, while the Muslims are closest to Europe. According to North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, immigrants commit hundreds of sex crimes against children in North Carolina every month — 350 in the month of April 2014, 299 in May, and more than 400 in August and September. More than 90 percent of the perpetrators are Hispanic. They aren’t even counting legal immigrants. Aren’t those worse? Only certain Republicans get excited about the difference between legal and illegal immigrants. The rest of America is trying to understand the point of the last 40 years of legal immigration. Why was this necessary? Below is a very short excerpt from a few days in November 2013. As Stalin is supposed to have said, sometimes quantity has a quality all its own. — Bundez, Jose, Juan ( ): Felony Sex Offense — Parental Role, — Jersson: Felony First Degree Sexual Offense Felony First Degree Rape Felony First Degree Kidnapping, — Aguilar, Rafael ( ): Felony Indecent Liberties With Child, — Aguilar, Rigoberto, Castellano ( ): Felony First Degree Rape Felony Indecent Liberties With Child Felony Stat Offn Def& =6yr Felony Indecent Liberties With Child 13. The list, for a single month in a single state, goes on in the same vein through 87 separate offenders. When not providing North Carolina meatpackers with cheap labor, immigrant workers seem to spend all their time raping little girls. To be fair, there are also Asian names, such as Y’Hon Nie (Indecent Liberties With Child, First Degree Sex Second Degree Sexual Offense) and David Vo Minh (First Degree Sex Indecent Liberties With Child). North Carolina’s cheap labor advocates better be paying Sen. Thom Tillis well. It sure isn’t the average North Carolinian demanding that he shill for amnesty. Illegal immigration alone costs North Carolina taxpayers billions of dollars per year. Our nation’s epitaph, with a photo of Sen. Tillis, could be: “We built a powerful economic engine that attracted people, but then some businessmen saw their chance to screw the country and make a pile for themselves. Let’s bring in workers so we can externalize our costs to the taxpayer!” Except North Carolina’s businesses aren’t just externalizing their costs to the taxpayers. They’re externalizing their costs to little girls. The reason websites like North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement are so important is that the government and the media hide immigrant crime from the public. They cite bogus studies that compare immigrants to America’s criminal class. (We didn’t want immigrants who are only slightly less criminal than our worst inner cities.) Or they announce their impressionistic conclusions. (I heard about a crime in Montana — that state must have a lot of crime, is not a scientific way to argue.) Or they refuse to count any criminal without an ICE detainer against him as an immigrant, at all. (Is the court translator a hint that the defendant isn’t a American?) The way to determine how many immigrants are committing crime is to count them. Why does the government refuse to do this? The number of immigrants in prison would be a good start, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Immigrant criminals flee back to their own countries after arrest. Prosecutors deport illegals rather than imprison them — and then the illegals come right back. Some George prosecutors allow illegals to plea guilty to some minor offense, to prevent them from being deported. To get the full picture, government investigators will need to talk to crime victims, police and prosecutors, too. And we want honesty — not studies that count anchor babies and immigrants as “the native population. ” The media is the government’s in hiding immigrant crime. I have approximately 1, 000 examples of media subterfuges on immigrant crime in Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole. Here are a few recent examples from Sen. Tillis’ North Carolina. Headline: “Burke County man convicted of raping girl,” Charlotte Observer, Feb. 1, 2017 (Ricardo Solis Garcia — an illegal whom Mexico refused to take back) Headline: “Burlington man charged with child rape,” The Times News, Jan. 19, 2017 (Felipe Samuel Rivera Rodriguez) Headline: “Angier man accused of having sex with girl,” The Fayetteville Observer, Aug. 29, 2016 (Estevan Roberto Silva). NOTE TO READERS: The North Carolina Estevan Roberto Silva — sex with a girl — should not be confused with the Texas Esteban Villa Silva — sex with a girl about 60 times — or the Alabama Esteban Silva Jr. — man convicted of sex with a girl. All these child rapes were revealed in coded headlines like “Man pleads to sexual relationship with girl. ” Other informative North Carolina headlines: Headline: “Man, 42, arrested for sexual offense with girl under 13” (Carlos Gumercindo Crus) Headline: “Man charged with sexual assault of a minor” (Jose Freddy ) Headline: Man Pleads Guilty in Child Rape Case (Luis ). It’s too relentless to be a coincidence. There have been more stories in the American media about a rape by white lacrosse players that didn’t happen than about thousands of child rapes in North Carolina that did. I’m pretty sure our media is opposed to rape. But evidently, not as opposed as they are to America. | 1 |
Trump: Hillary would lead to World War 3 Due to potential for conflict with nuclear-armed Russia Published: 28 mins ago
(REUTERS) — DORAL, Florida — U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Democrat Hillary Clinton’s plan for Syria would “lead to World War Three,” because of the potential for conflict with military forces from nuclear-armed Russia.
In an interview focused largely on foreign policy, Trump said defeating Islamic State is a higher priority than persuading Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, playing down a long-held goal of U.S. policy.
Trump questioned how Clinton would negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin after demonizing him, and blamed President Barack Obama for a downturn in U.S. relations with the Philippines under its new president, Rodrigo Duterte. | 0 |
Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday that he would “take our campaign for transforming the Democratic Party into the convention,” refusing to concede the presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton though not explicitly saying he would challenge her for it. Mrs. Clinton earned enough delegates to clinch the nomination last week, but Mr. Sanders has declined to end his campaign. He has contended that he could persuade enough superdelegates, the party leaders who have overwhelmingly backed Mrs. Clinton, to switch their support to him by arguing that he would be the stronger candidate against Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. That plan became more improbable last week as Democrats supported Mrs. Clinton. President Obama endorsed her on Thursday, calling her the most qualified candidate ever to seek the White House and imploring Democrats to unite behind her. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts also endorsed Mrs. Clinton. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the only senator to endorse Mr. Sanders, told CNN on Friday that he now supports Mrs. Clinton. In recent days, Mr. Sanders appeared to acknowledge the odds against him, and began speaking less about beating Mrs. Clinton and more about working to defeat Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. On Sunday, he gathered with about 20 key supporters and advisers at his home in Burlington, Vt. to discuss how to proceed. “We are going to take our campaign to the convention with the full understanding that we are very good at arithmetic and that we know, you know, who has the received the most votes up to now,” Mr. Sanders said after the meeting, standing on his front lawn with his wife, Jane. Among the dozen or so people who attended the gathering were Benjamin T. Jealous, a former president of the N. A. A. C. P. Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator and Bill McKibben, the environmentalist and author. Notably, Mr. Sanders also said he would continue his efforts aimed at “transforming the Democratic Party,” a sign that his main goal may no longer be to become the nominee. Besides defeating Mr. Trump, advisers say his focus is to get his ideas, like universal health care and free public college, reflected in the party platform. Refusing to concede and release his delegates to vote for Mrs. Clinton could be a negotiating tactic for winning concessions on the platform. If his delegates tried to nominate Mr. Sanders from the floor of the convention next month, the scene could damage Mrs. Clinton at a time she is trying to project strength and party unity. In recent days, it had been unclear whether Mr. Sanders intended to stay in the race, and even on Sunday he did not rule out the possibility that he would formally concede the nomination in the coming days. After he met with Mr. Obama on Thursday he said he looked forward to exploring how he could work with Mrs. Clinton “to defeat Donald Trump and to create a government which represents all of us and not just the 1 percent. ” Then he held a rally that night in Washington urging voters to cast ballots for him on Tuesday in the nation’s final primary. When asked by Chuck Todd on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC whether he was an “active candidate,” he responded that he wanted to see Mr. Trump defeated. Mr. Sanders said that he and Mrs. Clinton planned to meet on Tuesday and that he would ask her “whether she will be vigorous in standing up for working families in the middle class, moving aggressively in climate change, health care for all, making public colleges and universities . ” “And after we have that kind of discussion and after we can determine whether or not we are going to have a strong and progressive platform,” he said, “I will be able to make other decisions. ” There have been signs that he was winding down his run. While Mrs. Clinton has been hiring campaign workers, Mr. Sanders started laying off at least half of his campaign staff members last week. He has let go of a number of advance staff members who help with campaign logistics, as well as field workers who have been canvassing for votes. According to a person who attended the meeting at Mr. Sanders’s home Sunday, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering, there was no talk from Mr. Sanders about trying to win the nomination. The group was keenly interested in how the senator’s meeting with Mrs. Clinton on Tuesday will turn out, and whether he would get assurances that she would fight for his ideas, this person said. While he is effectively no longer a threat, Mrs. Clinton and the Democrats are counting on Mr. Sanders to eventually get behind her candidacy. He has a loyal base of more than 10 million voters and an enormous donor list that Mrs. Clinton will want to tap into. Some of his supporters say they will not vote for anyone but Mr. Sanders, so Mrs. Clinton’s success may depend on how vocally the senator supports her. | 1 |
Immigration officials arrested 61 criminal aliens during a targeted operation in Nevada last week. Those arrested include foreign nationals convicted of armed robbery, sex crimes, child abuse, assault, domestic violence, drug offenses, and previously deported aliens. [U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) officers carried out a operation in Nevada. The goal of the targeted operation is to round up aliens with criminal records, prior deportation orders, illegal and immigration fugitives, ICE officials said in a written statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “ERO officers here in Nevada and around the country are focused first and foremost on using this agency’s unique tools and authorities to help keep our communities safe,” Nevada ERO Assistant Field Office Director Nikita Curry said in the statement. “Our enforcement efforts last week are representative of the work we’ve been doing and will continue to do. ” Ninety percent of the arrested aliens had records of criminal convictions, officials stated. These records include convictions for various sex crimes, drug offenses, domestic violence, armed robbery, drunk driving, and identity theft. One of those arrested, an Iranian national living in Carson City, Nevada, has a record for illegal drug trafficking. A Salvadoran man living in Reno’s record includes assault, battery, drug possession, and spousal battery, officials stated. Following is the list of crimes committed by 55 of the 61 aliens: *ICE Note: criminal aliens with multiple prior convictions are categorized based on their most serious conviction. The arrestees from last week’s operation include aliens from six different countries. Those include: Mexico (45) Guatemala (6) El Salvador (3) Samoa (2) Armenia (1) Cuba (1) Honduras (1) Iran (1) and Italy (1). ERO officers arrested these criminal aliens in Reno (25) Las Vegas (14) Sparks (5) Stead (4) Elko (3) Winnemucca (3) Lovelock (2) Truckee (2) Battle Mountain (1) Portola (1) and Sun Valley (1). Officials emphasized the operation targeted criminal aliens deemed to be a threat to public safety. The operation also targeted those who the country illegally after being deported and immigration fugitives who previously received orders of removal from an immigration judge but failed to leave the country. ERO officers may immediately remove those individuals who illegally the country after removal or who previously received orders of removal from an immigration judge, officials stated. Some of those may face prosecution for illegal after removal — a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Officials will process the remaining criminal aliens for deportation. Officials noted that during these targeted operations some individuals who only violated immigration laws might be picked up. Those cases are evaluated on a basis to determine if the person is subject to removal. 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. | 1 |
The health and science editor at the New York Times told a reader in the newspaper’s “mailbag” feature that she decided not to use the term “female genital mutilation” because it is a “culturally loaded” term that widens the “gulf” between the West and the countries where the abuse is practiced. [“I never minced words in describing exactly what form of cutting was involved, and there are many gradations of severity, and the terrible damage it did, and stayed away from the euphemistic circumcision, but chose to use the less culturally loaded term, genital cutting,” Dugger wrote in response to a reader’s question about the semantics. Dugger said she made the decision following a trip to Africa in the 1990s. “There’s a gulf between the Western (and some African) advocates who campaign against the practice and the people who follow the rite, and I felt the language used widened that chasm,” Dugger said. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said that some 200 million girls “alive today” are believed to have suffered the abuse, according to the FAQ portion of its website. “The term ‘female genital mutilation’ is used by a wide range of women’s health and human rights organizations,” the UN website states. “It establishes a clear distinction from male circumcision. Use of the word “mutilation” also emphasizes the gravity of the act and reinforces that the practice is a violation of women’s and girls’ basic human rights. “This expression gained support in the late 1970s, and since 1994, it has been used in several United Nations conference documents and has served as a policy and advocacy tool. ” The website text notes that “female genital cutting” was introduced in the late 1990s because of “concern that communities could find the term ‘mutilation,’ demeaning, or that it could imply that parents or practitioners perform this procedure maliciously. ” In recent days three arrests were made in Detroit where two physicians and one physician’s wife are charged with performing the abuse on minor girls. The three suspects represent the first prosecution in the United States for the practice, which is common primarily in Muslim countries, particularly in Africa. | 1 |
Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ Halloween is an important day for me because it marks the anniversary of the first time I dressed up as a seahorse. ” —Amy Adams On Halloween “ Pretty much the only place I can escape the paparazzi these days is the mouth of a volcano. And then I’m dealing with lava, which I call ‘mountain paparazzi.’ So I am pretty stressed out most of the time. ” —Khloé Kardashian On fame “ A lot of people don’t know: The bed isn’t the reason chocolate melts when you’re in bed. It’s actually your hands holding the chocolate, squeezing it close to your chest while you read under the covers. Some part of the equation had to give. Eventually I decided that I get the floor, the chocolate gets the bed, and I get my chocolate. The perfect calculation. ” —Neil deGrasse Tyson | 0 |
The media is beginning to demonize the manosphere and alt right. Twitter has suspended multiple accounts, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Ricky Vaughn, and Matt Forney. The Guardian wrote a hit piece against the red pill . The media has called alt-right groups “xenophobic, racist, and misogynist,” despite not pointing to a single piece of evidence.
As anti-Trump rallies continue to rage across the nation, in New York City, Philadelphia, and Michigan, the media completely ignores all of the assaults occurring on Trump voters:
Despite the elites’ attempts to destroy us, we are, in fact, winning this battle. The reasons why are simple:
Truth is always more powerful than falsehood We are too numerous to be effectively silenced We don’t congregate on one single platform; we’re a collection of individuals based around an ideology We’re high energy, decisive, assertive, and confident men Below, I would like to offer the supporters of our causes some signs of hope. Victory is near, and Trump is going to lead the way.
1. George Soros Being Sued For $550 Million
According to Breitbart , along with dozens of other alternative news sites, Dallas Police Department Sergeant Demetrick Pennie, President of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, is suing a multitude of individuals for inciting a race war:
George Soros Hillary Clinton Jesse Jackson Barrack Obama The New Black Panthers …and more Some individuals might claim that there’s no way someone can take on this collection of massively powerful and wealthy elites in a single lawsuit, and they may be right. However whether or not this lawsuit is successful, is completely irrelevant.
What matters far more, is that the word is starting to get out there. The President of the Dallas Fallen Officer Foundation, an extremely reputable organization, is taking steps to file a massive lawsuit against these individuals. This will, at the very least, do several things:
Potentially serve a massive blow to the globalists Show the elites that we will not back down Generate huge amounts of public awareness Show the average gun rights promoting, masculine, traditional American that they have our support. And best of all? The lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which means that the outcome will generally be good either way.
First of all, there’s a very high likelihood of them winning due to the case being handled in Texas, a highly conservative state. Second, in the event that the case doesn’t win, it will likely be pursued all the way to the Supreme Court. If this occurs, expect truly amazing things to happen. The reason why? The President of the United States is responsible for appointing Supreme Court judges—and guess who’s going to be President in two months?
2. The GrubHub Crash
After Matt Maloney, CEO of the online food delivery service GrubHub, proclaimed in an email that if you agree with Trump’s politics you should resign, their stock dropped by nearly 10% in just a few days.
Since this time, in addition to his company’s stock tanking, he has received ample backlash on sites of all manner: from Twitter to Facebook to Reddit to independent blogs to major alt-right news centers.
This is what my fellow ROK contributors and manosphere bloggers were talking about when they mentioned the “tangible impact” of Trump voters. Hillary’s supporters lack the characteristics necessary to make change:
A burning passion and sense of purpose Moral fortitude and a sense of justice Self-confidence, and the courage to stand up for your rights A fucking spine This is why we will win, period. The anti-Trump crowd is based around having a massive entitlement complex, a victim complex, not thinking for yourself, and being a blind social sheep. Do people like this ever have ANY political or financial power in the world?
Of course not! Who do you think all of the hard working businessmen are? All of the entrepreneurs? All of the people investing in the stock market in order to take control of their financial future? Hard working, intelligent men, who don’t make excuses, obviously. And do you know what? These are the types of men that voted for Donald Trump.
Why do you think the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at an all time high? Because Trump’s win restored faith in America.
3. Rise of the New Media
The mainstream media has repeatedly shown to be completely incompetent in regards to actually reporting on the issues; they are nothing more than a puppet show meant to distract, entertain, and brainwash the American public.
They have consistently lied about candidates, manipulated the evidence, falsified facts, skewed statistics and polls, and defamed multiple individuals for a mere political opinion; this will happen no longer.
With the rise of the new media, more and more men have begun establishing outlets across all platforms: Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Periscope, the list goes on and on.
I firmly believe that the next eight years will be looked back on by historians as one of the most important times in all of humanity’s time on this earth.
America has brought the world stability; we have stood as a symbol and an ideal for other countries to follow. We are a monolith of free speech, bravery, and economic prosperity—and the elites have tried to destroy all of this to satisfy their greedy little egos.
The men of America will not have this. Over the past 8 years (*Cough* Obama’s Presidency *Cough*) we have seen an exponential increase in not only the quantity of alternative news outlets, but also the quality.
Sites that were merely blogs a few years ago have evolved into full-blown news syndicates with live reporting, on-site video footage, and actual news anchors. This is literally the people fighting back; we want freedom of speech, and we will have it.
While the mainstream media draws its final breath, they’re proclaiming that there’s this “new, radical white-nationalist group called the alt-right,” in an attempt to make us look like evil Fascists. In fact, I just had somebody threaten to kill me on Twitter , but was he banned? Of course not.
This repeated favoring of violent, mentally ill leftists makes it very clear what the MSM’s agenda is—total control and a complete suppression of our freedoms of speech. Sorry, but the alternative media isn’t going to let this happen.
4. Massive Boycotts of Anti-Trump Companies
The left’s hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me. Somehow they can completely legally destroy an independent, family owned business for simply refusing to bake a gay couple a cake, but when Trump supporters simply boycott a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, we’re the ones that are hateful?
In response to several CEO’s statements regarding Trump’s “racism,” and “hate,” the men and women who voted for Donald Trump decided to simply boycott them. Despite this completely legal and anti-violent response, the left is up in arms.
Here is a list of companies whose CEO’s have been caught attacking Donald Trump and his pro-American policies:
PepsiCo (They own Pepsi, Lays, Mountain Dew, Starbucks, and More) Nabisco (Their brands include Oreo, Chips Ahoy!, Ritz, and More) Netflix Macy’s Ben & Jerry’s Each and every single one of these companies has either spoken out against Trump directly, has refused to do business with Trump, or has moved factory production outside of the US (such as Nabisco, which has started moving production to Mexico). Some companies, such as Ben & Jerry’s, have even openly supported the terrorist movement Black Lives Matter .
Again, what do these actions signify in Trump supporters? Power. Assertiveness. Courage. A willingness to take action. This is why Donald Trump won—his supporters are grown ups, not little babies who want more safe spaces and anti-free speech zones.
When Donald Trump’s voters get oppressed by the biased, controlled media, or by elite globalists, they don’t whine or cry about it, they just do something. They protest and stop supporting companies that are shipping our jobs away. They speak out in a logical, rational way against the anger and hatred that the left has towards white men.
They take their lives into their own hands rather than relying on a stupid system that caters to cry babies and whiners. They take their health into their own hands, they take their finances into their own hands, and they take their relationships into their own hands.
They don’t wait around for someone else to do it for them—they get it done themselves. This is why Trump got into office, and this is why we’re going to make America great again.
Read More: 5 Ways To Start Fighting Back Against The Onslaught Of Liberalism
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Ayers your right. Jail first for all the corrupt sleezes then exported | 0 |
Russian military ask Putin to resume bombings of Aleppo Russian military officials have asked President Vladimir Putin to resume air strikes against terrorists in the east of Aleppo, chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy said, RIA Novosti reports. "The killings of civilians have not stopped, militants have resumed active hostilities against government forces, and we appealed to the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation requesting the resumption of air strikes on illegal armed groups in the east of Aleppo," the official said. On October 25, Rudskoy said that Russian and Syrian air forces would extend the moratorium on air strikes in Aleppo . According to him, terrorists have attacked the western part of the city 52 times in only three days of the humanitarian pause, killing 14 and wounding more than 50 people. The humanitarian pause continued in Aleppo on October 20-23, when local residents and militants were offered to leave the city. On October 21, Rudskoy said that terrorists had blocked and humanitarian corridors. UPDATE: Putin has refused to resume the bombings of Syria's Aleppo. His official spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Putin found it possible to continue the humanitarian pause in Aleppo. Pravda.Ru Russia says who can settle Aleppo conflict | 0 |
Until Nov. 8, 2016, historians of American politics shared a rough consensus about the rise of modern American conservatism. It told a respectable tale. By the end of World War II, the story goes, conservatives had become a scattered and obscure remnant, vanquished by the New Deal and the apparent reality that, as the critic Lionel Trilling wrote in 1950, liberalism was “not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. ” Year Zero was 1955, when William F. Buckley Jr. started National Review, the magazine whose aim, Buckley explained, was to “articulate a position on world affairs which a conservative candidate can adhere to without fear of intellectual embarrassment or political surrealism. ” Buckley excommunicated the John Birch Society, and supporters of the hyperindividualist Ayn Rand, and his cohort fused the diverse schools of conservative thinking — traditionalist philosophers, militant libertarian economists — into a coherent ideology, one that eventually came to dominate American politics. I was one of the historians who helped forge this narrative. My first book, “Before the Storm,” was about the rise of Senator Barry Goldwater, the uncompromising National Review favorite whose refusal to exploit the violent backlash against civil rights, and whose bracingly idealistic devotion to the Constitution as he understood it — he called for Social Security to be made “voluntary” — led to his crushing defeat in the 1964 presidential election. Goldwater’s loss, far from dooming the American right, inspired a new generation of conservative activists to redouble their efforts, paving the way for the Reagan revolution. Educated whites in the prosperous metropolises of the New South sublimated the frenetic, violent anxieties that once marked race relations in their region into more palatable policy concerns about “stable housing values” and “quality local education,” backfooting liberals and transforming conservatives into mainstream champions of a set of positions with enormous appeal to the white American middle class. These were the factors, many historians concluded, that made America a “center right” nation. For better or for worse, politicians seeking to lead either party faced a new reality. Democrats had to honor the public’s distrust of activist government (as Bill Clinton did with his call for the “end of welfare as we know it”). Republicans, for their part, had to play the Buckley role of denouncing the political surrealism of the paranoid fringe (Mitt Romney’s furious backpedaling after joking, “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate”). Then the nation’s birther ran for president. Trump’s campaign was surreal and an intellectual embarrassment, and political experts of all stripes told us he could never become president. That wasn’t how the story was supposed to end. National Review devoted an issue to writing Trump out of the conservative movement an editor there, Jonah Goldberg, even became a leader of the “Never Trump” crusade. But Trump won — and some conservative intellectuals embraced a man who exploited the same brutish energies that Buckley had supposedly banished. The professional guardians of America’s past, in short, had made a mistake. We advanced a narrative of the American right that was far too constricted to anticipate the rise of a man like Trump. Historians, of course, are not called upon to be seers. Our professional canons warn us against presentism — we are supposed to weigh the evidence of the past on its own terms — but at the same time, the questions we ask are conditioned by the present. That is, ultimately, what we are called upon to explain. Which poses a question: If Donald Trump is the latest chapter of conservatism’s story, might historians have been telling that story wrong? American historians’ relationship to conservatism itself has a troubled history. Even after Ronald Reagan’s landslide in 1980, we paid little attention to the right: The central narrative of America’s political development was still believed to be the rise of the liberal state. But as Newt Gingrich’s revolutionaries prepared to take over the House of Representatives in 1994, the scholar Alan Brinkley published an essay called “The Problem of American Conservatism” in The American Historical Review. American conservatism, Brinkley argued, “had been something of an orphan in historical scholarship,” and that was “coming to seem an omission. ” The article inaugurated the boom in scholarship that brought us the story, now widely accepted, of conservatism’s triumphant rise. That story was in part a rejection of an older story. Until the 1990s, the most influential writer on the subject of the American right was Richard Hofstadter, a colleague of Trilling’s at Columbia University in the postwar years. Hofstadter was the leader of the “consensus” school of historians the “consensus” being Americans’ supposed agreement upon moderate liberalism as the nation’s natural governing philosophy. He didn’t take the conservatives of his own time at all seriously. He called them “pseudoconservatives” and described, for instance, followers of the Republican senator Joseph McCarthy as cranks who salved their “status anxiety” with conspiracy theories and bizarre panaceas. He named this attitude “the paranoid style in American politics” and, in an article published a month before Barry Goldwater’s presidential defeat, asked, “When, in all our history, has anyone with ideas so bizarre, so archaic, so so remote from the basic American consensus, ever gone so far?” It was a strangely ahistoric question many of Goldwater’s ideas hewed closely to a American distrust of statism that goes back all the way to the nation’s founding. It betokened too a certain willful blindness toward the evidence that was already emerging of a popular backlash against liberalism. Reagan’s gubernatorial victory in California two years later, followed by his two landslide presidential wins, made a mockery of Hofstadter. Historians seeking to grasp conservatism’s newly revealed mass appeal would have to take the movement on its own terms. That was my aim when I took up the subject in the late 1990s — and, even more explicitly, the aim of Lisa McGirr, now of Harvard University, whose 2001 book, “Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right,” became a cornerstone of the new literature. Instead of pronouncing upon conservatism from on high, as Hofstadter had, McGirr, a social historian, studied it from the ground up, attending respectfully to what activists understood themselves to be doing. What she found was “a highly educated and thoroughly modern group of men and women,” normal participants in the “bureaucratized world of War II America. ” They built a “vibrant and remarkable political mobilization,” she wrote, in an effort to address political concerns that would soon be resonating nationwide — for instance, their anguish at “liberal permissiveness” about matters like rising crime rates and the teaching of sex education in public schools. But if Hofstadter was overly dismissive of how conservatives understood themselves, the new breed of historians at times proved too credulous. McGirr diligently played down the sheer bloodcurdling hysteria of conservatives during the period she was studying — for example, one California senator’s report in 1962 that he had received thousands of letters from constituents concerned about a rumor that Communist Chinese commandos were training in Mexico for an imminent invasion of San Diego. I sometimes made the same mistake. Writing about the movement that led to Goldwater’s 1964 Republican nomination, for instance, it never occurred to me to pay much attention to McCarthyism, even though McCarthy helped Goldwater win his Senate seat in 1952, and Goldwater supported McCarthy to the end. (As did William F. Buckley.) I was writing about the modern conservative movement, the one that led to Reagan, not about the brutish relics of a more gothic, and supposedly incoherent reactionary era that preceded it. A few historians have provocatively followed a different intellectual path, avoiding both the bloodlessness of the new social historians and the psychologizing condescension of the old Hofstadter school. Foremost among them is Leo Ribuffo, a professor at George Washington University. Ribuffo’s surname announces his identity in the Dickensian style: Irascible, brilliant and deeply learned, he is one of the profession’s great rebuffers. He made his reputation with an 1983 study, “The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right From the Great Depression to the Cold War,” and hasn’t published a proper book since — just a series of coruscating essays that frequently focus on what everyone else is getting wrong. In the 1994 issue of The American Historical Review that featured Alan Brinkley’s “The Problem of American Conservatism,” Ribuffo wrote a response contesting Brinkley’s contention, now commonplace, that Trilling was right about American conservatism’s shallow roots. Ribuffo argued that America’s traditions were far more deeply rooted in the past, and far angrier, than most historians would acknowledge, citing a long list of examples from “regional suspicions of various metropolitan centers and the snobs who lived there” to “white racism institutionalized in slavery and segregation. ” After the election, Ribuffo told me that if he were to write a similar response today, he would call it, “Why Is There So Much Scholarship on ‘Conservatism,’ and Why Has It Left the Historical Profession So Obtuse About Trumpism?” One reason, as Ribuffo argues, is the conceptual error of identifying a discrete “modern conservative movement” in the first place. Another reason, though, is that historians of conservatism, like historians in general, tend to be liberal, and are prone to liberalism’s traditions of politesse. It’s no surprise that we are attracted to polite subjects like “colorblind conservatism” or William F. Buckley. Our work might have been less obtuse had we shared the instincts of a New York University professor named Kim . “Historians who write about the right should find ways to do so with a sense of the dignity of their subjects,” she observed in a 2011 review, “but they should not hesitate to keep an eye out for the bizarre, the unusual, or the unsettling. ” Looking back from that perspective, we can now see a history that is indeed unsettling — but also unsettlingly familiar. Consider, for example, an essay published in 1926 by Hiram Evans, the imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, in the exceedingly mainstream North American Review. His subject was the decline of “Americanism. ” Evans claimed to speak for an abused white majority, “the Nordic race,” which, “with all its faults, has given the world almost the whole of modern civilization. ” Evans, a former dentist, proposed that his was “a movement of plain people,” and acknowledged that this “lays us open to the charge of being hicks and ‘rubes’ and ‘drivers of secondhand Fords. ’’u2009” But over the course of the last generation, he wrote, these good people “have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable, and finally deeply distressed,” watching a “moral breakdown” that was destroying a nation. First, there was “confusion in thought and opinion, a groping and hesitancy about national affairs and private life alike, in sharp contrast to the clear, straightforward purposes of our earlier years. ” Next, they found “the control of much of our industry and commerce taken over by strangers, who stacked the cards of success and prosperity against us,” and ultimately these strangers “came to dominate our government. ” The only thing that would make America great again, as it were, was “a return of power into the hands of everyday, not highly cultured, not overly intellectualized, but entirely unspoiled and not average citizens of old stock. ” This “Second Klan” (the first was formed during Reconstruction) scrambles our sense of what ideology does and does not comprise. (Its doctrines, for example, included support for public education, to weaken Catholic parochial schools.) The Klan also put the predations of the international banking class at the center of its rhetoric. Its worldview resembles, in fact, the politics of contemporary Europe — a tradition, heretofore judged foreign to American politics, called “herrenvolk republicanism,” that reserved social democracy solely for the white majority. By reaching back to the reactionary traditions of the 1920s, we might better understand the alliance between the “ ” figures that emerged as fervent Trump supporters during last year’s election and the ascendant nativist political parties in Europe. None of this history is hidden. Indeed, in the 1990s, a rich scholarly literature emerged on the 1920s Klan and its extraordinary, and decidedly national, influence. (One hotbed of Klan activity, for example, was Anaheim, Calif. McGirr’s “Suburban Warriors” mentions this but doesn’t discuss it neither did I in my own account of Orange County conservatism in “Before the Storm. ” Again, it just didn’t seem relevant to the subject of the modern conservative movement.) The general belief among historians, however, was that the Klan’s national influence faded in the years after 1925, when Indiana’s grand dragon, D. C. Stephenson, who served as the de facto political boss for the entire state, was convicted of murdering a young woman. But the Klan remained relevant far beyond the South. In 1936 a group called the Black Legion, active in the industrial Midwest, burst into public consciousness after members assassinated a Works Progress Administration official in Detroit. The group, which considered itself a Klan enforcement arm, dominated the news that year. The F. B. I. estimated its membership at 135, 000, including a large number of public officials, possibly including Detroit’s police chief. The Associated Press reported in 1936 that the group was suspected of assassinating as many as 50 people. In 1937, Humphrey Bogart starred in a film about it. In an informal survey, however, I found that many leading historians of the right — including one who wrote an important book covering the 1930s — hadn’t heard of the Black Legion. Stephen H. Norwood, one of the few historians who did study the Black Legion, also mined another rich seam of neglected history in which vigilantism and outright fascism routinely infiltrated the mainstream of American life. The story begins with Father Charles Coughlin, the “radio priest” who at his peak reached as many as 30 million weekly listeners. In 1938, Coughlin’s magazine, Social Justice, began reprinting “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” a forged tract about a global Jewish conspiracy first popularized in the United States by Henry Ford. After presenting this fictitious threat, Coughlin’s paper called for action, in the form of a “crusade against the forces of the red revolution” — a call that was answered, in New York and Boston, by a new organization, the Christian Front. Its members were among the most enthusiastic participants in a 1939 rally that packed Madison Square Garden, where the leader of the Bund spoke in front of an enormous portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. The Bund took a mortal hit that same year — its leader was caught embezzling — but the Christian Front soldiered on. In 1940, a New York chapter was raided by the F. B. I. for plotting to overthrow the government. The organization survived, and throughout World War II carried out what the New York Yiddish paper The Day called “small pogroms” in Boston and New York that left Jews in “mortal fear” of “almost daily” beatings. Victims who complained to authorities, according to news reports, were “insulted and beaten again. ” Young men inspired by the Christian Front desecrated nearly every synagogue in Washington Heights. The New York Catholic hierarchy, the mayor of Boston and the governor of Massachusetts largely looked the other way. Why hasn’t the presence of organized mobs with backing in powerful places disturbed historians’ conclusion that the American right was dormant during this period? In fact, the “far right” was never that far from the American mainstream. The historian Richard writing in the journal Social History, points out that “scholars of American history are by and large in agreement that, in spite of a welter of fringe radical groups on the right in the United States between the wars, fascism never ‘took’ here. ” And, unlike in Europe, fascists did not achieve governmental power. Nevertheless, continues, “fascism had a very real presence in the U. S. A. comparable to that on continental Europe. ” He cites no less mainstream an organization than the American Legion, whose “National Commander” Alvin Owsley proclaimed in 1922, “the Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States. ” A decade later, Chicago named a thoroughfare after the Fascist military leader Italo Balbo. In 2011, groups in Chicago protested a movement to rename it. in America declined after World War II. But as Leo Ribuffo points out, the underlying narrative — of a diabolical transnational cabal of aliens plotting to undermine the very foundations of Christian civilization — survived in the diatribes of Joseph McCarthy. The alien narrative continues today in the work of National Review writers like Andrew McCarthy (“How Obama Embraces Islam’s Sharia Agenda”) and Lisa Schiffren (who argued that Obama’s parents could be secret Communists because “for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or ’60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics”). And it found its most potent expression in Donald Trump’s stubborn insistence that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Trump’s connection to this alternate genealogy is not just rhetorical. In 1927, 1, 000 hooded Klansmen fought police in Queens in what The Times reported as a “free for all. ” One of those arrested at the scene was the president’s father, Fred Trump. (Trump’s role in the melee is unclear the charge — “refusing to disperse” — was later dropped.) In the 1950s, Woody Guthrie, at the time a resident of the Beach Haven housing complex the elder Trump built near Coney Island, wrote a song about “Old Man Trump” and the “Racial stirred the bloodpot of human he color line” in one of his housing developments. In 1973, when Donald Trump was working at Fred’s side, both father and son were named in a federal suit. The family settled with the Justice Department in the face of evidence that black applicants were told units were not available even as whites were welcomed with open arms. The 1960s and ’70s New York in which Donald Trump came of age, as much as Indiana in the 1920s or Barry Goldwater’s Arizona in the 1950s, was at conservatism’s cutting edge, setting the emotional tone for a politics of rage. In 1966, when Trump was 20, Mayor John Lindsay placed civilians on a board to more effectively monitor police abuse. The president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association — responding, “I am sick and tired of giving in to minority groups and their gripes and their shouting” — led a referendum effort to dissolve the board that won 63 percent of the vote. Two years later, fights between supporters and protesters of George Wallace at a Madison Square Garden rally grew so violent that, The New Republic observed, “never again will you read about Berlin in the ’30s without remembering this wild confrontation here of two irrational forces. ” The rest of the country followed New York’s lead. In 1970, after the shooting deaths of four students during antiwar protests at Kent State University in Ohio, a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for their own deaths. (“If they didn’t do what the Guards told them, they should have been mowed down,” one parent of Kent State students told an interviewer.) Days later, hundreds of construction workers from the World Trade Center site beat antiwar protesters at City Hall with their hard hats. (“It was just like Iwo Jima,” an impressed witness remarked.) That year, reports the historian Katherine Scott, 76 percent of Americans “said they did not support the First Amendment right to assemble and dissent from government policies. ” In 1973, the reporter Gail Sheehy joined a group of workers watching the Watergate hearings in a bar in Astoria, Queens. “If I was Nixon,” one of them said, “I’d shoot every one of them. ” (Who “they” were went unspecified.) This was around the time when New Yorkers were leaping to their feet and cheering during screenings of “Death Wish,” a hit movie about a liberal architect, played by Charles Bronson, who shoots muggers at range. At an October 2015 rally near Nashville, Donald Trump told his supporters: “I have a license to carry in New York, can you believe that? Nobody knows that. Somebody attacks me, oh, they’re gonna be shocked. ” He imitated a quick draw, and an appreciative crowd shouted out the name of Bronson’s film: “’u2009‘Death Wish’!” In 1989, a young white woman was raped in Central Park. Five teenagers, four black and one Latino, confessed to participating in the crime. At the height of the controversy, Donald Trump took out ads in all the major New York daily papers calling for the return of the death penalty. It was later proved the police had essentially tortured the five into their confessions, and they were eventually cleared by DNA evidence. Trump, however, continues to insist upon their guilt. That confidence resonates deeply with what the sociologist Lawrence Rosenthal calls New York’s “ populism” — an attitude, Rosenthal hypothesizes, that Trump learned working alongside the tradesmen in his father’s real estate empire. But the case itself also resonates deeply with narratives dating back to the first Ku Klux Klan of white womanhood defiled by dark savages. Trump’s public call for the supposed perpetrators’ hides, no matter the proof of guilt or innocence, mimics the rituals of Southern lynchings. When Trump vowed on the campaign trail to Make America Great Again, he was generally unclear about when exactly it stopped being great. The Vanderbilt University historian Jefferson Cowie tells a story that points to a possible answer. In his book “The Great Exception,” he suggests that what historians considered the main event in 20th century American political development — the rise and consolidation of the “New Deal order” — was in fact an anomaly, made politically possible by a convergence of political factors. One of those was immigration. At the beginning of the 20th century, millions of impoverished immigrants, mostly Catholic and Jewish, entered an overwhelmingly Protestant country. It was only when that demographic transformation was suspended by the 1924 Immigration Act that majorities of Americans proved willing to vote for many liberal policies. In 1965, Congress once more allowed immigration to the United States — and it is no accident that this date coincides with the increasing conservative backlash against liberalism itself, now that its spoils would be more widely distributed among nonwhites. The liberalization of immigration law is an obsession of the . Trump has echoed their rage. “We’ve admitted 59 million immigrants to the United States between 1965 and 2015,” he noted last summer, with rare specificity. “’u2009‘Come on in, anybody. Just come on in.’ Not anymore. ” This was a stark contrast to Reagan, who venerated immigrants, proudly signing a 1986 bill, sponsored by the conservative Republican senator Alan Simpson, that granted many undocumented immigrants citizenship. Shortly before announcing his 1980 presidential run, Reagan even boasted of his wish “to create, literally, a common market situation here in the Americas with an open border between ourselves and Mexico. ” But on immigration, at least, it is Trump, not Reagan, who is the apotheosis of the brand of conservatism that now prevails. A’u2009puzzle remains. If Donald Trump was elected as a Marine Le — or Hiram — herrenvolk republican, what are we to make of the fact that he placed so many bankers and billionaires in his cabinet, and has relentlessly pursued so many policies? More to the point, what are we to the make of the fact that his supporters don’t seem to mind? Here, however, Trump is far from unique. The history of between conservative electioneering and conservative governance is another rich seam that calls out for fresh scholarly excavation: not of how conservative voters see their leaders, but of the neglected history of how conservative leaders see their voters. In their 1987 book, “Right Turn,” the political scientists Joel Rogers and Thomas Ferguson presented data demonstrating that Reagan’s crusade against activist government, which was widely understood to be the source of his popularity, was not, in fact, particularly popular. For example, when Reagan was in 1984, only 35 percent of voters favored significant cuts in social programs to reduce the deficit. Much excellent scholarship, well worth revisiting in the age of Trump, suggests an explanation for Reagan’s subsequent success at cutting back social programs in the face of hostile public opinion: It was business leaders, not the general public, who moved to the right, and they became increasingly aggressive and skilled in manipulating the political process behind the scenes. But another answer hides in plain sight. The negotiation between populist electioneering and plutocratic governance on the right has long been not so much a matter of policy as it has been a matter of show business. The media scholar Tim Raphael, in his 2009 book, “The President Electric: Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Performance,” calls the commercials that interrupted episodes of The General Electric Theater — starring Reagan and his family in their Pacific Palisades home, outfitted for them by G. E. — television’s first “reality show. ” For the California voters who soon made him governor, the ads created a sense of Reagan as a certain kind of character: the kindly paterfamilias, a trustworthy and nonthreatening guardian of the white suburban enclave. Years later, the producers of “The Apprentice” carefully crafted a Trump character who was the quintessence of steely resolve and mastery. American voters noticed. Linda Lucchese, a Trump convention delegate from Illinois who had never previously been involved in politics, told me that she watched “The Apprentice” and decided that Trump would make a perfect president. “All those celebrities,” she told me: “They showed him respect. ” It is a short leap from advertising and reality TV to darker forms of manipulation. Consider the parallels since the 1970s between conservative activism and the traditional techniques of con men. pioneers like Richard Viguerie created letters about civilization on the verge of collapse. One 1979 pitch warned that “federal and state legislatures are literally flooded with proposed laws that are aimed at total confiscation of firearms from citizens. ” Another, from the 1990s, warned that “babies are being harvested and sold on the black market by Planned Parenthood clinics. ” Recipients of these alarming missives sent checks to battle phony crises, and what they got in return was very real tax cuts for the rich. Note also the more recent connection between Republican politics and “multilevel marketing” operations like Amway (Trump’s education secretary, Betsy DeVos, is the wife of Amway’s former president and the of its ) and how easily some of these marketing schemes shade into the promotion of dubious miracle cures (Ben Carson, secretary of housing and urban development, with “glyconutrients” Mike Huckabee shilling for a “solution kit” to “reverse” diabetes Trump himself taking on a multilevel marketing scheme in 2009). The dubious grifting of Donald Trump, in short, is a part of the structure of conservative history. Future historians won’t find all that much of a foundation for Trumpism in the grim essays of William F. Buckley, the scrupulous constitutionalist principles of Barry Goldwater or the optimism of Ronald Reagan. They’ll need instead to study conservative history’s political surrealists and intellectual embarrassments, its con artists and tribunes of white rage. It will not be a pleasant story. But if those historians are to construct new arguments to make sense of Trump, the first step may be to risk being impolite. | 1 |
By Vic Bishop With the U.S. presidential elections just around the corner, concerns about violence on Election Day seem to be escalating. Several schools have announced... | 0 |
Our objective in making this film was something of a psychology experiment: We sought to capture people facing a difficult situation, to make a portrait of humans in doubt. We’ve all seen actors playing doubt in fiction films, but we have few true images of the feeling in documentaries. To make them, we decided to put people in a situation powerful enough not to need any classic narrative framework. A high dive seemed like the perfect scenario. Through an online advertisement, we found 67 people who had never been on a (about 33 feet) diving tower before, and had never jumped from that high. We paid each of them the equivalent of about $30 to participate — which meant climbing up to the diving board and walking to its edge. We were as interested in the people who decided to climb back down as the ones jumping. We filmed it all with six cameras and several microphones. It was important for us not to conceal the fact that this was an arranged situation, and thus we chose to show the microphones within the frame. Ultimately, about 70 percent of those who climbed did jump. We noticed that the presence of the camera as well as the social pressure (from those awaiting their turn beside the pool) pushed some of the participants to jump, which made their behavior even more interesting. In our films, which we often call studies, we want to portray human behavior, rather than tell our own stories about it. We hope the result is a series of meaningful references, in the form of moving images. “Ten Meter Tower” may take place in Sweden, but we think it elucidates something essentially human, that transcends culture and origins. Overcoming our most cautious impulses with bravery unites all humankind. It’s something that has shaped us through the ages. ‘Ten Meter Tower’ appeared at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. It is part of a series produced by independent filmmakers who have received support from the nonprofit Sundance Institute. | 1 |
Irwin Stambler, who was trained as an aeronautics engineer but whose deep love for music inspired him to write “The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul” — a major feat of research before the internet made it easier to find out more about Bo Diddley or the Beach Boys — died on Feb. 10 in Los Angeles. He was 92. His son Lyndon that said the cause was complications of sepsis. Mr. Stambler’s encyclopedia, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1974, covered a wide swath of music history, from Acid Rock to the Zombies, in an style. His entry about the singer Marianne Faithfull, for example, called her the “daughter of a baroness and blessed with the face of an angel (some observers said a fallen angel),” and added that she was “well educated in convent schools, but the sheltered atmosphere of those years probably contributed to her desire to kick over the traces. ” Mr. Stambler’s book was not the first of its kind. It was preceded by “Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia,” published by Grosset Dunlap in 1969. But it was published nearly a decade before one from a more traditional authority on rock: Rolling Stone magazine. Holly who edited the second and third editions of “The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock Roll,” said in an email, “I remember the Stambler book as being a valuable resource and a tool for the entries in our own book. ” Mr. Stambler toggled regularly between science and music throughout his career. He worked as an engineer into the 1950s — designing aircraft parts, among other assignments — but then shifted full time into writing about aerospace and technology, as well as music and sports. He wrote for magazines like Space Aeronautics. He wrote newsletters. And he wrote dozens of books on subjects as diverse as the space program, drag racing, minibikes, the fastest humans, the aircraft, the pitcher Catfish Hunter and the basketball star Bill Walton. By 1969, he had already written two music encyclopedias: one on popular music and a second on country, with Grelun Landon, a music industry executive. In an unpublished memoir, Mr. Stambler said that he had wanted to write the rock encyclopedia in the 1960s but that his publisher resisted in favor of a somewhat tamer subject. So he wrote “Encyclopedia of Popular Music” (1965) instead, insisting, however, that he be able to sprinkle in some biographical entries on rock pioneers like Elvis Presley and Bill Haley. Haley actually did not end up in the book, but Presley did, as did rock ’n’ rollers like Fats Domino and the Everly Brothers. Andy Leach, the senior director of library and archives at the Rock Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, said that Mr. Stambler’s popular music encyclopedia was groundbreaking “because popular music wasn’t being taken seriously by most scholars or serious writers at the time. ” The subsequent rock encyclopedia, he added, has become a “standard reference. ” Irwin Stambler was born in Brooklyn on Nov. 20, 1924. His father, Sidney, owned a jewelry and silver fabrication company, and his mother, the former Bessie Levine, taught piano. He attended New York University, his time there broken up by two years of Army service during World War II, after which he returned and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical engineering. Music was always a passion. He preferred not to play classical piano, as his mother did, but he wrote pop songs with a partner, Morton Weinberg, with titles like “Strawberry Sky,” “Fade Out” and “Indigo Blue. ” He built up a collection of close to 8, 000 records and CDs. “Music was always on at home,” Lyndon Stambler said. “Dad played guitar, and I made a harp in high school. He loved all music. “Before my married my brother, one of the first images she saw of my dad was of him lying on his bed, wearing headphones and listening to Led Zeppelin. When she saw that, she knew everything was going to be O. K. ” In addition to Lyndon, Mr. Stambler is survived by his wife, the former Constance Lebowitz another son, Barrett two daughters, Amy Sprague Champeau and Alice Seidman nine grandchildren and eight . While Mr. Stambler was researching his pop music encyclopedia, he scheduled an interview with the songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen in Palm Springs, Calif. during time off from an aerospace meeting nearby. Mr. Van Heusen, who wrote the music for “Call Me Irresponsible” and other standards, kept filling Mr. Stambler’s glass with expensive whiskey while they talked. “To this day, I can’t recall how I got back to my car,” Mr. Stambler wrote in his memoir. “All I know is that I woke up the next morning in bed with a miserable hangover but with a notebook filled with more than enough for a good encyclopedia entry. ” | 1 |
Donald Trump, laying out his economic plan on Monday in Detroit, said that the nation must “stop relying on the tired voices of the past. ” In what would seem to be yet another jab at Hillary Clinton, he added, “We can’t fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place. ” Perhaps that’s the best explanation for his recently released list of economic advisers — a list that has caused a bit of in financial circles, given that it is largely devoid of names of heavyweight economists who have backed Republican party nominees in years past. (And entirely devoid of women.) Instead, his economic circle — as he promised — is a bit, shall we say, less typical. The prominent of the list of economists includes only one Ph. D. Peter Navarro, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and longtime opponent of free trade who blames China for America’s economic ills Stephen Moore, a advocate who the group Club for Growth and David Malpass, a consultant and former chief economist at Bear Stearns. The group is heavy on moguls and moguls — all, of course, Trump donors. Among them are Steven Roth, a real estate mogul who owns a building with Mr. Trump Harold Hamm, the billionaire wildcatter John A. Paulson, the billionaire hedge fund manager Steve Feinberg, the of Cerberus, the private equity firm and Dan DiMicco, former president and chief executive of the steel company Nucor Corporation, who has been vocal about bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Wilbur Ross, the famed venture capitalist, was left off the original list but later added on Trump’s website Mr. Ross said that his team hadn’t gotten back to the candidate in time to be included last week. And for those keeping score, Carl Icahn, the activist investor and longtime Trump backer, said he was left off the list so he could start a “super PAC,” which he said would not be allowed if he were a formal member of the campaign. Then again, Mr. Trump has made a virtue of his lack of traditional support, depicting himself as an candidate willing to make difficult choices. He sent a tweet saying as much earlier this week, showing a picture of him and Ms. Clinton under the headline “Campaign Contributions from Hedge Funds. ” It showed Ms. Clinton received $48. 5 million from the hedge fund industry while Mr. Trump received only $19, 000. “Crooked Hillary Clinton is 100% owned by her donors,” he wrote. The tweet and his economics council are a bit of mixed message, given that he is trying to raise money from the financial industry and clearly has some support — even some from traditional Republican circles. On Monday, for instance, George P. Bush, the son of Jeb (who is ) came out in favor of the Republican candidate, urging all party members to support Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump’s challenge is he is trying to be two things at the same time: distinctly yet absolutely elite. This is particularly tough given he wants to be seen as a successful billionaire businessman while also being an outsider trying to work for the little guy. That said, while Mr. Trump may relish his unconventional group, he has been quietly trying to get some more establishment voices to join him. But many of the most prominent Republican donors have been doing their best to avoid associating with him. Stephen Schwarzman, of the Blackstone Group, met with Mr. Trump, but has so far refused to donate or publicly support him, according to people briefed on the meeting. Henry Kravis, who historically has voted for Republicans and donated money to them, has been relatively silent. (When Mr. Trump floated his name for Treasury secretary, Mr. Kravis said, “That was scary when he said that. ”) Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel, would seem like a natural Trump supporter, given that he describes himself as a “Reagan Republican. ” He has donated to Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker, but not to Mr. Trump. Cliff Asness, the billionaire founder of AQR, an investment management firm, has historically supported Republicans, but called Mr. Trump “a disaster for the G. O. P. and for the country. ” In March, he seemed to bend a little, saying, “I have to keep a more open mind,” but his spokesman said on Monday that he hadn’t changed his position. Paul Singer, one of the biggest Republican donors, has been part of the #NeverTrump campaign, saying his policies would be “a guarantee of a global depression. ” The list goes on. Seth Klarman, who runs the hedge fund Baupost, has often supported Republicans even though he is an independent. Last week he issued a blistering statement about Mr. Trump while throwing his weight behind Mrs. Clinton. “His words and actions over the last several days are so shockingly unacceptable in our diverse and democratic society that it is simply unthinkable that Donald Trump could become our president,” Mr. Klarman said. Traditional Republican economists have also kept their distance. Glenn Hubbard, the dean of Columbia Business School, who served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, wrote, “The and policies of Mr. Trump portend a future for all Americans, and and Americans in particular. ” Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist who succeeded Mr. Hubbard as chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and also advised Mitt Romney, said of Mr. Trump: “He will not be getting my vote. I have Republican friends who think that things couldn’t be worse than doubling down on Obama policies under Hillary Clinton. And, like them, I am no fan of the left’s agenda of large government and high taxes. But they are wrong: Things could be worse. And I fear they would be under Mr. Trump. ” Mr. Ross, a Trump supporter, said he thought the candidate’s economic speech in Detroit on Monday might prove to be a positive turning point. “He did a very good job,” Mr. Ross said after the speech. “If he just stuck to that, he’d be in a lot better shape. ” Mr. Ross called Mr. Trump “substantive” and said he was particularly impressed by “the whole way he reacted to the staged demonstrators. ” It was “mature” of Mr. Trump to refrain from taking the bait and getting angry, Mr. Ross said. The question is, if Mr. Trump adjusts his behavior over the next several weeks, will some of those establishment names come join his band? | 1 |
On a recent morning over avocado toast and New York City tap water, Grace Jeon expounded on the virtues of public drinking water. Considering that the company she runs makes its money selling bottled water, her enthusiasm might have seemed a little strange. And in fact, she follows a decidedly odd business model. Ms. Jeon held up one of her company’s bright blue opaque bottles, which are made mostly of paper, not plastic. “I would never advocate drinking this over tap,” Ms. Jeon said. But the reality is that more consumers are moving to bottled water as they cut down on drinking sugary beverages, she said. Her company has positioned its bottled water, called Just Water, as the next best thing to tap. Despite serious problems in places like Flint, Mich. and in the schools of Newark, N. J. and other cities, most tap water in the United States is safe to drink, according to environmental groups and the government. But many consumers prefer the convenience of bottled water, and are willing to pay for it. As Ms. Jeon sees it, she is making the best of a bad situation. The paper used for her bottles is sourced from trees that have been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The bottles, which are fully recyclable, are made of 53 percent paper the rest of the bottle is made of plastic and a small amount of aluminum. Last month, Just Water released a new bottle with the top portion made of plastic derived from sugar cane. All told, she said, her product is less harmful to the environment and creates fewer carbon emissions than plastic. In the process, she is also helping the struggling city of Glens Falls, N. Y. about 20 miles from Saratoga Springs. In 1944, Glens Falls was named “Hometown, U. S. A. ” by Look magazine, which featured photographs of the city’s bustling downtown. Like many once thriving industrial towns, though, Glens Falls has experienced a decline in population and manufacturing. A city that was once home to about 20, 000 people during the 1950s now has 14, 000 residents. Empty storefronts and houses dot the town. What the city does have is water — four reservoirs and over 5, 000 acres of watershed property. Just Water has an arrangement with the city to purchase water for at least six times the residential rate. Some of the money from the water purchase goes back to the community to address its aging water infrastructure, which is over 100 years old. Just Water does not obtain its water from that infrastructure rather, it uses a well on the city’s watershed property. It packages the water in a converted Catholic church that stood empty for years. The company employs 11 local residents. Tetra Pak, a food packaging and processing company, creates the Just Water packaging and ships the containers flat to Glens Falls, where they are shaped and filled. When Just Water first asked the mayor, Jack Diamond, about sourcing and bottling water in his city, he initially thought the offer was too good to be true. When he has been approached by companies in the past, in general, “it’s not so much what they’re going to do for us, but what can we do for them,” he said. “The roles were reversed with this company. ” Just Water might be a boon to Glens Falls, but if environmental groups like Ban the Bottle had their way, people would take reusable water bottles with them everywhere, and bottled water would be unnecessary in most situations. That fight, however, has remained a losing battle. In 2014, annual bottled water consumption in the United States reached a peak of 34 gallons a person, said a report from the Beverage Marketing Corporation. “It’s a completely ridiculous product, but it’s also a wildly popular product,” said Charles Fishman, a journalist and author of “The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water. ” “The reason is, and I think this is often overlooked, people aren’t buying water — they’re buying convenience. And with the branding, to some degree they’re also buying image. ” The reason for bottled water “has nothing to do with the availability of good, clean appealing water in the country. It has to do with how we live,” Mr. Fishman said. “It has to do with the disappearance of good water fountains — with the failure, frankly, of water fountain companies to innovate cool, interesting, appealing water fountains. ” Just Water went on sale last fall in Whole Foods stores across the country and Cibo Express airport markets. The company recently started selling bottles at Albertsons, Safeway, Kroger, Sprouts Farmers Markets and other stores. The bottles retail for 99 cents for 16. 9 fluid ounces. That compares with about $1. 50 for a comparable bottle of Fiji water. Ms. Jeon was previously Fiji’s senior vice president for business development. Fiji is positioned as a luxury product, referred to in company news releases as “a natural, artesian water bottled at the source in Viti Levu (Fiji islands)” and “known for its soft mouth feel and iconic square bottle loved by discerning consumers, celebrities and chefs. ” Does water from different areas taste different? Some consumers swear that it does. Others, like Mr. Fishman, are skeptical: “There is no distinction, no matter what the people at all these places will tell you. ” Ms. Jeon said she thought she had left the bottled water industry for good when Drew Fitzgerald, the founder of Just Water, approached her with his idea to make everyday packaged items more environmentally friendly, starting with bottled water. He has an eclectic résumé. He worked as the creative director for Universal Records, has worked with the Will and Jada Smith Family Foundation and is an adviser to Prime, an organization that helps foundations and wealthy families finance technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And as it turns out, Mr. Fitzgerald’s hometown is Glens Falls. It’s true that water from upstate New York may not be considered as glamorous as water from Fiji, but New York’s requires less transportation — another environmental selling point for Just Water. “There are bigger issues to bottled water than just what the package is made out of,” said Mae Wu, a staff lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council. These include the environmental costs of shipping water, the effects of removing water from communities and water bottle waste. Of course, water bottles can be recycled. “All bottled water containers are 100 percent recyclable and many bottled water companies are already using recycled plastic in their bottles,” said Chris Hogan, a spokesman for the International Bottled Water Association, in an email. Some are making 100 percent recycled bottles, he added. “As an industry, we are always looking for ways to strengthen existing programs and help to expand recycling efforts ever further,” he wrote. But although bottles and cartons may be made of recyclable packaging, this does not ensure that the product will be recycled. Recycling rates have risen recently, but in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, just over 31 percent of plastic jars and water bottles were recycled, according to government data. Just Water isn’t the only company offering an alternative to traditional bottled water. Boxed Water packages its water in a paper box, much like a milk carton. Fred Water delivers water in hard plastic flasks and encourages drinkers to reuse the bottles. Green Sheep offers consumers water in aluminum bottles, which is more readily recycled than plastic. Like Just Water, many of these companies say they are committed to improving the environment. “We recognized that although reusable bottles are the best choice from an environmental standpoint, the reality is that people keep buying bottled water,” Nicole Doucet, the and chief executive of Green Sheep, said in an email. “There was already a perfect solution out there, but we needed a pragmatic one. ” Traditional beverage companies, such as Nestlé Waters North America, are offering alternatives, too. In 2007, Nestlé introduced its lightweight bottle, which uses less plastic a few years later the company began incorporating recycled plastic into its bottles. Nestlé, which includes brands such as Arrowhead, Deer Park and Poland Springs, made up 23 percent of water bottle sales last year, according to Euromonitor International, a consumer research company. “Beverage trends have changed dramatically over the last 10 to 12 years,” Nelson A. Switzer, Nestlé Waters North America’s vice president and chief sustainability officer, wrote in an email. “Water — bottled and tap — has become the beverage of choice. ” Just Water and its competitors make up a much smaller percentage of the market. “I think that we will continue to see bottled water in more environmentally friendly packaging,” said Virginia Lee, senior beverages analyst at Euromonitor. “However, I see this for the next five years as still being very niche. ” She cites cost and consumers’ familiarity with traditional bottled water as factors. The alternatives may be able to succeed as the economy improves, she said: “As people have more money in their pocket it stands that they’d be more willing to pay a little extra for water or something else that claimed to have environmental or other benefits. ” But a better water bottle is still a water bottle, said Ms. Wu of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I recognize that there is a role for bottled water,” especially in emergencies like the one occurring in Flint, she said, but most tap water in the United States is safe. Some consumers have switched to reusable water bottles, many of which have become status symbols, like the stainless steel insulated bottles made by S’well, and the glass bottles in colorful silicon sleeves sold by Bkr. Still, there are no signs that shoppers will be sipping less bottled water anytime soon. Sales have increased steadily over the last decade. The water bottle industry took in $19. 8 billion in retail sales last year in the United States, according to Euromonitor. Ms. Jeon claimed she would rather see the tide go in the opposite direction. “It’s not about getting more people to drink bottled water,” she said. But if you’re going to drink bottled water, she said, “consider a better option than the current choice. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. _____ 1. President Trump shifted to a tougher stance on Syria and its president. He called the chemical weapons attack on Tuesday “an affront to humanity” during a press conference with King Abdullah of Jordan at the White House. The death toll is believed to be over 100. At the United Nations, Ambassador Nikki Haley blamed Russia for blocking a Security Council response and warned that the U. S. might take unilateral action. The Daily podcast tracks the course of the Syrian conflict and the choices Mr. Trump faces. _____ 2. Mr. Trump removed Stephen Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council. The shift was orchestrated by the president’s national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster. The new administration is giving the military far more leeway — allowing speedier decisions on raids, airstrikes, bombing missions and arming allies — but also making clear the buck stops with the generals if things go wrong. _____ 3. During an interview in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump suggested without evidence that Susan Rice, former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, had committed a crime by seeking the identities of Americans swept up in U. S. surveillance of foreign officials. They turned out to be Trump associates. Mr. Trump criticized media outlets for failing to adequately cover the Rice controversy — while praising Fox News and the host Bill O’Reilly, the focus of an advertiser revolt over accusations of sexual harassment. “He is a good person,” he said. On Twitter, a hashtag about the allegations morphed into a way for women to share their stories about sexual harassment in the workplace. _____ 4. Mr. Trump is heading to Florida for a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China at . Their contrasting styles — scripted decorum versus brash unpredictability — could complicate their efforts to navigate clashing priorities on trade and North Korea. (But Ivanka Trump is playing remarkably well in China.) With calculated timing, North Korea fired an ballistic missile into waters off its east coast. _____ 5. The fight over Mr. Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court is about to go nuclear. Democratic senators say they will filibuster — refuse to close discussions — on Thursday. The Republicans counter that they’ll invoke “the nuclear option” to prevent filibusters on Supreme Court nominations, changing Senate rules to allow a simple majority to approve Judge Neil Gorsuch. Many senators in both parties now worry that the final and biggest domino — the power to filibuster legislation — will be next. _____ 6. Drugs go north, money and guns go south. We took a look at the flood of narcotrafficking revenue that goes back to Mexico from the U. S. The money has made the drug cartels powerful — but American officials say they don’t have the manpower to stop it. And in Washington, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said it is doubtful that a barrier spanning the whole southern border will be built. _____ 7. All the carbon dioxide we’ve been putting into the atmosphere has been doing something interesting to plants. In Antarctica, they’ve been growing far more quickly than at any other time in the past 54, 000 years. And a group of experts says it’s time to think about science fiction in the effort to slow down global warming. _____ 8. Pepsi pulled a controversial ad starring Kendall Jenner, with music by Skip Marley, that borrowed imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement. In the ad, Ms. Jenner gives a can of Pepsi to a police officer during a protest, provoking wild cheers from the crowd. Critics called it and trivializing. “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi,” tweeted Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. _____ 9. We admit it — we just loved the picture. Owls have always been objects of fascination, and now a new book looks at the elusiveness, diversity, beauty and ecological importance of these nocturnal birds of prey. They’ve been seen as death omens, symbols of wisdom and good fortune, portents of witchcraft or Harry Potter references. _____ 10. Finally, what’s the most effective strategy for happiness? One expert says it’s to actively cultivate which he defines as a sense of contentment in the knowledge that your life is flourishing and has meaning beyond your own pleasure. He suggests four exercises to help you get started. For a lift, have a laugh with our latest roundup of the comics. Have a great night. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. 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 |
Two months ago, Charles Granatell’s house in Wyckoff, N. J. was filled with camaraderie. His best friend from college, Mike Canfora, was getting married. Mr. Canfora flew in from Seattle, others drove in from Massachusetts and Manhattan, and some lived nearby. Eight of the 10 groomsmen were there. A TV loudly projected the Giants N. F. L. game. Paper plates containing sandwiches, pasta, salad and steak, food that had been catered, were strewn about. Wine and beer were consumed. Then Dana Manganelli, a stylist who routinely makes house calls for Mr. Fox Suits in Montclair, N. J. arrived. The mood changed to an almost giddy quality as the eight groomsmen piled into the den, unzipped the garment bags, pulled out their custom suits and proudly showed one another their individualized linings. “We’ve looked forward to this day for months,” said Mr. Canfora, 27, who flew in with his fiancée, Jenna Campana, 28, for this second and final fitting before his wedding, which was Oct. 8 at the LaPlaya Beach Golf Resort in Naples, Fla. “Women have so many events. Other than the bachelor party, guys don’t have another opportunity to get together and celebrate. ” The scene was a familiar one. In fact, it was an encore performance. On Aug. 5, these same men huddled around Mr. Granatell’s swimming pool, drank their favorite beer, ingested a similar meal, smoked some stogies and were fitted for wedding suits by Justin Fox, who owns Mr. Fox Suits. Women aren’t the only ones having fitting parties to celebrate their special day. And as the demand for these increases, suit fitters and online rental companies are embracing this new transition by creating environments to meet clients’ and individual needs. “I opened my own shop last September, and my first gentlemen’s fitting was in January,” Mr. Fox said. Since then, he estimates he has done more than 20 events 10 have been groom gatherings. “So I developed ‘Suits Scotch’ nights from this growing trend,” Mr. Fox said. “Evenings like this give men an experience. It’s like a Tupperware party for guys. ” Lewis Malivanek, creative director of Knot Standard, a company on West 24th Street in Manhattan, agreed. “Group groom fittings have become surprisingly popular over the past few years as custom clothing becomes more important and more affordable to the consumer,” he said. “Now we have these parties once or twice a week. ” The company recently moved to a bigger space with the goal of accommodating these larger male celebrations. Some perks include drinks served by a bartender from a recently purchased antique bar, TV, couches and lounging area. On weekends, bagels are served, and on weeknights, food is catered. “Men are realizing they don’t have to rent a tux or go to Brooks Brothers to buy something that’s made to fit everyone,” he added. “These are fitted for them and can be worn to other events. That’s very appealing to them. And they’re personalized. We had one recent party where everyone used their football team colors for the lining. This is them creating what they want to wear, and brides are giving them free rein, which is great for something that’s mostly planned by the woman. ” Many brides are pleased to see their other half’s fashion involvement. And it removes pickup, and pressures. “Having everyone get their suits handed to them took so much stress off of me,” the new Ms. Canfora said. “Rental is only for three days. Every day it’s late you’re charged. Because we’re a destination wedding, these guys would have had to pick it up in Florida on Thursday and drop it off on Sunday. There’s 10 guys. Do you think all 10 guys are going to drop it off? No. ” Then there is the factor. “They’re going to forget and accidentally pack it,” Ms. Canfora added. “Even though it’s not my responsibility, I feel responsible, and I didn’t want anyone to be charged more. It’s enough that they’re paying to travel and stay in Florida. ” Bang for the buck is also a consideration. “Why rent something that doesn’t really fit for $250 to $300, which you can only wear once, when you can own a custom suit for $500, which I can wear to work or another occasion?” said Mr. Granatell, 31. Mr. Granatell and the others did indeed pay about $500 each for their custom suits. For some grooms, seeing themselves for the first time in their suits, standing in front of a mirror, with all of their friends watching and clapping, is the equivalent to a bride’s “Say Yes to the Dress” moment. “It’s like unveiling the wedding gown,” said Kendall Michaelis, a senior stylist at Knot Standard. “You’d never feel that from a rental. Rentals are not personal in any way. When they do it as a group, it’s more special and real, and this is their moment. ” Last year, the Black Tux was a mostly online rental service in Santa Monica, Calif. In April, it opened its first showroom in Chicago. Another followed in June in Santa Monica, and one in Dallas is in the works. “Groom gatherings were a now they take place more than once a week,” said Dan Wenhold, the company’s director of retail sales. “Millennials have a desire to have a physical connection to retail and to each other. ” To meet this growing demand, the company developed a strategy. It closes early for the private parties. It serves beer or whiskey and pizza. It has hired more staff members for with clients and added dressing rooms for simultaneous fittings. Over the next several months, Mr. Wenhold plans to add pool and shuffleboard tables and other activities — all of which will be free. Not everyone wants to host a party. Some men are accompanied by only their fathers or fiancées. “Few grooms will spend $1, 500 to $3, 000 for a tux,” said Ronald Rothstein, an owner of Kleinfeld Bridal, which after three years closed its men’s division last year and replaced the space with women’s shoes. “If he does, he’s going to Bergdorf or Saks. I can make $2, 000 for a tuxedo or $15, 000 on one bride’s dress. But other than the bachelor party, this is one of the only ways for men to get the same experience women do, so I understand why this has become popular. ” Rentals are a generalized measurement item, sometimes poorly fitting and shapeless. “In the past, I went on my own to the Men’s Wearhouse or Joseph Bank, which are all the same,” Mr. Canfora said. “You open a contract, you get fitted and you leave. You never see your tux until you pick it up. And it’s all the same tux wherever you go to pick it up: New Jersey, Seattle or Florida. It’s convenient. That’s why people do it. But there was never a level of excitement like this. This was really bonding for all of us. ” Customization allows for a number of advantages. “Everything is styled and created just for you,” Ms. Michaelis said. Knot Standard offers six price ranges, from $795 to $3, 000, paired with 20 different measurements specific to body type. “We help you pick out fabrics, colors, linings, buttons, threading, collar and pockets. ” Then there’s the opportunity for names, dates and personalized messages. “We can add your wedding date to the inside of your collar, or monogram your wedding invite inside the tux, or add a message to the waistband,” she said. “I’ve even seen short messages on the inside zipper of the pants. Everyone likes these additions. ” In the end, however, a good consumer purchase is nothing compared to the memory it creates. After Ms. Manganelli did last looks, the men lined up outside for an iPhone photo shoot. A sense of coolness and pride encompassed them. There were slaps on the backs, and lit cigars. “This adds to the wedding process,” Mr. Granatell said. “This suit is special. Every time I open my closet and I see the suit hanging there, I’m going to think of Mike, the wedding and this experience. When I get married, I’d want to do the same thing. Renting, you have you give it back, and then it’s gone. I’ll have this for the rest of my life. ” | 1 |
Dr. Duke and Dr. MacDonald Call for Prosecution of Hillary for Treasonous Support of ISIS. October 27, 2016 at 10:13 am
Dr. Duke and Dr. MacDonald Call for Prosecution of Hillary for Treasonous Support of ISIS.
Today Dr. Duke and Professor Kevin MacDonald talked about the tide turning in Donald Trump’s direction. In spite of the efforts by the Zio media to divert voter attention to Donald Trump’s alleged problems with women, Hillary’s treasonous crimes are increasingly difficult to hide.
The fact is that Hillary should be prosecuted, not inaugurated. She has supported ISIS in its war against Syria its terrorism against America. She has sent paid thugs to disrupt Trump’s political events. She has used her government positions to peddal influence. She really should be in prison.
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Donald Trump told a critical biographer and guest of billionaire David Koch to leave his West Palm Beach golf course on New Year’s Eve, forcing Koch to leave with him. [Trump’s gesture was another slight against the “free trade” billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who opposed Trump during the Republican primary season and refused to help him during the general election. It also signals Trump will not necessarily play nice with the GOP political establishment and Beltway right. The Kochs swooped in during the Tea Party revolt in 2010, training amateur political activists and trying to channel populist energy against the Obama administration into supporting the alliance that wanted more cheap labor and lesser sentences for drug traffickers, under the umbrella term of “smaller government. ” But the “grassroots army … was not controllable,” as one former Koch staffer lamented, and the Kochs appeared curiously unwilling to make any concessions to Americans who wanted populist, nationalist policies, and relief from the relentlessly eroding forces of mass immigration and globalization. A majority of voters — some of whom saw more demographic change take place in their communities than many countries saw in a millennia — want immigration slashed in half or reduced to zero. Trump captured that energy and it propelled him to the White House, much to the Kochs’ and their network’s chagrin. The Kochs wanted candidates amenable to their will, and Trump didn’t fit the bill. They considered him a distraction before he rocketed to first in the polls, and even toyed with the idea of spending tens of millions of dollars to attack him. Trump mocked the Kochs while on the campaign trail, calling their preferred candidates “puppets” enacting their donors’ agenda: I really like the Koch Brothers (members of my P. B. Club) but I don’t want their money or anything else from them. Cannot influence Trump! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2015, I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2015, While I hear the Koch brothers are in big financial trouble (oil) word is they have chosen little Marco Rubio, the lightweight from Florida, — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016, Little Marco Rubio, the lightweight no show Senator from Florida, is set to be the ”puppet” of the special interest Koch brothers. WATCH! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016, I turned down a meeting with Charles and David Koch. Much better for them to meet with the puppets of politics, they will do much better! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016, Koch’s guest: Harry Hurt III, who authored the 1993 book, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, which stated Ivana Trump accused her of “raping” her in a sworn deposition during their divorce. In a Facebook post published on the same day, Hurt recounted the incident in third person: Donald Trump personally booted the author of an unflattering biography off Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Friday. Harry Hurt III, who penned the 1993 biography, Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump, had come to play with billionaire industrialist David. H. Koch, a Trump club member, and two other golfers. Hurt, who has a scratch handicap and plays in colorful knickers, walked over to Trump on the practice range prior to his group’s assigned tee time, only to suffer a tongue lashing from the . “I said, ‘Congratulations, sir,’ and shook his hand,” Hurt recalls. “Trump said, ‘You were rough on me, Harry. Really rough. That shit you wrote. ’” Hurt says he looked Trump in the eye, and said, “It’s all true,” to which Trump rejoined, “Not in the way you wrote it. ” Among the juicy tidbits in Hurt’s tome was Ivana Trump’s allegation in a sworn deposition that Trump had “raped” her during their divorce battle. Trump told Hurt it was “inappropriate” for him to play at the club, and had his security detail escort Hurt, Koch, and their playing partners to the parking lot. “David [Koch] was appalled,” says Hurt. “He branded Trump ‘petty’ and vulgar.’ We played Emerald Dunes instead, which is a much, much better golf course than Trump International. ” Accusing Trump of “raping” his ex wife, Ivana Trump, was a false media accusation arising early in the Republican primaries — and a weapon the Democratic Party planned to use in the general election after Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and the Daily Beast “rushed it on air” and into print, using Hurt’s book, before bothering to check with Ivana about its truth. It backfired spectacularly when Ivana slammed the allegations and endorsed her for president. ““I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit,” she said in a July 2015 statement. “Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would make an incredible president. ” Breathless media coverage of the New Years’ Eve encounter between Trump, Koch, and his guest framed it as Trump having little tolerance for criticism: Nearly every headline focused on the biographer and his critical book, not Koch. Read Politico’s report, including more from Hurt and a transition official’s account, here. | 1 |
Fox News executive chairman Rupert Murdoch will host a meeting Wednesday amid internal turmoil at the network and threats to its ratings dominance from MSNBC. [According to Deadline, Murdoch is set to host two meetings at the network’s new studio, Studio F, where he will discuss both the company’s plans for a new newsroom and its overall direction and future. The meetings will reportedly be held in two shifts to accommodate all staff. The meetings come as the network has been rocked by a series of sexual harassment and racial discrimination lawsuits in recent months, culminating in last month’s departure of star anchor and cable news ratings king Bill O’Reilly. Following O’Reilly’s departure, the network’s primetime schedule underwent perhaps its most significant reshuffling in years, with Tucker Carlson taking over O’Reilly’s 8 p. m. time slot and the panel show The Five moving to 9 p. m. But the network faces an early test of its new lineup from MSNBC, which has benefitted greatly from star anchor Rachel Maddow and its lineup’s breathless coverage of the Trump administration. Last week, MSNBC won the key demo ( ) during weeknights for the first time in seven years, with The Rachel Maddow Show, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and The 11th Hour with Brian Williams all finishing first in their respective time slots, according to Adweek. Fox News finished first in total viewership, with an average 2. 6 million viewers, but MSNBC was right on its heels with 2. 4 million. CNN lagged far behind with 1. 3 million. It was the 19th straight week that Fox News led all competitors in total viewers. But the network’s hold on total viewership could soon be in jeopardy as well. On Monday, MSNBC came within two thousand viewers of surpassing Fox News in that category, and Fox slipped to third in the news demo with 499, 000 viewers to CNN’s 608, 000 and MSNBC’s 662, 000. Murdoch’s Wednesdays meetings are reportedly meant to “rally the troops” in the face of the challenges. Meanwhile, the network’s former talent is moving on. On Monday, Bill O’Reilly announced he would be a guest on radio host and the Blaze founder Glenn Beck’s program on Fridays. Update: Fox News was the cable network in total day viewership for the 19th consecutive week, according to Nielsen data. “In primetime, FNC also ranked #1 in all of basic cable with P2+ including NBA TNT, with 2. 3 million viewers,” the network noted in a Tuesday email to reporters. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Election Day is upon us, and that means (among other things) that the American voter is entitled to a bunch of free stuff: doughnuts, pizza, cheese dip, you name it. It is all provided by businesses looking to get a bit of publicity by encouraging everyone to fulfill their civic duty. The only problem? All those giveaways are technically against the law. “The basic line on this is in an election where a federal candidate is on the ballot, you cannot give anyone any reward — anything of any value — for turning out to vote,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a civic pride thing or if it’s not about any one candidate. ” But companies are rarely penalized for Election Day freebies, he said. That means these kinds of giveaway offers pop up every four years, including today. At some businesses, an “I Voted” sticker is your ticket to free things. It will get you a free cookie at Great American Cookies and a red, white and blue pin at Foot Locker. A sticker was also previously required by Krispy Kreme, which changed its offer (and deleted a tweet advertising it) on Monday evening. Now voters and nonvoters alike can get a free snack from the which, perhaps reflecting political tensions, told its customers that a robust turnout can ensure that “democracy lives on. ” Other businesses require you to simply say you voted. Chuck E. Cheese’s will give you a free pepperoni pizza if you say you voted or use a coupon code. You can also get free chips and cheese dip at California Tortilla by saying one of three passwords (one is “Make Queso Great Again” another is a more Clintonian “I’m With Queso. ”) “This comes up every election because businesses have this idea that they can promote their business and be patriotic,” Professor Hasen said. “It’s not intuitively obvious that it’s illegal to give things away to people who exercise their civic pride. I certainly understand the confusion. ” Some giveaways are acceptable, however. The big one is transportation: It is common for political groups, churches and others to provide voters a free lift to the polls on Election Day. In that spirit, Uber and Google have teamed up on a feature that lets voters find their polling place and then request a ride there. Uber users will get $20 off their ride if they use the code “VOTETODAY. ” Lyft is offering a 45 percent discount on one ride (because the nation is electing its 45th president) between 7 a. m. and 8 p. m. in almost two dozen cities. Zipcar, a service, is providing free use of its cars so people can drive themselves to the polls. Arrangements like that shouldn’t pose a legal problem, experts said. But when it comes to an election, everything is up for debate. “You can have an extended law school class discussion about exactly what is the difference between driving someone to the polls when it would cost them several dollars to get there versus just giving them $5 outright,” said Edward B. Foley, a professor of law and the director of the Election Law Program at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law. “That’s a slippery slope, to use a term law professors like to use a lot. ” Then there is Starbucks. Its civic engagement — and unease — has been on display since last week, when it released a special edition paper cup meant as a statement of national unity. On Tuesday, the company’s chairman and chief executive, Howard Schultz, sent a pep talk to all Starbucks employees that began with an admission of his own anxiety and an elegy for the lost “promise of America. ” He urged his employees to stay positive and be kind to one another and the people around them. “In the face of this epic, unseemly election and the concern we all share about the direction of our country and the lack of truth and void of leadership, we can still make a difference in the lives of the people we touch and influence every day,” he wrote. But will it be giving anything away? A spokesman on Monday night said the answer was no. | 1 |
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A screenshot from “An Open Secret,” a 2015 documentary about pedophilia in the entertainment industry .
I’ve got some good news and some bad news.
Let’s start with the bad news: this is one of those unpleasant, disturbing articles that I sometimes write here at CDP. It deals with a topic that I wish didn’t exist to be reported. But reality is what it is, so we might as well face it head-on.
Which brings me to the good news: “The truth shall set you free.”
That teaching is, of course, from Jesus, found in the Gospel of Sty. John, and it is the torch that we will carry to brave the dark tunnels ahead. As bad as it is, the good news is that dragging perversion and corruption into the light is the only way to destroy them, and the only way to set others free from the corrupt.
In any case, here is what we know so far about “Twittergate,” according to a recent post by NorthCrane.com :
Several Twitter users [earlier this week] were reporting child pornography accounts and sending them to 0hour, an active member of Anonymous. The Anonymous user, @0hour , was retweeting them and tagging Twitter, FBI and Disney. The YouTube user, notsafeforjerk, is providing up-to-date reports on #Twittergate .
Just some of the Twitter accounts exposed for posting child-sex content
[embedded content]
I can’t understand this man’s accent well at all, but your mileage may vary.
Not surprisingly, a few hours later, “0hour got his account suspended”–and it’s not the first time his account has been suspended–yet, very disturbingly, “many of the child pornography accounts remained active, despite the child pornography being publicly displayed on the Twitter accounts.”
No comment.
I know of one Twitter user whose account has been banned 11 times (and counting) in the last few weeks, and once three times in the same day, because he consistently tweets about the Podesta pedo ring, #pizzagate , spirit cooking, the Clinton Foundation’s human trafficking baggage, and so on. (He is able to restore his account almost immediately, however, because he uses Keybase, which, provides proof of his identity so Twitter readmits him under a different handle/name.)
At this point, the Twitter gods are either malicious for allowing such content to remain public, or too apathetic and incompetent to do anything about it, which, in terms of public harm, is just as bad.
The North Crane article ends on this note: “As more people become involved in the manhunt, the scope of horror increases.”
Sadly, this is truer than the author might have realized.
Hold fast to those torches, dear readers; we’re going farther down the tunnel.
+ + +
The reason Twitter may be “asleep at the wheel” during this #Twittergate storm is that Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, may very well be involved in the pedophilia underworld inhabited by the rich, the famous, and the powerful in Obama’s America.
The “blueprint” for the esoteric “spirit cooking” rituals that were exposed in the weeks before election day is Marina Abramovic’s 1996 cookbook of the same name. ****
Ten years later, Dorsey gave a nod to the ritual in this tweet :
Making “pasta” and “Satanic” allusions are key elements/codes in Spirit Cooking.
As the replies indicate, this tweet was unearthed within the last day, and has a disturbing significance in light of the larger Podesta ring.
At this point, a natural objection is to shrug this off as a weird possible aspect of one CEO’s life.
Unfortunately, Dorsey’s strange affinity for the pedo world belongs of a larger context. The 2015 documentary An Open Secret was directed by Amy Berg, and “exposes how pedophiles operate in Hollywood and cover up their crimes.” In addition, Berg’s 2006 documentary on the Catholic Church’s cover-up of pedophilia/pederasty, Deliver Us from Evil , was nominated for an Oscar.
The Hollywood Reporter has described the film as “A sober look at…the sexual exploitation of teenage boys in the entertainment industry by the older men who can make or break their careers…. [W]ith any luck it will encourage other victims to speak up, and enlighten the parents of showbiz aspirants about the industry’s dangers.”
Several journalists are included in the film. One journalist said his story documenting the sexual crimes committed by top Hollywood figures was censored.
Berg said she could not find any company willing to distribute her film until Rocky Mountain Pictures, the distributor behind such ground-breaking conservative-oriented documentaries as Obama 2016 , stepped up to release An Open Secret in various cities this summer.
The film identifies a pedophile ring led by a convicted sex offender named Marc Collins-Rector, who had ties to the rich and famous in Hollywood. Collins-Rector established an Internet-based TV company called Digital Entertainment Network (DEN).
Bad news: this is real.
Good news: they can’t hide anymore.
One blogger hit the nail on the head when he says that for years conservatives,
have tried to argue why their positions on a given issue were better than the liberal positions pushed by the entertainment industry. … But to be persuaded about the whole sweep of their criticisms, you’d have to evaluate every argument…..
A far more efficient use of time, money, and energy is not to attack all the myriad weirdnesses that Hollywood produces, but to attack the source from which they spring . If what produced them is rotten, polluted, and corrupted, the average person is willing to believe that the fruits themselves are rotten, polluted, and corrupted.
As such, he argues, the DoJ under President Trump ought to attack the Hollywood perverts and “blow the lid off of a similar culture of pedophilia among the DC Establishment insiders.” Because even if our culture is growing more and more tolerant of degradation and immorality, “there’s still one taboo left that everyone recoils in disgust at, and it’s pedophilia.”
More good news: The truth shall set you free–to fight the darkness.
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She has done nothing wrong to be pardoned for. Trump is not our President! He is the Electoral College’s President. The people have lost another election to a rapist, thief, and pig. | 0 |
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On Thursday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano suggested the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should reach a “gentlemen’s agreement” on South China Sea waterways because there is no legal authority to enforce a binding contract for navigation through the region. [“If it’s legally binding, which court can the parties go to? And the countries that do not comply, will they respect that court?” Cayetano said to reporters, as reported by Reuters. “Let’s start with it being binding, gentlemen’s agreement. We have a community of nations that signed it. ” He was referring to the draft framework for a South China Sea code of conduct between ASEAN and China on Thursday. Cayetano seemed to be throwing in the towel on getting China to sign a more stringent contract. As Reuters delicately puts it, there is “regional skepticism whether Beijing will commit to rules likely to restrain its maritime ambitions. ” Such a “gentleman’s agreement” would control shipping lanes that handle five trillion dollars per year in commerce. The proposal follows remarks by President Rodrigo Duterte that China was installing “some kind of armed garrison” on the disputed South China Sea islands it claims. Reuters notes that some of ASEAN’s representatives believe China is playing along with the draft framework merely to “buy time for Beijing to wrap up construction activities,” at which point Chinese ownership of everything Beijing covets in the region would be a fait accompli, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruling against Chinese claims of sovereignty last year. China largely ignored the ruling, which explains Cayetano’s doubt that any controlling legal authority to enforce anything stricter than a gentleman’s agreement could be found. Chinese officials spoke vaguely of encouraging progress made in the talks with ASEAN but would not establish a firm timeline for finalizing a Code of Conduct. For their part, the Association nations took a notably softer stance against Chinese development of disputed islands, abandoning complaints about “land reclamation and militarization” at their April 30 summit meeting that were part of the previous year’s declarations. At the time, Philippine President Duterte bluntly stated that complaining about China’s maritime activities was pointless because no one could pressure China into halting them — a similar, if less tactful, sentiment to the one expressed by Duterte’s foreign secretary at Thursday’s meeting. Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin, head of the Chinese delegation, said the new draft framework “will be an internal document and nobody should publish it,” because keeping the details confidential was key to “future consultations” with the ASEAN nations. Liu also expressed hope that “our consultations on the code are not subject to any outside interference,” in a rather obvious jab at the United States. A report from the South China Morning Post said: China and ASEAN committed to drafting the code 15 years ago, and while it should, in theory, tame how they behave in the South China Sea, it remains an open question whether Beijing will be willing to slow construction of artificial islands and pursuit of effective control over disputed territory. It’s another question whether Southeast Asian countries will have any leverage to ask Beijing to respect the rules. The SCMP report states that China and the Philippines will continue bilateral talks aimed at “creating conditions for a final settlement over the two side’s claims in the South China Sea. ” Four ASEAN countries, including Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, along with Taiwan, which is not a member of ASEAN. | 1 |
Shepard Fairey, the artist behind President Obama’s iconic “Hope” poster, has released a series of new works aheads of Donald Trump’s inauguration. [The series of three posters, unveiled last week, include photographs of Latina and Muslim women shaded in Fairey’s signature red, white and blue colors with variations on the phrase “We the People” written below them. The artwork was commissioned by the Amplifier Foundation, which hopes to distribute the posters all around Washington, D. C. during the weekend of Trump’s inauguration, and place featuring the images in the weekend edition of the Washington Post. The also commissioned works from artists Ernesto Yerena and Jessica Sabogal. “There is a lot of division right now. Trump is not a healer,” Fairey told PBS last week. “Art, on the other hand, is healing and inclusive, whether topically it celebrates humanity, or whether it’s just compelling visuals to make a human connection. ” “And so we thought it was the right time to make a campaign that’s about diversity and inclusion, about people seeing the common bonds we have, and our connections as human beings,” he added. “The idea was to take back a lot of this patriotic language in a way that we see is positive and progressive, and not let it be hijacked by people who want to say that the American flag or American concepts only represent one narrow way of thinking. ” The Amplifier Foundation launched a Kickstarter project earlier this month to raise money to be able to distribute the artwork quickly the project had raised $1. 3 million as of Wednesday morning, far exceeding its goal of $60, 000. Fairey — who said in 2015 that Obama had failed to live up to the hype of his iconic “Hope” poster — told PBS that that the new images were inspired by his background in “punk rock. ” “When the status quo is fearful and scapegoating, then the most punk rock you can be is finding common ground with your fellow human beings,” he said. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Get short URL 0 26 0 0 US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley has met with his Turkish and Ukrainian counterparts on the sidelines of the Conference of European Armies (CEA) in Germany, according to a statement issued by the general on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US Army Europe hosted the 24th annual CEA meeting, which brought together representatives from 38 nations. Met with my Turkish & Ukrainian Army counterparts during #CEA ; our partnerships are essential to the stability & security of #StrongEurope pic.twitter.com/BcV1MM1tZf — GEN Mark A. Milley (@GENMarkMilley) October 26, 2016
Milley said the event allowed partners to discuss challenges and strategies to deterring threats in Europe, outline priorities and talk about outcomes of the NATO Warsaw Summit that took place in July. ... | 0 |
Rise of the Divine Human Through a deceptive Interdimensional Intervention, Humanity has been disconnected from the Source, a... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/rise-of-divine-human.html Through a deceptive Interdimensional Intervention, Humanity has been disconnected from the Source, and downgraded, that he may be enslaved within the matrix of society. But now the divine light is shining in his heart again, the human soul is healing and through the activation of Kundalini , reconnecting fully with the Source. We're channeling that light through our being and out into the world which is beginning to break down the old fear based reality. It's time for humanity to get off his knees and rise up; to peel off this limiting intervention by initiating the divine being within.How does that work? How do we resurrect those divine gifts that are our birth right? The Seven Bodily Vehicles of Expression We are multi-dimensional beings stretching into the highest levels of consciousness. The human soul flows downwards through ever decreasing vibrational plains of existence like a stream cascading down the mountain from the Source. The stream of our soul interacts with the dimensions at various consciousness exchange points (known as chakras) where "Unity Consciousness" as the soul flows into "Separation Consciousness" as the bodily vehicles. The overriding purpose is to initiate divine acts of creativity — "Right Action" — by which to experience who we really are. In my observation, here's how that flow is supposed to happen. By bringing conscious awareness to this information, can direct you - through internal awareness - how to reactivate your divine human... 7. Spirit-Light-Body ( merkaba ): the spirit-light-body was designed to receive soul consciousness through the crown chakra to align our being with the right dimensional activity inline with our higher purpose. Through the spirit-light-body, the soul has the capacity to act through multiple planes of consciousness simultaneously. It interconnects us with all other sentient life and is able to harmonise with the co-creative intent of other souls within our sphere of influence. Our divine purpose could be channeling in the harmonistic light of the Fifth Dimensional Realm to which we are ascending; it could be counteracting Opposing Consciousness in the Fourth Dimensional Realm to prevent distortional interference; alternatively it could be bringing absolute presence into the Third Dimension to fulfill creative activity. Thus the spirit-light-body shines the light of our soul interdimensionally. 6. Celestial Body: the celestial body harnesses and stores reflections of our soul through the countless lifetimes we've experienced. It's purpose is to help us align with our true aspects of beingness. The downward shining light of the soul is next received into the third eye chakra, which ‘looks’ into the outer world comparing what it sees to the reflections of the soul in the celestial body. When the soul notices its own brilliance, it helps us align with and unfold those aspects of beingness that are most becoming of us; we settle into our groove so to speak. It is that feeling of complete self-belief, self-confidence, self-acceptance and contentment. When we can notice ourselves manifested in the outer world through our own authentic inner reflection, that is when we are truly living. We are frequently reduced to tears at the seemingly simplest of things because we are fulfilling our divine purpose. 5. Higher Mind: from authentic being arises authentic creation. The purpose of higher mind is to harmonise with the divine flow of synchronicity and initiate "Right Action" aligned with the universe. Through the power of the celestial body, we have noticed how to be within the external world and now is the time to experience this through creative action. At this stage, the creative impulse is quite abstract and undefined; the purpose is more about creative intent, and co-creating with other sentient life, rather than an actual creation itself. The soul now acts through higher mind, gathering together ‘elementals of consciousness’ into a directional flow of Right Action, like swirling clouds in the heavens. 4. Causal Body: the causal body is where our "karma" is held. It is the cause of our incarnation, it sets the agenda for our learning experience based on the attachments and creative experiences we need to evolve through. As the soul shines its beams of creative light down through the higher vehicles, our karma casts shadows of attachment through the lower bodies and into our outer experience. The causal body (also known as the energy body) now attracts and manifests exactly the right conditions to unveil the learning experiences required for our evolution. We are invited to confront and dissolve the obscuring clouds of karma by fulfillment of non-judgmental Right Action. We perceive this directing influence as a pull through the Heart Center - "this is the way to go now". 3. Lower Mind: lower mind is designed to receive, interpret and process higher channeled knowing through our clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient (psychic) skills. So now we know what to do, the question is how to do it? If our authentic, creative action does not get side-tracked, the gathering energies are next passed into our subconscious or "lower mind". Lower mind then helps us to ‘connect the dots’ within the co-creative weave. Through the clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient skills of lower mind, we notice rhythms and patterns of synchronicity in our “consciousness landscape” and have clear visions of the ‘garment’ to be created. As Right Action clicks into place moment by moment, it becomes abundantly clear what we are being invited to do and how to do it. 2. Emotional Body: the emotional body builds energy, passion and conviction around our behaviours to bring our creative Right Action into fruition. The creative process has now gathered together the right fabric for our creation, but it now has to be woven into form. The soul now utilizes the emotional body to garner more consciousness 'elementals' and weaves emotion around the creative act. It provides a multi-coloured palette of experience that brings the garment to life. It makes the illusionary reality feel very real, yielding meaning and sense of purpose to life. However, once the creative action has come to fruition, the weave of the garment is meant to quickly unwind again, so that something else may be created. It is not a part of the human design that we hang onto emotions and build identities around them as is so often the case. 1. Physical Body: the physical body provides the ultimate vehicle to bring the creative, downward flowing process into full expression; it provides the experience of separation - of one thing relative to another. Finally, the soul’s gathering weave of elementals takes form around our ultimate vehicle of creative expression - the physical body. As the master weaver, our brain reads the pattern that has been crafted through our higher bodily vehicles and then orchestrates a magical symphony of activity throughout our billions of material cells. The physical body finally brings life to the creative action experienced in the myriad of human, physical possibility. The physical body is a multifaceted mirror of higher creative intent. It is the jewel in the crown; when functioning as designed, it makes the illusion of reality real. Why is it then that most people don't experience natural human beingness in this way? The Matrix — a system of control We live in a system of control. Our lower minds, emotional and physical bodies are over-stimulated with constant dis-harmonious distraction. Corporate marketeers, governments and the powerful, build unnatural life-styles propagated constantly through TV, newspapers, radio and other media. The surrounding energy field is bombarded with electromagnetic interference through mobile phones, satellite, microwave and WiFi. Our food is purposefully infused with addictive substances; processed sugar, caffeine, artificial colourings, pesticides, hormones and GMO . Our water is contaminated with nitrates from the industrial foodchain and so-called 'medicinal' drugs that end up being constantly recirculated in our water system. It would seem our society has been perfectly configured to desensitise and condition souls to conform to lower patterns of behavior. The average home has constant, residual electric fields due to over-use of electronic gadgetry. Most houses are awash with toxic chemicals used to clean and disinfect which in actual fact damages and lowers our energetic sensitivity. The same can be said for the unnatural polyesters and other oil based compounds used to make our clothes. The overall effect if to create addictive, conditioned behaviours in the lower mind and physical body which then trap, fragment and dissipate the flow of the soul into continual, repetitive 'eddy currents'. So the downward flowing soul is truncated at the solar plexus - our lower mind - and just like software on a computer, neural webs of behaviour form in the brain locking the soul into a ' false self ' persona. This false self then creates a lower based life-style which can be readily controlled by the I ntervention Agenda . So perfect is this system of control, many awakening people are left with the inescapable conclusion that it was designed and perpetuated that way to enslave people. So how do we liberate ourselves and return to authenticity once more? Our Journey of Ascension After centuries of incarnation and losing ourselves in this artificial drama, we're being gifted an opportunity. A powerful wave of higher consciousness is beginning to activate within people's hearts. This "Christ Consciousness" as some call it (although not of a religious nature), has been dispatched to liberate those who are ready to step out of the maze. This energy works by sounding a note - a vibration which resonates with and therefore amplifies the sound of our soul that it may be heard once more above the outer noise of society. The Christ Consciousness helps reconnect with the unity of all life and the cosmic library of all knowing. It helps reactivate the natural flow within. So what can we do in our day-to-day lives to facilitate the maximum inflow of this evolutionary consciousness? How may we provide the most fertile inner ground for the seeds to germinate and grow? Our book " Five Gateways " has plenty of insight, guidance and tools that awakening souls can benefit from. Here below are seven recommendations from the book: 1. Surrender: be absolutely clear that the ONLY game going on in the universe is self-realisation and that we might as well finally surrender and take an active part in that game rather than trying to conveniently ignore it while it plays with us! So accept that ALL events, happenings and circumstances have but one purpose...to discover our absolute completeness - our "absoluteness" - beyond all circumstances. Realise the aim of the game is to be completely free inside WHATEVER happens. 2. Become the "Observer": the next step is to become the Observer of ourselves in all activities, events and circumstances. We notice where we lose our temper; where we become tight inside because of other people's behaviour; where we might blame another for the reality we are creating ourselves; where our addictions to something in particular cause us to act in predictable ways. When we notice this, firstly it is important just to watch it, accept responsibility for it, but not judge ourselves. In this way, we are already beginning to break free. It's also important to contemplate and utilise techniques for regaining the place of the Observer when we lose it, which inevitably happens in the beginning. It could be a deep breathing exercise for example, a visualisation meditation, or a mantra of some kind. Some people find it of particular benefit to put up strategically placed 'post-it' notes around the house; "let go" for instance. 3. Open the heart: next we need to open the heart further by attuning to those experiences that generate the sublime taste of divine oneness; the feelings such as lightness, expansiveness, timelessness and infinite peace. So the key is to follow those experiences that give us joy as much as possible - "what makes our Hearts sing" - until we are tuning in consistently throughout the day. Whilst we are in the experience, it is still paramount that we're observing ourselves in it. So it could be a few moments of deep breathing at our desk, walking in the lunch break admiring natural beauty or doing the gardening after work; whatever 'crumbles our cookie', the key is to be watching ourselves in our joy. 4. Follow the inner pull: as the heart opens, we begin to notice the natural synchronistic order of things and an inner pull to "Right Action". Sometimes this pull can be felt as an energy through the heart chakra, sometimes it is a simple inner knowing "this is what to do now". In which case it will benefit us to always respond to that pull. Where does the pull lead? It will guide us to events, circumstances and experiences that provide an opportunity to express a "divine gift of beingness" and to expose conditioned behaviour patterns formed from an attachment to a desired outcome. These are "distortions" of authentic beingness, often created by society and causing us to get tight, worried, angry or frustrated. 5. Deal with distortions and addictive behaviour: the key to dealing with distortions is to realise each conceals a divine gift of beingness and to ultimately unveil that instead. So for example someone might smoke because it gives them the feeling of relaxed completeness; we might drink because it makes us feel more sociable and confident; we might comfort eat because it gives us the feeling of contentment. Alternatively we might get worried, stressed or tight around particular issues because we think we need a particular outcome. The key to overcoming such conditioning is to go within, breathe deeply, settle into the pregnant pause before the moment is born, find our sense of inner completeness and then make space for an authentic act of beingness to arise naturally. This is by no means an easy thing to do, but the more we practice it, the more we'll realise every moment offers a black and white choice: give in to conditioning or surrender into the soul. In this way, we become the masters of our own destiny. 6. Raise our energetic vibration: this can be achieved by regulating the denseness of vibrations we bring into the body thereby limiting the stimuli that raise our internal metabolic rate. So for example, if we eat dense, processed foods polluted with toxins then the body has to work harder to process them and the extra effort swallows up consciousness. Or if we pollute our minds with too much clutter, or the negativity caused by the judgmentalism frequently expressed through the media, then we tend to tighten inside. Internal tightness is also heightened by too much computer time, over use of electrical gadgets and chemical toxins used in household cleaning materials. The key is to organise our immediate living environment to raise our energetic vibration. 7. Conduct regular spiritual practice: we live in a world that de-sensitises us and it is therefore of paramount importance that we redress the balance by conducting regular spiritual practice such as daily meditation. Traditionally meditation is considered as sitting quietly in stillness, but it could also happen during movement or breathing. What is essential, is that we begin to open, cleanse and harmonise the chakra system . This infuses the light of the soul through our being, thus reactivating the Seven Bodily Vehicles of Expression. Also such practice liberates powerful endorphins into the body which counteract the intervention energy. They redress the internal balance helping us find greater harmony and peace that we may reactivate the divine, downward creative flow. Read: 13 Chakras — Your Next Spiritual Level The "Resurrection" When we're truly connecting to the soul and experiencing it through the Seven Bodily Vehicles, it feels like coming home. Whatever is happening in the external drama, we feel like we're 'in the groove'. We sense our at-one-ment with the whole of life. Sitting on a park bench watching the light flickering through the leaves suddenly takes on a much deeper meaning. You find yourself soaring on the thermals of life. A yearning takes hold to return to our true nature; we're ready to turn away from society's conditioning and find the truth - to activate the divine human within. When you start fully infusing soul through meditation, you'll be taken on a magical journey of remembrance, of detoxification, healing and rejuvenation. The Seven Bodily Vehicles are purified, reactivated and re-energised - in short they are "resurrected". You re-acquire those skills so tragically taken from you. You once more take on multi-dimensional form; a much greater expanded reality becomes your truth. You are reacquainted with your birth-right. Rise, Divine Human! By Open — Rise Up from Openhand on Vimeo . Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue.
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DM: Deployments Aim to Prepare for 'Developments in the Region' by Jason Ditz, November 01, 2016 Share This
Adding to concerns about tensions between the Turkish and Iraqi government, Turkey has deployed a convoy of tanks and artillery along the Iraqi border today, a move they say it meant to prepare for any potential “developments” in the region.
The deployment appears to be centered on the area around Mosul. Turkish President Erdogan promised to participate in the invasion of Mosul, but was spurned by the Abadi government in Iraq. This has been an ongoing argument between the two sides, and the deployment may suggest Turkey plans an involvement in Mosul, however unwelcome.
The deployment also comes following a recent spate of fighting with the Kurdish PKK inside southeastern Turkey, and some reports have speculated that the deployment could be intended as further force against the PKK forces on the Iraqi side of the border.
While Turkey has been fighting Kurdish factions pretty much everywhere for decades, the government has picked up its attacks against the Kurdish YPG in Syria over the past month, and also claimed a “ natural right ” to invade Iraq if they are threatened. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
Curing meat is why humans could stay put when there was nothing to grow, kill or steal. It is how conquerors and discoverers lasted while they traveled the world. But the refrigerator and the modern food industry — with its cans, plastic bags and chemicals — have made the average home cook afraid of this most simple and useful food preparation. There is no good reason for this: All you really need is salt. And the result? Malcolm, my son, may have said it best, “Whatever is on my bagel is really good. ” He was a test taster for lox I made while madly seasoning and drying out flesh over several months for this article. I had worried that I left the fish socked with salt in the refrigerator too long. The outside was dry, jerkylike, not the silky sort from a package of even average lox. I had to cut deeper — into fresh wild salmon infused with smoked salt, sugar, fennel fronds and fennel pollen — to reach the prize. I was surprised by how good it was, and this is no humble brag. You can buy wonderful lox from a store: This was a different taste planet. It was also easy. I made it myself with exactly the fish and flavors I wanted. And the boy liked it, a lot. Unlike the decision to become a better cook generally, which pays off every day, the resolve to do your own curing prompts a few basic questions before you start. Mostly: Why bother? “It tastes so good is the only answer,” said Brian Polcyn, the chef and an author of one of the most popular books on curing, “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing. ” “A Ford Focus is a good car. It will get you Point A to Point B. No shame in driving it. A Mercedes E class? You can feel the difference. ” A second question is one of ambition. Curing spans a range from bacon or basic corned beef to the elaborate, salamis of Italian or French charcuterie. The latter take much practice dredging eBay and Amazon for humidifiers, grinders, slicers, casings and pH readers, even building a drying room for precise temperatures and moisture. I’m sure it’s a satisfying hobby, but it’s also an insane amount of work — and requires elevated caution about safety. Cured food is, by definition, not cooked. Without proper precautions, it can foster dangerous bacteria. Rot can be good for wine, beer, cheese or yogurt. It can also make you sick or die. Cured meat that involves fermentation raises that risk. Paul Bertolli, a former chef at Chez Panisse and an early advocate of bringing back suggests leaving the more complicated stuff to the experts. A great introduction, though it does get complicated, is one of my favorite cookbooks, Mr. Bertolli’s “Cooking by Hand. ” He went on to found the website Fra’ Mani, dedicated to all things cured he learned from his Italian grandparents in California. What I’ve been experimenting with for the last eight or so years is not grinding and fermenting but drying out solid pieces of meat as they are transformed with just salt, spices and air. Turns out our ancestors stumbled onto something magical: Salt preserves the meat by sucking the water out, retarding spoilage and concentrating flavor. The process also allows the added flavors to infuse into the meat, making it something different altogether, as well as making it more your own. How long it lasts depends on whom you ask. It’s safe to say dried meat will last a few weeks in the refrigerator without problems and much longer if frozen, which is perfectly fine. Fresh products like bacon or nondried pancetta go rancid much more quickly and should be checked carefully. Trouble is easy to detect: I’ve noticed dried meats don’t so much spoil as grow yellowish and don’t smell fresh. Then it’s time to toss them. Don’t think of curing as an heirloom exercise in recreating life how it used to be. Like Mr. Bertolli, many proponents of curing learned it from relatives who did it partly out of love, partly out of necessity. So despite the last few generations of mass produced and preserved food, curing is an art that was never lost. Maybe out of fashion, but ever alive. “For me, it’s the pleasure of making things you are going to consume yourself,” Mr. Bertolli said. “There is a pride in it. ” I’ve developed a basic and useful repertoire that requires no special equipment, space or even much time: bacon, both American and Italian (pancetta) lox, and duck prosciutto, an impressive and fun little trick that I learned from Mr. Polcyn and that you can brag over at your next dinner party as if you just brought it back from Parma. It cures for just one day under kosher salt alone. I started curing out of love of a particular dish, pasta carbonara. My family and I lived in Rome for four years, and when we moved back to New York in 2008, it was not easy to find guanciale, or cured pig cheek, carbonara’s essential ingredient, even though we’re in Brooklyn, rightly mocked and loved as the navel of foodie obtuseness. Romans say with snobby certainty you can make carbonara only with guanciale, not pancetta or bacon. I’m fine with any, but there is no question that guanciale makes the dish taste like Rome. A local shop, Bklyn Larder in Park Slope, made its own and kept us supplied, that is until I came across a recipe from the Philadelphia pasta master Marc Vetri that he called shortcut guanciale. It promised the exotic without much pain or cost: salt, sugar, pepper, garlic, coriander and rosemary rubbed over the cheek and plopped into a Ziploc bag in the refrigerator for just three days. To use right away, you roast it for about three hours. It is sublime. We are fortunate enough to have a fireplace, so I thought: Why not dry it the way they do in Italy? I did, even if it drove the dogs mad, hanging temptingly just behind the screen in the unlit fireplace. Three weeks later I was rewarded with something I felt I didn’t do enough to deserve: It looked Old World on the outside, all tough and dry, the inside a strip of meat encased in almost buttery, flavorful fat. I realize most cooks aren’t going to find regular use for guanciale, though it adds wonders to other pastas, soups and even seafood dishes. For me, though, it lit a fuse: I moved from the pig’s cheek to its belly. Salts, sugar and maple syrup are all you need for tremendous American bacon. Nutmeg, juniper, garlic, thyme and bay leaf make pancetta, which can be used dry or fresh and is singularly versatile in the kitchen. Fish, salmon especially, cures in a few days and makes a New York bagel brunch a special occasion. (I just tried a recipe from Mr. Polcyn curing salmon with beets and fresh horseradish. I recommend it.) The list goes on, for every taste and ambition: jerky, pastrami, corned beef, full hams. I don’t own a smoker, but it notches the art up with little effort. There are websites devoted to prosciutto, which requires only salt, patience and the optimism of being alive in the year or so an entire pig leg takes to dry. Results, apparently, are spectacular. A few basics for new curers: It’s nice to have a fireplace, for temperature and air flow, but you can hang meat to dry in many places. People use closets, garages, basements, old refrigerators, a kitchen’s nook. You won’t smell much of anything as it cures, since it generally is wrapped in plastic for many reasons, mostly because the meat gets quite wet as the salt pulls out the water. But the aroma is terrific: sweet and salty, with flavors like rosemary and cracked pepper at high decibel. Then there are the inevitable controversies of curing, which I’ll cover here only in outline. This is what the Internet was invented for, and readers of age can decide for themselves. Last year the curing community was set in an uproar over a World Health Organization report that linked cured and processed meat with an increase in colorectal cancer. As with many risks, experts say, moderation slims the chances considerably. There is also a theological debate over whether to use the most common curing salt, often called pink salt or Prague powder. It is a nitrite, and thus poisonous in quantity. Some curers prefer alternatives as safer and more natural. Experts I consulted recommended using it (in the prescribed small amounts) for several reasons: It’s effective in killing dangerous bacteria and contributes to the taste and color of good cured meat. I do, without apology. Finally, I’ll say that curing is handy (this was the whole point, before history was even invented) and can save a bundle. One recent rainy Sunday, our younger son, Nelson, came home from a day of hard New York skateboarding with a friend, starving, as tend to be. We had not strategized dinner. We considered ordering out, but Indian food or sushi would run $60 at least. I looked in the fridge, and dinner assembled itself. A hunk of my old standby, guanciale, sat in a Ziploc. I sautéed it, added some onion, olive oil, tomato, white wine, pepper flakes and pecorino. And there we had maybe the tastiest of Roman pastas, amatriciana. Took 20 minutes. Cost less than $20 for four. The boys didn’t care where that salty bacon came from, but they ate and were happy. I was, too, and the pleasure was not just in my stomach. Recipes: and Salmon | Duck Prosciutto | Shortcut Guanciale | Bacon | 1 |
Goya Foods has called it a “business decision” not to sponsor New York’s National Puerto Rican Day Parade for the first time in its history after organizers announced they would honor prolific terrorist Oscar López Rivera at the event. [The company, founded by Rican immigrants in New York, will withdraw $200, 000 in patronage from the event, according to local legislators. López Rivera, identified as the head of the radical Marxist Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN) terrorist group, was freed Wednesday after receiving a pardon from President Barack Obama. His supporters argue that he is an icon of Puerto Rican nationalism, a deeply divisive issue among the U. S. citizens who inhabit the island and praise his refusal to accept a pardon from President Bill Clinton that required him to express remorse for his participation in terrorist acts. Goya’s withdrawal from the parade followed news that López Rivera would be honored the title of “Icon of Liberty” at the event, scheduled for June 11. The corporation’s public relations head, Rafael Toro, told Fox News, however, that the decision not to participate in the event was not directly tied to López Rivera. “It was a business decision not to participate in the parade,” Toro said, noting that a false company statement had made the rounds on social media. Despite the clarification, the move may result in added pressure on other corporate sponsors to also withdraw from the parade or risk being seen as supporters of terrorism. The Associated Press notes that among those corporations still participating are the companies ATT, Coca Cola, and the New York Yankees. The New York newspaper El Diario La Prensa credits a group called the Youth of the New Progressive Party for beginning a social media campaign calling for the boycott of any corporation that participates in the celebration. López Rivera himself dismissed Goya’s withdrawal and threatened the business with a boycott. “I think Goya would have more to lose if Puerto Rico boycotted it, and all Puerto Ricans, here and in the diaspora, boycotted Goya. So I think Goya has more to lose than us,” he told reporters. López Rivera arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday, greeted by an estimated four dozen supporters “holding flowers and Puerto Flags, some chanting ‘Free at last! ’” according to the Associated Press. New York State Sen. Rev. Rubén Díaz wrote in a column on his Facebook page that he has heard rumors that the airline Jet Blue may also withdraw from the parade, though Jet Blue has not considered withdrawing its business from the neighboring Caribbean country of Cuba, which maintains ties to terrorist groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Hezbollah. In his column, Díaz lamented Goya’s exit and called, “as a Puerto Rican,” for the company to reconsider. “Without Goya,” he wrote, “the parade has no seasoning. ” Parade organizers have not indicated that they have considered backing down from awarding the terrorists an honorific title at the ethnic pride event. In a statement published on their official website on May 12, organizers insisted that López Rivera was worthy of praise despite his remorseless history of violence: We aim to use Oscar López Rivera and his story — decades after — to bring a message for peace, unity, compassion and reflection. Amidst the controversies surrounding López Rivera, we have been compelled by his early work as a community activist of Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, and that his convictions led to more than 35 years without freedom, of which 12 were spent in solitary confinement several U. S. political leaders have conceded that Oscar’s sentence was out of proportion. Also, given the opportunity to shorten his time behind bars, he did not accept President Clinton’s 1999 clemency, expressing that he could not leave behind Carlos Alberto Torres, who was detained along Oscar but was not included in Clinton’s clemency offer. A key organizer of the event, New York City Council Speaker Melissa affirmed this in a statement from Puerto Rico, where she had traveled to welcome López Rivera to freedom. “His release is not only a win for our island, but for our country’s democracy and criminal justice system — and that’s why I’m proud that tireless advocacy led to President Obama granting Oscar clemency,” she said. “We stand in solidarity with Oscar, and I thank the National Puerto Rican Day parade for recognizing and uplifting his legacy. ” López Rivera’s FALN group is reportedly responsible for at least 130 bombings, mostly in New York, Chicago, and Puerto Rico, believed to have caused at least five deaths and more than $3 million in property damage. López Rivera himself was sentenced to 55 years in prison in 1981, in a trial in which he told the judge, “I am an enemy of the United States government. ” President Clinton offered López Rivera a commutation of his sentence in 1999 that he rejected some argue he did so because a fellow FALN member was not offered the same deal, though López Rivera said in an interview the year before that he had “problems” with “atonement” and refused to condemn his terrorist acts before being freed. His sentence was extended to 70 years following a prison escape attempt. López Rivera is expected to be honored on Thursday at an event in Chicago, one of the cities his terrorist organization targeted. A local Chicago politician suggested in February that Chicago name a street after him. Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter. | 1 |
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ISIS barbarians used an industrial dough kneader to kill 250 children, and roasted adults in a bakery oven, according to a shocking new report.
In an interview with the humanitarian organization Roads of Success, Syrian mom Alice Assaf went into chilling detail about the atrocities the jihadists committed about two years ago in the town of Douma, explaining that some of the youngsters were even decapitated in front of their parents, according to the Express.
“We heard that the militants grabbed six strong men working at the bakery and burned them inside the oven. We knew them,” Assaf told Dr. Yvette Isaac, who works for the advocacy group, according to the UK Mirror.
“After that, they caught some 250 kids and kneaded them like dough in the bakery dough machine,” Assaf said, according to media reports. “They were put in the dough mixer, they were kneaded. The oldest one of them was four-years-old.”
ISIS transported hundreds of girls to the city of Douma, which has been at the center of the Syrian civil war, to be slaughtered. ISIS has been systematically killing non-Muslims, and the majority of its victims at the time were Christian.
Assaf said her own son, George, was killed by the radical militants after he refused to switch to a Muslim name.
“My son said to me, ‘No, mother, I don’t want to die with an identity not my own. I prefer to die with the name George,'” Assaf said, according to the Christian Post.
Assaf added, “I asked my son then to hide, but he refused and said, ‘I don’t want to hide myself. You are the one who taught me to follow what Christ said’ — ‘whoever denies me before man, I will also deny before my father who is in Heaven.'”
Dr. Isaac reported the savage slayings to a member of the UK Parliament, Fiona Bruce, who recently recounted the horrifying testimony to her colleagues in open chambers.
“She showed us recent film footage of herself talking with mothers–more than one– who had seen their own children crucified,” Bruce said.
“She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room,” Bruce said.
“She told us of a mother with a two-month-old baby,” Bruce continued. When [ISIS] knocked at the front door of her house and ordered the entire family out, she pleaded with them to let her collect her child from another room. They told her, ‘No. Go. It is ours now.’” | 0 |
An improvised device exploded in a garbage receptacle near the course of a charity race that was about to begin in a small town on the Jersey Shore on Saturday, law enforcement officials said. The device went off around 9:30 a. m. near the boardwalk in Seaside Park, N. J. according to the Ocean County sheriff, Mike Mastronardy. There were no injuries, and officials do not believe that anyone was near the explosion when it happened. It did not damage any buildings either, officials said. The race, the Seaside Semper Five, a run and charity event along the waterfront that raises money for members of the United States Marine Corps and their families, was canceled. The race was scheduled to start around 9 a. m. but it had been delayed because of a large turnout of around 3, 000 people, according to Al Della Fave, the spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s office. “That delay helped tremendously in terms of what could have been,” he told reporters. Ben Currie, 39, a photographer, said he was on the beach a few blocks away taking pictures of the ocean when the explosion happened. “It was so loud, it made my knees buckle. All the birds went flying off the beach,” he said. “A black plume of smoke, about 25 feet high, rose. ” Officials evacuated the area and urged people to avoid Seaside Park. The authorities do not believe there were additional explosions or devices, according to the New Jersey State Police. “However, State Police bomb technicians have rendered safe items located in the same trash can in which the explosion occurred,” the police said in a statement. Investigators from the State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were on the scene. “We are grateful that nobody was injured, but this is a serious act of violence against the people of New Jersey,” the New Jersey attorney general, Christopher S. Porrino, said in a statement. | 1 |
children and adults got the ride they never planned on Friday night when a Knott’s Berry Farm ride malfunctioned, trapping the riders for six hours before a rescue could be accomplished. [Sky Cabin is no roller coaster, it is a slow moving ride that rises high which gives those on board a view of Buena Park. At its apex the ride reaches 180 feet, Knott’s Berry Farm first released a statement just after 6 p. m that informed the public that the ride first malfunctioned around 2 p. m. The statement continued, “The Sky Cabin is a fully enclosed revolving observation ride. After the Knott’s Berry Farm maintenance team made several attempts to bring the attraction down, we contacted the Orange County Fire Authority to assist. ” Approximately 36 firefighters arrived near 5 p. m. according to the Los Angeles Times. An Orange County Fire Authority assured not one of the trapped riders was hurt or in danger and that firefighters are trained for just such situations. It was about 7:30 p. m. when fire crews began lowering riders the 130 feet from where the structure came to a halt. The riders were brought to the ground using a safety harness. “All 20 guests and one ride operator were safely on the ground by 9:54 pm,” read an update from the park that came at 10:06 p. m.. “Each of Knott’s rides is inspected, and properly maintained daily. Sky Cabin will remain closed until the park’s investigation into the cause of the incident is completed. ” “Knott’s Berry Farm’s number one priority is the safety of all its guests and employees,” the park statement assured. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
LOS ANGELES — The Lionsgate musical “La La Land,” about dreams and dreamers in this city of stars, twirled its way toward being an awards season juggernaut on Monday, taking seven Golden Globe nominations, including ones for best director, screenplay and lead actor and actress. But it was not a runaway. The lyrical “Moonlight,” about a young black man growing up in a poor Miami neighborhood, drew six nominations, including best drama, director and screenplay. “Manchester by the Sea,” focused on a New England plumber coping with horrific loss, was also nominated for best drama, receiving five nods total. [See the complete list of Golden Globe nominees] Joining those two films in the best drama category were “Lion,” an adoption set in India and the Weinstein Company’s lead Oscar hope Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge,” based on the true story of the World War II hero Desmond T. Doss and the CBS Films “Hell or High Water. ” Nominated alongside the Ryan Gosling and Emma “La La Land” for best comedy or musical: the raunchy superhero blockbuster “Deadpool” the musical “Sing Street” the Meryl Streep vehicle “Florence Foster Jenkins” and “20th Century Women,” a comedic period drama starring Annette Bening and set for release on Christmas Day. “As we speak, the entire ‘Deadpool’ team is engaged in a grotesque, early morning ” Ryan Reynolds, the star of that film, wrote on Twitter. The Globes are bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of mostly freelance journalists, only 85 of whom are active members. Long competitive with the more highbrow Oscars, the Globes often strive to make choices. Nominating Mr. Gibson for best director fit that bill. Mr. Gibson became a Hollywood pariah in 2006 when he was charged with drunken driving and went on an tirade. In 2011, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of battering a former girlfriend. By putting his comeback film forward in three prominent categories — Andrew Garfield was also nominated for best actor in a drama — the Globes may force Oscar voters to similarly contend with Mr. Gibson. “I’m very appreciative,” Mr. Gibson said in a statement. “This film was a labor of love for everyone involved and is also about a man who truly exemplified love and goodness. ” The press association filled out the directing category with Damien Chazelle (“La La Land”) Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) Kenneth Lonergan (“Manchester by the Sea”) and Tom Ford (“Nocturnal Animals”). The inclusion of Mr. Ford may prove controversial because of Tom swag sent to voters by Focus Features, the studio behind his film. Because the combined value of the gift — bottles of cologne and perfume — exceeded the press organization’s $95 limit, the organization asked members to return part of it. To include him, Globe voters overlooked contenders like Martin Scorsese, whose “Silence” arrives in limited release on Dec. 23. Mr. Scorsese may have diminished his prospects by delivering the film late. “Silence,” an epic drama about two priests who face violence in Japan, was shut out on Monday. It was a bad morning for other Hollywood elder statesmen, with Clint Eastwood’s “Sully” uninvited to the banquet and Warren Beatty’s “Rules Don’t Apply” barely alive, receiving a lone nod for Lily Collins’s performance. Also ignored was Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation,” a slave rebellion film once seen as a leading awards contender that collapsed at the box office after scrutiny of Mr. Parker’s past he was accused of rape in 1999 and later acquitted. The diversity on display during Hollywood’s season — or the lack thereof — has been an incendiary topic in recent years. When Oscar voters put forward an group of acting nominees at the most recent Academy Awards, there was a global outcry. The Globes are not necessarily predictive of the Oscars, but Monday’s nominations give reason to believe that a wide variety of faces will be honored. In the acting categories, Globe voters noted performers like Viola Davis and Denzel Washington, both nominated for “Fences,” an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about race and family relations. Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali received attention for their roles in “Moonlight” Dev Patel was nominated for “Lion” and Ruth Negga made the best actress cut for “Loving,” a gentle portrait of a couple whose marriage ended laws. “Hidden Figures,” about unsung black heroines in the space race of the 1960s, received attention for Octavia Spencer’s acting and a score by Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch. But the Globes are not especially prognostic of what will happen on Oscar night. Last year, “The Revenant” and “The Martian” were the Globes’ best picture winners both lost to “Spotlight” at the Oscars. The Globes ceremony has been increasingly important on the television front, largely for its acknowledgment of fledgling series like “Brooklyn . ” This time around, “This Is Us,” a new NBC drama, may have filled that quota. “This Is Us” received nominations for best drama and for two actresses (Chrissy Metz and Mandy Moore). In the best drama category, rookie shows made a of the nominations, with “The Crown,” “Stranger Things” and “Westworld” filling out the category, along with the HBO stalwart “Game of Thrones. ” Several returning shows were snubbed. “Mr. Robot,” last year’s drama winner, received only acting nominations Fox’s “Empire” got nothing. Showtime, which has had three wins in the best drama category in the past five years, fell to just one nomination: Liev Schreiber for best actor in a drama in “Ray Donovan. ” Streaming services have made inroads at the Globes, but on Monday the traditional players were back on top. HBO led the pack with 14 nominations (up from seven last year) and FX was in second place with nine. FX was propelled by “The People vs. O. J. Simpson,” which led all shows with five nominations, including best limited series. In the best comedy category, the returning winner, Amazon’s “Mozart in the Jungle,” is up against Amazon’s “Transparent,” HBO’s “Veep” and two shows that feature primarily black casts: ABC’s “ ” and FX’s rookie hit “Atlanta. ” The press association has labored in recent years to shed its reputation for bizarre nominations that were interpreted more as efforts to populate the banquet with stars than honor the year’s best in film and television. Monday’s list contained no outright embarrassments, but there were still some including a nod for Jonah Hill as best comedic actor in the critical dud “War Dogs. ” As previously announced, Ms. Streep, a Globes nominee and winner, will receive the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award. Foreign film nominees were “Divines” (France) “Elle” (France) “Neruda” (Chile) “The Salesman” (Iran and France) and “Toni Erdmann” (Germany). Among film companies, Lionsgate was the runaway winner, with its various labels and partnerships resulting in 17 nominations. A24 was second, with nine, while Paramount and Universal each had eight. Jimmy Fallon is to host the 74th Golden Globes in all of his goofy glory, taking the reins from the acerbic British comedian Ricky Gervais. Mr. Fallon is under pressure to lift ratings. The most recent Globes telecast attracted about 18. 5 million viewers, compared with 19. 3 million the previous year, according to Nielsen. The Globes are to be broadcast live by NBC on Jan. 8. | 1 |
Posted on October 27, 2016 by Melissa Dykes
This. Is. Horrifying.
In another Wikileaks email , this time from Chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council Marc Stanley to Hillary campaign chairman John Podesta dated February 11, 2016, Stanley lays out his best argument for why voters should choose Hillary over Bernie…
(click to enlarge)
He writes:
I tell the voter that I like Bernie and I like Hillary, but that’s not what matters. What matters to me is that there are 4 justices on the Supreme Court who will be in their 80’s and be replaced by the next president – and that President will appoint 40 year old Justices and they will serve for 30 or 40 years.
He goes on to say that voters shouldn’t want Republicans making decisions about issues like Obamacare, Citizens United, voter rights, etc. and that Bernie is “a 20-1 horse” versus Hillary as a “1-1 or even 2-1 horse”.
Can you imagine it? Hillary being able to personally nominate four out of nine Supreme Court justices for life ?
Hillary will own half the Supreme Court and for long after she’s gone.
That’s seven out of nine… or the entire Supreme Court, basically.
Think about that for a second. Just let it sink in. Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa and Aaron also recently launched Revolution of the Method and Informed Dissent . Wake the flock up! Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this: | 0 |
A Mexican national was busted attempting to smuggle highly lethal narcotics into the United States. [Tucson Sector Custom and Border Protection officers made a large seizure on Wednesday when they discovered 23 pounds of fentanyl. The Mexican man’s Chevrolet SUV was flagged for secondary inspection while traveling through the Dennis DeConcini crossing. A narcotics alerted officers to the drugs hidden in the vehicle’s dashboard. The 23 pounds of fentanyl recovered was estimated to be worth approximately $378, 000. Fentanyl is 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times more than heroin. Some estimates suggest that as little as . 25 milligrams of fentanyl can kill a human, although most estimates consider a lethal dose to be in the range of 2 milligrams to 3 milligrams. The latest statistics from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) indicate that fentanyl is the largest drug threat in the United States, killing 44 people per day. Ryan Saavedra is a contributor for Breitbart Texas and can be found on Twitter at @RealSaavedra. | 1 |
MENLO PARK, Calif. — For nearly four years, Snapchat has been Facebook’s white whale. The popular rebuffed a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook in 2013. Snapchat’s service has since continued to grow rapidly by capturing the hearts — and thumbs — of the young audiences that advertisers love. Facebook has failed in several attempts at cloning Snapchat. Now Instagram, the app owned by Facebook, is for the first time taking its own stab at Snapchat. On Tuesday, Instagram introduced Instagram Stories, which lets people share photos and videos that have a life span of no more than 24 hours with friends who follow them. The service bears a striking resemblance — some might say it is a carbon copy — to Snapchat Stories, a and format where the stories also disappear after no more than 24 hours. The move could ignite a battle between Instagram and Snapchat, which have long lurked in each other’s territories but have not faced off directly. Both are mobile apps that use primarily visual media. Both became popular first with young people. And both are now trying to improve their businesses by increasing digital advertising in formats like Stories. Kevin Systrom, and chief executive of Instagram, did not mention Snapchat by name in an interview about Instagram Stories, but obliquely referred to “competitors” and acknowledged that “other companies deserve all the credit” for popularizing disappearing photos and videos. It has been an area of interest for Instagram for some time, he said. Instagram Stories aims to lower the bar for sharing all types of photos and video — and not just the carefully planned and painstakingly photographs that are typical of the service, Mr. Systrom said. “Our mission has always been to capture and share the world’s moments, not just the world’s most beautiful moments,” he said. “Stories will alleviate a ton of the pressure people have to post their absolute best stuff. ” A spokeswoman for Snapchat declined to comment on Instagram’s new product. Cathy Boyle, a mobile analyst for the research firm eMarketer, said Instagram’s move “validates what Snapchat is doing. ” Advertisers are particularly attracted to Snapchat, she said, because the messaging app offers “a place to connect with users in this very personal, immersive way. ” When Instagram began nearly six years ago as a app — the first photo shared on the service was a square, photo of a dog, poorly framed and with little evidence of retouching — it became a place for people to publicly store their pictures and memories. The app quickly gained traction, and in 2012, Facebook said it would buy Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock. Today, Instagram has more than 500 million users. Snapchat — led by Evan Spiegel, who helped found it while an undergraduate at Stanford University — started in 2011. The private messaging service, with its disappearing photos, was the opposite of the public nature of social media services like Instagram. Young audiences flocked to Snapchat precisely because an unflattering photo sent to a friend would last for mere seconds rather than a lifetime, and would not show up for parents or a future employer to find. As Snapchat has matured in recent years, with more than 150 million users who visit the app on a daily basis, it has become a dangerous foe to Facebook and Instagram. Snapchat, based in the Venice Beach neighborhood of Los Angeles, is now valued at around $19 billion and has released a number of advertising products, which brands have eagerly latched onto to experiment with video and facial recognition ads. Snapchat Stories, a departure from the company’s original direct messaging service, has been a hit for essentially acting as a photo and video diary viewable only by those who follow the user. Beyond that, Snapchat Stories also collects photos and videos users have contributed from a particular event — say the Teen Choice Awards — and stitches them together to form a narrative. The result feels more like a television show than a social media post companies like AMC and HP can buy ads that are placed in stories, much like commercials aired in original programming. The rivalry between Snapchat and Instagram was evident in a report published last week from the investment banking firm Jefferies, which predicted that Snapchat’s growth could detract from Instagram’s advertising momentum by as soon as the fourth quarter of this year. “Snapchat consists of a more active user base, which creates more content than the average Instagram user,” the report said. “Given its younger demographic, we think Instagram looks the most from the rise of Snapchat, especially on a basis. ” Instagram has also faced reports that the service has had a decline in photo sharing on its network in recent years, a worrisome trend for the company. Instagram Stories is now available in a separate section of the app, where users can shoot photos or video, which, as with Snapchat, can be adorned with text or drawings. Those are then combined to create a story, which is viewable by friends for 24 hours. People can make stories public or private, and can choose if they want only a subsection of their followers to view them. Mr. Systrom does not pretend that Instagram Stories is original. Instead, he said the narrative string of photos and video that disappear after 24 hours is a format, akin to the cascading model popularized by companies like Facebook and Twitter and eventually adopted by countless others. Silicon Valley, he said, is all about creating and adopting new formats to be tried and expanded. “This format unlocks a new version of creativity for us,” he said. “I think Instagram will be judged by where we go from here, and what we make of it in the future. ” | 1 |
Editor’s note: We’re resurfacing this Eat column from last year for Smarter Living to give you some ideas for using up any leftover holiday wine. It is a new year. We have resolved, and a popular fixture in our resolutions is booze. We used it well: It went into punch. It went into grog. It went into mulled wine, cocktails and eggnog. It went straight in. It began in a trickle that became a geyser. Now we are pickled. Which is why January, though a poor time for drinking alcohol, is a good time for cooking with it. In particular, with wine — which is, in the elegant and spiritually stirring formulation of Robert Farrar Capon, the late Episcopal priest and cookbook author, ‘‘water that has matured according to nature’s will. ’’ Recipes using wine are notably less common today than they were half a century ago, when every fondue pot and chafing dish released rich gusts of boozy vapor. But there is little better use for the thousands of bottles that litter refrigerators and counters than to help them effect a secular transubstantiation in our dinners. The alcohol in wine evaporates more quickly than water and is mostly gone after 30 minutes’ cooking. What is left is the taste of the grape that made it, among dozens of ghost flavors: cherry, violet, ash, pineapple, fresh leather, apple, black pepper, wet soil, mandarin, lilac or rose. Plus, a light acidity that keeps the palate alive and alert, and an unmistakable elegance that can be neither explained nor ignored. I have always found most enticing those recipes that truly rely on wine and demand it in quantity, raw and crude and as it is. The food writer Richard Olney recommends Soupe à la Bourguignonne, ‘‘Red Wine Soup’’: pork fat, butter, onions, flour, water, stale bread, herbs and almost an entire bottle of red wine. There is ‘‘Bavarian Wine Soup,’’ from ‘‘The Wine Cook Book’’ (1934): three parts wine to one part water, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a beaten egg yolk, served with water crackers. Olney also describes a ‘‘typical Bordelais tourain,’’ which is usually eaten during the harvest but could stand a winter reprise. Its ingredients are onions cooked in fat, salt, tomatoes, sugar, boiling water, stale bread and dry white wine. ‘‘A native,’’ Olney writes, ‘‘may first eat his sopped bread crust, empty out his (red) wine glass into the soup, and drink the rest from the soup plate, a performance known as faire chabrol’’ — that is, ‘‘to act like a little goat. ’’ The simplest way to cook with wine is just to cook in it. A combination of half wine, half water or broth will cook any tough cut of meat flavorfully and subtly. But an even simpler and deeper pleasure can be found in cooking entirely in wine, with occasional pours of broth to keep things balanced, but the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the juice of the grape. Coq au vin is of this lineage. So is a variation I prefer: coq au vin blanc, or coq au vin jaune, which leaves the old rooster or capon tasting as if it got taken to a party it wasn’t expecting, thoroughly saturated in the complexities of deep dark yellow wine and a long night on the town. There are a few questions that bedevil those who decide to try their hands at cooking with booze. What kind of wine? Father Capon wrote the most useful rule: ‘‘White for lighter meats, red for heavier, but don’t make a fetish of it. ’’ I lean toward the dry and the but nothing too delicate, because the delicacy will be lost in cooking, and nothing too tannic or inky, which will turn to acidic mud. Can a wine be too good for cooking? Olney writes: ‘‘One may respectfully find a place in the kitchen for a great wine only if heat never comes into contact with it. ’’ That makes sense. If a fine wine is going to be put anywhere but a glass, it must stay unchanged until it reaches its final destination. Can it be too bad? Olney says if you would not drink it, do not cook with it. The former chef Daniel Gritzer recently conducted experiments and found that a wine that started overly fruity and ended that way, but that a wine that was once good, then oxidized, resulted in a very good dish. This is my theory too — it is mostly the alcohol in the wine that oxidizes when a bottle is open and old. It is also the alcohol that disappears in cooking. Don’t worry if uncooked wine tastes oxidized before it is added to a braise or stew — as long as it tasted good in its past, however distant. Are there spirits that shouldn’t be cooked in? Scotch, vodka, gin, tequila and moonshine do not make good stew. All of them are, however, capable of sousing and pickling a fish as they are of sousing and pickling a human. And to more attractive ends. Recipe: Boeuf à la Mode | 1 |
Steven Levenson’s passionate and provoking “If I Forget” is a family play, a political play and a play. That kitchen definitely isn’t kosher, even though the family that gathers around it — the three adult children of an ailing father, Lou Fischer — are outspoken . Irritable and animated, the Fischers come vibrantly alive in this young playwright’s funny, bruising, searching voice. The play, a Roundabout Theater Company production that opened on Wednesday night, begins in 2000 in an neighborhood of Washington. The Camp David summit meeting has failed, ushering in the collapse of the peace process. The renewed intifada seems removed from the worries of Lou (Larry Bryggman) his children and their spouses and offspring. But world events have a funny way of inviting themselves into this Colonial. Rocks thrown a world away encourage deeply personal reflections of what it means to be a Jew in America at the turn of the 21st century. The Fischers are a mostly secular clan, and Mr. Levenson doesn’t deck them with Jewish markers — there are no skullcaps and no bagels, no briskets and no bris. These characters don’t kvetch or kvell, at least not in those terms. The younger daughter, Sharon (Maria Dizzia) a teacher, used to take Lou to temple, but her observance has dwindled since she discovered her boyfriend and the cantor entangled on her new duvet. Her great regret: “Now I have to get it ” she tells her brother, Michael (Jeremy Shamos). The older daughter, Holly (Kate Walsh of “Private Practice”) a homemaker and design hobbyist, goes to services only on High Holy Days. Michael, a professor of Jewish studies, doesn’t go at all. If Michael is the least religious character, he is also the one most consumed by questions of Jewish identity. He has just finished writing an incendiary book arguing that the persistence of the Holocaust in the minds of American Jews has hollowed out Jewish life. Michael, who hurls his words like so many Molotov cocktails, insists that the Holocaust has made contemporary Judaism “a religion and a culture of, frankly, death and death worship,” and recommends forgetting it. (This point and others owe a debt to Norman G. Finkelstein’s 2000 book, “The Holocaust Industry. ”) These claims don’t sit well with Lou, a World War II veteran who helped liberate Dachau. In a conversation with Michael, he describes, simply and feelingly, what he saw there and why he can’t and won’t forget. “For you, history is an abstraction,” he says. “But for us, the ones who survived this century, this long, long century, there are no abstractions anymore. ” This speech, poignantly delivered by Mr. Bryggman, elicited spontaneous applause. But so did the earlier and wholly contradictory tirade loosed by Mr. Shamos. No one in Mr. Levenson’s play gets to make the definitive statement. Not even Mr. Levenson. Like other intellectually rigorous plays about to open — J. T. Rogers’s “Oslo,” Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” and Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” — “If I Forget” speaks to both the head and the heart. No condescending sense of here. The problems of what we should remember and what we should forget, who we should be and how we should love seem to confuse Mr. Levenson, too. (The current renewal of rhetoric and the threats to Jewish spaces have only made the play’s quandaries ring louder.) When it comes to big questions, and smaller ones, too, every character makes reasonable arguments — even flaky Holly, even Sharon — and also unreasonable ones. Sorting through that welter of competing claims is a real hassle. And a great gift. But focusing too intently on the play’s stimulating politics risks scanting its humor and its family dynamics. Mr. Levenson has a longtime interest in strained relations between parents and children — you can find it in his debut play, “The Language of Trees,” and in his book for the hit Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hansen. ” Yet he has never created a clan as quick to wound and quick to reconcile as the Fischers. “If I Forget” isn’t perfect. The plot, which turns on a question of real estate, takes its time arriving and mostly hangs around to facilitate debate. (And in these debates all the most penetrating arguments go to the men.) That Michael would publish his controversial book just as he’s up for tenure strains credibility, and a later subplot about credit card fraud is even more unlikely. Under Daniel Sullivan’s sensitive direction, the ripe interstitial music nudges emotion too obviously and the ending, which shifts the play into magical realism, makes its themes too explicit. (Mr. Levenson has never been one to wear his metaphors lightly.) But the script and the remarkable actors make you embrace the Fischers — however quarrelsome and distractible and fumbling they may be. Watch Michael (in Mr. Shamos’s astonishing performance) and Holly (in a tough and comic turn from Ms. Walsh) play siblings who tear each other apart, then make the same wavering gesture to end the quarrel. Watch Michael and his wife (Tasha Lawrence) and Holly and her husband (Gary Wilmes) and son (Seth Steinberg) reveal layers of injury and devotion. Watch them all stand in the and warble “Happy Birthday” — a family unable to agree on pretty much anything, yet still somehow in unison. | 1 |
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Iraq's al-Sumaria satellite television Quote: d an unnamed security source that claimed Mosul residents on Friday evening killed ISIS terrorists serving as security for the city's main prison, resulting in the liberation of at least 45 prisoners.
This comes as Iraqi forces and their allies close in on the ISIS stronghold after launching full-scale operations October 17 to liberate the city.
Simultaneous operstions are to liberate the city, particular from the east, whilst securing Iraq's borders with Syria.
The offensive on Mosul is expected to become the biggest battle fought in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and it could require a massive humanitarian relief operation.
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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 |
INDIANAPOLIS — The Big Ten championship game featured, according to most rankings, neither of the two best teams in the Big Ten, and the result was flashes of brilliance amid sloppy play as Penn State defeated Wisconsin, on Saturday night. The conference title was an impressive achievement that will nonetheless most likely leave the Nittany Lions short of the College Football Playoff. No. 8 Penn State ( ) overwhelmed Wisconsin’s defense, which had entered the game holding opponents to 13. 7 points per game, with a pass attack spearheaded by quarterback Trace McSorley and receiver Saeed Blacknall, both juniors. McSorley finished 22 of 31 for 384 passing yards and four touchdowns, while Blacknall caught six of those passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns. No. 6 Wisconsin ( ) ran the ball well, as is its tradition, with the running back committee of Corey Clement, Bradrick Shaw and Dare Ogunbowale. Clement led with 21 carries for 164 yards and a touchdown. But as the game wore on and Wisconsin’s stellar front seven found it more difficult to pressure McSorley, Wisconsin’s weaker defensive secondary was exposed. It was a triumphant night for Penn State and its fans, who wore white and packed Lucas Oil Stadium for their team’s first title game appearance in the six years in which the Big Ten has had one it also came five years after the Jerry Sandusky scandal. But it was unlikely that the sense of total triumph would last longer than 12 more hours. Because of conference standings, the Badgers, sixth in the playoff rankings, and the Nittany Lions, seventh in those rankings, played for the conference title even though two conference rivals — Ohio State and Michigan — were ranked above them. With No. 4 Washington having manhandled No. 9 Colorado in the title game Friday night, No. 1 Alabama having rolled over No. 15 Florida, for the Southeastern Conference title on Saturday afternoon and No. 3 Clemson having handled No. 19 Virginia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, on Saturday night, there was expected to be room for only one Big Ten team in the final playoff bracket. That team will very likely be No. 2 Ohio State ( ) which, unlike the other Big Ten contenders, has just one loss — at Penn State, in October — and wins over No. 7 Oklahoma, No. 5 Michigan and Wisconsin. That did not stop Penn State Coach James Franklin from making his case. During the postgame trophy ceremony, his voice booming through the stadium loudspeaker, he grabbed the microphone like a professional wrestler mugging for the crowd. “We just won the toughest conference in college football,” Franklin said. Referring to Penn State’s start, he added: “They say you’re allowed to overcome early setbacks? We’ve done that. It’s on you now, committee. ” Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany had said on ESPN on Saturday morning that he thought that Alabama and Ohio State had done enough to make the Playoff. He added that when the Playoff was being formulated four years ago, he had advocated that it comprise the four best conference champions. As it turned out, the committee is instructed to select the four best teams, with conference championships merely a positive factor. “We wanted this process — we wanted the human element,” Delany said after the trophy ceremony. “And regardless of what happens, I’ll be supportive of the outcome. We would love to have a team or two or three or four. We had a good year. ” Wisconsin, meanwhile, is most likely not be heading to the playoff or to the Rose Bowl — which will feature the Big Ten team that does not make the Playoff. Coach Paul Chryst acknowledged as much after the game, saying, “Our team didn’t make enough plays tonight. ” Wisconsin seemed in control early, steadily moving the ball in a first drive that consumed eight minutes and resulted in a touchdown. The Badgers’ second drive was shorter, the score coming on the second play as Clement ran by Penn State’s secondary for 67 yards. In the second quarter, Wisconsin linebacker Ryan Connelly recovered a bad snap and ran it in 12 yards to give the Badgers a lead. Penn State, rushing to the line and conveying offensive plays via hand signals, wanted the game to be fast, and the Lions did well when they turned the tempo their way. With 58 seconds left in the first half, they scored on a pass to Blacknall after a defensive misplay. The third quarter brought an even worse error from Wisconsin’s secondary. With Penn State at its 30, McSorley backed up and heaved the ball nearly 60 yards through the air to Blacknall, who broke free of cornerback Natrell Jamerson. Safety D’Cota Dixon, coming from the opposite direction, overran Blacknall, allowing him to run 20 yards into the end zone. Penn State made it before Wisconsin — which had earlier missed a field goal attempt — drove into the red zone and settled for a field goal. That was followed by the fourth consecutive drive on which Penn State scored a touchdown — a pass to the star running back Saquon Barkley that gave Penn State the lead, . Penn State’s Tyler Davis added a field goal on the following drive. Wisconsin then drove more than 50 yards, but with 1 minute 1 second left and his team needing a yard to convert a fourth down from Penn State’s Clement was tackled for no gain, putting the game on ice. | 1 |
The U. S. Secret Service lashed out at The Atlantic’s Washington editor at large for a series of Tweets officials said were completely false. [Steve Clemons, Washington editor at large for The Atlantic, began a series of Tweets on Thursday claiming that Secret Service personnel were forced to resign and were escorted out of the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB). Reports coming in that some Secret Service mgr level personnel forced 2 resign 2nite escorted out of EEOB. Two out but source says more, — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, Over the course of the next hour, Clemons continued to Tweet the erroneous information and included statements he attributed to Secret Service managers. One of fired @SecretService Mgrs speculates #Trump is restructuring the service but this is speculation #secretservice — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, Breitbart Texas reached out to the Secret Service who confirmed they contacted Clemons via Twitter advising him his story was not accurate. “His story was false,” Secret Service Spokesman Joe Casey told Breitbart Texas in a phone conversation Friday night. “It was not Secret Service personnel who were fired or escorted out of the building. ” It appears Clemons was in a rush to get his story out before confirming his facts because he had a plane to catch from Tokyo to Washington, D. C. Last note on @SecretService firings 2nite b4 boarding flight. I’ve posted all I’ve been told. 2, and perhaps more Secret Service mgrs — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, Folks. Am boarding 14hr flight to DC. See @SecretService tweets below. You may want to pursue @jaketapper @jimsciutto @maddow, — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, The Washington Examiner actually contacted the Secret Service and reported that officials denied Clemons report calling it “absolutely false. ” The Washington news outlet described Clemons as, “a longtime think tank writer who now serves as the Washington editor at large of the Atlantic and National Journal. ” “He has retracted his false report,” Secret Service Spokesman Casey told Breitbart Texas. After getting wifi on his flight, Clemons began to realize his error and backtracked on his Tweets. The @SecretService responded that they are not the agency that had management changes last night. Another Agency did. — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, Clemons admitted he made an assumption about what agency the fired workers reported to instead of getting a statement from Secret Service or the White House. In apparent frustration, the Secret Service Tweeted directly at Clemons advising, “Your reporting continues to be false. Still waiting for you to contact us for official statement. ” @SCClemons @SecretService advising that your reporting continues to be false. Still waiting for you to contact us for official statement. — U. S. Secret Service (@SecretService) February 3, 2017, Clemons apologized for his error several times. Late Friday evening, he responded to a reader who appeared to be concerned with fake news reported by journalists. He tweeted, “I get that. But there is good journalism out there. ” @robbystarbuck @SecretService I get that. But there is good journalism out there. And normally I do better. I appreciate your notes, — Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) February 3, 2017, 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. | 1 |
‘On Contact’: Chris Hedges and Medea Benjamin on the U.S.-Saudi Alliance
On this week’s episode of RT’s “On Contact,” Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges and Medea Benjamin, author of “ Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection ,” explore why Saudi Arabia remains one of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East despite the monarchy’s record of human rights abuses, including public executions, mistreatment of women, and the promotion of a fundamentalist religion that “sanctifies violence,” as Hedges says.
RT Correspondent Anya Parampil reviews the long alliance between the two countries. | 0 |
New York Times columnist Max Fisher, in a piece titled “What Happens When You Fight a ‘Deep State’ That Doesn’t Exist,” whines that President Donald Trump and populist conservatives have appropriated the term “Deep State” — just like the briefly trendy buzzword of “fake news. ”[From the New York Times: advertisement | 1 |
Wendy Kennedy on being a channel for The 9th Dimensional Pleiadian Collective (1:2) Published on Oct 12, 2016 Wendy Kennedy is an intuitive, empath, and channel. For two decades she has used her gifts and abilities to work with beings in other realms and dimensions, assisting others in recognizing and releasing old patterns and helping them to live a more whole and integrated life. The clear and compassionate wisdom shared through Wendy facilitates a shift in perspective from that of separation and limitation to connection and multidimensional existence.
In 1995 Wendy began channeling, working first with her own angelic guides before becoming reacquainted with The 9th Dimensional Pleiadian Collective, whom she primarily channels at her public events and in private sessions. In addition to the Pleiadians, she works with beings from Sirius, Lyra, and Arcturus as well as other higher dimensional, celestial beings.
Wendy currently lectures and channels for clients around the world. She was one of the six channels featured in the movie and book, Tuning in: Spirit Channelers in America. Her work can also be found in the newly released book compiled by Martine Vallée, The Great Human Potential: Walking in One’s Own Light, which is now available in six languages.
Watch part 2 here: https://youtu.be/4bDMT0cAly8
Did you appreciate this video? Become a Co-Creator today and help me create more inspiring videos here: http://wisdomfromnorth.com/donation/ Thank you so much for your support!!
Follow me on Social Media: | 0 |
Zero Hedge
Having unveiled the first images of its new nuclear missile capable of reaching US soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin is warning today that Washington’s actions are “pushing Russian into a nuclear arms race,” forcing Russia “to develop its nuclear attack systems.”
Yesterday, Russia reveals photos of a new highly advanced liquid fuelled heavy ICBM capable of evading anti-missile defences and hitting US territory with 10 tonne nuclear payload.
The Makeyev Design Bureau – the designer of Russia’s heavy liquid fuelled Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (“ICBMs”) – ie. of missiles capable of reaching US territory from Russian territory, has published the first picture of Russia’s new heavy Sarmat ICBM which is due to enter service shortly, probably in 2018.
The picture is accompanied by a short statement which reads
“In accordance with the Decree of the Russian Government ‘On the State Defence Order for 2010 and the planning period 2012-2013,’ the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau was instructed to start design and development work on the Sarmat. In June 2011, the Bureau and the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a state contract for the Sarmat’s development. The prospective strategic missile system is being developed in order to assuredly and effectively fulfil objectives of nuclear deterrent by Russia’s strategic forces.”
And now today, Putin explains: *PUTIN: INTERMEDIATE NUCLEAR FORCES TREATY SHOULD BE OBSERVED *PUTIN: RUSSIA, U.S. MUST BREAK VICIOUS CIRCLE OF CONFRONTATION *PUTIN: RUSSIA HAS TO DEVELOP ITS NUCLEAR ATTACK SYSTEMS *PUTIN: U.S. PUSHED RUSSIA TO ARMS RACE IN NUCLEAR SPHERE
Perhaps even more worrying are the comments from Obama administration officials declaration that war with Russia was all but inevitable (via AntiWar’s Jason Ditz) ,
“With some Obama Administration officials openly advocating starting a war with Russia over Syria, it is noteworthy that a lot of top Pentagon officials are treating the conflict as all but inevitable. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley hyped Russian modernization efforts, but declared that they ‘ will lose to the American Army. ‘
“Russian officials have been cognizant of the possibility, insisting that Russia ‘can now fight a conventional war in Europe,’ comments which Gen. Milley dismissed as ‘bluster, hubris, bravado.’ and insisting that war with other nation-states ‘is almost guaranteed.’
“Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Joe Dunford also complained about recent modernization efforts within the Russian military, claiming that they are threatening American interests with their capabilities, while Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work referred to them as America’s ‘competitor.’
“Of course, the United States spends many, many times what Russia does on its military, but the fact that Russia has a proper military capable of defending the nation at all puts it in a total different category from most of America’s recent wars, and Russia’s massive nuclear arsenal makes it clear this is one war which, if the US launches it, they won’t be able to win outright.”
As ZeroHedge noted previously, by contrast the US strategic deterrent still relies on missile systems such as the ground-based Minuteman III and the sea launched Trident II, which have their origins in the 1960s and early 1970s. With the Sarmat missile, which is supposed to enter service in 2018, the Russians will add another powerful modern advanced system to their strategic armory. | 0 |
The focus of the continuous media reports of alleged collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign has shifted to Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s husband of his daughter Ivanka, and top adviser. [Kushner is said to have discussed with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak the possibility of establishing a direct and secure conduit for communication between Moscow and Trump’s transition team, established after Trump won the 2016 presidential election, the Washington Post reported on Friday. “ Trump made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U. S. officials,” the Post reported. “Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications. ” Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, also attended the meeting, according to the Post, which cites no sources for its report except “U. S. officials” and “people familiar with the matter. ” The White House acknowledged the meeting in March, but “played down it’s significance,” the Post reported, adding that the FBI now considers the meeting — and another with a Russian banker — worthy of investigation. “Neither the meeting nor the communications of Americans involved were under U. S. surveillance,” the Post reports that officials said. No one responded to requests for comments from the Post, including the White House, Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, and the Russian Embassy. According to the newspaper: Russia at times feeds false information into communication streams it suspects are monitored as a way of sowing misinformation and confusion among U. S. analysts. But officials said that it’s unclear what Kislyak would have had to gain by falsely characterizing his contacts with Kushner to Moscow, particularly at a time when the Kremlin still saw the prospect of dramatically improved relations with Trump. The Post’s reporting adds drama to the Kushner angle of the ongoing Russian saga: Current and former U. S. intelligence officials said that although Russian diplomats have secure means of communicating with Moscow, Kushner’s apparent request for access to such channels was extraordinary. “How would he trust that the Russians wouldn’t leak it on their side?” one former senior intelligence official said, adding that a Trump transition member going in and out of the Russian embassy would cause “a great deal of concern. ” The entire idea, he said, “seems extremely naive or absolutely crazy. ” “It is common for senior advisers of a newly elected president to be in contact with foreign leaders and officials,” the story stated towards the end, citing U. S. intelligence’s belief in an “unprecedented campaign” by the Russians “to interfere in last year’s presidential race and help elect Trump. ” And, the “Obama administration officials say members of the Trump transition team never approached them about arranging a secure communications channel with their Russian contacts, possibly because of concerns about leaks,” the Post reported. And, “the State Department, the White House National Security Council and U. S. intelligence agencies all have the ability to set up secure communications channels with foreign leaders, though doing so for a transition team would be unusual. ” In addition, the Post reports they first heard about the Kushner meeting though an “anonymous letter, which said, among other things, that Kushner had talked to Kislyak about setting up the communications channel. ” “In addition to their discussion about setting up the communications channel, Kushner, Flynn and Kislyak also talked about arranging a meeting between a representative of Trump and a ‘Russian contact’ in a third country whose name was not identified, according to the anonymous letter,” the Post reported. | 1 |
We Are Change
Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.
-Old English folk rhyme (anonymous)
By Barrie Zwicker (Special thanks to Truth and Shadows )
Today, November 5 th , is Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Gunpowder Day. In 2016 it’s the 411 th anniversary of The Gunpowder Plot or Gunpowder Treason, as it was first called.
It also happens to be my 78 th birthday. So I’ve been more aware of Guy Fawkes Day than most. I’m especially happy about how ubiquitous the Guy Fawkes mask has become.
The mask was hugely popularized in the movie V for Vendetta . As stalwart 9/11Truther Kevin Barrett wrote, a year ago, in a piece entitled “ Unmasking Media Lies: Why BBC’s V-for-Vendetta Mask Piece is Fawked Up ”:
“V for Vendetta may be the most revolutionary film ever made. Its obvious message is: Let’s get out there and visit some rough justice on the treasonous bastards who created the 9/11 and 7/7 media spectaculars, and destroyed the freedoms for which we’ve been fighting for centuries.
Watch (on YouTube) V for 9/11 Vendetta: Past, Present and Future
It is also possible to read the film from an interior, psychological perspective: Rather than just a call to action, it’s about the psychological process of coming to terms with the 9/11 and 7/7 inside jobs, by allowing oneself to feel the overwhelming anger that is the natural response. Once one has faced the facts, overcome fear, and come to terms with one’s own righteous anger, THEN it’s time for revolution.
The real message of the V mask is simple: We know you bastards blew up the Trade Center. We know you’re blowing up the economy. We know you’re lying to us 24/7/365. We know you’re trying to keep us poor and weak and fearful and impotent. Well, guess what? We’re not afraid of you. We’re not afraid to die. And we’re coming to get you.
No wonder the BBC is afraid to admit what the V mask really means.”
Yet for the first 71 years of my life I had entirely the wrong idea about the gunpowder plot: what happened, who was really behind it, and its impact on history. An impact that continues to this day. It was in 2005 that I read I read Webster Tarpley’s superb book 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA right after it came off the press. He introduced me to the historical element.
True, the brazen events of 9/11 and the mind-boggling cover-up that followed opened my eyes to state-executed terror frauds and the power they deliver to the dark forces that order them. But I didn’t know from nuthin’ about the Gunpowder Plot.
Nor at that time did I appreciate that it and 9/11 are but two examples from thousands of false flag operations that have changed history.
False flag ops are the least-recognized, highest-impact category of human deceit. In terms of emotional wallop, even the most brilliant lies perpetrated by the most talented demagogues pale, in comparison to a big false flag op, for the power to manipulate the public. On this anniversary let’s look more closely at this particular false flag op for some lessons. As William Faulkner put it in his Requiem for a Nun : “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Then we will touch briefly on one of the most recent false flag ops – a leading edge digital one that perversely misappropriates the Fawkes name.
…
On the Throne of England in 1605 sits James the First, a Protestant, the King who ordered the translation of the Christian Bible that bears his name.
As midnight approaches on November the 4th – the eve of the traditional opening of Parliament – armed agents of the King raid a basement room of the Houses of Parliament. They discover and apprehend one Guy Fawkes. His age, 36, coincides with the number of barrels of gunpowder they find with him. They find a tunnel leading to the room. Fawkes is a known agitator for the rights of English Roman Catholics. In his possession are a pocket watch (a rarity in those days).
Had he succeeded in detonating the gunpowder, the next morning King James and his queen would be mangled bodies, as would all the members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Smoking rubble would be all that would remain of the Palace of Westminster complex, including historic Westminster Abbey.
So goes the palace version of the events of the late evening of November the 4 th , 1605. The English public is stunned. It’s the equivalent of 9/11. “A cataclysm,” Adam Nicolson describes it in his book God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible . Upon his arrest, according to the official account, Fawkes admits his purpose was to destroy king and Parliament.
That there was some kind of plot is not in doubt. By November the 8 th , on the rack, Fawkes names 12 co-conspirators. Those not killed where they are tracked down are found guilty of treason later in a trial lasting less than a day. They and Fawkes are hanged, drawn and quartered.
The following Sunday, November the 10 th, the King James Version of the plot is broadcast from the leading pulpit of the Church of England, that of William Barlow, Bishop of Rochester. Barlow thunders that the enemy, meaning papists, is satanic in its wickedness. The King, their hoped-for victim, on the other hand is, Mr. Nicolson writes, characterized as an unqualifiedly good man . . . virtually a Christ-figure.
Soon all the pulpits of England echo the official account. Between 1606 and 1859 the Fifth is remembered in an annual service of thanksgiving in every Anglican church, writes James Sharpe in Remember, Remember: A Cultural History of Guy Fawkes Day. Until 1959 , it was against the law in Britain not to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day. Celebrate, because from the beginning the public was giving thanks that the realm was saved and the treasonous conspirators dispatched. For centuries effigies of Fawkes were burned.
The palace version becomes historical truth for humankind including me – duped again! – for most of our lives.
Mr. Nicolson and others now cast serious doubt on that version. Many anomalies concerning the events have surfaced.
Fawkes was not apprehended in a basement room but rather a ground floor room, one remarkably easily rented by the plotters. There was, accordingly, no tunnel. The authorship of the letter by which the King learned of the plot is murky. It was turned over to the King by the Royal Chancellor, Sir Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury.
Sir Cecil I would characterize as the Dick Cheney of his day. Because plots were common at that time Cecil had an efficient network of spies seeded among Roman Catholic dissidents. He kept tabs on all plots the spies discovered. This one featured a large cast of characters from several cities.
Cecil kept the King in the dark about the plot except for the obscure letter. The gunpowder, it turned out, was of an inferior nature, unlikely to have achieved much result. This was odd, as Fawkes definitely knew a thing or two about gunpowder. He had developed expertise with it while serving with distinction in Spain’s army against Protestant rebels in the Netherlands. It’s conceivable the gunpowder could have been switched by someone; loads of it existed because of all the hostilities. Some handwriting on Fawkes’s confession differed from the rest.
Ignored until recently is a book by Jesuit historian John Gerard, What Was the Gunpowder Plot: The Traditional Story Tested by Original Evidence . Gerard died in 1606 but his book was not published for almost three centuries, in1897, an interesting temporal fact in itself. While it’s true, as Sharpe writes, that accounts of the plot differ as per the biases of the authors, I find Gerard’s account pretty compelling. He writes:
“When we examine into the details supplied to us as to the progress of the affair, we find that much of what the conspirators are said to have done is well-nigh incredible, while it is utterly impossible that if they really acted in the manner described, the public authorities should not have had full knowledge…”
Exactly. The evidence points to a particular kind of false-flag operation. There are many variations. In some (9/11 being the leading example) an outrageous event is carried out by the perpetrators and blamed on the chosen enemy. In others (example, Gulf of Tonkin) nothing happens but a fiction blames the chosen enemy. The Gunpowder Plot is midway: a plot was underway but the precise intentions of the plotters can never be known. The main feature is that, with or without taking a hand in the plot, the Cecil elements manipulated events brilliantly.
Cecil was heavily involved in an influential London group known as “the war party.” It wanted to push James into a confrontation with the Spanish Empire, from which the group’s members hoped, among other things, to extract great personal profit.
The war party considered it politically vital to keep persecuting Roman Catholics. Sir Cecil set out, writes Tarpley, to sway James to adopt his policy by means of terrorism.
It amounts to this: Either Cecil and the war party made the Gunpowder Plot happen or they let it happen –and made sure of a brilliantly timed “exposé.” And if they let it happen they made it happen.
James himself had negotiated peace with Spain the previous year. His other advisors told him there was no chance of a general Catholic uprising and that no foreign Catholic powers were involved in the plot.
The King knew, Sharpe writes, that “the reality of Catholicism in England around 1600 was very different from the image conjured up in government propaganda and contemporary Protestant myth.” Sharpe again: “…even in the face of … persecution it seems that most of England’s Catholics remained loyal to their monarch and wanted nothing more than to be allowed to practice their faith unmolested.” (The parallel with most Muslims living in the UK and Canada today springs to mind.)
For his part, James downplayed the plot. “James and his ministers,” Sharpe writes, “showed more restraint than many modern regimes faced with similar problems.”
Nevertheless, the power of the imagery of what might have happened burned itself into the public’s psyche, and was repeatedly fanned by the Protestant and war promoting establishments.
The outcomes of this ongoing propaganda campaign are incontestable. Tolerance for English Roman Catholics is replaced by a period of terrible bloodletting for them. Numbers are killed. Catholics’ homes are burned. A string of laws is passed restricting their rights and liberties.
The English become “fixated on homeland security,“ Nicolson writes. An inclusive, irenic idea of mutual benefit between Spain and England – trade between the two countries, because of the peace treaty, had been growing –“is replaced in England by a defensive/aggressive complex.” All Catholics, of all shades, never mind their enthusiasm or not for the planned attack, are identified as the enemy.
Most significantly, war with Spain ensues. England’s course is set for a century of wars against the Spanish and Portuguese empires. England for various reasons comes out victorious and on these war victories the British Empire is founded in blood, deception and conquest.
…
There’s no way of knowing whether the British Empire – and all the consequences of its rule from Capetown to Canada to Iraq to its American colonies — would have emerged anyway or in what form or at what pace, but we can see in retrospect that the Gunpowder Plot was pivotal in what did transpire.
It would be a failure of imagination not to see the parallels with 9/11 and society in our day of blanket war propaganda, teeming with covert agents, ever-encroaching surveillance, ever decreasing civil rights and liberties, and either helpless or conniving leaders.
Let’s look at false flag ops generically. It’s difficult in my opinion to over-estimate their terrible place in history, and their place in making history terrible. Think of the wars and millions of deaths that followed the Gunpowder Plot, the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbour in 1898 that kick-started the US Empire’s expansion to the Philippines and beyond, the sinking of the Lusitania that brought the USA into World War I, the torching of the German Reichstag that boosted Hitler to power and enabled his bloody grab for world domination, the assassination of John F. Kennedy that yanked U.S. foreign policy onto a warpath, the alleged attacks during LBJ’s presidency the next year by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin — attacks that simply did not take place but that provided the basis for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, passed 88-2 in the US Senate. That resolution constituted the “legal” basis for escalating the Vietnam War with an eventual death toll of more than 3-million. And 9/11. To name a few.
Without false flag ops most wars would be harder to launch. Some would barely be possible. Think of the unprecedented millions of peace marchers who took to the streets prior to the invasion of Iraq. If the deceptions are used to justify such wars were exposed earlier by a skeptical, independent, ferociously investigative media, we all would be living in a different world. Millions of horrible deaths and all the accompanying grief could have been avoided. And the military would have to put on bake sales to raise funds.
There always has been a yearning for peace among the normal everyday citizenry: finding meaningful work, marrying and raising a family, tilling the soil, writing poetry, inventing things, or — as Pierre Berton said was his favourite thing – “getting smashed with your friends.”
There are exceptions, but the horrible norm is that for wars to be launched, maintained or expanded the people have to be fooled. And history proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the most surefire way to accomplish that is to lumber them with an iconic outrage allegedly perpetrated by the designated “enemy” of the day. And we go on sinking ever further into the mire of deaths – the deaths of innocents, the death of promise for a better future, the death of honest history, the death of coming to grips with reality – because each new false flag op draws power from the fictions planted about all the previous ones.
And so the elites continue to hide their four aces in a rigged game. Their most closely guarded secret retains the potency of the first one. Remember, remember, the 5 th of November, the 11 th of September, Faulkner, and George Santayana’s comment that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
But today we also have to remember the future. Added to the false flag ops, false flag agents and false flag organizations of old are false flag digital organisms, sent to infect particular publics. One of the most recent of which I’ve become aware is a rogue individual or group identified as ” This tricky entity “FawkesSecurity” on Monday, October 22, released via YouTube and Pastebin a bomb threat against an unidentified U.S. Government building.
I for one smell digital gunpowder.
“FawkesSecurity” claims to be associated with the Anonymous collective. The threat of violence, however, goes against everything Anonymous says it stands for. Sources at Anonymous are denouncing “FawkesSecurity” and its bomb threat.
A report on this , from which I am quoting, can be found at Examiner.com
Following is an excerpt from the message of “FawkesSecurity:”
Dear citizens of the world, ? We are anonymous. As of today 200 kilograms of composite Nitroglycerin and commercial explosives have effectively been concealed in a government building, situated in the united states of America. on the 5th of November 2012 … ? we are anonymous ? we are legion ? we do not forget ? we do not forgive ? on the 5th of November, you will expect us.
As the Examiner report says, “the video displays many of the standard trappings of associated with Anonymous [and yet] the threat of violence is completely out of step with the ethos that guides Anonymous.” The Examiner report adds:
“Multiple social media accounts have denounced FawkesSecurity and their bomb threat. Many speculate FawkesSecurity is a false flag operation conducted by government agents in an attempt to discredit Anonymous. Others speculate that FawkesSecurity is simply misguided, and unfamiliar with the bullet proof idea that is Anonymous.”
Whatever the case, those who wrote the text above can’t punctuate or capitalize worth a damn.
The digital and physical worlds are not separate. Agents of the state infest both. Although unlikely, if the threat by “FawkesSecurity” were to be carried out today, one outcome could be to seriously besmirch Anonymous. (The question of whether Anonymous itself might be a false flag op, or is, or could be infiltrated or otherwise manipulated, is one to be asked and answered further down the rabbit hole. Such is the ultra-elusive nature of “reality” today.)
We’ve come a long way from 1605 technically, but the general scheme is the same: deception rides high, wide and ugly.
Segments of this post were originally published in an op ed page piece the author had published on November 5 th , 2005 in The Globe and Mail; others come from notes for a talk given by the author in London, Ontario November 5 th , 2011.
The post Guy Fawkes, The Gun Powder Plot & How False Flags Have Shaped History appeared first on We Are Change .
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0 comments You read that correctly. Here is the ugly truth that is sending Black Lives Matter leadership into orbit over Hillary’s pandering hypocrisy! Eric Garner died a tragic, unexpected death at the hands of a police officer. His death has sometime’s referred to as “the chokehold death.” Video of the sad episode can be seen below: Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica, is a prominent Black Lives Matter leader, and she is none to pleased at what WikiLeaks has brought to light. In discussing an upcoming statement to describe Hillary’s stance on gun violence, Clinton staffer Nick Merrill wrote: “Finally, I know we have Erica Garner issues but we don’t want to mention Eric at all? I can see her coming after us for leaving him out of the piece.” Maya Harris replied, “Eric Garner not included because not killed by gun violence.” The full email can be read here . Hillary’s campaign was clearly considering how to best use, or not use, the Eric Garner story to push their agenda. The revelation, understandably, has set off a firestorm in the Black Lives Matter community. Erica Garner is teeing off! I’m troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed “using” Eric Garner … Why would you want to “use” my dad?
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 I dont care what BLM activists endorse #Hillary … They WILL continue more of the same, they dont care about Black lives and I got proof!
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 https://t.co/jzfUl0FbXF In this #PodestaEmails leak @CoreyCiorciari n @NickMerrill plot to use police violence victims to push gun control
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 They can get whoever they want to play their game,she called YOU super predators, they passed the crime bill and welfare reform. JUST SAY NO
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016 If you vote for her by default you are endorsing her and whatever she does. Remember her hiding being Nergos that supported the crime bill?
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
Do you blame Erica Garner for feeling the way that she does? For years, since the days of Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats have pandered to blacks, women, and other minorities. Many times, these minority groups have fallen in step behind these pandering, hypocritical, power-hungry leaders.
With WikiLeaks on the scene to reveal the truth, it appears that times are changing! | 0 |
Posted on November 7, 2016 by Charles Hugh Smith
America’s Ruling Elite is freaking out because a significant percentage of the American public is trying to fire them. The Ruling Elite has failed and deserves to be fired, and deep down, they know it–and this awareness of their self-serving failure fuels their panic and their loathing of the non-elite Americans who are trying to fire them.
If you think this chart of soaring student loan debt is a sign of “success,” you are 1) delusional 2) protected from the dire consequences of this failure 3) getting your paycheck from this failed system. That in a nutshell is the state of the nation: those who are protected from the consequences of failure are loyal to the Establishment, as are the millions drawing a paycheck from systems they know are irredeemable failures.
Let’s review the central institutions of the nation:
1. Healthcare: a failed system doomed to bankrupt the nation.
2. Defense: a failed system of cartels and Pentagon fiefdoms that have saddled the nation with enormously costly failed weapons systems like the F-35 and the LCS.
3. Higher Education: a bloated, failed system that is bankrupting an entire generation while mis-educating them for productive roles in the emerging economy. (I cover this in depth in The Nearly Free University and the Emerging Economy and Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy .)
4. Foreign policy: Iraq: a disaster. Afghanistan: a disaster. Libya: a disaster. Syria: a disaster. Need I go on?
5. Political governance: a corrupt system of self-serving elites, lobbyists, pay-to-play, corporate puppet-masters, and sociopaths who see themselves as above the law.
In Why Our Status Quo Failed and Is Beyond Reform , I explain why the only possible output of these systems is failure .
The sole output of America’s Establishment/Ruling Elite is self-serving hubris.
In the open market, failed leadership has consequences. Customers vanish and the enterprise goes bankrupt, or shareholders and employees rally to fire the failed leadership.
In our state-cartel system, failed leadership only tightens its grip on the nation’s throat. The Deep State can’t be fired, nor does it ever stand for election. The two political parties are interchangeable, as are the politicos who race from fund-raiser to fund-raiser.
It’s tempting to blame the individuals who inhale the wealth and power of our failed system, but it’s the system, not the individuals , though a more corrupt, craven, self-serving lot cannot easily be assembled.
In broad brush, the Establishment and its Ruling Elite are still fighting World War II. The solution to the Great Depression and fascism was to cede complete control of the economy, the media and the social order to the central state.
Tens of millions of people were aggregated into vast industrial corporations or the Armed Forces. Everyone heard the same “news” and had the same limited choices of work and consumption.
It was easier for the federal government to control a handful of cartel-corporations and unions, and this cemented the state-cartel system that remains dominant today.
But the world and the economy changed, and this model was no longer efficient or effective. Sprawling corporations with captive domestic markets started facing global competition, and networks of interchangeable suppliers were much more efficient than vertically organized corporations.
Adding layers of government bureaucracy to manage increasing complexity was no longer effective or affordable as labor costs rose and the efficiencies of networks outpaced cumbersome hierarchies.
People lost faith in their government and their cartel-corporations because the truth broke through the state-managed propaganda. Industrial corporations were revealed as greedy polluters; auto manufacturers churned out vehicles with scant care for safety, and the federal government lied to the citizens about the war in Vietnam, and much else.
The Internet was the stake through the heart of this inefficient, ineffective state-cartel hierarchy. The Internet enabled a level of transparency that was impossible in the old state-cartel model in which everyone watched the same three TV networks and read the same managed “news.”
Consumers could now access the experience of other consumers directly, bypassing the filtering mechanisms of a complicit state and the corporate PR/marketing machinery.
Governments were pressured to (very reluctantly) make public all sorts of material that was safely private in the good old days of backroom dealing and sweetheart contracts with pals.
The central state’s resistance to transparency only reinforced the public’s loss of trust. The more money and power the state grabbed, the greater the level of corruption and self-serving insider dealing. The more the state managed the private cartels of banking, Big Pharma, higher education, the military-industrial complex, healthcare insurers, etc., the more costs soared while the quality of the output plummeted.
The current self-serving Ruling Elite deserves to be fired for its abject failure of leadership. The nation desperately needs leaders who understand the economy and nation are in the midst of a new industrial/digital revolution that favors networks over hierarchy and transparency over state-cartel corruption.
Unfortunately, as I explain in Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change , the central state has no mechanisms for devolving power to decentralized networks, or surrendering either power or budgets. The central state only knows how to aggregate more power and skim more money from the private economy.
The last failed remnants of the state-cartel hierarchies left over from World War II must implode before we can move forward. Healthcare, defense, pharmaceuticals, higher education, the mainstream media and the systems of governance must all decay to the point that no one can be protected from the destructive consequences of their failure, and no paychecks can be issued by these failed systems.
Only then can we face the reality that failure has consequences. | 0 |
BRUSSELS — Britain must agree to pay its bills and to protect millions of Europeans living in Britain before reaching a new trading relationship with the European Union, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said on Friday. divorce and trade talks “will not happen,” Mr. Tusk said at a news conference in Malta. Divorce has to come first, he said, and he warned that the negotiations could be “confrontational. ” Mr. Tusk also wrote on Twitter: “Our duty is to minimize uncertainty, disruption caused by Brexit for citizens, businesses Member States. It’s about damage control. ” He added that the European Union would not pursue a “punitive approach,” because “Brexit in itself is already punitive enough. ” He also wrote: “After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to make this divorce as smooth as possible. ” The words were tough, but unsurprising: For months, since Britain voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the bloc, Brussels has insisted that the terms of a future trade agreement would not be negotiated until the terms of the divorce were clear. Britain formally began the withdrawal process on Wednesday, and Mr. Tusk’s statement on Friday essentially made official the European Union’s stance. That was in keeping with the tough talk coming from Germany, the bloc’s most influential member, this week. On Friday, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, told a newspaper in the country that, while both sides should strive to minimize the damage, “there are no rights without obligations” and that Britain would have to leave the single market if it refused to abide by the European Union’s principles. That followed a statement on Thursday by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that rejected a demand put forth by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain that talks on the withdrawal be conducted in tandem with discussions about economic relations. “The negotiations must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship,” Ms. Merkel said. “Only when this question is dealt with can we — hopefully, soon after — begin talking about our future relationship. ” In laying out the European Union’s terms for the exit negotiations — which still must be approved by leaders of the 27 remaining nations — Mr. Tusk essentially presented the bloc’s response to Mrs. May’s opening move. Mr. Tusk said the 27 leaders would determine when there had been “sufficient progress” to start discussing Britain’s future trade arrangements. The terms, nonetheless, represent an early setback for Britain. The draft guidelines outline a “phased approach” that the European Union will require Britain to follow before talks about any deal on access to the European single market of more than 500 million consumers. The terms also signaled how Britain was losing control over developments in Europe by giving Spain an effective veto over whether any deal applied to Gibraltar, the rocky outcrop that has long been the subject of an acrimonious sovereignty dispute between London and Madrid. Spain had pressed to insert language on Gibraltar into the guidelines and succeeded because Britain did not have a say in the drafting, European Union officials said. Market access is a British priority that took on added urgency this week, as Mrs. May’s formal notification on Wednesday started a clock to reach an agreement. That time constraint limits British leverage in the negotiations because it would face a welter of tariffs and customs barriers if a deal is not struck during that period. The guidelines will come into effect if national leaders approve them at a summit meeting on April 29. Michel Barnier, a former foreign minister of France, is then expected to take over negotiations with the government in London. Mr. Barnier has said that he wants to wrap up talks by October 2018 to enable the European Parliament and member states to assess the results and allow terms for a transition to be agreed on. Although there is legal scope to extend the talks beyond March 2019, when the statutory period expires, such a step would need unanimous approval from the 27 remaining countries. Ms. Merkel and President François Hollande of France have insisted that London first agree on how to protect the rights of more than about three million expatriates in Britain, and more than one million British citizens living in Continental Europe, and on the amount of money Britain owes to cover its commitments as a member of the bloc. European officials underlined the need to safeguard the rights of expatriates by referring to them in the opening paragraphs of the guidelines. The document also said there should be a “single financial settlement” of Britain’s commitments but did not give a figure. The leaving bill could be roughly 60 billion euros, or $64 billion, according to the European Union authorities, and that sum is already a major sticking point. David Davis, the minister who leads Britain’s Department for Exiting the European Union, told British television on Thursday that he was not expecting a bill “anything like that” size. Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland has called for steps to preserve a peaceful coexistence with Northern Ireland, where there will be a new land border with the European Union. European officials said “flexible and imaginative solutions will be required” to maintain peace and avoid “a hard border” between Ireland, a European Union member, and Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom. Britain is the first country to leave the bloc. The procedure for the separation, known as Article 50, has never before been used. Striking a deal will be fiendishly complex, and there are hazards for both sides. European leaders do not want Britain to enjoy the same benefits that it has as a member of the bloc, such as unfettered access to the vast European Union single market. Yet they are extremely wary of Britain turning itself into a haven with weakened regulations that would undercut European neighbors. Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium, a member state that has some of the closest economic ties with Britain, said that “securing a fair and level playing field is the main objective. ” Another challenge for European leaders is to maintain unity. Populist politicians have bolstered their following by blaming the European Union for high unemployment in countries like Greece and for failing to prevent an influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa. France holds the first round of presidential elections in late April. Marine Le Pen, the Union leader of the National Front, has called for a referendum on leaving the bloc. For now, Emmanuel Macron, who is is leading the polls. The European Parliament also has a final say over any deal reached with Britain. Lawmakers could veto any agreement that they find too generous or that they view as failing to guarantee the rights of citizens of European Union countries already in Britain to continue living and working there. “One thing is clear for us,” Manfred Weber, a German who is a powerful conservative lawmaker at the European Parliament, said this week. “Cherry picking is over for the United Kingdom, and we will defend the interests of the 440 million E. U. citizens when negotiating with the U. K. ” | 1 |
Posted on October 27, 2016 by Pamela Geller
The bombshells about this criminal are now breaking daily. It’s not a question of Trump, it is an imperative that Hillary be defeated. If the people choose Hillary, then they must and will be punished. “Wikileaks: Bill Clinton Boasts of Hillary’s ‘Working Relationship’ with Muslim Brotherhood,” By John Hayward, Breitbart , October 26, 2016:
In a speech Bill Clinton gave at the home of Mehul and Hema Sanghani in October 2015, revealed to the public for the first time by WikiLeaks, former President Bill Clinton touted Hillary Clinton’s “working relationship” with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in Egypt as an example of her diplomatic skills.President Clinton also gave his wife a lot of credit for negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, in a passage that began with the standard Democrat “stuff happens” shrugging defense for foreign policy failures:
Finally, we live in a world, as I said, that’s full of good news and bad news. The United States cannot control it all, but we need a president who’s most likely to make as many good things happen as possible, and most likely to prevent big, bad things from happening. You can’t keep every bad thing from happening; who’s most likely to be able to get people involved in a positive way. Even the people who don’t like the Iran nuclear agreement concede it never would have happened if it hadn’t been for the sanctions. Hillary negotiated those sanctions and got China and Russia to sign off – something I thought she’d never be able to do. I confess. I’m never surprised by anything she does, but that surprised me. I didn’t think she could do it. The Chinese and the Russians to see past their short-term self-interest to their long-term interest and not sparking another nuclear arms race.
And when the Muslim Brotherhood took over in Egypt, in spite of the fact that we were (inaudible), she developed a working relationship with the then-president and went there and brokered a ceasefire to stop a full-scale shooting war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, which on top of what was going on in Syria and the (inaudible) Jordan would have been a calamity for the world.
And when we were trying to reset our relations with Russia under President Medvedev, she and her team negotiated a New START Treaty, which limits warheads and missiles. And she lobbied it through the Senate. She had to get 67 votes, which means a lot of these Republicans who say that they don’t like her now are just kidding for election season. They trusted her, and she got it passed. You can’t get 67 votes in the Senate without a lot of Republican support. And I don’t know about you, but with all this tension and Mr. Putin trying to affect the outcome of the conflict in Syria, I think it’s a very good thing that we’re in a lower risk of any kind of accidental nuclear conflict with the Russians. She did that.
You’ll rarely find a more tortured political framing of the Iran debacle than Bill Clinton boasting that the sanctions Barack Obama lifted were super-awesome, as even those who don’t think those sanctions should have been lifted agree.
Mr. Clinton’s version of the Iran sanctions leaves out a few details , such as Russia’s keen financial interest in keeping Iranian energy out of the European market, and China’s desire to use Iran sanctions as a geopolitical bargaining chip.
But the part about the Muslim Brotherhood is most interesting. If anything, he is selling Hillary Clinton’s “working relationship” with Egyptian Islamists short, because she used American diplomatic leverage for Morsi’s benefit even before he got elected, warning Egyptians about “backtracking” to a military regime at a key moment of the post-Mubarak campaign, when Morsi was running against a former member of Hosni Mubarak’s military. There have long been rumors that more subtle forms of U.S. “ pressure ” were used to secure Morsi’s office, as well.
Then again, in public pronouncements, Clinton called Hosni Mubarak’s tottering regime “stable” and cautioned her Obama Administration colleagues against “pushing a longtime partner out the door.”
A few days ago, declassified State Department documents revealed Clinton’s talking points for a 2012 meeting with Morsi hailed his election as a “milestone in Egypt’s transition to democracy,” and stated that she was to offer the Muslim Brotherhood leader “technical expertise and assistance from both the U.S. government and private sector to support his economic and social programs.”
Clinton was also supposed to privately offer Morsi assistance with his police and security forces, which would be conducted “quite discreetly.”
After Morsi was gone, she declared herself exasperated with Egyptian political culture and declared herself a cynical “realist.” That is pretty much the opposite of what everyone in the Obama Administration was saying while the “Arab Spring” was in the midst of springing its little surprises on autocratic but America-aligned (or at least America-fearing) regimes, which we were all supposed to feel guilty about selfishly supporting for so long.
As for Clinton’s superb working relationship with Morsi, that eventually ended with Morsi’s wife railing against Clinton for supposedly dismissing him as “a simpleton who was unfit for the presidency,” and threatening to publish letters from Clinton to Morsi that would damage the former U.S. Secretary of State. Meanwhile, Mohammed Morsi is developing a solid working relationship with the Egyptian penitentiary system .
Egypt has one of those icky military governments again, and while it won’t have fond memories of Hillary Clinton’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood regime, it will most likely work with whoever wins the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Therefore, a prospective President Hillary Clinton probably won’t suffer too much from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appalling lapses in judgment.
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BEIJING — For years, China’s president, Xi Jinping, has talked the talk of economic reform. In January, he dazzled business executives in Davos, Switzerland, with a defense of international trade. Last month, he urged officials to “seize hold of reform and make it an even bigger priority. ” And the annual meeting of China’s legislature, starting Sunday, appears sure to echo that theme. But as Mr. Xi nears the end of his first term as Communist Party leader, his record has not lived up to the bold statements, critics say. The question now is whether he was ever really serious about taking the painful steps needed to repair the economy, or merely paying lip service to reform to justify his tightening grip on power. Mr. Xi’s defenders argue that he had to consolidate his authority first, before he could make the potentially wrenching decisions needed to open markets and trim bloated industries. With weak growth in the rest of the world and demand for China’s exports flagging, they contend, there was little margin for error and caution was warranted. The proof will be in the second term, they say, when Mr. Xi finally has the power to push through difficult economic adjustments. Mr. Xi is already China’s most powerful leader in decades. He has repeatedly used his authority, though, to undercut reforms he says are necessary, ordering intervention in the stock market, for example, and restrictions on the movement of money abroad and property prices. The problem, critics say, is that Mr. Xi’s demands for centralized control, stability and political conformity have often drowned out hesitant steps toward economic liberalization. And his second term is likely to bring more of the same, they say. “I’m highly skeptical, since I don’t think it’s a lack of authority or the opposition of special interests that have kept him from moving in that direction so far,” said Scott Kennedy, the director of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Rather, he’s operated according to his instincts in the face of economic challenges. And I don’t expect his instincts or those challenges to change much. ” Many economists, executives and policy advisers in Beijing do not disguise their disappointment about what has happened to Mr. Xi’s promises of an audacious overhaul of the economy. In 2013, he and his premier, Li Keqiang, laid out big plans to give markets and entrepreneurs more room to grow. The market would play a “decisive role” in allocating resources, Mr. Xi declared. Wu Jinglian, one of China’s most prominent economists, said at a recent meeting in Beijing that “the direction of reform laid out in these documents is clear, and the measures are right, but the problem has been implementation. ” “Putting it relatively tactfully,” he continued, “it hasn’t been vigorous enough. ” Economists abroad have been less tactful. “Virtually across the board, China is falling short of its own objectives for reform,” said Daniel H. Rosen, a founding partner of the Rhodium Group, an economic research company. “Even the G. D. P. growth that we have is ever more reliant on debt, and this is a consequence of falling short on reform. ” To be sure, the Xi years have not been static. China has loosened controls on its domestic bond market, allowing more foreign participation. The policy that limited most urban households to one child was abolished and replaced by a “two child” policy and even measures to encourage couples to have two children. Mr. Li, the premier, has made it his mission to cut down paperwork and regulations that weigh on small businesses. “I feel that a lot of changes actually have happened,” said Jianguang Shen, a China economist in the Hong Kong office of Mizuho Securities. “People expect faster, radical reform after the party congress” late this year, when Mr. Xi starts a second term as party leader. Some experts argue that Mr. Xi will then be politically secure and more willing to let his new team push through contentious changes, including cutting more excess industry, shedding jobs in ailing state companies and giving private businesses a bigger share of bank loans. With the economy still growing at an impressive 6. 7 percent last year, officials say the government has kept the right balance between change and stability. “The boat sails best when the winds and waves are steady,” Liu Shiyu, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a news conference last Sunday. “Without stable market conditions, no reform can make progress, and there may even be reversal of the strides that we’ve made. ” But even many who accept China’s model of gradual, reform say that under Mr. Xi, promised changes have stalled or been reversed. Mr. Xi, who dominates economic policy and much else besides, has flinched from the harder changes needed for prosperity and has yet to find a way to keep the economy growing without administering ever larger injections of debt. And while many economists, including some of Mr. Xi’s top advisers, continue to lobby openly for more policies, the government has also become less tolerant of those who directly and publicly criticize it for not doing enough, including by censoring them on social media. The economy has been slowing steadily and has required larger and larger amounts of debt each year just to avoid a much steeper slowdown. It is Mr. Xi’s own policies, though, that raise the biggest questions about his commitment to change. As more and more capital has left China, the government has restored restrictions on moving money abroad. While taxes have been increased on service industries, promises to introduce a property tax and other fiscal changes have made little headway. That logjam has left the finances of local governments in many cities dangerously dependent on land sales for revenue. Mr. Xi also promised to make state corporations leaner and more focused on achieving financial health in their core businesses. But he also demanded that party committees have a bigger say in company decisions, leaving plenty of room for party officials to undercut corporate reorganization. “On the one hand, there’s the talk of strengthening reform. On the other hand, all the agencies are stressing enhancing leadership by the party,” Li Weisen, an economist at Fudan University in Shanghai who advocates market liberalization, said in a telephone interview. “We’ve maybe issued over a hundred of these reform documents,” he added, “but which ones have really been implemented, including fiscal reforms?” Business leaders say more should be done to lighten their burdens. Liu Hanyuan, the chairman of Tongwei Group, a large manufacturer of solar panels based in Chengdu, in southwest China, used a Chinese aphorism to describe the burden of regulations, taxes and local fees on Chinese companies: “We should abandon the idea that as many fees and taxes should be collected as possible. We should keep enough water to raise fish. ” Some of the initial hopes that Mr. Xi would turn out to be a market liberalizer were probably never realistic. The Chinese government’s idea of reform has never been the bonanza that some economists advocate. Even Deng Xiaoping, who first injected elements of capitalism into the Chinese economy in the 1980s, stressed that the government must retain control. His approach has delivered decades of growth that has lifted living standards for hundreds of millions of people while creating hundreds of billionaires. During the 1990s, President Jiang Zemin pressed ahead with changes that shut down thousands of struggling factories, encouraged private entrepreneurs to join the party and prepared for China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in late 2001. Yet he, too, remained committed to state ownership, and his successor, Hu Jintao, proved even more committed to steering development through state planning. Most experts expect Mr. Xi will stay much the same leader he has been for five years, unless slowing growth and rising debt produce a shock. Yet the cost of inaction could be an increasingly inefficient economy. “If the government keeps meddling in the markets to ensure growth, then this road will become impassable,” said Mr. Li, the professor in Shanghai. “The problems won’t be solved and will only get worse. ” | 1 |
Although the California Department of Water Resources is claiming Oroville Dam is safer because the water level has fallen by 52 feet, that feat was largely accomplished by 9 upstream reservoirs that are all expected to flood as another Pineapple Express brings 48 hours of heavy rain through Wednesday. [The last winter storm caused an evacuation of about 200, 000 people downstream from Lake Oroville due to the threat of a catastrophic failure of the dam. Although most Americans have been told that the fissure in the side of the dam has been stabilized by opening up the spillway to drain the lake, and helicopters have dropped huge bags of rocks in a crack, the water flow into Oroville Lake has been restricted by overfilling the upstream reservoirs. The nine State Water Project and PGE earthen reservoirs on the Upper Feather River Watershed that feed directly into Lake Oroville were already at maximum capacity prior to the new storms. This next storm is expected to bring inches of rain in the valleys. But the Central Sierras are expecting 10 inches of snow and rain over the next 7 days. With all the higher elevation reservoirs brimming, Supervisor Kevin Goss from mountainous Plumas County told the Sacramento Bee, “I’m watching, and I’m worried. ” Flooding from the last set of storms shut down escape in all directions in his Indian Valley district. The towns of Greenville and Taylorsville were isolated, and sewer systems for the sparsely populated county suffered extensive damage as many roads washed out. The flooding from the new storm is expected to be much more serious. In addition, tRelatively warm temperatures of up to 49 degrees in nearby Tahoe caused snowmelt this week. With the “Snow Water Equivalents” for this time of year in the Central Sierras at 183 percent and the Southern Sierras at 205 percent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that the mountains could see significant runoff. The total capacity of the upstream dams is about 400, 000 acre feet, or about one tenth the capacity of Lake Oroville. Last week, the upstream reservoirs were allowed to fill in an effort to take pressure of Oroville Dam. But with the dams full, virtually 100 percent of the rain and runoff from the coming storms will flow into Oroville Lake. Despite the upstream restricting of water flow, Lake Oroville added over 1 million acre feet of water in three days during the last storm. Engineers from the California Department of Water Resources hope that a combination of releasing 800, 000 acre feet of water from the lake will be enough to prevent another Oroville Dam flood. | 1 |
Camera Catches Hillary’s Sick Hidden Message To Christian Voters Posted on October 27, 2016 by Prissy Holly in Politics Share This
Democrats are constantly attacking Christianity while making their disdain for anything holy abundantly clear. Evidence of their godless agenda was on full display during the Democratic National convention, when they removed all references to God. It should come as no surprise what Hillary was caught doing at a campaign event, which clearly solidifies the true evil nature of the Democratic Party.
Like it or not, our country was founded on Christian principles. “In God we trust” is not only printed on all of our currency, but references to God are throughout the Constitution, as our Founding Fathers intertwined their faith with our founding documents. Liberals loathe this fact, and many have made it their life mission to erase God from everything in our country, as evidenced by their constant barrage on our faith.
At a Democratic presidential rally in May, one of Hillary’s little evil minions took the stage to introduce Hillary to the crowd. But when the unnamed woman began using lines of our Pledge of Allegiance to weave with her pro-Hillary rhetoric, she decided to omit two little words, as a blatant slap in the face to God.
âOnly Hillary can bring us together as one nation⌠Und⌠Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,â the woman said, while partially quoting the US Pledge of Allegiance.
This demented woman intentionally removed “under God” from our nation’s pledge, but how Hillary reacted was even more disturbing, as she immediately begins to nod and smile in agreement of this woman’s omission. Watch her choke on "Under God"&"indivisible"
— NEEDYđLatina4Trump (@tteegar) October 25, 2016
How sickening. Liberals will not be fully satisfied until they completely destroy our country with their vile agenda. If Hillary gets elected, we’ll soon have the most godless and corrupt person on the planet driving our country even further down the path of darkness and destruction.
At this point in our nation’s history, it’s imperative that we don’t just sit idly by and allow these things to go on. We have to get loud and aggressively fight back when we see darkness slipping in, whether that be at our children’s schools, in our government, or in our presidential candidates. | 0 |
On Aug. 4, 1997, Jeanne Calment passed away in a nursing home in France. The Reaper comes for us all, of course, but he was in no hurry for Mrs. Calment. She died at age 122, setting a record for human longevity. Jan Vijg doubts we will see the likes of her again. True, people have been living to greater ages over the past few decades. But now, he says, we have reached the upper limit of human longevity. “It seems highly likely we have reached our ceiling,” said Dr. Vijg, an expert on aging at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “From now on, this is it. Humans will never get older than 115. ” Dr. Vijg and his graduate students Xiao Dong and Brandon Milholland published the evidence for this pessimistic prediction on Wednesday in the journal Nature. It’s the latest volley in a debate among scientists about whether there’s a natural barrier to the human life span. Leading figures in the debate greeted the new study with strong — and opposing — reactions. “It all tells a very compelling story that there’s some sort of limit,” said S. Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has made a similar argument for over 25 years. James W. Vaupel, the director of the Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, has long rejected the suggestion that humans are approaching a life span limit. He called the new study a travesty. “It is disheartening how many times the same mistake can be made in science and published in respectable journals,” he said. Dr. Vaupel bases his optimism on the trends in survival since 1900. A child born in the United States in 1900 had an average life expectancy just short of 50 years. An American child born today can expect to live on average to age 79. Japan’s average life expectancy at birth has risen the most of any country so far, to 83 years. But when Dr. Vijg and his students looked closely at the data on survival and mortality, they saw something different. The scientists charted how many people of varying ages were alive in a given year. Then they compared the figures from year to year, in order to calculate how fast the population grew at each age. The portion of society has been old people, Dr. Vijg found. In France in the 1920s, for example, the group of women was the . As average life expectancy lengthened, this peak shifted as well. By the 1990s, the group of Frenchwomen was the . If that trend had continued, the group today might well be the . Instead, the increases slowed down and appear to have stopped. When Dr. Vijg and his students looked at data from 40 countries, they found the same overall trend. The shift toward growth in populations started slowing in the 1980s about a decade ago, it stalled. This might have occurred, Dr. Vijg and his colleagues said, because humans finally have hit an upper limit to their longevity. To further test this possibility, the researchers analyzed the International Database on Longevity, assembled by Dr. Vaupel and his colleagues. It contains detailed reports on 534 people who have lived to extremely old age. Dr. Vijg and his colleagues combed through the data, noting the year that each person in the database died, and charted the greatest age that someone had reached in each year since the 1960s. In 1968, the oldest age attained was 111. By the 1990s, that figure had increased to around 115. But then this trend stopped, too. With rare exceptions like Mrs. Calment, no one has lived beyond 115 years. The stall is evident not just among the . “When you look at the person — and the third and the fourth and the fifth — the trend is always the same,” Dr. Vijg said. On the researchers’ graph, Mrs. Calment is “clearly an outlier,” Dr. Vijg said. He and his students also calculated how likely it would be for someone to live much past her, given current trends. The verdict: practically nil. “You’d need 10, 000 worlds like ours to have the chance that there would be one human who would become 125 years,” Dr. Vijg said. Given the data, the scientists predict the future will look a lot like the present. “We expect that the oldest person alive will be around 115 years for the foreseeable future,” said Mr. Milholland, who worked with Dr. Vijg on the study. Scientists have long debated whether there’s a limit to life span — not just for humans, but for any species. Only now, thanks to the long increase in average life expectancy, are people living long enough to hit the ceiling, Dr. Vijg said. But Dr. Vaupel points out that in some countries, such as Japan, the cohort enjoying the fastest growth is continuing to shift older. As for the world records for life span, Dr. Vaupel argued that Dr. Vijg had failed to use the most powerful statistical methods available to analyze the data. On the other hand, Leonard P. Guarente, a professor of biology at M. I. T. praised the new study, saying it confirms an intuition he has developed over decades of research on aging. “This paper is a good dose of medicine, if you’ll pardon the expression, for those who would say there is no limit to human life span,” Dr. Guarente said. Starting in the late 19th century, average life expectancy started to rise because fewer children were dying. In recent decades, adults have also enjoyed better health. Some of those improvements have come from quitting smoking and having better diets. Antibiotics and drugs for chronic disorders like heart disease have also helped. But all of the improvements of modern life, Dr. Guarente and others argue, have not turned back the underlying biological process of aging. Based on his own experimental research, Dr. Vijg describes aging as the accumulation of damage to DNA and other molecules. Our bodies can slow the process by repairing some of this damage. But in the end it’s too much to fix. “At some point everything goes wrong, and you collapse,” Dr. Vijg said. The best hope for our species is not to extend our life spans, Dr. Vijg argues, but to lengthen our years of healthy living — with healthy habits and perhaps drugs that can repair some of the cellular damage that comes with time. “There’s a good chance to improve health span — that’s the most important thing,” Dr. Vijg said. | 1 |
out of america
good bye | 0 |
4 Replies
Jonathan Turley – It appears that that “ basket of deplorables ” was a bit larger than Hillary Clinton expected. I was up to 4 am at Fox participating in the coverage of the election from New York. This was my fourth such presidential election as part a media team and it was fascinating to watch [results] unfold at the campaign headquarters at Fox.
History will judge the decisions of Democrats leaders in this election. As I have previously written, the Democratic National Committee and establishment (including allies in the media) did everything they could to engineer the election of Hillary Clinton. While they had an extremely popular candidate in Bernie Sanders as well as Vice President Joe Biden, they insisted on advancing Clinton despite her being deeply disliked and the ultimate symbol of the establishment that the public was rallying against.
As the close race indicated, the selection of a Sanders or Biden would have likely produced a sweep of both the White House and the Senate for the Democrats. Instead, they lost them both by forcing voters to vote for someone with record negatives.
Voters were clear that they did not want Clinton, but the Democrats assumed that the “lesser of two evils” approach would again prevail. They were wrong. Many people voted for third party candidates and many people on the fence refused to pick the candidate most associated with the establishment and the status quo.
I expect that history will judge the work of figures like Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and Donna Brazile harshly in the roles that they played and more generally in the failure of Democratic leaders to heed the clear demand from voters for a change in leadership. Hillary Clinton was a talented and historic nominee. However, she was also the very symbol of the establishment and heavily laden with the type of associations that the public was clearly reacting against.
The wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania shows precisely how reckless and cynical the DNC strategy proved to be. Clinton won only 18 states and the District of Columbia, though it did earn her 242 electoral votes. Now for the first time in decades, the Democrats have handed a Republican president both houses of Congress. They solved gridlock but not in the way that they had hoped.
I was astonished to see Clinton decline to speak to her supporters who had wait so loyally at their campaign headquarters. While she did concede over the telephone to Trump, I thought it was bad form not to come down to the headquarters and address the nation and her supporters. They worked incredibly hard and the loss was a terrible blow for them. They deserved better in my view and I felt truly sorry for both their disappointment and effective abandonment at that moment.
Looking at the results coming into the headquarters, it was clear that no further “counting” would change the result as Clinton’s telephone call affirmed a short while later. It is the final obligation of a candidate in a presidential campaign to be with your supporters and show the nation that the transition of power would proceed, as it always has, in an orderly fashion. It was highly ironic given the well-founded criticism of the statement of Trump that he might not accept the results of the election — a view driven home by Chris Wallace (who was the gold standard for moderators in these election debates).
The greatest loser in this election was the mainstream media. As I previously discussed , I believe that Trump did bring much of the negative coverage on himself. However, I saw many journalists discard any semblance of neutrality in their coverage, as vividly shown in Wikileaks emails of coordination with the Clinton campaign. The priority for the media should be a serious reexamination of its coverage in this election.
In the end, the public wanted change and they got it. The fact is that many of the public has long felt that they no longer controlled their government and they were right. That is what makes this so revolutionary and transformative for American politics. Whatever a Trump Administration may hold, it will be shock to the system and that is precisely what tens of millions of Americans wanted. SF Source Jonathan Turley | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday commuted all but four months of the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst convicted of a 2010 leak that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted Mr. Obama’s administration and brought global prominence to WikiLeaks, the recipient of those disclosures. The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to kill herself last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the men’s military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction. At the same time that Mr. Obama commuted the sentence of Ms. Manning, a enlisted soldier at the time of her leaks, he also pardoned James E. Cartwright, the retired Marine general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who pleaded guilty to lying about his conversations with reporters to F. B. I. agents investigating a leak of classified information about cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear program. The two acts of clemency were a remarkable final step for a president whose administration carried out an unprecedented criminal crackdown on leaks of government secrets. Depending on how they are counted, the Obama administration has prosecuted either nine or 10 such cases, more than were charged under all previous presidencies combined. In addition, Mr. Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was part of a Puerto Rican nationalist group that carried out a string of bombings in the late 1970s and early 1980s the other members of that group had long since been freed. Mr. Obama also granted 63 other pardons and 207 other commutations, mostly for drug offenders. Under the terms of the commutation announced by the White House on Tuesday, Ms. Manning is set to be freed on May 17 of this year rather than in 2045. A senior administration official said the delay was part of a standard transition period for commutations to time served, and was designed to allow for such steps as finding a place for Ms. Manning to live after her release. The commutation also relieved the Defense Department of the difficult responsibility of Ms. Manning’s incarceration as she pushes for treatment for her gender dysphoria, including sex reassignment surgery, that the military has no experience providing. But the move was sharply criticized by several prominent Republicans, including the chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who called her leaks “espionage” and said they had put American troops and the country at risk. Speaker Paul D. Ryan called it “outrageous. ” “President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their crimes,” he said in a statement. But in a joint statement, Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward — two lawyers who have been representing Ms. Manning in appealing her conviction and sentence, and who filed the commutation application — praised the decision. “Ms. Manning is the in the history of the United States,” they said. “Her sentence for disclosing information that served the public interest and never caused harm to the United States was always excessive, and we’re delighted that justice is being served in the form of this commutation. ” In recent days, the White House had signaled that Mr. Obama was seriously considering granting Ms. Manning’s commutation application, in contrast to a pardon application submitted on behalf of the other leaker of the era, Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who disclosed archives of surveillance files and is living as a fugitive in Russia. Asked about the two clemency applications on Friday, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, discussed the “pretty stark difference” between Ms. Manning’s case for mercy and Mr. Snowden’s. While their offenses were similar, he said, there were “some important differences. ” “Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing,” he said. “Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy. ” Mr. Earnest also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were “damaging to national security,” the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were “far more serious and far more dangerous. ” (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely “secret” level.) Ms. Manning was still known as Bradley Manning when she deployed with her unit to Iraq in late 2009. There, she worked as a intelligence analyst helping her unit assess insurgent activity in the area it was patrolling, a role that gave her access to a classified computer network. She copied hundreds of thousands of military incident logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which, among other things, exposed abuses of detainees by Iraqi military officers working with American forces and showed that civilian deaths in the Iraq war were probably much higher than official estimates. The files she copied also included about 250, 000 diplomatic cables from American embassies showing sensitive deals and conversations, dossiers detailing intelligence assessments of Guantánamo detainees held without trial, and a video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in which two Reuters journalists were killed, among others. She decided to make all these files public, as she wrote at the time, in the hope that they would incite “worldwide discussion, debates and reforms. ” WikiLeaks disclosed them — working with traditional news organizations including The New York Times — bringing notoriety to the group and its founder, Julian Assange. The disclosures set off a frantic scramble as Obama administration officials sought to minimize any potential harm, including getting to safety some foreigners in dangerous countries who were identified as having helped American troops or diplomats. Prosecutors, however, presented no evidence that anyone had been killed because of the leaks. At her Ms. Manning confessed in detail to her actions and apologized, saying she had not intended to put anyone at risk and noting that she had been “dealing with a lot of issues” at the time she made her decision. Testimony showed that she had been in a mental and emotional crisis as she came to grips, amid the stress of a war zone, with the fact that she was not merely gay but had gender dysphoria. She had been behaving erratically, including angry outbursts and lapsing into catatonia midsentence. At one point, she had emailed a photograph of herself in a woman’s wig to her supervisor. Prosecutors said that because the secret material was made available for publication on the internet, anyone, including Al Qaeda, could read it. And they accused Ms. Manning of treason, charging her with multiple counts under the Espionage Act, as well as with “aiding the enemy,” a potential capital offense, although they said they would not seek her execution. Ms. Manning confessed and pleaded guilty to a lesser version of those charges without any deal to cap her sentence. But prosecutors pressed forward with a trial and won convictions on the more serious versions of those charges a military judge acquitted her of “aiding the enemy. ” In her commutation application, Ms. Manning said she had not imagined that she would be sentenced to the “extreme” term of 35 years, a term for which there was “no historical precedent. ” (There have been only a handful of leak cases, and most sentence are one to three years.) After her sentencing, Ms. Manning announced that she was transgender and changed her name to Chelsea. The military, under pressure from a lawsuit filed on her behalf by Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, has permitted her to partly transition to life as a woman, including giving her hormones and letting her wear women’s undergarments and light cosmetics. But it has not let her grow her hair longer than male military standards, citing security risks, and Ms. Manning said she had yet to be permitted to see a surgeon about the possibility of sex reassignment surgery. Until recently, the military discharged transgender soldiers. In June, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter changed that policy and said the military would instead provide treatment for them, eventually including such surgery if doctors said it was necessary. Donald J. Trump mocked that change as excessively “politically correct,” raising the possibility that he will rescind it. But even if he does, Ms. Manning will soon no longer be subject to the military’s control. | 1 |
As negotiations between Britain and the EU over Brexit get underway, a senior German politician has declared that a “European Army” is inevitable.[ Bartels, the parliamentary commissioner for the Armed Forces, insisted: “In the end, there will be a European Army. ” Bartel alleged the system of national armies accountable to national governments was “disorganised, technically fragmented and duplicate structures unnecessarily”. He claimed Europe’s peoples “do not want to go down the solitary national path anymore. Not in Germany, not in the Netherlands, not in the Czech Republic and not in Italy. ” He added: “Every step in the right direction [towards an EU army] is important. ” Bartel’s comments follow European Commission President Juncker announcing a European Defence Action Plan, amongst other measures to deepen EU military integration. In the very long run, we will need a European army. Because we have to be credible when it comes to foreign policy #wahlarena #withJuncker, — Juncker (@JunckerEU) May 20, 2014, Eurosceptic groups such as Veterans for Britain, which campaigned for Brexit under the chairmanship of Falklands War hero Major Julian Thompson, has repeatedly warned against the dangers of Britain becoming embroiled in these plans despite its formal departure from the bloc. Towards the end of 2016, Thompson warned that Government officials were signing Britain up to military integration schemes so ambitious that he considered it tantamount to “the UK joining the single currency in its last two years of EU membership”. “The plans use all means at the EU’s disposal to encroach on every single area of UK defence planning,” he said. “Policy, procurement, funding, intelligence services, command structure and defence research are all appropriated by these EU plans. ” Juncker has been binding the UK into clever and entangling military plans . UK gov has so far acquiesced. pic. twitter. — Veterans for Britain (@VeteransBritain) June 11, 2017, “British ministers have been creating a labyrinth from which we will need to escape,” said Veterans for Britain spokesman David Banks. “They have agreed to these vast EU plans while the UK is still obliged to comply as a and the Prime Minister will be given yet more to sign off on Thursday. “It is time for ministers to rein in these approvals and to allow MPs to discuss how much control the country wants to give away. Having left the EU we should be giving nothing away, but focusing on our NATO relationships with European partners instead. ” Remember when they talk of ”European sovereignty” the UK has signed up to all EU defence agreements since . pic. twitter. — Veterans for Britain (@VeteransBritain) June 11, 2017, As recently as March 2017, the then French President François Hollande was insisting “the UK, even outside the EU, should be associated with [EU military integration]”. Hollande protege and current President Emmanuel Macron is also an enthusiast for the process of unification. | 1 |
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the attack at Ohio State University, calling the student who drove his car into pedestrians and then slashed people with a butcher knife a “soldier” of the terrorist group. A day after the assault injured 11 people, local and federal law enforcement agencies were searching for evidence to determine whether it was an act of terrorism and whether the assailant acted alone, while the large Somali immigrant community here denounced the attack and braced for a possible backlash. The attacker, identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Ohio State student, was shot and killed by a police officer. The Islamic State, which has urged Muslims to carry out attacks in the West, released a statement on its news wire, via the messaging app Telegram, that included the same stock phrases it has used in previous claims. Although there was no immediate evidence that Mr. Artan had declared allegiance to any terrorist group or claimed allegiance to one, the vast majority of attacks claimed this way by the Islamic State have eventually been shown to at least have been inspired by the group’s propaganda. Shortly before the attack, the student had warned on social media about what he called mistreatment of Muslims, NBC News reported. If the United States wants “Muslims to stop carrying lone wolf attacks, then make peace with ‘dawla in al sham,’” Mr. Artan was said to have written on a Facebook page that has since been taken down, referring to the Islamic State’s territory in Syria and Iraq. In the same post, he wrote, “Every single Muslim who disapproves of my actions is a sleeper cell, waiting for a signal. I am warning you Oh America. ” Mr. Artan was admitted to the United States in 2014 as the child of a refugee, his mother, and before that he lived for seven years in Pakistan, federal law enforcement officials said. Catholic Charities of Dallas said Tuesday that investigators had contacted the group because it had supplied “shelter, clothing and other basic humanitarian services for a short time in 2014” to a person who might have been a family member of the attacker. In Columbus, Mr. Artan lived with his mother, several siblings and possibly other family members crowded into a townhouse apartment in the southwest part of the city. Leaders of local mosques and Somali community groups said they did not know him or his family. On Tuesday, the police and federal agents could be seen entering and leaving the apartment, and questioning other residents of the complex. “They just seemed like a normal family,” said Joe Brickner, a neighbor. “They always parked right here, that’s the only thing weird about them,” he said, pointing to a fire hydrant, “like they didn’t understand no rules. ” Mr. Artan, who was in his first semester studying management at Ohio State, earned an associate degree with honors this year at Columbus State Community College. Ohio State said he was 18, but investigators say there are conflicting records, and he might have been older. The university police said they had never encountered Mr. Artan before Monday, and local court records show no cases involving him. In August, he was featured in The Lantern, a campus publication, saying that he had not found a place for a Muslim to pray at Ohio State, and that he was afraid of how people would react if he prayed in the open “with everything that’s going on in the media. ” He voiced a similar concern at Columbus State, a fellow student recalled. “He didn’t talk a lot, but when he did, it was about his beliefs,” and was at times “a little preachy,” said Myranda Thompson, a Columbus State student who was Mr. Artan’s partner for a project in a sociology class. “You could tell he had a passion for his religion. I remember him being upset having to pray around here in the cafeteria,” and a concern about how others would see it. Even so, “He was always smiling and seemed happy,” and she had no sense that he might snap, she said. “Going to a bigger college like O. S. U. there were more people to pick on him he may have had a breaking point. ” Other Somalis and Muslims said this week that Mr. Artan’s complaints about a place to pray, or an adverse reaction, rang hollow. “It’s a nonsense excuse,” said Mahamud Kassin, a math teacher in Columbus who graduated from Ohio State in 2014. “Every library has a place you can worship. ” Jibril Mohamed, a lecturer in Somali language and culture at Ohio State, and adviser to the Somali Students Association, said he had never encountered Mr. Artan, but he spoke with a student who was taking an accounting class with him. “He said he was a quiet, intelligent young man, he was the kind of guy who knows his content before class, he asks the right questions,” he said. “All of a sudden for him to attack people and lose his life, it makes no sense. ” Over three decades, millions of people have fled Somalia, a country racked by civil wars and terrorism. The Columbus area has the Somali population in the United States, after the . Paul area, estimated by the Somali Community Association of Ohio at 38, 000 people. “We have not had any serious incidents up until now, so this is frightening,” Mr. Mohamed said. “Many of the young Somali people on campus are really scared. ” Nabeel Alauddin, a president of the university’s Muslim Students’ Association, said the attack worried him “because it is getting to be increasingly challenging to be an American Muslim. ” But as a Buckeye, he said, he was angry because “this really was an attack on student safety. ” On Tuesday afternoon, three victims remained hospitalized, and one who was released recounted the attack at a news conference. William Clark, an emeritus professor of materials science and engineering, said he was among several people standing outside Watts Hall, which had been evacuated because of a fire alarm. They were about to the building, when “I suddenly heard a shout and then this tremendous crash,” he said, as a silver car drove onto the sidewalk, and slammed into a concrete and brick planter. “It clipped the back of my right leg, and basically flipped me up in the air and I landed on concrete. ” Officials have said that Mr. Artan got out of the car and began slashing people with a butcher knife, and ignored commands by Alan Horujko, a university police officer, to drop the knife. The officer fatally shot him. “I never heard the assailant say anything,” Professor Clark said. The entire episode seemed to last just “15 to 30 seconds,” he said, but he and others, unsure if it was over, went inside and took shelter in a basement laboratory. He did not realize he had two deep lacerations above his right ankle until a student pointed out that he had left “footprints of blood all the way down the hall. ” The attack put the sprawling campus on lockdown for about an hour and a half, as people barricaded themselves in academic buildings and dorms. The claim of responsibility “doesn’t prove that there is a connection to the Islamic State, but it increases the probability that there was one,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. In its propaganda, the Islamic State has stressed that supporters do not need to plan complex attacks, explicitly calling on them to commit violence with cars, knives or whatever else is at hand. Hours after the attack, Telegram channels run by Islamic State supporters referred to the assailant as “brother” and used an Arabic hashtag that translates to #OhioAttack. The statement on Amaq, the Islamic State’s news agency, said the attacker had acted “in response to calls to target the citizens of the international coalition. ” | 1 |
Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd said the presidency of Donald Trump was in “peril. ” Todd said,” President Trump has been in office for less than five months, and it’s fair to say that his presidency is now in some peril. News organizations led by The Washington Post reported this week that Mr. Trump is under investigation for possible obstruction of justice. “President struck back on Twitter seeming to acknowledging that that fact was true, but then a source close to his outside counsel unassisted that when President Trump said I am being investigating for firing the FBI director, that was not an acknowledgment that he was being investigated for firing the FBI director,” he added. Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
The medieval basilica of St Benedict in Norcia, the town closest to the epicentre, was among buildings destroyed. The Basilica of St. Benedict is destroyed, flattened by most recent earthquake. #Terremoto pic.twitter.com/GQDl64LhFn
— The Monks of Norcia (@monksofnorcia) October 30, 2016
An evacuation of buildings in the region deemed vulnerable to seismic activity last week, following strong aftershocks from August’s quake, may have saved lives.
Tremors from this latest earthquake were felt in the capital Rome, where the Metro system was shut down, and as far away as Venice in the north.
The head of the national civil protection agency, Fabrizio Curcio, said there had been extensive damage to many historic buildings but no deaths had been registered.
“About 20 people are injured. As far as people are concerned, the situation is positive, but many buildings are in a critical state in historic centres and there are problems with electricity and water supplies,” he added.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has promised that everything will be rebuilt, saying resources will be found.
“We are going through a really tough period,” he said. “We must not allow the profound pain, fatigue and stress that we have now to turn into resignation.”
Pope Francis mentioned the quake in his Sunday blessing in Rome’s St Peter’s Square.
“I’m praying for the injured and the families who have suffered the most damage, as well as for rescue and first-aid workers,” he said to loud applause.
According to Ansa the cathedral of Saint Maria Silver and the town hall were also reported to have been damaged along with the 4th century church in Rome commonly known as ‘St Paul’s Outside the Walls’.
The news agency reported that cornices fell and cracks appeared in the walls after the quake struck central Italy and shook many buildings in the capital. | 0 |
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