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Political activist and Hillary supporter Amal Clooney traveled to Texas to warn Americans about our elected President Donald J. Trump and his tough immigration policies. Maybe she didn’t get the memo…Trump’s tough immigration stance is what catapulted him to the top of the heap in the crowded pack of GOP primary contenders. It wasn’t too long ago that her arrogant liberal husband announced with great confidence, “There will never be a President Trump”.
Perhaps Amal should’ve traveled to some of the border towns if she wanted to get a clear picture of how illegal immigration is affecting our nation. Aliens crossing our borders illegally have destroyed the property of American ranchers, and threatened the safety and security of American citizens living in homes in or near the US -Mexican border towns…
Amal Clooney has warned that many of president-elect Trump’s proposals would be ‘violations of international law.’
Speaking at the Texas Conference For Women at the Austin Convention Center on Tuesday, the international human rights lawyer, and wife of George Clooney, said she had concerns about America’s reputation under the real estate mogul’s plans.
She noted that Trump’s comments during his campaign, ‘that there should be a religious test imposed on entering the U.S. or the fact that there should be state-sponsored torture or that families of suspected terrorists should all be killed — all of those things are violations of international human rights law and the values that underlie that.’
The 38-year-old wife said America’s reputation as a country with a strong human rights record and high moral standing was at risk.
‘I think there’s some concern from abroad as to, “Are these things actually going to happen?”, or is the U.S. going to lose some of the moral standing that it has internationally,’ according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Perhaps its time to put our nation’s security and sovereignty before we worry about what people in other countries around the world think of us…
Both Amal and her Hollywood actor husband George, a staunch Hillary Clinton supporter, have spoken out against Trump in the past.
Earlier this year, Amal Clooney called for Trump to be challenged on his extreme views.
Watch George Clooney here whine about press giving Trump too much favorable press:
‘When you listen to what the leading candidate on the Republican side has been saying about building walls, about excluding Mexicans and a complete shutdown of all Muslims entering in, and if you actually look at what he specifically said in that now infamous speech about Muslims, he kept saying, ‘They only want jihad. They don’t believe in our way of life. They don’t respect our system,” Clooney said. Via: Daily Mail | 0 |
A lawyer for Roger Ailes, the former chairman of Fox News, has sent a letter to New York magazine suggesting he might take legal action over its reporting about Mr. Ailes. Lauren Starke, a spokeswoman for the magazine, said that Charles J. Harder, who was Hulk Hogan’s lawyer in his successful lawsuit against Gawker Media, had contacted the magazine by email and asked it to preserve documents related to Mr. Ailes in preparation for a possible defamation claim. Mr. Harder sent the email on behalf of Mr. Ailes and his wife, Elizabeth, Ms. Starke said. The move was first reported by The Financial Times. Mr. Harder did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gabriel Sherman, a reporter for the magazine, has written extensively about Mr. Ailes and the sexual harassment allegations by female employees that resulted in his ouster in July as chairman of Fox News. On Friday, New York published a lengthy article by Mr. Sherman about Mr. Ailes and his downfall, and in July Mr. Sherman was the first to report that Rupert Murdoch and his sons, Lachlan and James, had decided to remove Mr. Ailes from his position. Mr. Sherman declined to comment on Mr. Harder’s request. The magazine said Mr. Sherman’s work “is and has been carefully reported. ” Mr. Harder, a Hollywood lawyer, has become a big name in media circles recently for taking on publications on behalf of clients. In March he won a $140 million judgment in favor of Hulk Hogan, the former professional wrestler whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, in an lawsuit against Gawker Media. That case was a professional breakout for Mr. Harder, who had previously been known for handling — and usually, settling — more routine rights’ enforcement cases for celebrities. After the trial, Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley entrepreneur, revealed that he had secretly financed Mr. Bollea’s lawsuit and other legal cases against Gawker. Mr. Harder is also representing Melania Trump, the wife of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, in a libel lawsuit filed last week against the publisher of The Daily Mail. The lawsuit was filed shortly after Mr. Harder sent letters to several publications, including The Daily Mail, Politico and Liberal America, threatening legal action if they did not retract articles that Ms. Trump said contained defamatory statements, including that she was once an escort. The Daily Mail retracted the article and issued an apology after the lawsuit was filed. | 1 |
A North Carolina fast food restaurant owner has apologized to the Raleigh Police Department after officers said the store’s employees sang NWA’s enforcement anthem, “F*ck tha Police,” while they dined on Friday. [A Facebook post claimed that the restaurant’s “manager sang along as well,” The News Observer reports. The viral social media message prompted David Harris, the owner of Smithfield’s Chicken ’N restaurant, to issue a stern apology and promise to “terminate anyone employed that doesn’t share our RESPECT of ALL law enforcement. ” On Saturday, a Facebook post on the Raleigh Police Department’s page said that the department “appreciates the long term and strong relationship it continues to have with Smithfield’s. ” Raleigh Police Protective Association union President Matthew Cooper also posted a Facebook message. “We really appreciate the support we have received from the incident involving Smithfield’s Chicken and BBQ,” Cooper’s message read. “We are confident that a positive resolution will occur as a result from our effort”: As recently as last July, rapper Ice Cube vowed to continue to perform the vulgar 1980s song. In the wake of fatal police shootings in Dallas, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the NWA rapper and actor told TMZ, “I ain’t gonna change nothing I do because I ain’t do nothing wrong. ” The profane “f*ck the police” refrain is often heard at Black Lives Matter rallies and is shouted during protests. Ice Cube performed “F*ck the Police” last July at the 2016 Le Festival d’été de Québec (Quebec City Summer Festival) just two days after Houston New Black Panther Party member Micah X Johnson shot and killed five officers in Dallas. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson. | 1 |
She is a with dimples, pink hair ribbons, a missing front tooth and halting English who first captured global attention three months ago with Twitter messages about bombs, death and despair in eastern Aleppo, the section of the Syrian city. The girl, Bana has since attracted more than 220, 000 followers on Twitter, where her account says it is managed by her mother, Fatemah, who also posts messages there. Bana’s Twitter followers include the author J. K. Rowling, who was so taken with her story of survival that she sent her Harry Potter . Western news organizations have produced articles and television segments extolling Bana’s pluckiness in the face of fear, and she was the subject of a New York Times column in October. So when Bana’s Twitter account, @AlabedBana, was deactivated last weekend as Syrian military forces advanced into eastern Aleppo, many worried that she had been killed — only to learn on Tuesday that the account had reappeared. And in a new posting on Wednesday, Bana’s account suggested Syrian ground troops had seized her neighborhood: Images of suffering children in Syria have occasionally punctured the world’s conscience even as it has grown accustomed to the violence of the country’s nearly conflict. Like Alan Kurdi, a Syrian whose drowned body was discovered on a beach in Turkey, and Omran Daqneesh, dazed and bloodied after his home in Aleppo was bombed, Bana has touched a nerve. But in an era of internet hoaxes, fabrications and the increased use of fake news around the world to further political agendas, Bana’s Twitter account has also raised some questions of veracity and authenticity. Her messages are sophisticated for a for example, particularly for one whose native language is not English. Others have disarming grammatical errors that invite sympathy: Some people have questioned whether the videos in which Bana speaks were rehearsed or altered. The inaccessibility of much of the Syria conflict to journalists, who often have no way of confirming the provenance of information directly, has amplified those concerns. According to Bana’s mother, who describes herself as a teacher of English and who has spoken with The New York Times via Skype and WhatsApp, the Twitter postings originated in eastern Aleppo, where Fatemah said she lived with Bana and her two younger children, Mohamed, 5, and Noor, 3. All appear in photographs and videos posted by the @AlabedBana account. But Bana is the only one who spends significant time on camera or who speaks to the audience in English. She appears in many of the clips to be reading from a card or to have memorized lines. Fatemah, who says she taught Bana to speak English, appears to be digitally astute in photographing and recording her daughter. However, a handful of videos on Bana’s account seem to have been filmed by local citizen journalists with cameras. Bana and family members also were shown in a documentary broadcast in France last month about Aleppo, produced by Sept à Huit, a leading French magazine. Antigovernment activists and doctors working in eastern Aleppo have corroborated, through Skype and WhatsApp, that Bana and her mother are who they say they are. But Bana’s Twitter account has also drawn an inordinate number of trolls and voices sympathetic to the Syrian government and its Russian backers, who assail Bana as a fraud. Some have called Bana’s father a violent jihadist affiliated with fighters ensconced in eastern Aleppo. Others have called Bana and her mother fictions created by the United States as a propaganda tool to malign the Syrian and Russian governments. There is some precedent for such cynicism, and a notable example also had a Syrian connection. In 2011, a woman who described herself as a lesbian blogger using the pseudonym Amina Arraf wrote about political persecution in Damascus, the capital, and suddenly disappeared. The “gay girl in Damascus,” as the blogger came to be known, turned out to be a American man from Georgia. Twitter has designated Bana’s account as “verified” — meaning that the company has established the authenticity of the account holder. Besides talking with Bana’s mother, The New York Times has been able to verify, through comparisons with satellite maps, that at least some videos posted from Bana’s Twitter account were filmed in Al Shaar, a neighborhood in eastern Aleppo. But it is unclear whether all of her Twitter posts — which could be put online from anywhere, by anyone with Bana’s password — originated in eastern Aleppo. Nor is it clear how many posts Bana has composed herself. Bana’s mother did not immediately respond to requests via WhatsApp for clarification on these questions. International aid advocates have expressed mixed feelings about Bana’s fame — satisfaction that she has increased global sympathy for child victims in Syria, but concern that her story, as presented on Twitter, may not be entirely accurate. “Whether it’s Bana, or Alan Kurdi, or Omran Daqneesh, they bring attention to an issue in a way that helps people visualize a little more clearly the situation of children,” said Sonia Khush, the Syria director of Save the Children. “In the case of this girl, I don’t know whether it’s true or fake in this age of social media,” she said. “But her living as a child in Aleppo is consistent with what we hear. The fear, the sounds of different airplanes and drones. They’re terrified and have trouble sleeping at night. ” Juliette S. Touma, a Unicef spokeswoman for the Middle East and North Africa, acknowledged that there was, in Bana’s case, “no way to verify where the tweets are coming from, or whether they’re coming from the girl or somewhere else. ” At the same time, Ms. Touma said, “there is something symbolic about the tweets that are coming out from Bana, or that account, in the sense that it highlights the story of children who are caught up in the crossfire — it’s not just one girl, it’s many boys and girls. ” Despite the questions surrounding Bana’s account, news organizations have embraced it as a window into the Syria conflict. When the account went dark over the weekend, some outlets reported its absence with breathless urgency. “Her Twitter account was deleted and nobody knows why,” CNN said. “Bana the girl whose tweets from eastern Aleppo in Syria captivated people around the world, appears to be in mortal danger,” CBS News said. Such reports underscore the phenomenon that Bana’s social media presence has become. Abdulkhafi Alhamdo, a prominent eastern Aleppo activist who knows the family, said via WhatsApp on Wednesday that Bana and her mother had temporarily halted their Twitter posts over the weekend for security reasons. “Her father said they are scared of regime revenge,” he said. “Regime has got agents here and spies. ” Some experts on news media ethics said that, despite the appeal of such a heartbreaking narrative — and with a young girl at its center, no less — news outlets had to approach the account with skepticism, and that some had fallen short. “It’s always a question of whether a is being used as a propaganda tool, and if so, by whom,” said Jane E. Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. “Sometimes we fall in love with a concept and basically ignore things that would undermine that concept, and ignore things that should be red flags. ” She added, “For me, my antenna always goes up when the story is this compelling. ” Kathleen Bartzen Culver, the director for the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of said some news outlets, including morning network news shows in the United States, seemed to have “suspended skepticism. ” “There are times when I will read or watch something when I will think, ‘I just don’t think we have our critical thinking hats on at the moment,’” she said. But she said that those questioning or denigrating Bana’s account on Twitter should be challenged, as well. “We can’t just question this source,” she said. “We also have to question the person accusing the source of being part of the propaganda scheme. ” | 1 |
It’s bright orange and yellow and about as long as your finger. It lives underwater in a limestone tube with an opening at the tip about as wide as a pencil eraser. It glues its home to hard surfaces and stays for the rest of its life. It’s a species of that may never have been seen before, and somehow it turned up in an artificial reef in the Florida Keys. On land, its table manners would not seem so polite. It shoots strings of mucus from its mantle — a footlike appendage hanging out of the tube’s opening — in slow motion, like some warped, weirdo, saltwater version of . It releases the strings into the current, forming a snotty web that it holds on to with its equivalent of a toothy tongue, trapping plankton and other ocean debris. Then it reels in whatever it has trapped, along with the snot. In a study published Wednesday in PeerJ, scientists have identified this new species of . They’ve named it Thylacodes vandyensis after the General Hoyt S. Vandenburg, a sunken, retired naval ship where tens of thousands of the snails live. If they spread elsewhere, the could damage the region’s living coral. The Vandy, as divers have nicknamed it, is among a number of large, retired ships sunk in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to provide new homes for ocean creatures and alternative diving spots. Researchers like Rüdiger Bieler, a curator at the Field Museum in Chicago and the lead author of the paper, monitor these artificial reefs to see what’s settling in. In 2014, during two dives, he and his colleagues found three of these . Now there are thousands. Dr. Bieler thinks the could indicate what kind of marine life is settling into the reefs. To make a terrestrial comparison: “Are we getting the native butterflies back, or are we just seeing feral cats?” he wonders. “It’s a new species, but we’re still not 100 percent sure where it’s coming from. ” The closest relatives of the previously undescribed are native to the Pacific Ocean. He speculates that these mollusks stowed away on a ship before taking advantage of the uninhabited artificial reefs: “There’s this real estate where there are nonlocal species, few predators and very little competition. ” Monitoring these creatures on the Vandy could help prevent their spread to natural reefs, where they could do great damage. Similar found in the Pacific and the Red Sea have been found to slow coral reef recovery by killing coral tissue and chasing off fish with a bioactive compound in their mucus. “When you have them in the living reef,” Dr. Bieler said, “there’s always this kind of death zone around them. ” | 1 |
She's a killer, a liar, a thief,
And she would be Commander in Chief.
But that moody old mare
Has a date with a chair.
The grifter will soon come to grief. | 0 |
Getty - Justin Sullivan The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR.
Surely, she can't be serious. No, this isn't a set-up to an Airplane! punchline, this appears to be life under an imminent Hillary Clinton regime.
It turns out that Secretary of State is not really all about being the nation's chief diplomat and top foreign policy aide to the president, but is rather a cozy career path for Democratic politicians who want to pad their resumes. Who knew?
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was an indisputable disaster. Leaving aside the clear violations with her private email server, which transmitted classified information , was potentially hacked , and put the nation's security at risk for Clinton's “ convenience ” here are a few more of her lowlights:
Completely misjudging the Arab Spring “democratic” movement
Gravely miscalculating with her “reset” policy and encouraging Russian aggression
Assessing Bashar al-Assad as a “ reformer ,” overseeing a disastrous Syrian policy
Failing to support the Iranian people during their freedom demonstration
Pushing to remove Gaddafi by force in Libya, only to leave it a failed state
Overseeing a Middle Eastern policy that culminated in the rise of ISIS
Failing to secure the Benghazi, Libya annex that was overrun by terrorists, leading to the death of four American servicement, then lying by blaming a Youtube video Image Credit: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
It goes on and on. But it gets worse. The reigns at the State Department were turned over to Senator John Kerry, whose testimony on the Vietnam war is notorious on the right. Kerry's tenure has been nothing short of feckless and laughable. No, seriously.
Vladimir Putin, for example, is actually laughing at Kerry's useless protestations against Russia's backing of Assad. Kerry was also a vocal supporter of the Iranian nuclear deal, and he is satisfied that the deal will keep the mullahs on good behavior, despite their venomous hatred of the United States and lengthy track record of lying.
The icing on the cake for this stretch of Democratic career politicians taking over the helm at State will culminate with Hillary Clinton's whispered preference for the job with current Vice President Joe Biden. Image Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
As reported by The Washington Examiner:
Vice President Joe Biden is at the top of the list for secretary of state if Hillary Clinton pulls out a win on Nov. 8.
A source close to Clinton's transition team told Politico on Thursday evening that the Democratic nominee is already making serious considerations when it comes to who would be part of a Clinton 2.0 Cabinet.
The hilarious part? Biden himself seems to be oblivious to the potential nod.
Biden himself is apparently unfamiliar with the news. Neither Clinton, a former secretary of state herself, nor her aides, have informed the former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman that he's most likely to oversee international affairs if she wins.
“He'd be great, and they are spending a lot of time figuring out the best way to try to persuade him to do it if she wins,” said the source familiar with the transition planning.
Though many are in disbelief about the report, there is one very plausible reason to believe that Biden very well could spend his sunset years at the State Department: And that's the reward for not running. https://t.co/10DepJ4x9B — Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) October 28, 2016
That's just the way that Democrats roll, nowadays. | 0 |
President Donald Trump has nominated Christopher Wray as the new FBI director. [“I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI,” the president announced on Twitter on Wednesday morning. “Details to follow. ” Wray served as the Associate Deputy Attorney General in former President George W. Bush’s administration and was promoted to the assistant attorney general for the criminal division, before he left to work in the private sector as a partner at the Washington law firm King Spalding. During his time in government, he oversaw the highly publicized Enron case and oversaw the legal aspects of the war on terror after according to King Spalding’s website. He also served as Governor Chris Christie’s personal attorney during the bridgegate scandal. Last week, Christie praised Wray as an “outstanding lawyer,” after it was revealed that he was under consideration. “He has absolute integrity and honesty, and I think that the president certainly would not be making a mistake if he asked Chris Wray to be FBI director,” Christie said. Trump’s choice earned praise from Norm Eisen, a Brookings Institute fellow and former ethics czar for former president Obama. “Good choice. Oversaw Enron case, which I also spent years of my life on,” Eisen wrote on Twitter. “He was very fair. I endorse. ” | 1 |
Border Patrol agents from the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley Sectors joined up to raid a stash house where 44 illegal immigrants were being warehoused. [The agents raided a stash house near Donna, Texas, located south of McAllen along the Rio Grande Border with Mexico. Agents also captured and arrested the smuggler who managed the human warehouse. The agents joined forces with Hidalgo County Precinct 1 Constable’s Office deputies, information provided to Breitbart Texas by U. S. Border Patrol officials. The law enforcement officials received a tip about suspicious activity at the house. After obtaining permission to search the home, the agents and deputies found that 44 people from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were being held in the home. Human smugglers frequently store their human cargo in what Border Patrol officials have described in the past as “deplorable” conditions. The women are often sexually assaulted or threatened while men are frequently beaten. They are oftentimes held for ransom as smugglers contact family members requesting additional funds to move their loved one forward along the smuggling trail, Breitbart Texas has reported in the past. “The outstanding work done by all involved is a great example of how our enforcement strategy, utilizing collaboration across the South Texas Corridor, is working,” Rio Grande Valley Sector Acting Chief Patrol Agent Raul Ortiz said in a written statement. “In this case, 44 illegal immigrants were spared from being held in a crammed stash house and a smuggler was apprehended. ” The 44 migrants were removed from the house and taken to the Weslaco Station for processing. The human smuggler, a Mexican national, was arrested and turned over for prosecution. “The callous disregard for human life in which these persons were subjected to and the inhumane conditions that they were placed in demonstrates how heartless these smugglers can be,” said Laredo Sector Chief Patrol Agent Mario Martinez. The joint operation, carried out by agents from the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley Sectors, is part of an Border Safety Initiative. The program is described as a humanitarian, strategy aimed at reducing migrant deaths. It also serves to educate the public in addition to informing potential illegal immigrants about the dangers of turning their lives or the lives of their children over to the ruthless cartel smugglers. 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 |
BANGKOK — The death on Thursday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose leadership helped bring stability to Thailand over the past seven decades, introduced a new era of uncertainty in a sharply divided nation. He was the only monarch most Thais had ever known, and his death set off widespread grief throughout the country. “His Majesty was a beloved and revered king,” said Prime Minister Prayuth head of the military junta that seized power in 2014. “He unified the hearts of all Thais. It is the greatest loss and despair in the lives of all Thais nationwide. ” King Bhumibol, 88, who ascended to the throne in 1946 and became the world’s monarch, helped balance rival political factions, at times giving his blessing to juntas that seized power from democratically elected governments, including the current leadership. His son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, who for years has spent most of his time in Germany and who has a reputation as a playboy, is expected to take the throne. It was unclear whether he would have the same moral authority to insert himself into the nation’s contentious politics. On Thursday evening, the crown prince unexpectedly said he was not ready to become king and requested more time to grieve the loss of his father, General Prayuth told reporters. The prince, who has been the royal heir since 1972, wants to wait until an appropriate time to take on the mantle of monarch, the prime minister said. Thailand’s National Assembly, which had been expected to crown a new king, convened in the evening. Members stood in silence for nine minutes — the king was the ninth in his dynasty — but adjourned abruptly soon afterward without taking further action. Thai news media reported that Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd, the government’s chief spokesman, asked all TV channels to show only the government channel’s programming during a mourning period. Throngs of people had gathered at Siriraj Hospital on Thursday afternoon as rumors of the king’s death spread. Many wore pink, the color thought to bolster his health, and knelt on the ground to pray for his recovery. At one point, the crowd chanted, “Long live the king. ” By then, it was too late. President Obama said in a statement that King Bhumibol, who was born in Massachusetts, was a “close friend” of the United States. “His Majesty was a tireless champion of his country’s development and demonstrated unflagging devotion to improving the standard of living of the Thai people,” Mr. Obama said. “With a creative spirit and a drive for innovation, he pioneered new technologies that have rightfully received worldwide acclaim. ” General Prayuth said flags would fly at for 30 days and asked the public to refrain from holding celebrations during that period. Government officials will be in a state of mourning for one year, he said. “Even though we are in sorrow and tears are in our faces, our beloved Thailand and the monarchy must continue,” the prime minister said during an appearance broadcast on all television channels. “Do not let the death derail his majesty’s determination to see his kingdom prosper, the people live in blessedness and be kind to each other. ” Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said King Bhumibol’s accomplishments included helping to develop the nation’s economy and preventing the communist movement from making inroads in Thailand as it swept through neighboring countries. While the last 10 years in Thailand have been volatile, he said, the king’s leadership was especially critical during the height of the Cold War, from the 1950s through the 1970s. “He has left behind a great nation, a grieving and grateful nation,” Professor Thitinan said. “There are detractors and critics who might argue that the monarchy has impeded democratic development over the past decade, but in the broader, overarching perspective, Thailand would not be where it is today without this monarchy and this monarch. ” Thailand has been divided for years between poor farmers mainly in the rural north and more prosperous urban residents centered in Bangkok. At the same time, Muslims have been fighting a insurgency in the far south for more than a decade, seeking independence from the central government. The military has staged two coups over the past 10 years to oust populist governments that favored the rural poor, first the government led by a billionaire businessman, Thaksin Shinawatra, and later the government of his sister, Yingluck. Part of the rationale for the current government’s remaining in power was to ensure a smooth transition after the expected death of King Bhumibol. The announcement of the king’s passing came about three hours after the official time of death, 3:52 p. m. He died at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok, where he had been confined for most of the past few years. He had a number of health problems, including kidney failure, and in his final days was on a ventilator. On Wednesday rumors of his death sent the Thai stock market plunging nearly 7 percent before it recovered somewhat later that day to a loss of 2. 5 percent. “Even though the team of doctors tried their best, his illness hasn’t improved and he declined accordingly until 13 Oct. 2016,” the palace said Thursday in its announcement. Although the king’s death had long been anticipated, the reality still came as a shock to many Thais. “I really, really love the king,” said Thanthai Kaenwong, 35, a bartender. “He is the father of all Thais,” he added. “We closed our club today to mourn him. But no one is in the mood, anyway. ” Wimonsiri Kaewsadet, 39, a Bangkok food vendor, grew teary as she spoke of the king. She said her chest felt tight, her face was numb, and she could not eat. She said her sense of loss was even greater than when her own father died. “My heart is broken in pieces,” she said. “No one wished him to go so soon like this. But he was very, very sick. He could not go on. He had endured so much pain. ” She said the king’s absence made her feel uncertain about the country’s future. “It’s the news that no one wants to hear,” she said. | 1 |
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Michael Forrester – Every cause of disease first begins with an imbalance in the body’s energy systems, specifically, the interaction between how the heart communicates with the brain and the body. Fix that and there is no disease, ever. The heart can produce an electrical field 100 times greater than the brain and a magnetic field 5000 times greater. Which one are you using to heal?
Emotions are vibrations which influence consistently our reality. We not only think and work our way through a day, meeting, assignment, but also feel and believe our way through it. The outcome depends on both.
Simply put, the number one cause of health is your energetic and emotional state. How you connect emotionally to your overall wellness and wellbeing is more important than any supplement , food, exercise or health treatment. There is only one cause of disease and that has to do with the energy and frequency imbalances that exist within your body. Rectify that, and disease cannot exist… it would be impossible.
All the emotions are varieties of two: fear and love: Fear/stress is contagious and causes contraction: inhibits creativity, brain activity, inhibits the immune system, selective perception and over extensive periods of time leads to breakdown. Love (positive beliefs and emotions) has high impact and causes expansion : creativity, physical and mental endurance, more productivity in shorter time because we take decisions quicker because we are receptive and highly perceptive. This a question of Math, HeartMath, as per the contribution in this field of the HeartMath Institute: when one has accurate information, takes better decisions.
The quality of the field one creates with his heart influences his experience and reality.
The research behind the evolution of HeartMath came from the idea that the body’s emotional response to events do not always occur from “top-down” processing (i.e., the brain sends signals to the heart and other organs, and the body responds accordingly). Rather, it has now proven that often times our emotional state triggers our heart to send out its own signals to the brain and other organs, and the body then responds accordingly.
For instance, while two-way communication between the cognitive and emotional systems is hard-wired into the brain, the actual number of neural connections going from the emotional centers to the cognitive centers is greater than the number going the other way. Have you ever: Made a “rash” decision? Done something dangerous on impulse? Taken a risk because you believed in it? This research helps explain the influence emotions have on our ability to think and act.
In fact, researchers at HeartMath have determined that the physiology and nerve centers of the heart are so complex and active, that they constitute a “brain” all on their own, termed a “mini-brain.” We now know that the heart contains cells that produce and release norepinephrine and dopamine, neurotransmitters once thought to be produced only by the brain and ganglia outside the heart. Even more remarkable is the discovery that the heart produces oxytocin – the “love hormone” – in concentrations that are as high as those in the brain. 7 Simple actions to create positive feelings:
1. Think about the colleagues who helped you today. Thank them in your heart. Think about your current assignments. Know that they will work out well and work from this space
2. What is it that you would like to have professionally? A new project? With whom? Think about it in detail, be specific and imagine you are already working on it
3. Entertain the feeling of celebration that arises in your heart. From this space take the appropriate actions to make it happen
4. Find ways to help your colleagues, or make them feel that you care. Do one (in)visible act of kindness per day or more if you want to
5. Before starting your work day give thanks and envision it the way you want it to be
6. When finishing your work day give thanks and clear it of negative emotions (which come out of fear that we know now is illusion). Do not take them at home or preserve for the next day
7. Smile
The time of crisis is literally here: there is the fast pace of our world, the assault of too much to do with too little time and resources. Being in the present moment is just a concept for most of us and has little translation to daily life practice. Fear is wide spread and is polluting us on a very cellular level: hypertension, autoimmune diseases, cancer, infertility, chronic back problems, anxiety, and depression; the list could continue forever. The difference is how we interpret crisis because we can be at complete peace in the midst of chaos.
Can we live the life we want? Can we be authentic in our speech? Can we identify and release our underlying limiting beliefs so that we begin a new commitment towards genuine compassion, abundance, love and connection. Your commitment will show in your body and intentions. SF Source Wake Up World | 0 |
Escaping justice to Qatar!
Nobody can every accuse the Clinton’s of not planning ahead. They have quietly taken $1.8 billion dollars out of the Clinton Foundation and have transferred the money to Qatar, a country with no extradition agreement with the United States.
See and hear the entire story in the following video.
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The 2016 presidential election has left the country more divided than ever. As many continue to celebrate Donald Trump’s victory, others are fighting their way through the five stages of grief surrounding Hillary Clinton’s defeat and President Obama’s departure. As much as some would wish otherwise, many of the wars that have stormed social media have extended through families and friendships. With Thanksgiving just a couple of days away, people are concerned that opposing voters may find it difficult to enjoy a long meal together. However, politics should not ruin thanksgiving.
There is always at least one person who arrives at the family gathering ready to talk politics and express why their view is the right one. These are the worst kind of guests. Politics should be the uninvited guest to Thanksgiving festivities as people from around the country celebrate the many reasons to be thankful this year. Anyone that brings up politics over Thanksgiving dinner, with an aim of convincing another or adding insult to injury should be dismissed and possibly not invited back.
President-elect Trump has done many distasteful things throughout the recent campaign, but ruining Thanksgiving should not be one of them. Families work hard to set up the perfect holiday gathering so they can rehash old stories, bond with the newest additions, watch their favorite football team win or lose, and celebrate life over a table filled with favorite foods. Politics should not ruin thanksgiving; instead of a deadly spiral, redirect the conversation back to what really matters.
Truth is, without the likes of a tumultuous election season, holidays have the potential to produce large amounts of anxiety. Relatives and friends, near and far, all gathered into one location hashing out competitive family updates can be stressful enough. Add some spiked cider to that mix and it becomes a recipe for a potential holiday meltdown, so there is no need for politics to ruin Thanksgiving dinner.
Families should remain a family long after Trump takes the Oval Office, so politics should not accompany the turkey at the dinner table. Somewhere down the track, attendees will be split along bipartisan lines. Instead of joining in, why not bow out before blowing up. More than politics, preserving important relationships should be the focal point.
Post-election emotions have already complicated life, as many Americans have known it. Navigating Thanksgiving dinner should not be an added stress. As such, many who are already bruised by the election are now dreading what should be an entertaining and eventful family gathering of food and fellowship. This is a time for expressing thanks while making new memories, not overshadowed by the results of a turbulent electoral season.
Politics should not ruin what has been noted as one of America’s favorite holidays. With multiple personalities and beliefs at the dinner table, the only safe way to handle politics at Thanksgiving dinner is by avoiding it. Not only is it neither the time nor the place, but avoidance protects everyone’s health and sanity. The holiday’s intent is to bring people together peacefully and to celebrate this great country’s resiliency and diversity.
Opinion by Cherese Jackson (Virginia)
Source:
Mercury News: Families dread holiday after Trump’s election win
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Peng the Taiwanese chef who invented General Tso’s chicken, a dish nearly universal in Chinese restaurants in the United States, died on Wednesday in Taipei. He was 98. The death was reported by The Associated Press. The British food scholar Fuchsia Dunlop has called General Tso’s chicken — lightly battered pieces of dark chicken fried in a sauce — “the most famous Hunanese dish in the world. ” But like many Chinese dishes that have found favor with Americans, General Tso’s chicken was unknown in China until recently. Nor was it, in the version known to most Americans, Hunanese, a cuisine defined by salty, hot and sour flavors. Mr. Peng, an official chef for the Nationalist government, which fled to Taiwan after the 1949 revolution in China, said he created the dish during a visit by Adm. Arthur W. Radford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1955. On the spur of the moment, he assigned it the name of a Hunanese general, Zuo Zongtang, who had helped put down a series of rebellions in the 19th century. “Originally the flavors of the dish were typically Hunanese — heavy, sour, hot and salty,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop, the author of “Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook” (2007) which is devoted to the cuisine of Hunan. “The original General Tso’s chicken was Hunanese in taste and made without sugar. ” The dish made its way to New York in the early 1970s after Chinese chefs in New York, preparing to open the city’s first Hunanese restaurants — Uncle Tai’s Hunan Yuan and Hunam — visited a restaurant that Mr. Peng had opened in Taipei. They adapted the recipe to suit American tastes. “We didn’t want to copy chef Peng exactly,” Ed Schoenfeld, an assistant to the restaurant’s owner, David Keh, told the website Salon in 2010. “We added our own spin to dishes. And so our General Tso’s chicken was cut differently, into small dice, and we served it with water chestnuts, black mushrooms, hoisin sauce and vinegar. ” The chef was Wen Dah Tai. At Hunam, the chef Tsung Ting Wang — who was also a partner with Michael Tong in another prominent Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, Shun Lee Palace — put a Sichuan spin on the dish. He crisped up the batter and sweetened the sauce, producing a taste combination that millions of Americans came to love. He called it General Ching’s chicken. But as the dish traveled, the General Tso name adhered. Both restaurants were awarded four stars, the highest rating, by Raymond Sokolov, the restaurant critic of The New York Times. In 1973, with Hunan fever raging, Mr. Peng came to New York and, with Mr. Keh, opened Uncle Peng’s Hunan Yuan on East 44th Street, near the United Nations. Mr. Peng discovered, to his consternation, that his creation had preceded him, and that the child was almost unrecognizable. “New Yorkers didn’t realize he was the real thing, and some treated him like he was copying,” Mr. Schoenfeld said. The tangled history of the dish was explored in 2014 in a documentary, “The Search for General Tso,” directed by Ian Cheney. Peng was born in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, in 1918. His family was poor. At 13, after running away from home, he began serving an apprenticeship under the celebrated Hunanese chef Cao . Formerly a family chef to Tan prime minister of the Nationalist government in the late 1920s, Mr. Cao had opened the restaurant Jianleyuan in Changsha. In the 1930s, after the Japanese invasion, Mr. Peng moved to Chungking, the temporary Nationalist capital, where he began to gain renown. After World War II, he was installed as the government’s head banquet chef. He emigrated to Taiwan in 1949, leaving his wife and two sons behind, and continued to cater official functions. He is survived by a son, Peng . Complete information on other survivors was not available. New York proved to be a fraught experiment, as Mr. Peng’s restaurant soon closed. “Doom trailed Uncle Peng,” the food critic Gael Greene wrote in New York magazine in 1973. “The pressures of Manhattan restaurant reality were too much for the brilliant teacher. ” Undaunted, Mr. Peng borrowed money from friends and opened Yunnan Yuan on East 52nd Street, near Lexington Avenue, where Henry A. Kissinger, then the secretary of state, became a faithful customer. “Kissinger visited us every time he was in New York, and we became great friends,” Mr. Peng told Ms. Dunlop. “It was he who brought Hunanese food to public notice. ” General Tso’s chicken began to assume celebrity status when Bob Lape, a restaurant critic, showed Mr. Peng making the dish in a segment for ABC News. The station received some 1, 500 requests for the recipe. Encouraged, Mr. Peng reopened his old restaurant as Peng’s, bringing his signature dish with him. Reviewing the restaurant in the The Times in 1977, Mimi Sheraton wrote, “General Tso’s chicken was a masterpiece, sizzling hot both in flavor and temperature. ” He left the restaurant in 1981 and opened Peng’s Garden in Yonkers, then returned to Taiwan in the late ’80s and opened the first in a chain of Peng Yuan restaurants there. The menu featured General Tso’s chicken. It was listed on the menu in Mandarin as Zuo Zongtang’s farmyard chicken, and in English as chicken à la viceroy. In 1990 he opened a branch of his restaurant in the Great Wall Hotel in Changsha, but it was not a success. As Hunanese chefs adopted General Tso’s chicken, the dish entered a strange second career. In a sweeping act of historical revisionism, it came to be seen as a traditional Hunan dish. Several Hunanese chefs have described it in their cookbooks as a favorite of the general’s. | 1 |
They aren't spending on "how to defeat a group of 'freedom' fighters". The US has NO IDEA what is in store for it if they keep the course. | 0 |
Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died on Friday. He was 90. Cuban state television announced the death but gave no other details. In declining health for several years, Mr. Castro had orchestrated what he hoped would be the continuation of his Communist revolution, stepping aside in 2006 when a serious illness felled him. He provisionally ceded much of his power to his younger brother Raúl, now 85, and two years later formally resigned as president. Raúl Castro, who had fought alongside Fidel Castro from the earliest days of the insurrection and remained minister of defense and his brother’s closest confidant, has ruled Cuba since then, although he has told the Cuban people he intends to resign in 2018. Fidel Castro had held on to power longer than any other living national leader except Queen Elizabeth II. He became a towering international figure whose importance in the 20th century far exceeded what might have been expected from the head of state of a Caribbean island nation of 11 million people. He dominated his country with strength and symbolism from the day he triumphantly entered Havana on Jan. 8, 1959, and completed his overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by delivering his first major speech in the capital before tens of thousands of admirers at the vanquished dictator’s military headquarters. A spotlight shone on him as he swaggered and spoke with passion until dawn. Finally, white doves were released to signal Cuba’s new peace. When one landed on Mr. Castro, perching on a shoulder, the crowd erupted, chanting: “Fidel! Fidel!” To the Cubans gathered there and those watching on television, it was an electrifying sign that their young, bearded guerrilla leader was destined to be their savior. Most people in the crowd had no idea what Mr. Castro planned for Cuba. A master of image and myth, Mr. Castro believed himself to be the messiah of his fatherland, an indispensable force with authority from on high to control Cuba and its people. He wielded power like a tyrant, controlling every aspect of the island’s existence. He was Cuba’s “Máximo Lider. ” From atop a Cuban Army tank, he directed his country’s defense at the Bay of Pigs. Countless details fell to him, from selecting the color of uniforms that Cuban soldiers wore in Angola to overseeing a program to produce a superbreed of milk cows. He personally set the goals for sugar harvests. He personally sent countless men to prison. But it was more than repression and fear that kept him and his totalitarian government in power for so long. He had both admirers and detractors in Cuba and around the world. Some saw him as a ruthless despot who trampled rights and freedoms many others hailed him as the crowds did that first night, as a revolutionary hero for the ages. Even when he fell ill and was hospitalized with diverticulitis in the summer of 2006, giving up most of his powers for the first time, Mr. Castro tried to dictate the details of his own medical care and orchestrate the continuation of his Communist revolution, engaging a plan as old as the revolution itself. By handing power to his brother, Mr. Castro once more raised the ire of his enemies in Washington. United States officials condemned the transition, saying it prolonged a dictatorship and again denied the Cuban people a chance to control their own lives. But in December 2014, President Obama used his executive powers to dial down the decades of antagonism between Washington and Havana by moving to exchange prisoners and normalize diplomatic relations between the two countries, a deal worked out with the help of Pope Francis and after 18 months of secret talks between representatives of both governments. Though increasingly frail and rarely seen in public, Mr. Castro even then made clear his enduring mistrust of the United States. A few days after Mr. Obama’s highly publicized visit to Cuba in 2016 — the first by a sitting American president in 88 years — Mr. Castro penned a cranky response denigrating Mr. Obama’s overtures of peace and insisting that Cuba did not need anything the United States was offering. To many, Fidel Castro was a zealot whose belief in his own destiny was unshakable, a chameleon whose economic and political colors were determined more by pragmatism than by doctrine. But in his chest beat the heart of a true rebel. “Fidel Castro,” said Henry M. Wriston, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations in the 1950s and early ’60s, “was everything a revolutionary should be. ” Mr. Castro was perhaps the most important leader to emerge from Latin America since the wars of independence in the early 19th century. He was decidedly the most influential shaper of Cuban history since his own hero, José Martí, struggled for Cuban independence in the late 19th century. Mr. Castro’s revolution transformed Cuban society and had a impact throughout the region than that of any other Latin American insurrection, with the possible exception of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. His legacy in Cuba and elsewhere has been a mixed record of social progress and abject poverty, of racial equality and political persecution, of medical advances and a degree of misery comparable to the conditions that existed in Cuba when he entered Havana as a victorious guerrilla commander in 1959. That image made him a symbol of revolution throughout the world and an inspiration to many imitators. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela considered Mr. Castro his ideological godfather. Subcommander Marcos began a revolt in the mountains of southern Mexico in 1994, using many of the same tactics. Even Mr. Castro’s spotty performance as an aging autocrat in charge of a foundering economy could not undermine his image. But beyond anything else, it was Mr. Castro’s obsession with the United States, and America’s obsession with him, that shaped his rule. After he embraced Communism, Washington portrayed him as a devil and a tyrant and repeatedly tried to remove him from power through an invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, an economic embargo that has lasted decades, assassination plots and even bizarre plans to undercut his prestige by making his beard fall out. Mr. Castro’s defiance of American power made him a beacon of resistance in Latin America and elsewhere, and his bushy beard, long Cuban cigar and green fatigues became universal symbols of rebellion. Mr. Castro’s understanding of the power of images, especially on television, helped him retain the loyalty of many Cubans even during the harshest periods of deprivation and isolation when he routinely blamed America and its embargo for many of Cuba’s ills. And his mastery of words in thousands of speeches, often lasting hours, imbued many Cubans with his own hatred of the United States by keeping them on constant watch for an invasion — military, economic or ideological — from the north. Over many years Mr. Castro gave hundreds of interviews and retained the ability to twist the most compromising question to his favor. In a 1985 interview in Playboy magazine, he was asked how he would respond to President Ronald Reagan’s description of him as a ruthless military dictator. “Let’s think about your question,” Mr. Castro said, toying with his interviewer. “If being a dictator means governing by decree, then you might use that argument to accuse the pope of being a dictator. ” He turned the question back on Reagan: “If his power includes something as monstrously undemocratic as the ability to order a thermonuclear war, I ask you, who then is more of a dictator, the president of the United States or I?” After leading his guerrillas against a repressive Cuban dictator, Mr. Castro, in his early 30s, aligned Cuba with the Soviet Union and used Cuban troops to support revolution in Africa and throughout Latin America. His willingness to allow the Soviets to build sites in Cuba led to a harrowing diplomatic standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union in the fall of 1962, one that could have escalated into a nuclear exchange. The world remained tense until the confrontation was defused 13 days after it began, and the launching pads were dismantled. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Mr. Castro faced one of his biggest challenges: surviving without huge Communist subsidies. He defied predictions of his political demise. When threatened, he fanned antagonism toward the United States. And when the Cuban economy neared collapse, he legalized the United States dollar, which he had railed against since the 1950s, only to ban dollars again a few years later when the economy stabilized. Mr. Castro continued to taunt American presidents for a frustrating all of Washington’s attempts to contain him. After nearly five decades as a pariah of the West, even when his once booming voice had withered to an old man’s whisper and his beard had turned gray, he remained defiant. He often told interviewers that he identified with Don Quixote, and like Quixote he struggled against threats both real and imagined, preparing for decades, for example, for another invasion that never came. As the leaders of every other nation of the hemisphere gathered in Quebec City in April 2001 for the third Summit of the Americas, an uninvited Mr. Castro, then 74, fumed in Havana, presiding over ceremonies commemorating the embarrassing defeat of C. I. A. exiles at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. True to character, he portrayed his exclusion as a sign of strength, declaring that Cuba “is the only country in the world that does not need to trade with the United States. ” Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on Aug. 13, 1926 — 1927 in some reports — in what was then the eastern Cuban province of Oriente, the son of a plantation owner, Ángel Castro, and one of his maids, Lina Ruz González, who became his second wife and had seven children. The father was a Spaniard who had arrived in Cuba under mysterious circumstances. One account, supported by Mr. Castro himself, was that his father had agreed to take the place of a Spanish aristocrat who had been drafted into the Spanish Army in the late 19th century to fight against Cuban independence and American hegemony. Other versions suggest that Ángel Castro went penniless to Cuba but eventually established a plantation and did business with the despised, United Fruit Company. By the time Fidel was a youngster, his father was a major landholder. Fidel was a boisterous young student who was sent away to study with the Jesuits at the Colegio de Dolores in Santiago de Cuba and later to the Colegio de Belén, an exclusive Jesuit high school in Havana. Cuban lore has it that he was headstrong and fanatical even as a boy. In one account, Fidel was said to have bicycled into a wall to make a point to his friends about the strength of his will. In another tale, young Fidel and his class were led on a mountain hike by a priest. The priest slipped in a stream and was in danger of drowning until Fidel pulled him to shore, then both knelt in prayers of thanks for their good fortune. A sense of destiny accompanied Mr. Castro as he entered the University of Havana’s law school in 1945 and almost immediately immersed himself in radical politics. He took part in an invasion of the Dominican Republic that unsuccessfully tried to oust the dictator Rafael Trujillo. He became increasingly obsessed with Cuban politics and led student protests and demonstrations even when he was not enrolled in the university. Mr. Castro’s university days earned him the image of and seemed to support the view that he had had Communist leanings all along. But in an interview in 1981, quoted in Tad Szulc’s 1986 biography, “Fidel,” Mr. Castro said that he had flirted with Communist ideas but did not join the party. “I had entered into contact with Marxist literature,” Mr. Castro said. “At that time, there were some Communist students at the University of Havana, and I had friendly relations with them, but I was not in the Socialist Youth, I was not a militant in the Communist Party. ” He acknowledged that radical philosophy had influenced his character: “I was then acquiring a revolutionary conscience I was active I struggled, but let us say I was an independent fighter. ” After receiving his law degree, Mr. Castro briefly represented the poor, often bartering his services for food. In 1952, he ran for Congress as a candidate for the opposition Orthodox Party. But the election was scuttled because of a coup staged by Mr. Batista. Mr. Castro’s initial response to the Batista government was to challenge it with a legal appeal, claiming that Mr. Batista’s actions had violated the Constitution. Even as a symbolic act, the attempt was futile. His core group of radical students gained followers, and on July 26, 1953, Mr. Castro led them in an attack on the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Many of the rebels were killed. The others were captured, as were Mr. Castro and his brother Raúl. At his trial, Mr. Castro defended the attack. Mr. Batista had issued an order not to discuss the proceedings, but six Cuban journalists who had been allowed in the courtroom recorded Mr. Castro’s defense. “As for me, I know that jail will be as hard as it has ever been for anyone, filled with threats, with vileness and cowardly brutality,” Mr. Castro declared. “I do not fear this, as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who snuffed out the life of 70 brothers of mine. Condemn me, it does not matter. History will absolve me. ” Mr. Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Mr. Batista then made what turned out to be a huge strategic error. Believing that the rebels’ energy had been spent, and under pressure from civic leaders to show that he was not a dictator, he released Mr. Castro and his followers in an amnesty after the 1954 presidential election. Mr. Castro went into exile in Mexico, where he plotted his return to Cuba. He tried to buy a used American PT boat to carry his band to Cuba, but the deal fell through. Then he caught sight of a wooden yacht named Granma, once owned by an American who lived in Mexico City. The Granma remains on display in Havana, encased in glass. During Mr. Castro’s long rule, his character and image underwent several transformations, beginning with his days as a revolutionary in the Sierra Maestra of eastern Cuba. After arriving on the coast in the overloaded yacht with Che Guevara and 80 of their comrades in December 1956, Mr. Castro took on the role of freedom fighter. He engaged in a campaign of harassment and guerrilla warfare that infuriated Mr. Batista, who had seized power in a 1952 garrison revolt, ending a brief period of democracy. Although his soldiers and weapons vastly outnumbered Mr. Castro’s, Mr. Batista grew fearful of the young guerrilla’s mesmerizing oratory. He ordered government troops not to rest until they had killed Mr. Castro, and the army frequently reported that it had done so. Newspapers around the world reported his death in the December 1956 landing. But three months later, Mr. Castro was interviewed for a series of articles that would revive his movement and thus change history. The escapade began when Castro loyalists contacted a correspondent and editorial writer for The New York Times, Herbert L. Matthews, and arranged for him to interview Mr. Castro. A few Castro supporters took Mr. Matthews into the mountains disguised as a wealthy American planter. Drawing on his reporting, Mr. Matthews wrote sympathetically of both the man and his movement, describing Mr. Castro, then 30, parting the jungle leaves and striding into a clearing for the interview. “This was quite a man — a powerful with a straggly beard,” Mr. Matthews wrote. The three articles, which began in The Times on Sunday, Feb. 24, 1957, presented a Castro that Americans could root for. “The personality of the man is overpowering,” Mr. Matthews wrote. “Here was an educated, dedicated fanatic, a man of ideals, of courage and of remarkable qualities of leadership. ” The articles repeated Mr. Castro’s assertions that Cuba’s future was anything but a Communist state. “He has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections,” Mr. Matthews wrote. When asked about the United States, Mr. Castro replied, “You can be sure we have no animosity toward the United States and the American people. ” The Cuban government denounced Mr. Matthews and called the articles fabrications. But the news that he had survived the landing breathed life into Mr. Castro’s movement. His small band of irregulars skirmished with government troops, and each encounter increased their support in Cuba and around the world, even though other insurgent forces in the cities were also fighting to overthrow the Batista government. It was the symbolic strength of his movement, not the armaments under Mr. Castro’s control, that overwhelmed the government. By the time Mr. Batista fled from a darkened Havana airport just after midnight on New Year’s Day 1959, Mr. Castro was already a legend. Competing opposition groups were unable to seize power. Events over the next few months became the catalyst for another transformation in Mr. Castro’s public image. More than 500 officials were brought before and special tribunals, summarily convicted and shot to death. The grainy images of the executions broadcast on American television horrified viewers. Mr. Castro defended the executions as necessary to solidify the revolution. He complained that the United States had raised not a whimper when Mr. Batista had tortured and executed thousands of opponents. But to wary observers in the United States, the executions were a signal that Mr. Castro was not the democratic savior he had seemed. In May 1959, he began confiscating privately owned agricultural land, including land owned by Americans, openly provoking the United States government. In the spring of 1960, Mr. Castro ordered American and British refineries in Cuba to accept oil from the Soviet Union. Under pressure from Congress, President Dwight D. Eisenhower cut the American sugar quota from Cuba, forcing Mr. Castro to look for new markets. He turned to the Soviet Union for economic aid and political support. Thus began a of American antagonism toward Cuba. Finally, in 1961, he gave the United States 48 hours to reduce the staff of its embassy in Havana to 18 from 60. A frustrated Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba and closed the embassy on the Havana seacoast. The diplomatic stalemate lasted until 2015, when embassies were finally reopened in both Havana and Washington. During his two years in the mountains, Mr. Castro had sketched a social revolution whose aim, at least on the surface, seemed to be to restore the democracy that Mr. Batista’s coup had stifled. Mr. Castro promised free elections and vowed to end American domination of the economy and the oppression that he said it had caused. Despite having a law degree, Mr. Castro had no real experience in economics or government. Beyond improving education and reducing Cuba’s dependence on sugar and the United States, his revolution began without a clear sense of the new society he planned, except that it would be different from what had existed under Mr. Batista. At the time, Cuba was a playground for rich American tourists and gangsters where glaring disparities of wealth persisted, although the country was one of the most economically advanced in the Caribbean. After taking power in 1959, Mr. Castro put together a cabinet of moderates, but it did not last long. He named Felipe Pazos, an economist, president of the Banco Nacional de Cuba, Cuba’s central bank. But when Mr. Pazos openly criticized Mr. Castro’s growing tolerance of Communists and his failure to restore democracy, he was dismissed. In place of Mr. Pazos, Mr. Castro named Che Guevara, an Argentine doctor who knew nothing about monetary policy but whose revolutionary credentials were unquestioned. Opposition to the Castro government began to grow in Cuba, leading peasants and insurgents to take up arms against it. The Escambray Revolt, as it was called, lasted from 1959 to 1965, when it was crushed by Mr. Castro’s army. As the first waves of Cuban exiles arrived in Miami and northern New Jersey after the revolution, many were intent on overthrowing the man they had once supported. Their number would eventually total a million, many from what had been, proportionately, the largest middle class in Latin America. The Central Intelligence Agency helped train an exile army to retake Cuba by force. The army was to make a beachhead at the Bay of Pigs, a remote spot on Cuba’s southern coast, and instigate a popular insurrection. Mr. Szulc, then a correspondent for The Times, had picked up information about the invasion, and had written an article about it. But The Times, at the request of the Kennedy administration, withheld some of what Mr. Szulc had found, including information that an attack was imminent. Specific references to the C. I. A. were also omitted. Ten days later, on April 17, 1961, 1, 500 Cuban fighters landed at the Bay of Pigs. Mr. Castro was waiting for them. The invasion was badly planned and by all accounts doomed. Most of the invaders were either captured or killed. Promised American air support never arrived. The historian Theodore Draper called the botched operation “a perfect failure,” and the invasion aroused a distrust of the United States that Mr. Castro exploited for political gain for the rest of his life. The C. I. A. fighting the Cold War, had acted out of worries about Mr. Castro’s increasingly open Communist connections. As he consolidated power, even some of his most faithful supporters grew concerned. One break had taken place as early as 1959. Huber Matos, who had fought alongside Mr. Castro in the Sierra Maestra, resigned as military governor of Camagüey Province to protest the Communists’ growing influence as well as the appointment of Raúl Castro, whose Communist sympathies were well known, as commander of Cuba’s armed forces. Suspecting an antirevolutionary plot, Fidel Castro had Mr. Matos arrested and charged with treason. Within two months, Mr. Matos was tried, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. When he was released in 1979, Mr. Matos, nearly blind, went into exile in the United States, where he lived until his death in 2014. Shortly after arriving in Miami and joining the legions of Castro opponents there, Mr. Matos told Worldview magazine: “I differed from Fidel Castro because the original objective of our revolution was ‘Freedom or Death.’ Once Castro had power, he began to kill freedom. ” It was not until just before the Bay of Pigs invasion that Mr. Castro declared publicly that his revolution was socialist. A few months later, on Dec. 2, 1961, he removed any lingering doubt about his loyalties when he affirmed in a long speech, “I am a . ” Many Cubans who had willingly accepted great sacrifice for what they believed would be a democratic revolution were dismayed. They broke ranks with Mr. Castro, putting themselves and their families at risk. Others, from the safety of the United States, publicly accused Mr. Castro of betraying the revolution and called him a tyrant. Even his family began to raise doubts about his intentions. “As I listened, I thought that surely he must be a superb actor,” Mr. Castro’s sister Juanita wrote in an account in Life magazine in 1964, referring to the December 1961 speech. “He had fooled not only so many of his friends, but his family as well. ” She recalled his upbringing as the son of a landowner in eastern Cuba who had sent him to exclusive Jesuit schools. In 1948, after Mr. Castro married Mirta whose family had ties to the Batista government, his father gave them a honeymoon in the United States. “How could Fidel, who had been given the best of everything, be a Communist?” Juanita Castro wrote. “This was the riddle which paralyzed me and so many other Cubans who refused to believe that he was leading our country into the Communist camp. ” Although the young Fidel was deeply involved in a radical student movement at the University of Havana, his early allegiance to Communist doctrine was uncertain at best. Some analysts believed that the obstructionist attitudes of American officials had pushed Mr. Castro toward the Soviet Union. Indeed, although Mr. Castro pursued ideologically communist policies, he never established a purely Communist state in Cuba, nor did he adopt orthodox Communist Party ideology. Rather, what developed in Cuba was less doctrinaire, a tropical form of communism that suited his needs. He centralized the economy and flattened out much of the traditional hierarchy of Cuban society, improving education and health care for many Cubans, while depriving them of free speech and economic opportunity. But unlike other Communist countries, Cuba was never governed by a functioning politburo Mr. Castro himself, and later his brother Rául, filled all the important positions in the party, the government and the army, ruling Cuba as its maximum leader. “The Cuban regime turns out to be simply the case of a dictator seizing a useful ideology in order to employ its wealth against his enemies,” wrote the columnist Georgie Anne Geyer, whose critical biography of Mr. Castro was published in 1991. In this view of Mr. Castro, he was above all an Spanish caudillo, one of a long line of Latin American strongmen who endeared themselves to people searching for leaders. The analyst Alvaro Vargas Llosa of the Independent Institute in Washington called him “the ultimate caudillo. ” In Cuba, through good times and bad, Mr. Castro’s supporters referred to themselves not as Communists but as Fidelistas. He remained personally popular among segments of Cuban society even after his economic policies created severe hardship. As Mr. Castro consolidated power, eliminated his enemies and grew increasingly autocratic, the Cuban people referred to him simply as Fidel. To say “Castro” was considered disloyal, although in later decades Cubans would commonly say just that and mean it. Or they would invoke his overwhelming presence by simply bringing a hand to their chins, as if to stroke a beard. Mr. Castro’s alignment with the Soviet Union meant that the Cold War between the world’s superpowers, and the ideological battle between democracy and communism, had erupted in the United States’ sphere of influence. A clash was all but inevitable, and it came in October 1962. American spy planes took reconnaissance photos suggesting that the Soviets had exploited their new alliance to build bases in Cuba for nuclear missiles capable of reaching North America. Mr. Castro allowed the bases to be constructed, but once they were discovered, he became a bit player in the ensuing drama, overshadowed by President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev. Kennedy put United States military forces on alert and ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. The two sides were at a stalemate for 13 tense days, and the world held its breath. Finally, after receiving assurances that the United States would remove American missiles from Turkey and not invade Cuba, the Soviets withdrew the missiles and dismantled the bases. But the Soviet presence in Cuba continued to grow. Soviet troops, technicians and engineers streamed in, eventually producing a generation of blond Cubans with names like Yuri, Alexi and Vladimiro. The Soviets were willing to buy all the sugar Cuba could produce. Even as other Caribbean nations diversified, Cuba decided to stick with one major crop, sugar, and one major buyer. But after forcing the entire nation into a failed effort to reach a record sugar harvest in 1970, Mr. Castro recognized the need to break the cycle of dependence on the Soviets and sugar. Once more, he relied on his belief in himself and his revolution for solutions. One unlikely consequence was his effort to develop a Cuban supercow. Although he had no training in animal husbandry, Mr. Castro decided to crossbreed humpbacked Asian Zebus with standard Holsteins to create a new breed that could produce milk at prodigious rates. Decades later, the Zebus could still be found grazing in pastures across the island, symbols of Mr. Castro’s micromanagement. A few of the hybrids did give more milk, and one that set a milk production record was stuffed and placed in a museum. But most were no better producers than their parents. As the Soviets settled in Cuba in the 1960s, hundreds of Cuban students were sent to Moscow, Prague and other cities of the Soviet bloc to study science and medicine. Admirers from around the world, including some Americans, were impressed with the way that health care and literacy in Cuba had improved. A reshaping of Cuban society was underway. Cuba’s tradition of racial segregation was turned upside down as peasants from the countryside, many of them descendants of Africans enslaved by the Spaniards centuries before, were invited into Havana and other cities that had been overwhelmingly white. They were given the keys to the elegant homes and spacious apartments of the Cubans who had fled to the United States. Rents came to be little more than symbolic, and basic foods like milk and eggs were sold in government stores at below production cost. Mr. Castro’s early overhauls also changed Cuba in ways that were less than utopian. priests were exiled, and local clergy were harassed so much that many closed their churches. The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated Mr. Castro for violating a 1949 papal decree against supporting Communism. He established a sinister system of local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which set neighbors to informing on neighbors. Thousands of dissidents and homosexuals were rounded up and sentenced to either prison or forced labor. And although blacks were welcomed into the cities, Mr. Castro’s government remained overwhelmingly white. Mr. Castro regularly fanned the flames of revolution with his oratory. In marathon speeches, he incited the Cuban people by laying out what he considered the evils of capitalism in general and of the United States in particular. For decades, the regime controlled all publications and broadcasting outlets and restricted access to goods and information in ways that would not have been possible if Cuba were not an island. His revolution established at home, Mr. Castro looked to export it. Thousands of Cuban soldiers were sent to Africa to fight in Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia in support of Communist insurgents. The strain on Cuba’s treasury and its society was immense, but Mr. Castro insisted on being a global player in the Communist struggle. As potential threats to his rule were eliminated, Mr. Castro tightened his grip. Camilo Cienfuegos, who had led a division in the insurrection and was immensely popular in Cuba, was killed in a plane crash days after going to arrest Huber Matos in Camagüey on Mr. Castro’s orders. His body was never found. Che Guevara, who had become hostile toward the Soviet Union, broke with Mr. Castro before going off to Bolivia, where he was captured and killed in 1967 for trying to incite a revolution there. Despite the fiery rhetoric from Mr. Castro in the early years of the revolution, Washington did attempt a reconciliation. By some accounts, in the weeks before he was assassinated in 1963, Kennedy had aides look at mending fences, providing Mr. Castro was willing to break with the Soviets. But with Kennedy’s assassination, and suspicions that Mr. Castro and the Cubans were somehow involved, the 90 miles separating Cuba from the United States became a gulf of antagonism and mistrust. The C. I. A. tried several times to eliminate Mr. Castro or undermine his authority. One plot involved exposing him to a chemical that would cause his beard to fall out, and another using a poison pen to kill him. Mr. Castro often boasted of how many times he had escaped C. I. A. plots to kill him, and he ordered information about the foiled attempts to be put on display at a Havana museum. Relations between the United States and Cuba briefly thawed in the 1970s during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. For the first time, were allowed to visit family in Havana under strict guidelines. But that fleeting détente ended in 1980 when Mr. Castro tried to defuse growing domestic discontent by allowing about 125, 000 Cubans to flee in boats, makeshift rafts and inner tubes, departing from the beach at Mariel. He used the opportunity to empty Cuban prisons of criminals and people with mental illnesses and force them to join the Mariel boatlift. Mr. Carter’s successor, Reagan, slammed shut the door that Mr. Carter had opened. In 1989, when frustrated veterans from Cuba’s African ventures began rallying around Gen. Arnaldo Ochoa, who led Cuban forces on the continent, Mr. Castro effectively got rid of a potential rival by bringing the general and some of his supporters to trial on drug charges. General Ochoa and several other officers were executed on the orders of Raúl Castro, who was then the minister of defense. The United States economic embargo, imposed by Eisenhower and widened by Kennedy, has continued for more than five decades. But its effectiveness was undermined by the Soviet Union, which gave Cuba $5 billion a year in subsidies, and later by Venezuela, which sent Cuba badly needed oil and economic support. Most other countries, including close United States allies like Canada, maintained relations with Cuba throughout the decades and continued trading with the island. In recent years, successive American presidents have punched big holes in the embargo, allowing a broad range of economic activity, though maintaining the ban on tourism. “I faced my greatest challenge after I turned 60,” Mr. Castro said in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine in 1994. He was referring to the collapse of the Soviet empire, which brought an end to the subsidies that had kept his government afloat for so long. He had also lost a steady source of oil and a reliable buyer for Cuban sugar. Abandoned, isolated, facing increasing dissent at home, Mr. Castro seemed to have come to the end of his line. Cuba’s collapse appeared imminent, and Mr. Castro’s final hours in power were widely anticipated. Miami exiles began making elaborate preparations for a triumphant return. But Mr. Castro, defying predictions, fought on. He chose an unlikely weapon: the hated American dollar, which he had long condemned as the corrupt symbol of capitalism. In the summer of 1993, he made it legal for Cubans to hold American dollars spent by tourists or sent by exiled family members. That policy eventually led to a dual currency system that has fostered resentment and hampered economic development in Cuba. Mr. Castro, the was also willing to experiment with capitalism and free enterprise, at least for a time. Encouraged by his brother Raúl, he allowed farmers to sell excess produce at market rates, and he ordered officials to turn a blind eye to small, kitchens and restaurants, called paladares, that charged market prices. Under Rául Castro, those reforms were broadened considerably, though they were sometimes met with public grumbling from his older brother. But despite his apparent distaste for capitalism, and lingering memories of the 1950s Cuba that preceded his rule, Fidel Castro continued to foster Cuba’s tourism industry. He allowed Spanish, Italian and Canadian companies to develop resort hotels and vacation properties, usually in association with an arm of the Cuban military. For many years, the resorts were off limits to most Cubans. They generated hard cash, but a new generation of struggling young Cuban women were lured into prostitution by the tourists’ money. For a time, Mexican and Canadian investors poured money into the decrepit telephone company (owned by ITT until it was nationalized by Mr. Castro in 1960) mining operations and other enterprises, which helped keep Cuba’s economy from collapsing. He declared an emergency during which he expected the Cuban people to tighten their belts. He called the United States embargo genocide. All his efforts were not enough to keep dissent from sprouting in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and other urban areas during this period of hardship. Despite worldwide condemnation of his actions, Mr. Castro clamped down on a fledgling democracy movement, jailing anyone who dared to call for free elections. He also cracked down on the nucleus of an independent press, imprisoning or harassing Cuban reporters and editors. In 1994, for the first time, demonstrators took to the streets of Havana to express their anger over the failed promises of the revolution. Mr. Castro had to personally appeal for calm. Then, in early 1996, he seized an opportunity to rebuild his support by again demonizing the United States. A South Florida group, Brothers to the Rescue, had been flying three civilian planes toward the Cuban coast when two were shot down by Cuban military jets. Four men on board were killed. Mr. Castro raged against Washington, maintaining that the planes had violated Cuban airspace. American officials condemned the attack. Until then, President Bill Clinton had been moving discreetly but steadily toward easing the United States embargo and some relations with Cuba. But in the wake of the attack, and the virulent reaction from in Florida — a state Mr. Clinton considered important to his bid — he reluctantly signed the law, which allowed the United States to punish foreign companies that were using confiscated American property in Cuba. The State Department’s first warnings under the new law went to a Canadian mining company that had taken over a huge nickel mine, and a Mexican investment group that had purchased the Cuban telephone company. Despite protests from American allies, the United States maintained the law as a weapon against Mr. Castro, although all its provisions have never been carried out. But in Cuba, the American actions reinforced Mr. Castro’s complaints about American arrogance and helped channel domestic dissent toward Washington. One of his strengths as a communicator — he considered Reagan his only worthy competitor in that regard — had always been to transform his anger toward the United States into a rallying cry for the Cuban people. “We are left with the honor of being one of the few adversaries of the United States,” Mr. Castro told Maria Shriver of NBC in a 1998 interview. When Ms. Shriver asked him if that truly was an honor, he answered, “Of course. ” “For such a small country as Cuba to have such a gigantic country as the United States live so obsessed with this island,” he said, “it is an honor for us. ” As he grew older and grayer, Mr. Castro could no longer be easily linked to the intense guerrilla fighter who had come out of the Sierra Maestra. He rambled incoherently in his long speeches. He was rumored to be suffering from various diseases. After 40 years, the revolution he started no longer held promise, and Cubans by the thousands, including many who had never known any other life but under Mr. Castro, risked their lives trying to reach the United States on rafts, inner tubes and even old trucks outfitted with floats. Although the revolution lost its luster, what never diminished was Mr. Castro’s ability to confound American officials and to create situations to seize the advantage of a particular moment. That was evident early in 1998 when Pope John Paul II visited Havana and met with Mr. Castro. The meeting was widely expected to be seen as a rebuke and an embarrassment to Mr. Castro. The aging pontiff stood beside the aging Communist leader, who had abandoned his military uniform for the occasion in favor of a dark suit. The pope talked about human rights and the lack of basic freedoms in Cuba. But he also called Washington’s embargo “unjust and ethically unacceptable,” allowing Mr. Castro to claim a political if not a moral victory. The next year, Mr. Castro converted another conflict into an opportunity to bolster his standing among his own people while infuriating the United States. A young woman and her son were among more than a dozen Cubans who had set out for Florida in a aluminum boat. The boat capsized and the woman drowned, but the boy, Elián González, survived two days in an inner tube before being picked up by the United States Coast Guard and taken to Miami, where he was united with relatives. Later, however, the relatives refused to release the boy when his father, in Cuba, demanded his return. The standoff between the family and United States officials created the kind of emotional and political drama that Mr. Castro had become a master at manipulating for his own purposes. Mr. Castro made the boy another symbol of American oppression, which diverted attention from the deteriorating conditions in Cuba. After several months, American agents seized the boy from his Miami relatives and returned him to his father in Cuba, where he was greeted by Mr. Castro. That episode carried great significance for Mr. Castro in the way it echoed one in his personal life. Mr. Castro and his wife, Mirta divorced in 1955, six years after the birth of their son, Fidelito. In 1956, when Mr. Castro and Ms. were both in Mexico, Mr. Castro arranged to have the boy visit him before embarking on what he said would be a dangerous voyage, which turned out to be his invasion of Cuba. He promised to bring the boy back in two weeks, but it was a trick. At the end of that period, Mr. Castro placed Fidelito in the custody of a friend in Mexico City. He then sailed for Cuba with his fellow rebels on the yacht Granma. The boy’s mother, with the help of her family and the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, found a team of professional kidnappers, who ambushed the boy and his guardians in a park and carried him off. Ms. took Fidelito to New York and enrolled him in a local school for a year. But after Mr. Castro entered Havana and grabbed control of the government, he persuaded his former wife to send the boy back. The younger Mr. Castro lived in Cuba until, years later, he was sent to the Soviet Union to study. He became a physicist, married a Russian woman and eventually returned to Cuba, where he was named head of Cuba’s nuclear power program. Details of Mr. Castro’s personal life were always murky. He had no formal home but lived in many different houses and estates in and around Havana. He had relationships with several women, and only in his later years was he willing to acknowledge that he had a relationship of more than 40 years with Dalia Soto del Valle, who had rarely been seen in public. (Whether they were legally married was not clear.) The two had five sons — Alexis, Alexander, Alejandro, Antonio and Ángel — all of whom live in Cuba. Mr. Castro also has a daughter, Alina, a radio host in Miami, who bitterly attacked her father on the air for years. Mr. Castro had stormy relations with many of his relatives both in Cuba and the United States. He remained close to Celia Sánchez, a woman who was with him in the Sierra Maestra and who looked after his schedule and his archives devotedly, until she died in 1980. A sister, Ángela Castro, died at 88 in Havana in February 2012, according to The Associated Press, quoting her sister Juanita. And his elder brother Ramón died in February 2016 at 91. Outlasting all his enemies, Mr. Castro lived to rule a country where the overwhelming majority of people had never known any other leader. Hardly anyone talked openly of a time without him until the day, in 2001, when he appeared to faint while giving a speech. Then, in 2004, he stumbled while leaving a platform, breaking a kneecap and reminding Cubans again of his mortality and forcing them to confront their future. As Mr. Castro and his revolution aged, Cuban dissidents grew bolder. Oswaldo Payá, using a clause in the Cuban Constitution, collected thousands of signatures in a petition demanding a referendum on free speech and other political freedoms. (Mr. Payá died in a car crash in 2012.) Bloggers wrote disparagingly of Mr. Castro and the regime, although most of their missives could not be read in Cuba, where internet access was strictly limited. A group of Cuban women who called themselves the Ladies in White rallied on Sundays to protest the imprisonment of their fathers, husbands and sons, whose pictures they carried on posters inscribed with the number of years to which they were sentenced as political prisoners. After being made his brother’s successor, Raúl Castro tried to control the fragments of the revolution that remained after Fidel Castro fell ill, including a close association with President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who modeled himself after Fidel. (Mr. Chávez died in 2013.) Never as popular as his brother, Raúl Castro was considered a better manager, and in some ways was seen as more conscious of the everyday needs of the Cuban people, despite his reputation as the revolution’s executioner. One of his first moves as leader was to replace the grossly overcrowded city buses, known as “camels,” with new ones, many imported from China. He opened up the economy somewhat, allowing entrepreneurs to start businesses, and he eased restrictions on traveling, access to cellphones, computers and other personal items, and the buying and selling of property. Still, Raúl Castro came under mounting pressure from Cubans demanding even more economic and political opportunity. He took more steps to open the economy and, in so doing, dismantled parts of the socialist state that his brother had defended for so long. Lurking in the background as Raúl Castro embarked on that new course was the brooding visage of Fidel, whose revolution has been seen as a rebellion of one man. When President Obama and Raúl Castro simultaneously went on TV in their countries in 2014 to announce a prisoner exchange and the first steps toward normalizing relations, Cubans and Americans alike expected to hear Fidel either accepting or condemning the moves. Six weeks after the deal was announced, Mr. Castro, or someone writing in his name, finally reacted in a way that combined his own bluster and his brother’s new approach. “I do not trust the politics of the United States, nor have I exchanged a word with them, but this is not, in any way, a rejection of a peaceful solution to conflicts,” Mr. Castro wrote near the end of a rambling letter to students on the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of his own time at the University of Havana. Sounding more like his brother than his old self, he backed any peaceful attempts to resolve the problems between the two countries. He then took one final swipe at his old nemesis. “The grave dangers that threaten humanity today have to give way to norms that are compatible with human dignity,” the letter said. “No country is excluded from such rights. With this spirit I have fought, and will continue fighting, until my last breath. ” In April 2016, a frail Mr. Castro made what many thought would be his last public appearance, at the Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. Dressed in an incongruous blue tracksuit jacket, his hands at times quivering and his once powerful voice reduced to a tinny squawk, he expressed surprise at having survived to almost 90, and he bade farewell to the party, the political system and the revolutionary Cuba he had created. “Soon I will be like everybody else,” Mr. Castro said. “Our turn comes to us all, but the ideas of Cuban communism will endure. ” No one is sure if the force of the revolution will dissipate without Mr. Castro and, eventually, his brother. But Fidel Castro’s impact on Latin America and the Western Hemisphere has the earmarks of lasting indefinitely. The power of his personality remains inescapable, for better or worse, not only in Cuba but also throughout Latin America. “We are going to live with Fidel Castro and all he stands for while he is alive,” wrote Mr. Matthews of The Times, whose own fortunes were dimmed considerably by his connection to Mr. Castro, “and with his ghost when he is dead. ” | 1 |
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has named four Democratic California congressmen it plans to target and defeat in next year’s midterm elections. [According to the Los Angeles Times, the NRCC’s “top offensive targets” are Reps. Ami Bera ( Grove, 7th district) Salud Carbajal ( Barbara, 24th district) Scott Peters ( Diego, 52nd district) and Raul Ruiz ( Springs, 36th district). Bera was barely able to secure his seat in the district’s expensive race against Republican candidate Sheriff Scott Jones last year. He beat Jones by just over 6, 000 votes, or approximately three percentage points. The Times notes that Carbajal, 52, a freshman congressman, won his seat by six points against Republican challenger Justin Fareed, 28. He reportedly started off the 2018 cycle with just over $52, 000 in his war chest. Democrats held an advantage over Republicans in Carbajal’s district before the election. The Times also reported last month that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had released a list of seven California Republicans they are planning to target including Reps. Jeff Denham ( 10th district) David Valadao ( 21st district) Steve Knight ( 25th district) House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce ( 39th district) Mimi Walters ( 45th district) Dana Rohrabacher ( Mesa, 48th district) and Darrell Issa ( 49th district). Clinton also carried the districts listed above during the general election. Among the Republicans targeted by the Democrats, Reps. Issa, and Denham won against their challengers by the smallest margins. Issa was able to secure his seat by just 1, 621 votes against Democrat Douglas Applegate. Denham beat Democrat Michael Eggman by 8, 201 votes. Applegate has announced he plans to run against Issa again in 2018. According to the Times, Denham, Issa and Valadao were also among the top spenders in California on a basis in the November election, spending well above $30 per each vote they received. Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 1 |
Friday at the House Democratic Retreat in Baltimore, House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Joe Crowley ( ) said millions of Americans and people around the world are “frightened” by the “Trump regime,” who have “appointed several former generals,” which is “ . ” Crowley said, “You know, these are millions and millions of Americans, people around the world who are really concerned, maybe that’s an understatement. They’re nervous. They’re frightened about what they see happening to the American government. And this Trump regime — I don’t call it an administration, I call it a regime. That’s how they act. They have appointed several former generals, that’s very to the rest of the world. They have billionaires who have been appointed to cabinet positions, some of whom have no experience whatsoever in the field in which they are now in charge. That’s very frightening to people. ” “Cronyism at the highest levels has many people in this country nervous and around the world as well,” he continued. “So I think there’s going to be plenty of opportunities in the future, unfortunately, for the American people to express themselves, and I think we as Democrats will be able to support that effort when we believe it’s warranted. ” ( Grabien) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
One morning last month, the ferry from Hyannis, Mass. to Nantucket Island carried tourists, seasonal laborers and two young blond British women who were three weeks into what was quite possibly the best summer of their lives. Fee Meynell and Ella Crockett plopped their bags down for the ride. Ms. Meynell, 23, was lively and talkative. Ms. Crockett, 21, was conserving her energy, having recently spent four days sick in bed. “I’m very fragile,” she said, slumping over a table. Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett are “Seasonnaires,” the term the British clothing company Jack Wills uses for its summertime brand ambassadors. They had been chosen from 3, 000 applicants and sent to live for two months in a location with a Jack Wills shop for Ms. Crockett, it was Nantucket, for Ms. Meynell, Martha’s Vineyard. “When I applied, it was a pipe dream,” Ms. Meynell said. “You never expect to get it, do you?” She recalled that as a teenager she had a poster in her bedroom of Jack Wills Seasonnaires jumping up and down in front of a lighthouse. Her relationship with “Jack,” as she called the brand, had been “very . ” “I probably took it quite far,” she said. “I’d go out in Jack Wills pajamas. ” Jack Wills is still in America, one of those preppyish brands like Vineyard Vines or Kiel James Patrick that’s a shared secret among the crowd from Annapolis, Md. to Kennebunkport, Me. But in Britain, it has been popular for years. At the suburban London high school that Ms. Meynell attended, the cool kids wore Jack Wills hoodies, crews and chinos. “If you didn’t have Jack, you were no one,” she said. Ms. Crockett, who also grew up in suburban London and has modeled for Jack Wills, nodded in agreement, saying: “At my school, you put your lunch in a Jack Wills bag. You wanted the bedding. You wanted the knickers. You were obsessed. ” Both remembered fawning over the brand’s catalogs, which, similar to those of Abercrombie Fitch, feature attractive young men and women cavorting at sporting events or falling into bed in their underwear, fight. (The sexualized imagery in the spring 2016 catalog — and its winking promotional copy about “midnight mischief” — led it to be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, a British media watchdog.) On the ferry ride, both women wore the brand they have been relentlessly promoting. Ms. Meynell had on the red Bagley shorts and a white Eccleston while Ms. Crockett was dressed in black Fernham jeans and the Hoyle tank. Her overnight things were stuffed into an duffel bag. They were returning after a night in Chatham, a town on Cape Cod that also has a Jack Wills store. Three weeks into their branded summer, the women were still adjusting to New England, which neither had ever visited before, and to their social schedule, in keeping with the corporate hashtag mantra to #livelifelouder. “Mealtime is not a thing when you’re a Seasonnaire,” Ms. Meynell said. “I eat at 2 a. m. when I get home. ” And the partying and brand promotion doesn’t end at the bar. “We have so much alcohol in the house,” Ms. Crockett said. When Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett were selected for the Seasonnaire program, they were sent for training at Jack Wills’s London headquarters, where they met with the and chief executive, Pete Williams. Now 42, Mr. Williams, who is British, started the brand at 24, an age when he had already realized, he said, that his best years were behind him. Jack Wills was about capturing (or recapturing) the rush of college and youth. “You have all the amazing independence of being an adult, but haven’t lost the naïveté,” Mr. Williams said from Britain by phone. “You don’t have a boss, a wife or husband, kids or a mortgage and the responsibilities that grind us all down. That spirit is intoxicating, and you don’t realize it until later. ” Founded in 1999, the brand’s visual and spiritual DNA comes from Salcombe, a preppy nautical resort town in southwest England similar to Nantucket that Mr. Williams once visited with a college girlfriend. As for the term Seasonnaire, it’s based on a tradition in Europe in which students would take a gap year between high school and college and go work at, say, a ski resort in the French Alps. “It was an amazing time in your life, lots of fun working and partying,” Mr. Williams said. The job of a Jack Wills Seasonnaire, as Ms. Crockett and Ms. Meynell learned, involves going out to bars, beaches and restaurants, meeting lots of people and spreading the word about Jack in the friendliest, most organic way possible. So far, in an expansion push into America begun in 2010, the brand has opened stores in wealthy enclaves and university towns on the East Coast like Westport, Conn. and Boston. Seasonnaires also work in the stores and organize promotional parties like the Croquet and Cocktails event that was held at the Chatham Bars Inn. Being a Seasonnaire is a pretty good gig. The company pays their room and board, allowed them to go on a shopping spree at its Boston location and puts them up at houses set aside for Jack Wills employees. They get around in vintage Land Rovers, or “Landies,” as the women called them, painted in the company colors, blue and pink. They also have expense accounts to go with salaries they would not disclose. Both Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett were paired for the summer with male American counterparts who share the rental houses and job responsibilities. Splashing in the waves, sipping champagne on yachts, having sunset dinner parties right on the beach: A Seasonnaire’s life is like a catalog shoot come to life. Mr. Williams encourages the young people he ships off to what he called “emotionally rich locations” in America to say yes to everything. During their orientation in London, Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett heard the legend of Red Rainey, a Seasonnaire of a few summers back who had made a name for himself in company lore as a nonstop party animal, always up for anything. “I remember Pete said, ‘Be like Red,’” Ms. Crockett recalled. Mr. Williams sounded as if he wouldn’t mind trading places with the Seasonnaires in his employ. “They make me jealous, actually,” he said. “I try to live my life vicariously through them. ” By early August, Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett had each compiled a personal highlight reel of good times: a blur of boat trips, barhopping, conversations with strangers and fast friends and sunbaked days patrolling the islands in the Landies. Ms. Meynell and her American counterpart, Sean Fegan, started a biweekly Jack Wills party at the Loft, a club on Martha’s Vineyard. One night she danced until 1:30 a. m. then invited everyone back to the rental house for pizza. “It got to 5 a. m. and we said, ‘Should we get a cab to the beach and watch the sunrise? ’” Ms. Meynell said. “We climbed one of those lifeguard stands and watched the sun come up. ” “We went to bed feeling very knackered,” she said, using a British term for exhausted. In Nantucket, Jack Wills sponsors a dance party on Mondays at the Chicken Box, where on a recent night Ms. Crockett stood on stage laughing as she tossed preppy merchandise into the crowd as if tossing chum to sharks. “It’s literally like I’ve got a million dollars in my hand,” she said. “It’s ridiculous. ” The Seasonnaires are either embraced or derided on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, depending on one’s age and tolerance for red Solo cups. It’s not uncommon for Ms. Meynell to meet people, she said, who have been partying in the house where she is staying, or even in her bedroom, during previous summers. Ms. Crockett, meanwhile, was convinced that the Nantucket police see the Landy coming a mile away and get their summons books ready. She was making quite an impression herself Ms. Meynell said “the sushi guy” at a Nantucket restaurant they frequented had a crush on Ms. Crockett. Despite ample suitors, both women said they had not entered into a summer romance. The main man in their lives, it seems, was Jack. For part of her time on Nantucket, Ms. Crockett had worked without her Seasonnaire partner, Jon Wormser, who had to go home for family reasons. Ms. Meynell regularly took the ferry over from the Vineyard to help out for instance, during the Monday parties at the Chicken Box. Mr. Fegan, a muscled surfer with long hair and a friendly Labradorish manner, has been Ms. Meynell’s steady partner on the Vineyard, helping plan a dinner party one Saturday and translating American slang for her. Mr. Fegan, a Maryland native with only passing knowledge of Jack Wills before this summer, theorized that he was picked partly because he attends college in North Carolina. Like a seed pod, he would spread the brand to the South. Mr. Fegan was heading into his senior year in the fall, vaguely dreading it. “I’m 22,” he said. “Sadly, I don’t want to graduate. ” The culmination of the summer for the Seasonnaires, as well as for many other people on the islands, is the festivities held in on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. On a recent afternoon, Ms. Meynell and Ms. Crockett were busy planning the Jack Wills . At the end of the month, Ms. Crockett planned to visit New York before returning to Britain and her senior year of college. Ms. Meynell’s Seasonnaire experience was more bittersweet: It marked a goodbye to carefree summers. Having already graduated from college in June, she will return to London to a new apartment and her first adult job. “When I’m older and have children I can say, ‘O. K. this summer, my last summer, I did this,’” Ms. Meynell said. “‘I have said yes to everything, lived up to that, pushed my boundaries. ’” She’ll also be flying home with bags of Jack Wills clothes bought with her earnings. | 1 |
Get short URL 0 8 0 0 Governor Tom Wolf of the US state of Pennsylvania has overlooked more than 600 studies that reveal fracking as a public hazard that endangers the health of children attending school near drilling wells, advocacy group Pennsylvanians Against Fracking (PAF) told Sputnik.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Researchers at the Yale School of Public Health conducted a study that established a connection between fracking and cancer-causing chemicals, which includes some that are known to cause childhood leukemia and lymphoma. Top US Scientist Says Humanity is Too Late to Stop Global Warming "[Wolf] has not made one statement on any of the studies that I’m aware of," PAF founding member Karen Feridun told Sputnik on Wednesday. "The governor has blinders on."
The advocacy group noted in a release that 685 studies conducted in Pennsylvania have linked asthma attacks, migraines, fatigue and chronic nasal and sinus problems to fracking. © RIA Novosti. Aleksey Nikolskyi Hillary Tells Big Oil That Environmentalism is a Russian Hoax to Wreck Economy "Governor Wolf has ignored them all. But the clear next steps laid out in the Yale study demand his attention," the release stated.
More than 8,500 Pennsylvania children go to school within half a mile of drilling activities, according to the release. Moreover, about 58,000 children attend school a mile away from drilling activities and nearly 132,000 children attend school two miles away from drilling activities, the release added.
The PAF is consequently calling for Wolf to halt fracking in Pennsylvania amid the hundreds of research studies that link health concerns to fracking, and especially as they relate to children.
Pennsylvania ranks second in gas production in the United States and about 9,700 unconventional wells have been built in the state since 2004. ... | 0 |
OAKLAND, Calif. — The beautiful millionaires arrive in couture. Cameras are there to greet them as their fans stand by on social media, craving glimpses of their ensembles. Suddenly, however briefly, the bowels of basketball arenas are turned into the shabbiest fashion runways in the world. For all their dazzling feats on the court, N. B. A. stars have somehow made an event out of simply showing up at games. The sports world and the fashion world cannot look away, even if the setting is an underground tunnel in, say, Oracle Arena — approximately nine million miles from Milan. “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Sarah Oliphant, an artist who designs backdrops for fashion shows out of her studio in New York, said. She would not stage these N. B. A. arrivals any other way. “These are people with megamoney behind them in every possible way,” Oliphant said. “But the runway is a linoleum floor and a tunnel,” and you can see Teamsters setting up in the background. She added: “I couldn’t have even thought that up. It’s brilliant. Whoever came up with this is brilliant. ” The N. B. A. finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers are shaping up as one of the season’s biggest stages — for fashion, of course. The basketball has been decent, too, although not overly competitive. The Warriors will look to build on their lead when the series resumes in Cleveland on Wednesday night. “You stress over outfits for days,” the Warriors’ Stephen Curry said in an interview, “and you wind up wearing it for 30 seconds when you walk from the parking lot to the locker room. ” But those 30 seconds are important. Important to broadcast partners like ESPN and Turner Sports, who have filmed these entrances throughout the postseason to help fill pregame airtime. Important to viewers at home, who want to see their favorite players behind the scenes. Important to fashion designers, who benefit from mainstream exposure. And important to the players, who have come to delight in the strange pageantry of it all. “I’ve got to make sure everything looks good coming out of the car,” Curry, the league’s most valuable player, said. “You don’t want to have a missed button or a wrinkled shirt. ” It is an oddly environment for high fashion. Nobody made a bigger splash in recent weeks than Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder, whose team fell to the Warriors in the Western Conference finals. Westbrook’s bursts of sartorial pyrotechnics — denim overalls one game, blazer the next — were offset by an obstacle course of trash cans, ladders and heating ducts. “It’s become an event unto itself, which is kind of amazing,” Brett J. Banakis, a stage and film production designer, said. “So you’ll have Russell Westbrook wearing a lime green jumpsuit and walking past the most banal objects possible. ” Banakis has been a fan of Westbrook’s since they were students together at U. C. L. A. where Westbrook played basketball and Banakis played trombone in the marching band. (They were once on the same charter flight to the Final Four, Banakis said.) Banakis said it made sense for players to embrace their opportunities to flash some individual style, even if their milieu is a loading dock. “Most of the time, you see them wearing uniforms,” he said. “So this is really their only moment to say, ‘This is me. ’” Oliphant, the backdrop designer, is not a huge basketball fan — “I usually choose the team that has the nicest colors and costumes,” she said — but she has been transfixed by the clips of players arriving for games. Oliphant cited the authenticity of the whole setup. Consider the Cavaliers’ LeBron James, who, seconds after arriving at Oracle for Game 1 on Thursday night, deposited some personal items in a small plastic tub before he went through a metal detector. He even had to wait in line behind a couple of team officials. (LeBron: Just like us!) “It wouldn’t have the same effect if you took all these guys and you put them up at Lincoln Center in one of the big venues,” Oliphant said. “I could even paint them a giant backdrop, but it wouldn’t be the same. It would no longer be accessible to my nephew who would never watch something on fashion. ” Curry said he did not realize that he needed to care about his pregame walk to the locker room until he made his first playoffs appearance with the Warriors in 2013. All of a sudden, camera crews were waiting for him. He knew then that he had to put more effort into his attire. It has become an important part of his game day ritual. “I would wear most of this stuff anyway, especially for the playoffs,” he said. “You want to feel good for each game. ” While television has used player arrivals as pregame fodder for years, social media has given these small moments greater currency. They have also become much more involved productions. Nian Fish, a creative director and producer of fashion shows and events, said she was struck by the work of the film crews. “You can see a guy holding up a big floodlight because they’re obviously going through this dark tunnel,” Fish said. “So I’m like, wow, that’s really amazing that they’re doing a lighting production to create a video of this, their own version of the red carpet. They’re really producing this shot. ” All for a few seconds of video. There are other logistical hurdles, said Tim Corrigan, a senior coordinating producer for ESPN. Because home and visiting teams often arrive at different entrances, Corrigan assigns crews to camp out at each location. Players also show up at various times. When the Warriors are on the road, for example, they have three buses that leave for the arena in increments. By now, ESPN’s crew knows that Curry tends to take the last bus, which usually pulls in about two hours before the game. Once he arrives, Curry takes measured steps past the assembled masses, his strides slow but purposeful. “It’s a normal walk,” the assistant coach Bruce Fraser said, “for someone who knows someone else is staring at him. ” Other players are more elusive. Corrigan recalled how Ray Allen, the former N. B. A. player, liked to show up so early for games that he often took a taxi from the team hotel. Marreese Speights, a reserve forward with the Warriors, tries to avoid the cameras altogether. His strategy? Take the last bus to road games and be the last player to disembark, his hope being that everyone will have vacated the premises then. Besides, Speights has no illusions that the cameras are there for him. “People want to see their favorite players all dressed up,” he said. The spotlight that follows Curry does not affect everyone. Steve Kerr, the Warriors’ coach, often shows up for home games in a and sweatpants. (He carries his suit in a garment bag.) Others take greater pains to be more fashion forward. James Michael McAdoo, a forward, has friends who send him news clippings and video snippets of Curry that just happen to feature McAdoo standing in the background. McAdoo does not want to look like a slob. “My wife makes sure I dress up for the finals,” he said. “I let her iron my shirts. I pick out my outfit a little bit earlier. It’s not like I just wake up from my nap and throw on whatever. Let’s make sure I have something that’s a little choreographed for each game. ” Curry has become an active participant in the whole process. He goes so far as to watch clips of other players making their arena entrances. “All the time,” Curry, whose competitive drive extends beyond the court, said. “You want to see what the other guys are doing. ” | 1 |
Serrated torches cleave the undesired.
Partialities are massed and deleted.
Fires of Higher Energetics precede the armies of Joy.
Gaia is reborn.
Source: GaiaPortal
| 0 |
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The Clinton Foundation and its foreign donors have been an area of concern should Hillary Clinton become president due to accusations of pay-to-play scandals. Knowing this, Hillary gave her word that the Clinton Foundation would stop accepting foreign donations should she be elected president. However, a new leak just exposed her real plan for foreign donors, and it’s not looking good. Hillary Clinton
Once again, Hillary has landed herself in the middle of more scandalous activity. With the FBI reopening her email and private server investigation and WikiLeaks continuously exposing her corruption, she can’t seem to catch a break — and she shouldn’t. Her long list of scandals continues to grow, as should her nose, after being busted lying to the American people yet again to manipulate her way into our White House.
According to a leaked memo, Hillary’s words mean nothing. Although she promised that the Clinton Foundation would cease accepting foreign donations if she were to be elected president, a leaked memo has exposed her real plans and proven that she didn’t mean what she said. Two-faced Hillary told the public one thing, while her secret plan was for something much different.
Thanks to WikiLeaks, the truth is again being revealed after the organization published an email that was sent to John Podesta, the Clinton Campaign chair. The email contained the leaked memo, which appears to have been crafted by Cheryl Mills, a Clinton aide, who wrote, “I connected with HRC this am regarding the steps she will take with regard to the Foundation should she announce a decision to explore a run for the Presidency,” just days before Hillary announced her run for president.
Although she’s said otherwise throughout her campaign, Hillary’s personal preference, as indicated by the leaked memo dated April 7, 2015, is for the foundation to continue accepting money from foreign governments, The Daily Caller reports, and this could mean bad news for Hillary as five FBI field offices are currently investigating her “nonprofit” foundation due to pay-to-play allegations, although the Department of Justice did their best to suppress investigations into the corrupt Clinton Foundation.
The leaked memo clearly shows that Hillary indicated to staffers that her personal preference is for the foundation to continue to accept money from foreign governments, even if she is elected president . What’s worse, the corrupt Clintons were hesitant to limit the foundation’s financial operations in any way, as the memo says, Hillary “does not want to limit the Foundation’s ability to operate programs now or in the future,” adding, “ we don’t want to close the door to unexpected opportunities. ”
The memo goes on to mention a “compromise” option, where it says they could “say that the Foundation will not accept contributions from foreign governments unless that funding is part of an ongoing program or a disbursement for a completed negotiation.” However, under that option, the foundation would continue to accept money from Qatar despite Hillary’s own admission that the country is financially supporting ISIS .
The “final option” mentioned “would mirror the 2008 [Memorandum of Understanding] agreement whereby the Foundation submits new foreign government contributions and those of a substantial size increase to an independent body (e.g. White House, State Department) for review. The obvious challenge with this is that there is no independent body to make that review.” However, as The Daily Caller notes, Hillary “did not uphold her end of the 2008 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),” and even liberal-leaning PolitiFact ruled the claim that Hillary acted in accordance with the 2008 MOU “mostly false.”
When is enough, enough? The Clinton crime family will never change their ways and their fake foundation is only a front for their shady deals. The Clintons’ greed for money and power is endless and nothing — not even our laws — will stand in the way of Hillary and Bill as they grab as much of both as they can. There’s only one place Hillary belongs while on this earth, and that’s not the Oval Office, it’s a cinderblock cell. After her time there is done, she has a one-way ticket to hell, where she probably hopes to overthrow the devil. That is how evil, corrupt, and power hungry she is. Her deceit and depravity know no bounds, and she would even give the devil a run for his money. Do you really want that kind of person to be our next president? | 0 |
Apple, complying with what it said was a request from Chinese authorities, removed news apps created by The New York Times from its app store in China late last month. The move limits access to one of the few remaining channels for readers in mainland China to read The Times without resorting to special software. The government began blocking The Times’s websites in 2012, after a series of articles on the wealth amassed by the family of Wen Jiabao, who was then prime minister, but it had struggled in recent months to prevent readers from using the app. Apple removed both the and apps from the app store in China on Dec. 23. Apps from other international publications, including The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, were still available in the app store. “For some time now the New York Times app has not been permitted to display content to most users in China and we have been informed that the app is in violation of local regulations,” Fred Sainz, an Apple spokesman, said of the Times apps. “As a result, the app must be taken down off the China App Store. When this situation changes, the App Store will once again offer the New York Times app for download in China. ” Mr. Sainz declined to comment on what local regulations the Times apps were said to have violated, who had contacted Apple and when, and whether a court order or other legal document had been presented. China’s main internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, did not respond to faxed questions. The Times bureau in Beijing said it had not been contacted by the Chinese government about the matter. A Times spokeswoman in New York, Eileen Murphy, said the company had asked Apple to reconsider its decision. “The request by the Chinese authorities to remove our apps is part of their wider attempt to prevent readers in China from accessing independent news coverage by The New York Times of that country, coverage which is no different from the journalism we do about every other country in the world,” Ms. Murphy said in a statement. The request appears to have been made under regulations released in June 2016 called Provisions on the Administration of Mobile Internet Application Information Services. The regulations say apps cannot “engage in activities prohibited by laws and regulations such as endangering national security, disrupting social order and violating the legitimate rights and interests of others. ” The cyberspace administration says on its website that apps also cannot publish “prohibited” information. The ruling Communist Party tightly controls media inside China and employs one of the world’s most sophisticated systems of internet censorship. Chinese law prohibits the publication of “harmful information” online, and officials often take action without legal procedures or court orders against material they deem objectionable. Apple has previously removed other, less prominent media apps from its China store. It is unclear how the company evaluates requests from Beijing to take down apps and whether it ever resists them. Apple’s chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, has said that the company complies with all local laws. While in early 2016 Apple resisted a court request in the United States for it to help federal officials unlock an iPhone for a criminal investigation, Mr. Cook said he would obey whatever order the court ultimately handed down. In the end, the government was able to unlock the device without Apple’’s help and the case was dropped. Farzana Aslam, associate director of the Center for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, noted that in matters involving customer privacy, Apple requires governments to submit subpoenas, search warrants or other legal documents. “Maybe in the end they have to do it, but I think there’s something to be said about standing up for what you believe in and purporting to put principle before profit in a country like China, to show that actually there is this tension there,” Ms. Aslam said. “It’s not as simple as, ‘Because we operate in your jurisdiction, we’ll do anything you ask of us. ’” She added that it was “very worrying” that Apple had not disclosed what laws the authorities said were violated, making it difficult for The Times and other publishers to file an appeal or challenge the government’s requests. In the weeks leading up to the withdrawal of the Times apps, The Times was working on various articles related to the Chinese government. One of them, posted online on Dec. 29, revealed the billions of dollars in hidden perks and subsidies that the Chinese government provides to the world’s biggest iPhone factory. China is also one of Apple’s largest iPhone markets, though sales in that region have slowed. On Dec. 23, David Barboza, a Times reporter, spoke with members of Apple’s media team about the article. Mr. Barboza had previously been in touch with the iPhone factory owner, Foxconn. He had also contacted the Chinese government as part of his reporting. Later that day, a separate team from Apple informed The Times that the apps would be removed, Ms. Murphy said. In another article, published on Dec. 22 as a post on its Sinosphere blog, The Times described an internet video that had been widely promoted by Chinese public security offices. The Times news apps remain available in Apple’s app stores for other countries, as well as the Hong Kong and Taiwan stores, but people must have a credit card with a billing address outside mainland China to download them. The Times crossword puzzle and virtual reality apps remain available throughout China. When the Chinese government began blocking the Times websites in 2012, it also prevented users with Times apps from downloading new content. But readers in China can still gain access to The Times using software that circumvents the government’s firewall. And in July 2015, The Times released a new version of its app that adopted a different method for retrieving articles, one that the government appeared unable to stop. Apple’s decision to remove the app from its China store should not affect those who have already installed it. But users in China will not be able to download new releases unless they use another region’s app store. The Times discovered after being blocked in 2012 that hackers with possible ties to the Chinese military had targeted the newspaper’s computer systems and that the attacks coincided with the reporting for that Times investigation. Foreign tech companies face increasing pressure from government authorities in China. In April, Apple’s iBooks Store and iTunes Movies were shut down in the country, just six months after they were introduced there. Mark Natkin, the managing director of Marbridge Consulting, who advises American technology firms in China, said he did not think any such company entering the Chinese market could “ever fully comprehend how challenging it’s going to be. ” Mr. Natkin said that Apple had a certain amount of leverage against the Chinese government in terms of the total amount of jobs created but that “the technology gap has started to close. ” | 1 |
posted by Eddie Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher, mathematician and founder of Pythagoreanism. He was also a high ranking member in many mystery schools and secret societies, including the Egyptian Priesthood and The Order Of The Magi. Pythagoreanism is a religious movement in which he attempted to merge education, science and religion in perfect unity. The Pythagorean School consisted of nine temples for the different subjects which included- geometry, music, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, politics and especially mathematics. His esoteric teachings were guarded closely and more secretive, candidates were given a probationary period to pass through. This was used to test their mental capabilities and their ability to maintain secrecy. Those who passed through this process were initiated into a select brotherhood in which they pursued religious and ascetic practices he had developed. This group were called Esoterici – The Esoteric. Pythagoras, Phidias and Fibonacci are all names that come up in association to the golden ratio, Phi or the Fibonacci sequence. But Pythagoras was the first to use it on a musical scale. According to legend, Pythagoras discovered musical tones when he walked passed a blacksmiths and was captured by the sounds emanating inside. He thought the harmonies could be translated into a mathematical equations. He later went into the blacksmiths and learnt how the sounds were made by observing their tools. He realised that the hammers had simple ratios to each other, one hammer was half the size of the first, another was 2/3 the size, and so on. This story cannot be validated, however it is fascinating to think that one of the most (if not the most) significant audio scales were discovered in this way. The fibonacci sequence is the number sequence 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13 and so on to infinity. This mathematical formula is found by adding up the two numbers before it in the sequence 0+1=1 1+1=2 1+2=3 2+3=5 and so on. The space between these numbers gives us the golden ratio of 1.618. This sequence unifies the properties of space, time, light, gravity and our genetic makeup within our DNA code. Our faces have this ratio and so do our bodies, you can find this ratio in our upper arm to lower arm and upper leg to lower leg. Even our brains are constructed with this ratio, with our pineal gland (which is thought to be the seat of the souls in many teachings) spiraling with this magical formula. Our pineal gland also produces melatonin and DMT which is thought to cause dreams and spiritual states. This ratio exists within flower petals, trees, seeds, natural foods, shells, the galaxies in the universe, it is truly the mathematical language of the universe. Given the significance of this, you may be able to see why listening to music tuned at this frequency could be a good thing. You can view more information about Pythagorean tuning and in specific the frequency of 432Hz in the video below.
source: By Luke Miller Truth Theory From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8922 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of WorldTruth.TV. and Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media. | 0 |
Home › POLITICS › HUGE PILE OF MANURE DUMPED IN FRONT OF DEM HQ HUGE PILE OF MANURE DUMPED IN FRONT OF DEM HQ 0 SHARES
[10/31/16] While Hillary Clinton’s team is working to dig the Democratic presidential candidate out from under a barrage of leaked emails exposing corruption and collusion, staffers at the Democratic headquarters in Warren, County Ohio were stuck in a similar situation over the weekend.
The Warren County Democratic Party headquarters on Route 42 was the target of an unexpected dump of its own late Friday night, but instead of embarrassing emails the office received several tons of manure, dumped at the front door, WCPO reports.
A volunteer found the pile of poo the next morning.
Bethe Goldenfield, county party chairman, downplayed the dump as a “minor blip on the radar,” and contends it’s only inspired local volunteers to get people to the polls.
“People are very motivated,” she said.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper sent out a picture of the pile to his Twitter followers around 9 a.m. Saturday.
“When they dump manure, we go high! One of our best performing offices, generating strong D early vote,” he wrote. “Lesson: keep organizing while they bs.”
WPCO reports the incident was a repeat from the 2012 election, when the local campaign office received the exact same donation. The party has since installed video cameras, however, and are hoping the investment pays off.
“We have cameras, so the perps will hopefully be responsible for their actions,” the party posted to its Facebook page, WHIO reports. Post navigation | 0 |
October 31: Daily Contrarian Reads By David Stockman. My daily contrarian reads for Monday, October 31st, 2016. | 0 |
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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A bill preventing supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement from entering Israel was authorized on Monday for its first reading in the Israeli parliament, according to Israeli media.
According to the Jerusalem Post , the interior committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, approved the bill, which was initiated by Knesset Member Yinon Magal from the ultranationalist Home Party, paving the way for the bill to enter its first reading in the Israeli Knesset.
The bill would allow individuals supporting a boycott against Israel to be banned from entering the country.
The BDS movement was founded in July 2005 by a swath of Palestinian civil society as a peaceful movement to restore Palestinian rights in accordance with international law through strategies of boycotting Israeli products and cultural institutions, divesting from companies complicit in violations against Palestinians, and implementing state sanctions against the Israeli government.The move came after several months of Israeli efforts to crack down on the BDS Movement. Israeli Minister of the Interior Aryeh Deri and Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan announced in August that they were forming a joint task force to “expel and ban the entry of BDS activists” into Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.
“We must not allow BDS activists to enter the state of Israel. This is a necessary step, given the malicious intentions of these activists to delegitimize and spread lies and distortions about the reality in our region,” Erdan was quoted as saying in a statement released at the time, adding that the boycott movement against Israel “must have a price.”
“Fighting against Israeli boycotts starts by fighting those who undermine the state of Israel,” Deri also said at the time.
“We have a responsibility to do everything possible to crush any boycott and to state clearly that we will not allow the State of Israel to be harmed. Forming the task force is an important step in that direction.”
Without citing any names, the statement estimated that “hundreds” of pro-Palestinian activists and dozens of organizations were currently in Israel “to gather information and use it to boycott Israel, and harm its citizens,” and that the task force would also try to prevent the entrance of activists in the future.
The statement also alleged that BDS activists traveled to the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem to “incite” Palestinians.
The announcement led to outcry from groups like the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which believed they were the targets of the newly-formed task force.“Isolation of Palestinians by denying access and/or deporting human rights activists aims to make Palestinian communities already vulnerable and suffering from abuse…even more vulnerable,” ISM said in a statement in response to the plans of forming the task force .“We condemn Israeli suppression of Palestinian nonviolent resistance. This recent attempt to further isolate Palestinians indicates the occupation authorities’ unwillingness to do the only thing that will actually bring an end to Israel’s isolation — to adhere to international law, end the occupation and grant Palestinians their rights.”ISM argued that its foreign activists play a crucial role in trying to prevent Israeli army violence against Palestinians.“As a civilian population living under military occupation Palestinians in the occupied territories are promised protection under International law,” the group said in its statement. “(Foreign) civilians have been attempting to fill in the gap created by the failure of governments and official international bodies to provide protection and fulfill their obligations.“We find that our presence sometimes results in reducing the level of lethal force used by the Israeli military against unarmed Palestinians.”The boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel has gained momentum over the past year, with activists targeting companies that act in compliance with Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
In late July, the Black Lives Matter movement — which denounces police violence against African-Americans in the United States — came out in support of BDS , stating that it was committed to “global struggle, solidarity, and support of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement to fight for freedom, justice and equality for Palestinian people and to end international support of the occupation.”The Israeli government, meanwhile, has grown increasingly concerned about the growth of the BDS movement, as the movement’s support base has expanded to include companies, universities and religious institutions around the world divesting from organizations complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian rights.
In January, the Israeli Knesset held a conference to discuss ways to combat BDS , and dedicated 100 million shekels ($26 million) of the government’s 2016 budget to the issue.In May, Israel issued a travel ban on BDS cofounder Omar Barghouti , a permanent resident in Israel, as Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, stated at the time that the decision reflected “the lengths [Israel] will go to in order to stop the spread of the non-violent BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality.”
More recently, Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, passed a controversial NGO “transparency bill” into law on July 12 , compelling organizations to reveal their sources of funding if more than half came from public foreign entities — a law which human rights groups and opposition Knesset members condemned for seeking to “silence criticism” of Israel and delegitimize left-wing groups .Opposition leader in the Knesset Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Camp party then slammed the law for “symbolizing the budding fascism that is rising and flourishing in Israeli society” and making a “mockery” of the “right to organize, which is a sacred founding principle of a democratic society.” | 0 |
Deputy Chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Abolfazl Hassan Beiki accused Saudi Arabia of orchestrating several assassination attempts in the Southern provinces of Iran and plotting to blow up three tons of explosives in Tehran. 8 Shares
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"We have witnessed the Saudis' footprints in several failed assassination attempts in the two (Southwestern and Southeastern) provinces of Khouzestan and Sistan and Balouchestan," Hassan Beiki, also a former advisor to Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said on Saturday.
He also said that a terrorist team which was disbanded in Garmsar recently and intended to blow up three tons of explosives in Tehran was affiliated to Riyadh, adding that the arrested terrorists in Garmsar and Tehran had received financial support from Saudi Arabia and had been trained in Iraq's Mosul and Syria's Raqqa.
"We should clearly announce that today, the Saudis are adopting measures against our national security through other countries' embassies, and unfortunately, we see today that certain Arab, African and European embassies are accompanying and uttering similar words like the Saudis (against Iran)," Hassan Beiki said.
Earlier this week, Head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Public Relations Department General Ramezan Sharif announced that the IRGC forces have dismantled two terrorist groups who sought to carry out sabotage acts inside Iran, adding that they were mercenaries of Saudi Arabia.
"By hollow promises, Saudi Arabia attempted to make the terrorist groups, including Komala and the former Democrat group (Democratic Party of Iran's Kurdistan (Hadka) affiliated to Komala party), to confront the Islamic Republic," General Sharif said on Tuesday.
MORE... Picture shows ISIS Yazidi sex slaves sold in horrifying auctions to Saudi Arabia Iran's leading scholar urges Muslims to conquer Mecca Saudi police attacks a vegetable vendor with a stunt gun for being involved in a car accident The Bin Ladens: A Saudi bellwether "Two 12-member and 16-member teams of Democrat who had entered Iran for sabotage operations were disbanded by the IRGC's Ground Force and the intelligence ministry before they could do anything noteworthy," he added.
His remarks came two month after the IRGC dismantled a team of 9 terrorists "sent by Saudi Arabia to foment insecurity inside the country".
The IRGC killed four of the terrorists, including their commander, and injured two others in the city of Saravan in Sistan and Balouchestan province in Southeastern Iran.
Official statements said the terrorist team which intended to carryout "sabotage acts inside Iran was disbanded by the IRGC in the Kouhak border region of Saravan city".
The IRGC also destroyed the weapons, ammunition, wireless equipment, night-vision goggles and three Toyota vehicles of the terrorists calling themselves Jeish al-Adl group.
Also in September, the Iranian intelligence and security forces dismantled a team of 12 terrorists sent by Saudi Arabia and certain trans-regional states to foment insecurity inside the country.
The terrorist team which was equipped with light and semi-heavy weapons and intended to carryout sabotage acts inside Iran was disbanded in the Western bordering areas of Sardasht city through cooperation with the IRGC forces.
Ten terrorists of the outlawed Democrat Party were also killed last month in armed clashes with the Iranian border guards in the Western province of Kurdistan.
The terrorists who were trying to sneak into the country through the Western Iranian borders in the village of Baneh and Khalfi in Sardasht region, sought to foment insecurity in Iran's Kurdistan province.
Based on the latest information, 10 terrorists of the outlawed group were killed during the clashes. | 0 |
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A GRASSROOTS movement which has distilled people’s myriad frustrations and anger into one simple, catch all phrase continues to gather pace on the ground in America this morning.
Providing a slogan to a loose affiliation of people’s desires, which often directly contradict or compromise the various factions involved, the populist movement is expanding at a worrying rate.
‘Make American Vote Again’, the name given to vast swathes of people who feel America really needs to vote again a second time to get it right, has seen large crowds gather at numerous rallies across the United States.
“Wrong” was the repeated phrase voiced by speakers at the rallies, as they cited the fact that America was headed in the wrong direction as evidence it needed a revolution in order to place it back on the right path.
Many media personnel in attendance sought to press rally goers on the finer points of their plan to make America vote again, but could only shout ‘make America vote again’ repeatedly. Followers of the movement also displayed an almost violent patriotic loyalty to the 1st Amendment of the Constitution, which they claim Donald Trump would dismantle once in power.
“It’s heartwarming to see such large crowds. But, where were you assholes yesterday,” shared one of the movement’s leaders Hillary Clinton.
Clinton, criticised for her populism which has seen her join the calls for another vote, is looking to tap into the sort of post-Brexit come down, which saw half of Britain ‘shit their pants’ and wish they could vote all over again.
The movement has drawn the attention of mainstream media which remains suspicious of Make America Vote Again, due to the face it is occurring online through social media channel outside the confines of the news media.
“It goes against our values, principles and ideals, it’s not something anyone likes to see,” confirmed Republican strategist Noren Hassleback.
“Having said that, despite the move being unconstitutional, many of the utterances bordering on being treasonous and discriminatory… they might be onto something”. | 0 |
Despite the loss of state law enforcement grants, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez followed through and released 39 criminal aliens during the first two days of her sanctuary policy. [Records obtained by Breitbart Texas from the Travis County Sheriff’s Office revealed that “Sanctuary Sally” released 37 criminal aliens from custody on February 1. Two more criminal aliens were released on the following day. The sheriff’s office stated that Sheriff Hernandez declined 191 immigration detainers that were received by her office before February 1. Eight more immigration detainers received after February 1 were also declined. The sheriff also declined four requests from immigration officials to be notified of the pending release of the criminal aliens in her custody. Sheriff Hernandez did not refuse all requests from U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Thirty immigration detainers that were received by her office before the February 1 change in policy were honored by the office. The sheriff accepted three immigration detainers that were received after her policy went into effect on February 1. She also accepted two requests for notification of pending release. Texas Governor Greg Abbott responded to the lawless actions of the Travis County sheriff Tweeting, “This is why I declared banning sanctuary cities an emergency. Texas will hammer Travis County. ” This is why I declared banning sanctuary cities an emergency. Texas will hammer Travis County. #txlege #tcot https: . — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) February 2, 2017, Governor Abbott moved on the day of the sheriff’s sanctuary county policy announcement and stripped state grants from the department, Breitbart Texas reported. Travis County Sheriff’s Office Spokesperson Kristen Dark confirmed the move by the sheriff to protect criminal aliens from federal officials will cost the taxpayers of Travis County $1. 5 million this year. She also confirmed the sheriff is aware her department could also lose federal law enforcement grants if the Department of Justice certifies the county is not cooperating 100 percent with immigration officials under existing federal law. Breitbart Texas requested information on what crimes the released aliens were charged with. Dark replied that information could only be obtained via an open records act request. Abbott received quick support for his message on Twitter. @TDNeliton Tweeted, “Thank the Lord, for leaders like you sir. Be Blessed!” @GregAbbott_TX @statesman, Thank the Lord, for leaders like you sir. Be Blessed! — ForgottenWarriorOps (@TDNeliton) February 2, 2017, @PistolPacknMimi also messaged her support Tweeting, “Thank you Governor! You’re doing a great job. ” @GregAbbott_TX @statesman Thank you Governor! You’re doing a great job. — PistolPacknMimi (@PistolPacknMimi) February 2, 2017, Not everyone was pleased with Abbott’s actions and comments. “liberal New Yorker suffering in Texas,” @LynnFromNYC Tweeted, “Very unchristian of you. ” @GregAbbott_TX @statesman, Very unchristian of you. — LYNN ❄️ (@lynnfromnyc) February 2, 2017, Greg Johnson, @lsoX2017 humorously Tweeted, “Don’t worry Greg … . We’ll vote you out J. ” @GregAbbott_TX @statesman don’t worry Greg … . .we’ll vote you out : ) — Greg Johnson (@IsoX2017) February 2, 2017, To which @MajorPayne320 replied, “Your party is on its death bed, explain how you are going to do this with the Gov won the popular vote by 70%. ” @IsoX2017@GregAbbott_TX@statesman Your party is on its death bed, explain how you are going to do this when the Gov won the pop vote by 70% — MajorPayne (@MajorPayne320) February 2, 2017, The Texas Legislature is currently debating bills that would outlaw sanctuary jurisdictions in Texas. On Thursday, the Texas Senate held hearings in the Senate Chamber on SB 4, a bill offered by State Senator Charles Perry ( ). Hundreds of people testified before the Senate Committee on State Affairs in a session that lasted until midnight, Breitbart Texas’ Lana Shadwick reported. 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 |
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Brazil’s sickly economy is hemorrhaging thousands of jobs a day, states are scrambling to pay police officers and teachers, and money for subsidized meals is in such short supply that one legislator suggested that the poor could “eat every other day. ” Still, not everyone is suffering. Civil servants in the judicial branch are enjoying a 41 percent raise. Legislators here in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, voted to increase their own salaries by more than 26 percent. And Congress, which is preparing to cut pension benefits around the country, is now allowing its members to retire with lifelong pensions after just two years in office. Brazil is struggling to pull out of its worst economic crisis in decades, and President Michel Temer says the country needs to curb public spending to do so. Yet it did not help his dismal approval ratings when he hosted a lavish banquet to persuade members of Congress to support his budget cuts, with 300 guests eating shrimp and filet mignon. Outside such rarefied circles, Mr. Temer’s austerity measures are igniting a fierce debate over how the richest and most powerful Brazilians are protecting their wealth and privileges at a time when much of the country is enduring a harrowing economic decline. “This government talks about austerity for everyone, but of course forces the costs on society’s most vulnerable people,” said Giovana Santos Pereira, 25, a schoolteacher. “It’s ridiculous to the point of being tragic. ” Much of the ire revolves around the centerpiece of Mr. Temer’s austerity drive: his success in persuading the Congress to impose a cap on federal spending for the next 20 years. Mr. Temer, who rose to power last year after supporting the impeachment of his predecessor, Dilma Rousseff, says the cap, which would limit the growth in spending to the rate of inflation, is needed to scale back ballooning budget deficits. Investors have applauded the measure as a turning point for Latin America’s largest economy. But critics are lashing out at the spending cap, saying it could harm the poor for decades to come, especially in areas like education. Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said the spending cap placed Brazil “in a socially retrogressive category all of its own. ” The debate is all the more caustic because Mr. Temer’s government is resisting calls to raise taxes on wealthy Brazilians, who still enjoy what some economists describe as one of the most generous tax systems for the rich among major economies. For instance, Brazilians remain exempt from paying any taxes at all on dividends from stock holdings, and they can easily use loopholes to significantly lower taxes on other sources of income. Economists at the government’s Institute of Applied Economic Research said in a 2016 study that a 15 percent tax on dividends could generate nearly $17 billion in revenue a year, but such proposals have failed to gain traction in a government that has shifted to the right. “The system is engineered to perpetuate inequality, and Temer is doubling down on bets that Brazil needs austerity,” said Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos, an economist at the University of Campinas, drawing parallels between Brazil’s multiyear slowdown and Greece’s seemingly interminable economic crisis. Mr. Temer has not been a popular president, and his approval ratings stand at just 10 percent. But his supporters point out that his leftist predecessor, Ms. Rousseff, sought her own austerity measures before her ouster last year, and that his government has promised to maintain some widely popular antipoverty programs expanded by her party years ago. Mr. Temer’s government says it is reversing the ways of previous governments. Brazil’s economy shrank about 4 percent in 2016, when its political class was consumed by infighting over the impeachment. But last month, the finance minister, Henrique Meirelles, claimed that “the recession has ended. ” Some promising signs of a recovery may be emerging. Foreign investment has increased and, after performing poorly, Brazil’s stock market was one of the best performing in the world in 2016, creating a windfall for the relatively prosperous Brazilians who put money into equities. Mr. Temer is especially bullish, predicting that the economy will grow 3 percent next year. But the conditions on the streets of cities around Brazil tell a different story, reflecting devilishly complex structural challenges as millions of Brazilians fall into poverty. States are facing crippling strikes by public employees over unpaid or inadequate salaries. In the state of Espírito Santo, in southeast Brazil, a police strike last month produced an anarchic week marked by looting and a surge in homicides. Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the Olympics in August, showcases the complex issues Brazil’s states face. In desperate efforts to slash deficits, the authorities in Rio are shutting down restaurants that provide subsidized meals to the poor, raising taxes on residential electricity service and eliminating welfare programs for the state’s poorest residents. Yet Rio’s governor, like his counterparts in other Brazilian states, enjoys the use of a private jet for jaunts around the country. And Rio’s judges, already well paid, were pressing ahead with plans to spend millions of dollars hiring new servants for their chambers — until the public got wind of the plan. The ensuing outrage forced the judges to shelve the idea. At the same time, the state is having trouble finding money to pay for food for the poor. The cost — about 65 cents a meal — was straining the state enough that one state legislator, Pedro Fernandes, suggested taking meals “every other day. ” “I don’t know if what I’m saying is absurd, but it’s something to ponder,” he said. The ability of elected officials and elite public employees to secure what Brazilians call “super salaries” and outsize benefits for themselves has long been a contentious feature of the country’s political system. But while Brazilians fume over the issue at a time of national some officials say they are entitled to special treatment. Brazilian judges, who can easily make about $200, 000 a year, have been especially outspoken in demanding raises in a country where roughly half the population scrapes by on a minimum wage of about $4, 000. “There’s no shame whatsoever in this,” Ricardo Lewandowski, a Supreme Court justice, recently told a conference of judges to a round of applause. “Building maintenance fees go up, real estate taxes go up, gasoline goes up, food goes up, and the judge’s salary can’t go up?” As many poor and Brazilians absorb the brunt of austerity policies, the protracted economic slowdown and a dizzying array of graft scandals involving the nation’s political leaders are fueling sentiment ahead of presidential elections in 2018, paving the way for figures outside the mainstream to gain momentum. Alarming some politicians, Jair Bolsonaro, an ultranationalist congressman who excoriates immigrants and defends the torture of drug traffickers, is polling well ahead of traditional contenders like Aécio Neves, a senator from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party. According to a survey last month by MDA, a Brazilian polling company, just 1 percent of respondents said they would vote for Mr. Temer, reflecting his dismal nationwide standing. It may not even matter, since Mr. Temer’s conviction for violating campaign finance limits could make him ineligible to run. His popularity sustained another blow in recent days after his government spent thousands of dollars to upgrade the president’s luxurious residence, only for Mr. Temer to move his family back to another palace in the capital, Brasília. The poll was conducted from Feb. 8 to 11 through interviews with 2, 002 people, with a margin of sampling error or plus or minus 2. 2 percentage points. It also showed a former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as a potential . But Mr. da Silva, a leftist who has been condemning Mr. Temer’s austerity measures, could also find himself ineligible to run if he is convicted of graft charges in connection with his ties to construction companies that profited from public contracts. Given the volatile political landscape and the weak economy, a sense of hopelessness afflicts many Brazilians. Ana Cristina Silva, 49, lost her job in December at a company in the southern city of Porto Alegre that assembles furniture. “They just think about themselves,” she said about Mr. Temer’s government, expressing indignation about the pay increases granted to some public employees while much of the country is still reeling. “It’s absurd. Those who don’t need it get a raise. ” | 1 |
Microsoft has officially confirmed the cancellation of Platinum Games’ dragon Scalebound after four years of development. [Originally unveiled at E3 2014, Scalebound was a blend of and action, sewn together by progression systems for both the characters and their massive dragon allies. Unfortunately, the original cinematic trailer promised more than the awkward gameplay footage delivered. Scalebound missed E3 2015, was delayed beyond its late 2016 launch, and is now officially cancelled. According to sources in contact with Eurogamer, the project had already been terminated at an unspecified time last year. Persistent problems with the engine and failed deadlines sent Scalebound into what is commonly referred to as “development hell. ” Senior developers even had to take a month away from the project, due to the intense stress surrounding development. Microsoft and Platinum Games quietly separated, but the public announcement was held until after the holiday season. The official statement from Microsoft: After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences. For more information on our 2017 plans, please visit: ””>since its reveal at Gamescom 2015. It’s less surprising to see them touting the brilliantly paced sequel to Halo Wars, the cooperative State of Decay 2 that fans have been clamoring for since the first title in the zombie survival franchise was released, and Rare’s madcap swashbuckling multiplayer RPG Sea of Thieves. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
by Mohsin Siddiqui for the Oceania Saker Blog
The US elections much like the rest of our usual daily consumption of Mass Media are more about stage managed theatre with bucket loads of Americanism, a seasoning of hyperbole and most certainly reality-free. The constant barrage of infotainment from the indispensable nation, the exceptional nation and the benign super power tells us of a distinct desire to consume information reality-free.
This informational GMO has permeated every facet of our existence and has infected the minds of billions around the world. It can be ridiculed, seen as inferior or even unsustainable. But do understand that it is the food for the liberal soul and it is a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Human beings drive the vast bulk of their understanding of the world through information either delivered directly via consumable media or indirectly via peer impressions, religion, anecdotes, fables and cultural norms. All of it ultimately centres on the flow of information which is a commodity that has been designed, refined, repackaged and is continually ‘improved’. Most of us underestimate the true awesome power of mass media, we read the statistics, the concentration of power and observe the echo chamber yet we still need to let it all sink in to truly grasp what it means.
Mass media is the encapsulation of the spectrum of information; From magazine to sports to history to business to politics, it is driven by a seamless thread of a philosophy guiding the ego & soul towards an atomised individualistic view of the world. It is an echo chamber that has not seen its parallel before on this planet, an organ to shape reality for the billions. A human being is a hodge-podge of history, culture, religion, philosophy, geography, epigenetics and a host of many more layers of information. Mass Media is the flute that organises this cacophony into a melody, and just like that a marionette of the modern man is born.
Resistance to the pied piper is possible but requires one to leave that womb of comfort that the information matrix provides with its legions of followers; That feeling of belonging, of being understood, of being ‘right’ and of being good. The strength can only come from reality but in our upside down world many are malnourished on the diet of GM information and it is not a problem for only Americans – who are severely affected – but instead it is a global phenomenon.
Successful entrepreneurs, businessmen, academics, financial experts, journalists, neighbours, friends, brothers, sisters and parents can all be entangled in the web of the information matrix. Many of us have been at pains to explain the conflicts in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine and Yemen to our colleagues and friends but it is as if the words fall on deaf ears. The cognitive dissonance is heavy and the Teflon like value-matrix – a product of pre-packaged popularly accepted globalised values- lets all facts, figures and evidence that we present slip off. It is about the first woman president elect and not her war crimes, it is about the opposing camp saying that a racist, misogynist bigot is worse than a psychopathic mass murderer. It is inverted reality. It is full on dystopia.
Where do you begin to explain that elections are for the most part mere stage managed theatre? That the USA is an Empire of 1,000 military bases and not a country? That Obama the peace maker has incinerated civilians in 7 countries with impunity? That Hillary’s black lives did not matter for whole black Libyan towns that were extinguished? That President Asad’s Syria is LGBTQ friendly and the “Syrian revolution” that never was is the opposite? Or that it simply is not about personality politics, gay rights and black lives but is about a class struggle?
Moreover, how do you abstract further and talk about Imperialism with a populace that thinks that protesting with Soros funds -to the benefit of the imperial war machine- is inline with being a Communist/Marxist movement? How do you explain Imperialism when King Leopold II has his bust on display with a higher tally than that of Hitler?
A chasm in time it is and it is widening.
I have been speaking to friends of the past 20 years trying to give my view of what I feel is missing in the discourse; Class struggle, how mass media works, what colour revolutions are, what imperialism is and how we ought to abandon personality politics. Our biggest obstacle is personality politics, and we are seen through that lens as arrogant bastards trying to educate Ivy League graduates, hedge fund managers, educated graduates and Silicon Valley success stories. How can we, the deplorable, know anything anyway?
After a recent exchange, a Rhodes Scholar quipped: “To put it succinctly, you are saying Trump is good for Russia. I think we kind of get that”. I did not know what to say, the Teflon value matrix had won again. Plato’s democratic man guards the citadel of his soul with vengeance.
Another highly educated and decorated researcher at a prestigious Ivy League university said “… under Obama our economy bounced back, unemployment went down, we didn’t start any major new wars” and ended his raving review by stating “Obama did a great job.” The painful part is coming to terms with a colonized mind; These educated men and women are the crème de la crème of their imperialism ravaged countries, the ones who proverbially “made it”.
Their world makes sense to them, the Mass Media might have shamed itself in our eyes and the veil might have been lifted for us. But for them their convictions have only strengthened and they have been wronged by the basket of deplorables.
Mohsin Siddiqui | 0 |
This story originally appeared at the Clarion Project: By Ryan Mauro, The Syriac Military Council, a Christian militia in Syria opposed to the Assad regime, condemned Turkey for bombing its U. S. Kurdish allies who are fighting ISIS. The Christians accused Turkey of continuing the genocidal and campaigns of the Ottoman Empire. The statement reads in part: “This attack came at the 102nd commemoration of the Syriac Assyrian, Armenian and Greek genocide ‘Sayfo,’ while Turkey is continuing the same policies against the people living in the Middle East, trying to overthrow the democratic project that our people are working together to reach a political and administrational system based on pluralism, justice, equality and democracy. ” Turkey’s airstrikes killed 40 Kurdish fighters in Iraq and 30 in Syria. The Kurds in Syria belonged to the People Defense Units (YPG). The Syriac Military Council (MFS) and its female wing, the Beth Nahrin Women Protection Forces, are allied with the YPG Kurds in a U. S. alliance named the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a coalition and it is leading the fight against ISIS as it prepares to attack Raqqa. Despite historical ethnic tensions, the SDF was able to recruit so many Sunni Arabs that a top U. S. commander estimates that 60% of the fighters are Arab and 40% are Kurds. Read the full story at Clarion. | 1 |
DAYTON, Ohio — When Hillary Clinton was searching for a running mate, she made clear her top criterion: Her selection needed to be ready to become president “if something were to happen,” as she put it. When she announced Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her choice, Mrs. Clinton affirmed that he had passed that test. Now, after Mrs. Clinton had to be helped into a van while departing a Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony on Sunday and the later disclosure that she had been given a pneumonia diagnosis on Friday, Mr. Kaine is coming under a more intense spotlight. When he took questions from reporters on Monday, cable news channels carried the exchange live, a rare level of attention for his candidacy. While everyone — politicians included — gets sick from time to time, the intense focus on Mrs. Clinton’s health brings with it a constitutional reminder: Mr. Kaine is not only a booster, but also a possible president himself. The scrutiny of Mrs. Clinton’s health “means that Tim Kaine has to step up his game,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “He’s such an unknown quantity to the American people that he now has to kind of assume the mantle of what it would be like to have him as commander in chief, not just vice president,” Mr. Brinkley said. Nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency during a president’s term, eight because of a death and one because of a resignation. In four of those eight instances, the president was assassinated. In four other cases, the president died of natural causes, most recently in 1945, when Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage and Harry S. Truman became president. A lawyer by training, Mr. Kaine, who served as mayor of Richmond, Va. and as Virginia’s lieutenant governor and governor before winning election to the Senate in 2012, was seen as an appealing pick for Mrs. Clinton in large part because of his résumé and his policy chops. But he is not a figure nationally, even after more than seven weeks as Mrs. Clinton’s running mate. In a poll conducted this month, 19 percent of voters said they had never heard of Mr. Kaine, and an additional 21 percent said they had no opinion of him. “So far this has been a presidential race that has been heavily focused on the presidential candidates, to an unusual extent,” said Joel K. Goldstein, a law professor at St. Louis University who is an expert on the vice presidency. Recalling his own bout with pneumonia, Mr. Goldstein cautioned that “the fact that somebody has pneumonia doesn’t mean there’s about to be a succession. ” But he said the episode on Sunday would bring more attention to Mr. Kaine’s suitability to the presidency. “It should remind people of the importance of the two candidates, and whether they are appropriate presidential successors based on their experience, skill, character and substantive views,” he said. As he hopscotches from state to state, Mr. Kaine comes across more as a genial traveling salesman for the ticket than as a president in waiting. In his speeches, he tends to focus on making a case against Donald J. Trump while talking up Mrs. Clinton. At times, he still expresses shock that he is even on the Democratic ticket, as if he had been plucked from anonymity to embark upon a great adventure. “I felt like I was Pinocchio turning into a real boy,” he told a crowd in Virginia on Friday, recalling when Mrs. Clinton asked him to be her running mate. “I mean, like, ‘Wow, what? You want me? Are you kidding? ’” The biggest test of Mr. Kaine’s readiness will come on Oct. 4, when he faces Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, in the debate. “You don’t want a Sarah Palin situation where voters really have doubts about the second person on the ticket,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton. “It’s especially true if there are any kinds of concerns about age or health. ” Mr. Kaine, 58, differs from the man he is hoping to succeed, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in that he is a relatively new member of the Senate, not an elder statesman. But Mr. Kaine has made a point of focusing on foreign policy during his time in the Senate, where he serves on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees. Speaking to reporters after an event here on Monday, Mr. Kaine said he did not think the new episode involving Mrs. Clinton’s health put any more pressure on him to convince voters he is ready to be president. Even before the latest incident, Mr. Kaine had tried to defend Mrs. Clinton against questions about her health, while also calling on Mr. Trump, who had accused Mrs. Clinton of lacking stamina, to be more forthcoming about his own health. Two weeks ago, Mr. Kaine mocked the letter from a doctor for Mr. Trump that asserted the candidate would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” while he also declared Mrs. Clinton to be “one tough and one healthy person. ” And as he campaigned here on Monday, he offered fresh testimony about Mrs. Clinton’s physical . “I’ve just been on the campaign since July 22,” Mr. Kaine told the crowd. “Hillary Clinton has been on the campaign trail for 18 months. Her energy staggers me. I have a hard time keeping up with her. ” | 1 |
Sunday on Sinclair Television Group’s “Full Measure,” . Jason Chaffetz ( ) said the Trump administration is being “worse” than the Obama administration on transparency. Chaffetz said, “The reality is, sadly, I don’t see much difference between the Trump administration and the Obama administration. I thought there would be this, these floodgates would open up with all the documents we wanted from the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon. In many ways, it’s almost worse, because we’re getting nothing, and that’s terribly frustrating and with all due respect, the Attorney General has not changed at all. I find him to be worse than what I saw with Loretta Lynch in terms of releasing documents and making things available. I just, that’s my experience, and that’s not what I expected. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
President Barack Obama reflected on the attack on a white disabled man aired on Facebook by four teenagers, describing the incident as a “terrible” and “despicable” hate crime. [Obama made his remarks in the context of a discussion of race relations and whether or not they had gotten better or worse during his presidency. “I don’t think it’s accurate to say that race relations have gotten worse,” he said, blaming social media, smart phones, and the internet for “surfacing” more incidents of racial violence. “What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of problems that have been there a long time,” he said in an interview with local Chicago station CBS 2. “Whether it’s tensions between police and communities, hate crimes of the despicable sort that has just now recently surfaced on Facebook. ” The suspects, Jordan Hill, 18 Tesfaye Cooper, 18 Brittany Covington, 18 and Tanishia Covington, 24 were charged with criminal hate crimes and aggravated kidnapping as well as other felony charges, according to NBC News. Obama also discussed the horrifying incident in an interview with Chicago’s ABC7. “It’s terrible,” he said. “And so part of technology allows us to see now is the terrible toll that racism and discrimination and hate takes on families and communities. But that’s part of how we learn and how we get better. ” Obama argued that it was alarming to see the new images on social media, but that it would help society root out the scourge of racism. “We don’t benefit from pretending that racism doesn’t exist and hate doesn’t exist, we don’t benefit from not talking about it,” he said. “The fact that these things are being surfaced means we can solve them. ” Obama remained convinced that race relations were getting better, citing the Council Wars in Chicago when he first arrived in 1985. “I promise you, for the most part, race relations have gotten better,” he said. | 1 |
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A black, female Bowling Green State University student allegedly fabricated a hate crime story about white, male President-Elect Donald Trump supporters attacking her on campus and is now being charged for faking a police report.
The day after Trump’s presidential victory, Eleesha Long told Bowling Green police that she had been attacked by three men wearing Trump gear who “began to throw rocks” at her , according to ABC13.
Long took to her Facebook page to share the story, describing in detail what each Trump supporter was wearing and giving a description of as to where the alleged hate crime had occurred, but never actually called the police.
Long’s Facebook post went viral and her father notified law enforcement after he said he was not able to get in touch with her . Local detectives took Long into police headquarters and asked her to share details of the described hate crime.
Long reportedly began telling police multiple stories about the incident, to include changing the location of the alleged incident.
“Several times the complainant changed her story about what happened, where it happened, and when it happened,” Lt. Dan Mancuso told ABC13.
Afterward, the police got a warrant for Long’s Facebook and Verizon cell phone history, proving that she was not where she claimed she was at the time of the alleged attack .
“Based on that information, it proved that she was not in the location that of when she said it occurred,” Lt. Mancuso said.
Police investigators said Long’s cell phone history included discriminatory remarks towards Trump supporters that she had sent to her boyfriend and mother.
In one text message, Long said about Trump supporters “should take an IQ test to vote,” while a couple other messages said “I hope they all get AIDS” and “I haven’t met a decent Trump supporter yet.”
Long is now being charged for falsifying a police report and obstructing official business, which she will have to appear in court for. Related | 0 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — The track and field events at the Rio Olympics this month will showcase elite athletic talent and, if you look closely, creative subterfuge. Tape, markers, elastic sleeves and maybe even paint will disguise some shoe brand logos in an Olympic sleight of foot. In track and field, the centerpiece sport of the Summer Games, shoes are the most vital piece of equipment and serve purposes beyond performance: supplying advertising billboards for apparel companies and providing financial footing for athletes. But some athletes do not want the world to see the logos on their shoes, or they are prohibited from doing so by their sponsors if they wear competing brands. Although United States track and field athletes at the Rio Games must wear uniforms bearing the familiar swoosh of Nike, an official team sponsor, they are free to wear their own brand of shoes, disguised or not. Take, for example, Jeremy Taiwo, a decathlete from Seattle who will wear eight pairs of shoes in his 10 events, each with a function as specific as a golf club’s. His shoe sponsor is Brooks, but the company does not make shoes designed for throwing and jumping events. So Taiwo also plans to wear shoes made by Nike, Adidas and Asics. He must cover the logos of those competing brands, which he plans to do with tape, elastic sleeves and cleverly shaded fabric. “In terms of athletic performance, you have to have the right shoes to be able to meet your goals,” Taiwo, 26, said in a telephone interview before traveling to Rio de Janeiro. “And ultimately, you have to do well so you can get paid. If you make it, your shoes are largely responsible for that. ” The camouflaging demonstrates the power of the $75 billion global athletic footwear industry, which closely monitors what athletes wear — and, with lawyers at its beck and call, what they do not. Although it is unclear how many athletes will be disguising their footwear at the Games, the practice is not uncommon at track meets, with the reasons for the almost as varied as the shoes available. Athletes who have no shoe sponsor may not want to give free advertising to any company, preferring to signal that they are free agents. Taiwo called this an act of “no representation without compensation. ” Other athletes disguise shoes because they are transitioning from one company to another and are continuing to wear their old shoes while new ones are being perfected. Some, like Taiwo, participate in events for which their sponsor does not make shoes. Some athletes are simply dissatisfied with the gear made by their sponsor. Sometimes, shoe companies give permission for athletes to wear another, disguised brand. Other times, they take umbrage, and the controversy becomes public. In a widely reported incident in 2013, Nike withdrew a contract offer to the American in the pole vault, Brad Walker, after Walker taped over a strap on his shoes and covered the swoosh logo. Walker wrote on Facebook at the time that he was not trying to undermine Nike but was using tape to “hold together a shoe that shouldn’t break down within 6 months. ” Nike did not say why the contract offer was rescinded, only that Walker “did not take up this option in a timely manner. ” Walker put his gear up for sale on eBay. Mike Hazle, the 2011 American champion in the javelin, said his shoes were too narrow, causing his toenails to fall off and his feet to become numb. So for years, he said, he borrowed gear made by Asics and a Chinese company, from a fellow javelin thrower. He covered those logos with tape or with slices from wristbands that bore the Nike swoosh. It was never a problem in the event, Hazle said, until he won the United States title and a photograph of him appeared in Track Field News. His left foot was raised after a throw, revealing the logo of on the bottom of his shoe. Nike was not pleased and exercised an option on his contract in 2012 to keep him from signing with another company, Hazle said, but offered only $10, 000 with no chance of bonuses. It is unfortunate “if someone is paying your bills and you’re supposed to wear what they give you and it doesn’t work,” Hazle said from Afghanistan, where he is serving in the Air National Guard. “But at the end of the day, it’s going to compromise your performance, so you’ve got to take care of yourself. ” Nike said it did not comment on contracts but expected that its sponsored athletes “will always wear Nike products unless there is some specific, mutually agreed exception. ” One exception took place last year. Christian Taylor of the United States, who won the triple jump at the 2012 Olympics and signed with Nike in 2015, was permitted to wear Adidas shoes at the world track and field championships in Beijing while Nike customized shoes for him. Taylor, the triple jump favorite at this year’s Olympics, now wears Nikes. Two medal favorites in the high jump, Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Derek Drouin of Canada, have also been permitted by Nike to wear shoes from other brands that are covered by elastic sleeves resembling spats that bear the Nike swoosh. “As with any athlete, we are working closely with them to get the shoe that best suits their specific needs,” Charlie Brooks, a Nike spokesman, said in an email. “There’s no issue with our shoes it’s just a matter of personal customization for these athletes. We anticipate they’ll be jumping in Nike shoes soon. ” Camouflaging reflects the particular nature of track and field, which finds itself in the limelight every four years during the Summer Games. Sprinters, and steeplechasers generally do not receive annual salaries from teams the way professional football and basketball players do. Instead, they mostly rely on prize money and contracts with shoe companies, along with other endorsements. The apparel companies, Nike in particular, wield strong influence. They equip athletes and keep the struggling sport afloat. But they can also reduce payments when certain performance goals are not met. And at certain meets like the Olympics, athletes are restricted from wearing competing sponsor logos on their uniforms and as temporary tattoos. The number of track meets is dwindling, as are the available prize money and appearance fees, athletes and agents say. Rampant doping has threatened the legitimacy of the sport. Income disparity is wide. The sprinting champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica, track’s one global superstar, who is sponsored by Puma, makes $32. 5 million a year, including $30 million in endorsements, according to an estimate by Forbes. Far less visible but successful athletes say they might make as little as $10, 000 to $25, 000 annually. Carl Lewis, a Olympic gold medalist who has had a long affiliation with Nike, said the camouflaging of shoes was “a microcosm of what the real issue is: Are we really creating a professional sport?” “Why are we so dependent on just shoe companies?” said Lewis, an assistant coach at the University of Houston. Some athletes said they considered it disrespectful and unprofessional to cover up the logo of a sponsor. “If they’re paying money, the least we can do is respect their dollar,” said Wallace Spearmon of the United States, a sprinter and a former Nike athlete. Other athletes owe no allegiance because they have no shoe sponsor. Johnny Dutch of the United States has run the fastest time in the world this year in the hurdles. But he said he had been without a shoe sponsor for three years, since his Nike contract ended. At the Olympic track and field trials in July in Eugene, Ore. Dutch wore shoes that were neon orange to cover the logos of Nike and two other brands. This was done, in part, to express his artistic side, said Dutch, 27, an aspiring filmmaker. But it was also his way of saying that, for him to display any shoe company logo, “they’ve got to support me,” he said. “They’ve got to give me something where I can live and pay my medical bills. ” Money had become so tight, Dutch said, that he had moved from Miami to live with his parents in Raleigh, N. C. His chance to gain visibility and financial buoyancy as an Olympian disappeared when Dutch clipped the final hurdle in the hurdles at the trials and faded from first place to fifth. Only the top three advanced to Rio. Disconsolate, Dutch said he intended to retire. “I feel like I can’t do this no more,” he told reporters. “I’ve been struggling financially. I don’t have a contract. I have no job. ” | 1 |
Posted on October 26, 2016 by DavidSwanson
Officially, of course, the national bird of the United States is that half-a-peace-sign that Philadelphia sports fans like to hold up at opposing teams. But unofficially, the film National Bird has it right: the national bird is a killer drone.
Finally, finally, finally, somebody allowed me to see this movie. And finally somebody made this movie. There have been several drone movies worth seeing , most of them fictional drama , and one very much worth avoiding ( Eye in the Sky ). But National Bird is raw truth, not entirely unlike what you might fantasize media news reports would be in a magical world in which media outlets gave a damn about human life.
The first half of National Bird is the stories of three participants in the U.S. military’s drone murder program, as told by them. And then, just as you’re starting to think you’ll have to write that old familiar review that praises how well the stories of the victims among the aggressors were told but asks in exasperation whether any of the victims of the actual missiles have any stories, National Bird expands to include just what is so often missing, and even to combine the two narratives in a powerful way.
Heather Linebaugh wanted to protect people, benefit the world, travel, see the world, and use super cool technology. Apparently our society did not explain to her in time what it means to join the military. Now she suffers guilt, anxiety, moral injury, PTSD, sleep disorder, despair, and a sense of responsibility to speak out on behalf of friends, other veterans, who have killed themselves or become too alcoholic to speak for themselves. Linebaugh helped murder people with missiles from drones, and watched them die, and identified body parts or watched loved ones gather up body parts.
Even while still in the Air Force, Linebaugh was on a suicide watch list and had a psychologist recommend moving her to a different sort of job, but the Air Force refused. She has episodes. She sees things. She hears things. But she’s forbidden to discuss her work with friends or even with a therapist who doesn’t have the proper “security clearance.”
We let Daniel down even more than Heather. He says he actually opposed militarism but was homeless and desperate, so he joined the military. We could have given him a house for much less than we paid him to help murder people at Fort Meade.
Lisa Ling worked on a database filled by drone surveillance that compiled information on 121,000 “targets” in two years. Multiply that by a dozen years. With 90% of victims not among the targets, add up how many people would die in the targeting of the whole list. That’d be over 7 million. But it’s not numbers that have poisoned the souls of these three veterans; it’s children and mothers and brothers and uncles lying in pieces on the ground.
Ling travels to Afghanistan to see the place at ground level and to meet with drone victims. She meets a little boy who lost his leg and his 4-year-old brother and his sister and his father. On February 2, 2010, drone “pilots” at Creech Air Base murdered 23 innocent members of one family.
The filmmakers have voices read the written transcript of what the drone operators said to each other before, during, and after sending in the missiles that did the damage. This is worse than Collateral Murder . The people whose job it is to identify children and others who should not be murdered have identified children among the group of people being targeted. The “pilots” at Creech are eager to reject this information and to get onto killing as many people as they can. Their lust for blood drives the decision process. Only after they’ve killed 23 people do they recognize children among the survivors, and the lack of guns.
We see the bodies brought home to bury. Those injured describe their suffering, physical as well as mental. We see people being fitted with artificial legs. We hear Afghans describe their perception of drones. They imagine, just as many Americans may imagine, and just as viewers of Eye in the Sky would imagine, that drone operators have a clear, high resolution view of everything. In fact, they have a view of fuzzy little blobs on a computer screen that looks like it was created in the 1980s.
Linebaugh says there is no way to distinguish the little “civilian” blobs from little “militant” blobs. When Daniel hears President Obama claim that there is always near certainty that no civilians will be killed, Daniel explains that such knowledge is simply not possible. Linebaugh says she was often on the side of the conversation telling the “pilots” at Creech not to murder innocents, but that they always pushed for permission to kill.
Jesselyn Radack, attorney for whistleblowers, says in the film that the FBI told two whistleblowers that a terrorist group had put them on a kill list. She said that the FBI has also contacted Linebaugh’s family and warned her that “terrorists” have been searching for her name online, suggesting that she fix this problem by shutting up. (She had written an op-ed in the Guardian ).
The FBI also raids Daniel’s house, arriving with 30 to 50 agents, badges, guns, cameras, and search warrants. They take away his papers, electronics, and phone. They tell him he is under investigation for a possible indictment under the Espionage Act. This is the World War I-era law for targeting foreign enemies that President Obama has made a routine of using to target domestic whistleblowers. While Obama has prosecuted more people under this law than did all previous presidents combined, we probably have no way of knowing how many people have been explicitly threatened with the possibility.
While we should be apologizing to, comforting, and aiding these young people rather than denying them the right to speak to anybody and threatening them with decades in prison, Lisa Ling did manage to find some kindness. Victims of drone strikes in Afghanistan told her that they forgave her. As the film ends, she’s planning another trip to Afghanistan. This entry was posted in General . Bookmark the permalink . Is the Fed Fix in for the election? → paul
If aggression is perhaps the most ignoble act, self defense may be one of the most noble. Non-violence may be both a more enlightened and even more pragmatic way of self-defense – though that may depend on the circumstances – but we must not put self defense in the same category as aggression, Lincoln
In addition: July 23, 2016 Study Says Drones Generate More Terrorism
Using lethal drones to kill “bad guys” on the other side of the planet is offensive to many people on moral grounds, but a new study finds it is also ineffective in reducing terrorism, observes ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar. | 0 |
Other Writers
Swedish Democrat party member of Parliament Anna Hagwall has announced her resignation from all party posts and will not stand for reelection in 2018 after a furor following her exposure of the fact that a single family of Jews control the Swedish media. One Jewish family helps to brainwash the entire population of Sweden. This Swedish MP has had ENOUGH!
The uproar followed her letter to the Aftonbladet newspaper in which she said that “ethnicity should be a factor” in determining media ownership of more than 5 percent—an obvious reference to the Jewish Bonnier family media group.
The Bonnier Group owns 96 book publishers, 42 business and trade press newspapers, 105 digital news platforms, 9 film production companies, 176 magazines, 23 major newspapers, 33 TV stations, and 33 “other” media outlets—and quite literally dominates the controlled media in Sweden.
Hagwall had earlier submitted a motion to the Swedish parliament which proposed cuts to the state subsidies paid to media in Sweden.
Although she never mentioned Jews by name, Hagwall said in an explanatory letter to the Aftonbladet that it would be a good idea to “let Bonnier’s newspapers go under” so that “no family, ethnic group, or company” could control more than 5 percent of the media.
“An entire 80 percent of the media is owned and controlled by the same owners,” Hagwell wrote. “This is not acceptable. Therefore, media ownership should be spread over many independent companies and people. In order to change this, I suggest press subsidies [only] for the independent media.”
When asked by Aftonbladet how the abolition of press subsidies to the country’s local newspapers reduce Bonnier’s power over the media in Sweden, Hagwall answered by email that “most small newspapers are directly or indirectly controlled by Bonnier, and why they have to be subsidized by the Swedish taxpayer is a mystery.
“Let the little Bonnier newspapers in the provinces go under, because then a void will be created which can be filled by newspapers that care about people and business owners.”
She also said that the Swedish public service broadcaster, Sveriges Television (SVT), should be switched to pay channels to “reduce SVT’s propagation of the politically correct agenda.”
The comments provoked a stream of attacks upon Hagwall, and the Swedish Democrat leadership also distanced itself from her, saying in a statement that the matter will “affect her future in the party.”
This week, Hagwall resigned her position as member of the Parliamentary Committee on Taxation and internal group leader of the Sweden Democrats’ tax policy group. She also will not seek reelection to Parliament in 2018 at the request of the party leadership, and it is currently unclear if she will continue to sit in parliament for the remainder of the current term. | 0 |
It happened one night in the late summer of 1954. Jules Schulback, a New York furrier and taker of home movies, heard that Marilyn Monroe would be on the Upper East Side of Manhattan filming scenes again for her new picture, “The Seven Year Itch. ” Two days earlier, Mr. Schulback had taken footage of her with his Bolex movie camera around the corner from his townhouse apartment. So he grabbed the camera — the one usually used for family picnics and parades and the stuff of everyday life — and headed over to the subway grate in front of Wright’s Food shop, just down the street from the movie theater on Lexington Avenue and 52nd Street. Though it was around 1 a. m. a large crowd had already gathered, mostly newspaper photographers and curious men waiting to see Marilyn. The movie studio and the director, Billy Wilder, had counted on this, inviting the press and the public to drum up buzz for the new movie, which starred Ms. Monroe as “the Girl Upstairs,” who entices a executive, played by Tom Ewell, while his wife is away with the kids for the summer. In the famous street scene, the two are leaving the movies as Ms. Monroe pauses over a grate to enjoy the breeze from the subway as it blows up her dress on a hot summer night. “Isn’t it delicious?” she purrs. The breeze came from a large fan under the grate operated by the film’s special effects chief. The night — Sept. 15 — was actually quite chilly. But the stunt worked. It became known as “the shot seen around the world. ” But there was a dark subtext to the comedy. Gathered at that late hour were hundreds of gawkers, almost all men, who catcalled and yelled things like, “Higher! Higher!” as Ms. Monroe’s dress blew up over her head. For two hours, the men watched from surrounding buildings and from the street. “Unfortunately, one of them was her husband, Joe DiMaggio,” Mr. Wilder is quoted as saying in his biography, “Nobody’s Perfect. ” “And he didn’t like what he saw, or what everyone else was seeing. ” Mr. DiMaggio hadn’t planned on visiting the set that night, and was waiting for his wife at the St. Regis Hotel, where the couple were staying. But the columnist Walter Winchell had persuaded him to come along. Ms. Monroe was not happy her husband had shown up. But he was even more unhappy and angrily stormed off. Later that night the couple had a screaming fight in their room. The next morning, her hairdresser covered up Ms. Monroe’s bruises with makeup. Three weeks later, Ms. Monroe filed for divorce. Mr. Wilder never used the Lexington Avenue footage and reshot the scene on a closed lot in Hollywood, though photographs of that night appeared everywhere. Except for some brief, grainy shots from a newsreel covering the divorce, footage from that night was never screened. “The footage immediately disappeared,” Mr. Wilder said in the biography. “But one day I’m sure some film scholar will dig it up. ” The story of the night Marilyn Monroe’s white dress blew up was well known among Jules Schulback’s children, and even among his grandchildren. His granddaughter Bonnie Siegler said he bragged from time to time about his personal film shoot with Marilyn. “He was a real raconteur,” said Ms. Siegler, a graphic designer who runs her own company, Eight and a Half. “I didn’t know if the story was real. ” But even though she had never seen it, she often told people that her grandfather had footage of Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate. Ms. Siegler’s older sister, Rayna Dineen, said her grandfather, whom they called Opi (a German term of endearment) was rarely without his camera. “He would be filming everywhere, all the time. ” There were reels of vacations, family picnics, birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. He had even filmed a day in the life of his daughters, depicting them waking up, brushing their teeth and going to school. “But the Marilyn story was one of his favorite stories to tell,” Ms. Dineen said. It was just one of dozens of amazing tales. Mr. Schulback had a long, technicolorful life, one so filled with drama that his Monroe story sometimes seemed like a footnote. In 1938, Mr. Schulback had argued with his family in Germany that Adolf Hitler was much more dangerous than anyone thought. According to Ms. Siegler, his family believed that Hitler’s hate speech was simply rhetoric, and that he wouldn’t act on anything he was saying. Mr. Schulback, 25 at the time, urged them to pack their bags and leave Berlin with him. But they resisted, opting to wait and see how things developed, never imagining the horror that awaited them and millions of other European Jews. Mr. Schulback was not taking any chances. In 1938, Jews immigrating to the United States needed a sponsor, someone to take financial responsibility for them. Mr. Schulback sold everything he had, bought an expensive suit, booked passage on the Queen Mary, reserved a room at the Plaza and headed to America to find a sponsor for him and his wife, Edith, and their daughter Helen, who was then a toddler. “He was like: ‘I’m your lost, rich relative. I won’t be a burden.’ But he had no money. He played it,” Ms. Siegler said. He secured a signature, then returned to collect his family, but was stopped trying to enter Nazi Germany by a suspicious border guard. Knowing the Germans were big fans of the 1934 Clark Gable hit, “It Happened One Night,” Mr. Schulback told the guard he was the distributor for Mr. Gable’s new movie. He claimed that if he couldn’t enter the country, neither would the film. “The guy was like, ‘Oh, we love Clark Gable,’ and waved him through,” Ms. Siegler said. Mr. Schulback grabbed Edith and Helen, again imploring his other relatives to leave, and escaped back to the United States with a few suitcases, claiming to the Nazi immigration officers that his family was going on vacation. The date was Nov. 8, the day before Kristallnacht. In Berlin, he had been a furrier, and his shop was destroyed that night. His remaining family — four sisters, parents and — would all perish in the Holocaust. The United States was good to Mr. Schulback. He and his family lived a happy, successful life in New York, much of it preserved in his home movies. As a child, Ms. Siegler loved going to her grandfather’s Upper East Side apartment not just because of his great stories and sense of humor, but also because he lived opposite the New York Doll Hospital. From his apartment window, she could see the buckets of doll eyes and doll arms. “It was really intense,” she said. When Edith had a stroke in the 1970s, she was given only a few weeks to live. But Mr. Schulback, always a man of action, refused to let his wife die in the hospital and took her home. The couple moved into the apartment of a building around the corner, and Mr. Schulback became her nurse. “Half her body was paralyzed, she couldn’t speak,” Ms. Siegler said. “But he loved her and took care of her for 26 years until she finally died. ” After 35 years in that same apartment, Mr. Schulback — who had been president of the 61st Street Block Association — was forced to leave. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation had bought the townhouse where he lived and the one behind it and wanted to reconfigure the property. So Ms. Siegler and her husband, Jeff Scher, helped move her grandfather to a new place on the other side of Central Park. In 2004, in the arduous packing up of Mr. Schulback’s home, the couple came across a big stash of film. It was stored in a back room that the family called “Opi’s fur room,” where Mr. Schulback had once assembled garments from animal pelts for his business. “No one ever wanted to go back there,” Ms. Siegler said. “But when we went in, we found this plastic bag filled with just tons of film, home movies, bought movies and everything mixed together. ” Ms. Siegler’s husband, an experimental filmmaker, couldn’t wait to screen the films. He was particularly interested in seeing whether Marilyn and the subway grate footage actually existed. “It was like this family myth,” Mr. Scher said. “So long rumored and never confirmed. ” The same was true for its source material. For decades, innuendo swirled around the Lexington Avenue shoot for “The Seven Year Itch. ” Ms. Monroe and Mr. DiMaggio had married that January and had already had a bumpy ride, the Yankee Clipper enraged by her exhibitionism and by rumors of infidelity, according to Lois W. Banner, the author of the 2012 biography “Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox. ” “She was having an affair with her musical director at the time, and everyone knew about it in the business,” said Dr. Banner, a professor emeritus of history and gender studies at the University of Southern California. So before he even arrived on set, there was tension. “DiMaggio,” Dr. Banner said, “was not happy with Marilyn. ” There are several theories as to why the footage from that night was never used. Some believe the Manhattan shoot was done purely as a publicity stunt, which was made even more sensational when Mr. DiMaggio showed up. Some biographers say the enthusiastic crowd was just too noisy, making the film unusable. A third theory was that the footage was too risqué and Ms. Monroe wanted to shoot a more demure version, so as not to further infuriate her husband. There was even talk at the time that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Mr. Wilder tried to put those rumors to rest in his biography. She had put on not just one, but two sets of underwear, he said. Dr. Banner said all three reasons quite likely played into the final decision to reshoot. “But the photographs of that night had gone viral by the time the film was being put together,” she said, “and played a great role in her fame. ” The scene used in the finished film is incredibly brief and tame. The image many people have of that moment comes from the press shots and publicity stills in New York, and not from the finished movie. Back in the pelt room of Mr. Schulback’s apartment, Mr. Scher excitedly gathered up the old metal film canisters. None were labeled, Mr. Scher recalled. Some of the film was off the reel and sitting there like big balls of spaghetti, as if there had been a projector mishap years ago. Later that night in his studio in the couple’s apartment on West 16th Street, Mr. Scher slowly and carefully wound the film, since some of it was very brittle and in danger of breaking. He did a few repairs and then began looking at it using a light box, spooling it from reel to reel by hand. There were about 50 rolls of film and around 75 rolls of 8 millimeter. There were the family outings and parades. The birthdays and bar mitzvahs. And there, amid the mundane scenes of precious everyday life, was Marilyn Monroe, in crisp, colorful Kodachrome. “This stuff just popped out,” Mr. Scher said. “It was real! Preserved like the home movies are, too. Just these moments in time. ” Mr. Scher could clearly see the actress’s dress billowing up. “Like a parachute with a pair of legs attached,” he said. “It was startling. Like seeing a myth materialize. ” It was a shadow version of lost footage amid home movies of a family that almost certainly wouldn’t have existed had the Schulbacks stayed in Germany. Mr. Scher called out to his wife: “It’s really here!” They watched all 3 minutes 17 seconds in amazement. “There was something so magical about it,” Ms. Siegler said. “For years I didn’t know if it was real. I certainly didn’t believe it wholeheartedly. And there it was. It was like the end of the story. ” The film starts with a intertitle that reads “World Premiere,” Mr. Schulback’s little inside joke. And then there is Marilyn Monroe, in a white terry robe, coming down the stoop of a building at 164 East 61st Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues. It was the earlier scene — before the subway grate footage — that Mr. Schulback had shot. Cameramen and press photographers are gathered outside as the actress smiles and waves. Cut to Ms. Monroe in a window wearing a slip and her hair. Mr. Ewell walks down the street and into the building. The film cuts inexplicably to 30 seconds of what must be a Shriners parade in Manhattan, then jumps to another intertitle, which reads “Our Baby. ” And suddenly, there is Ms. Monroe again, this time on the subway grate in that famously fluttering white dress, holding a matching white clutch in her right hand and a scarf in her left. Mr. Schulback was incredibly close, filming right behind Mr. Wilder’s shoulder, stopping to wind his camera every 25 seconds. Now and then, a silhouette of the director’s arm intrudes into Mr. Schulback’s shot. At one point Mr. Wilder, in a fedora, passes across the frame. Ms. Monroe gets into position and yawns, while the cinematographer sets up the camera. Through a gap in the film crew, Mr. Schulback captures just her face, looking off to the left, serious and unsmiling. Then Mr. Ewell is there, chatting with Ms. Monroe, who pushes him into position. The dress flutters again, Ms. Monroe holds it down, bending slightly, smiling and talking to Mr. Ewell, but it flutters up some more and she laughs, her head thrown back. It blows up again, but she doesn’t push it down this time, and it flies up over her head, clearly revealing two pairs of underwear that, because of the bright lights, do not protect Ms. Monroe’s modesty quite as much as she might have liked. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, Marilyn is gone, and the film reverts to mode: Edith Schulback walking on the grass at a family outing in the country. It’s like being shaken from some crazy dream, back to reality. Interest in that moment in film history from more than 50 years ago endures. The new movie musical starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, “La La Land,” makes brief filmic reference to it in the opening number, with a young dancer’s yellow dress blowing up. And a Snickers commercial from the Super Bowl last year stars Willem Dafoe, Eugene Levy and a Monroe on the famous set. “It’s that iconic image,” said Dr. Banner, the Monroe biographer. “People are still fascinated by the context in which it all happened. ” After screening the film with her husband, Ms. Siegler immediately told her grandfather that she had found the footage. “I was so excited about it — more for the reason that his story was true. ” She shrugged. “But he never had any doubts. ” Mr. Schulback moved in 2005 and died six months later. Ms. Siegler and Mr. Scher made a print and screened it for about 100 people in 2004 at the upstate home of their friends Kurt Andersen and his wife, Anne Kreamer. The two couples had started a small film festival for neighbors and friends, hanging a sheet on the side of a barn and serving popcorn, ice pops and beer. The people in the audience that summer night had no idea what they were in for. “That scene is one of the most iconic scenes in American cinema,” said Mr. Andersen, an author, radio host and a founder of Spy magazine. “So to have film of it actually being shot, it’s like watching the Zapruder film. It’s just extraordinary. ” The crowd that evening sat in silence as Marilyn Monroe’s dress blew up on the side of the barn. “People were ” Mr. Andersen said. “They were like, ‘What did I just see? ’” That was the only time anyone outside the family had seen the film. Until now. | 1 |
Here’s the timing:
Most of the US will have to wait for polling stations to close – typically between 19:00 EST (00:00 GMT) and 20:00 EST (01:00 GMT) – for state projections.
As for the final result? Stay glued to your phone or TV or set your alarm for 23:00 EST (04:00 GMT). That’s when West Coast polls close and history suggests a winner’s declared. It was bang on the hour in 2008, and 15 minutes later in 2012.
Of course, if you go further back in history, 2004 was a nailbiter. I remember very well going to bed after the Kerry campaign said they’d challenge the result based on Ohio, and getting up in the morning to find out they’d caved. And of course election 2000 was what it was.
There will be many sites tracking the results as they come in; here’s Politico’s for the presidency (they also have the House and the Senate). It’s impossible to know which one is the best until data actually appears; I prefer maps with results as they come in by county. And speaking of counties…
The final RCP averages put Clinton ahead in the national popular vote by 3.3%. However, with Trump ahead in Florida (0.02%), North Carolina (1%), and Clinton only ahead by 0.5% in New Hampshire, it still looks like a horse race, to me. (Of course, I may have become counter-suggestible to the idea that Clinton has it in the bag because almost the entire political class is yammering that she does.)
Anyhow, if indeed this is a horse race — and if our famously free press doesn’t simply decide to call it — we’ll be up late waiting for county data in the states that are close (presumably swing states like Florida, North Carolina, and New Hampshire). So here is a table of the counties that various sources regard as key: | 0 |
BERLIN (AFP) — Germany’s domestic security chief warned Sunday that the country’s radical Islamist scene is not only growing, but becoming more decentralised, posing greater challenges to surveillance operations. [In an interview with national news agency DPA, Maassen also defended security officials under fire after it emerged that Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri had slipped through their net, saying they had done everything they could. Overall, the number of Salafists — or fundamentalist Sunni Muslims — in Germany has risen to more than 9, 700, sharply up from 3, 800 people in 2011, said Maassen. “It’s of great concern to us that this scene is not only growing, but it is also very diversified. There is not just one, two, three or four people who have a say,” he warned. “Rather, there are many people who dominate this Salafist scene. And all these people have to be watched. ” While in the past, there were a few people who wielded influence, today, there are many small clusters formed by individuals. “So you can no longer talk about a Salafist scene as a whole, but you have to deal with many hotspots. That makes things more difficult for us, because we can no longer just watch a few people. We have to monitor many groups,” he said. In a defence of security officials under pressure for failing to stop Amri, Maassen said that although officers had watched the Tunisian over a long period of time, they found no evidence to arrest him. “I believe that the security forces, in particular the police, have done everything in their power to assess the danger posed by Amri. But it is also clear that we live under the rule of law, and the legal framework must be respected,” he said. Amri, 24, who was shot dead by Italian police days after ramming a truck into a crowded Christmas market, had been under surveillance since March. But German police dropped their watch in September thinking he was a drug dealer. Public anger also mounted as the rejected asylum seeker and known radical Islamist should have been deported long ago. In the wake of the attack, Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that “the Amri case raises questions” and ordered a sweeping review of Germany’s security apparatus. | 1 |
By Andre Vltchek WHY DID THEY VOTE FOR THIS MAN?
“If we don’t understand why that choice was made, we will all get fucked, soon, and not only in North America, but also all over the world!” — Andre Vltchek
Since the results of the latest Presidential elections were announced, I am longing for silence, while the overwhelming cacophony of deafening noises is assaulting my ears, and in fact all my senses.
Suddenly everyone around me wants to speak, to shout, and to declare. Lately, people who are surrounding me, as well as those who are far away from me are frantically watching the news, reading newspapers and browsing through countless political websites.
My friends and comrades all over the world are poking jokes at the US political establishment, or trembling in anticipation of something terrible, even apocalyptic.
Many are just having fun. Even some thoughtful and educated individuals are behaving like obsessive football fans: analyzing, passing judgments, and spending countless hours on the couch, in front of their television screens.
Of course there are also many gigantic protests in countless American cities against the President-elect, Donald Trump, the 45th leader of the mightiest nation on Earth. There are some massive protests, desperate protests, and hopeless protests. There are also personal protests, resigned shrugs of shoulders and downcast glances.
Overall there is a lot of noise. Everyone is speaking from the top of his or her lungs. Actually, people are shouting over each other. They want to be heard, desperately. While very few are listening. Very few also appear to be reflecting on what is being said by the others, on what is truly happening, on what has happened.
Despite millions of words and images assaulting our brains from all directions, I know that something is definitely missing, something important, and even something essential. It is not just my analytical mind that comprehends this; it is also my intuition.
As a result, I want to smash those television sets in my vicinity, I want to throw newspapers into the garbage bin, and I want to go away, far away, from all my politicizing friends and comrades.
But what is it that is being omitted in the official and even in the alternative narrative? What is it that I want to hear, longing to hear so much … longing with such force, even with such desperation?
Am I desperate for some precise analyses, for exact numbers, for revealing facts? Am I yearning for one brilliant study, for a report? Do I want to hear from someone why on earth did the American people elect someone like him, like Donald Trump? Or is it all actually much more simple and selfish: do I expect those wise words to come from my own brain, typed into my computer with my own fingers?
How did it all really come to this? And why? What will happen now? What will happen to them (to the voters), what will happen to America, the country, which despite everything used to be my home for many years? What will happen to America which took so much, but which also gave me plenty? I kept asking, above all, what will happen to the world, to the entire world, which is now my true home, and which is also their true home (home of the American voters), although perhaps they do not fully comprehend it yet.
No, I did not want to hear the facts! I couldn’t care less about the numbers. I was not longing for analyses, and I felt absolutely no desire to speak!
Suddenly, there was only one longing left in me: to listen, to hear, to absorb the millions of voices of those who just recently went to the polls and stuck those pieces of paper into boxes, most likely changing the destiny of the world. And since I knew I wouldn’t be able to absorb millions of testimonies, I wanted to listen to at least a few hundred or even thousands of them if possible.
I wanted to hear the stories of those men and women from the Rustbelt states, from the Deep South, from isolated farms and exhausted mining towns. I wanted to put my glass of beer next to theirs, in some god-forsaken bar, and just nod and whisper what so many storytellers before me, have done for millennia, and what they will be saying for many centuries to come: “Please tell me your story…”
I want to hear their stories so I can collect them, arrange them, and pass them onto the world.
I want the people who voted for Donald Trump to speak to me, to explain, to let me into their thoughts and emotions. I want to understand what occurred through their stories.
I don’t want to judge. I am usually very judgmental, very political, and very ideological. This time I have no desire to be … This is too serious; too damn serious!
I owe America that much. That is the least I can do. To return there, to fly there all the way from Asia, to rent a car, and drive from coast to coast, for long weeks, and to finally listen to people, trying to understand who they are, what they did, and why?
“I am what I am because I am a passionate listener,” I was once told by one of the greatest Latin American writers, Eduardo Galeano. “People always know what goes on. All we have to do is to listen to them. And we have to lead them only when they ask us, when they order us to do so.”
There is no doubt in my mind that now is the time to attentively listen to the American people; to fill newspapers and websites with their words. But almost no one seems to be doing that.
All we hear is ‘why they voted as they did’. How they voted: women, minorities, particular classes or states … We read about numbers. But we don’t hear people speaking! We don’t hear them formulating the words.
And that is what I am longing for: to shut up, to be silent, and to listen. And I want other intellectuals to shut up and to humbly listen too, finally!
Not because I agree with what they, the voters, have done. Not because I want Donald Trump to lead the country and the Empire. Not because I suddenly ‘fell in love with the small people’.
It is simply because the people of the most powerful country on Earth have spoken, because they made their choice. And because, if we don’t understand why that choice was made, we will all get fucked, soon, and not only in North America, but also all over the world!
I want to listen and to understand so the course of action can be determined, so that we know where all this will lead … because this is not the end, just the beginning… of something… Because not only people in the United States, but also in Europe want something, and listening to the analysts from both parts of the world, and by just ‘reading facts and numbers’, I have absolutely no clue what it is!
Do voters want some new form of participatory democracy? Do they want neo-fascism? Are they thoroughly selfish or is there at least some internationalist essence in their souls?
We can only find out if we let them speak. And that is why I am longing for silence, and then for their voices to resonate, so we know, we know now, before the thunder and flames swallow our Planet, and before it is too late. | 0 |
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Melania Trump gave her first campaign speech on Thursday and in it, she said that if she became first lady, she would work to improve social media which she says has become “too tough and too mean.”
Naturally, the internet had a field day with this news, considering her husband is best known for his hate speech and 3 am Twitter-tantrums, where he regularly demeans and insults the president and first lady, the Clintons, and countless others.
In an interview with Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, Thursday night, Anderson Cooper questioned her about Melania’s speech:
“Does this start at home? Isn’t the problem at her own dinner table?”
Kellyanne did what Kellyanne always does and brushed it off, saying that “No, it’s not at the dinner table. The fact that her husband is running for president and defends himself sometimes or tweets things out…”
But Anderson didn’t let her finish that statement and gave her a dose of truth that she won’t soon forget.
Watch:
Featured Image via video screenshot Share this Article! | 0 |
STOCKHOLM — The Swedish police said on Saturday that they had arrested a man they believed had hijacked a beer truck and carried out a terrorist attack by driving the truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm the day before, killing four and injuring at least 15 others. Prosecutors and police officials did not identify the suspect, but Anders Thornberg, the head of the Swedish Security Service, said at a news conference that the man had been on the authorities’ radar some time ago. Mr. Thornberg said that the agency had looked into information it received on the suspect last year, but that it had not led to anything. He said the suspect was not on any current list of people being monitored. “The suspect didn’t appear in our recent files, but he earlier has been in our files,” Mr. Thornberg said. The Swedish national broadcaster SVT reported that a bag with explosives had been found in the truck used in the attack. On Saturday, the police chief, Dan Eliasson, said: “We have found something in the truck in the driver’s compartment, a technical device that should not be there. I cannot say whether this is a bomb or some sort of flammable material. ” Prosecutors said the suspect had not spoken, and there was no immediate word of any criminal charges. But Chief Eliasson said there was “nothing to indicate we have the wrong person. ” He added, “We cannot exclude the possibility that others are involved. ” Lars Bystrom, a spokesman for the regional police, said earlier on Saturday, “We have one person in custody, and we think he is the driver of the truck. ” Chief Eliasson would not say how long the suspect had been living in Sweden. “We are focusing on how he entered the country, where has he been,” he said. “We need to establish what kind of contacts he had. ” He said there were clear similarities with the deadly attack in London last month. On Saturday, people placed flowers outside the department store in Stockholm where the attack occurred as a memorial to the victims. Karolinska Hospital said that six of the injured had been released. The police said eight people remained hospitalized. The beer truck, stolen earlier on Friday, mowed down pedestrians along Drottninggatan, a busy pedestrian shopping street. It came to a stop after slamming into the Ahlens department store. After the rampage, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said: “Sweden has been attacked. This indicates that it is an act of terror. ” The manhunt brought transit systems to a halt and put Parliament under lockdown. The suspect was detained in a northern Stockholm suburb on Friday and later arrested on suspicion of having committed a terrorism crime, the police said. Elias Broth, 19, a high school senior, was on a bus at the intersection of Drottninggatan and Kungsgatan when he heard a loud noise. “I look up and I see the truck passing by, driving really fast,” he said by phone on Saturday. “Then I heard a big boom when it crashed into people. ” He said he had stayed in the bus a bit longer, before taking shelter in a clothing store on Kungsgatan. “The first thing I saw when I stepped off the bus was a woman. Her body was in pieces,” he said. Juncker, the European Commission president, said in a statement on Friday: “One of Europe’s most vibrant and colorful cities appears to have been struck by those wishing it — and our very way of life — harm. An attack on any of our member states is an attack on us all. ” Peng Wu, 35, a postgraduate student from New York who moved to Stockholm in late 2013, was leaving a coffee shop near the shopping center when he saw people rushing toward him, many of them crying and in shock. Initially, he said, he did not know what had happened, but as he made his way to his wife’s office, he saw people lying motionless and police officers with body armor rushing to the site. He said he expected locals to bounce back quickly, though. “Swedes are pretty resilient people,” he said. While the city was under lockdown, the hashtag #openstockholm sprang up on Twitter. Jenny Nguyen, 22, a law student in Stockholm, said she had come up with the hashtag to encourage people to open their homes to commuters, tourists and others who were stranded after the transit system was shut down. “This idea is actually not a new one,” she said in a phone interview. “I was following the attack in Paris when that occurred. I saw that someone started a hashtag to tell people where to go and where they could find company. ” “Suddenly, I felt the world was not as dark as people who commit these types of actions want it to be,” she said. | 1 |
Apple Holiday Forecast Disappoints Given Samsungs Troubles http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/apple-investors-sniff-at-outlook-given-samsung-s-difficulties
Apple Slides in China as Homegrown Rivals Up Their Design Game http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-26/apple-slides-in-china-as-homegrown-rivals-up-their-design-game
Apple Shares Fall on Lower Phone Prices and Sliding Margin https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/apple-sees-higher-than-expected-holiday-sales-on-iphone-7-demand
U.S. Stocks Fluctuate as Bank Rally Offsets Apple; Bonds Decline http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/asian-and-u-s-stock-futures-decline-as-apple-s-margins-slide
Apple Said to Develop Car Operating System in BlackBerry Country http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/apple-develops-car-operating-system-in-blackberry-country | 0 |
Bill O’Reilly will return to the airwaves six days after his departure from Fox News with a new podcast episode set to air Monday on his website. [O’Reilly’s “No Spin News” will air Monday, April 24 at 7 p. m. Eastern, according to a promotional graphic posted to his website Sunday. The episode will mark a return for the popular news host just six days after his departure from Fox News, where he hosted the perennially O’Reilly Factor for two decades. O’Reilly exited last week after an investigation into five sexual harassment allegations leveled against him during his tenure at the network. In a statement after his departure, O’Reilly called the allegations against him “completely unfounded. ” O’Reilly’s podcast will be made available to those with a premium subscription to his website. A subscription costs $49. 95 per year, or $4. 95 per month. The final episode of the retitled The Factor aired Friday night, with longtime Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld filling in for O’Reilly. Current Fox News host Tucker Carlson is set to take over O’Reilly’s 8 p. m. ET time slot beginning Monday, April 24. Reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner is set to be among Carlson’s first guests on the program. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
JERUSALEM — “Water the soil with your blood,” was the message conveyed by a cartoon published last week in the official Palestinian Authority daily. The cartoon depicted a Palestinian prisoner watering a blooming plant with blood directly from his vein. [The cartoon, which was published in and cited by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch, is in keeping with the ideology of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, which regularly promotes the idea that the land and the cause of “Palestine” needs Palestinian blood in order to survive. Children from a young age are indoctrinated with this blood cult ideology of martyrdom as a poem posted on Fatah’s Facebook page testifies: Teach your children … There is a seed in the soil, If you water it with blood, It will sprout a revolution, When the most recent wave of terror was launched in October 2015, the PA fueled the fire by glorifying suicide and martyrdom. Following one of the first terror attacks, the PA daily summarized the attack thus: [Palestinians] insisted on perfuming themselves with the Martyr’s blood. … The residents of Jerusalem looked at the blood spots which were still on the ground and on the water which turned slightly red from it, formed a circle and recited the [Quranic Sura] for the martyr’s [soul]. Earlier the same month, PA official Governor of Ramallah and Laila Ghannam, posted a message on her Facebook page describing the morning as one “fragranced by the blood of the martyrs:” Palestine’s morning, A morning fragranced by the blood of the martyrs, The morning of wounded Jerusalem, Have a morning of pride and honor, In January, Fatah posted a separate call to water the soil with blood of martyrs: Fatah means full readiness to sacrifice and faith in Allah, and afterwards in the inevitable victory, in the justice of the cause, and in the national unity. We were born as rebels on the land of [Prophet] Muhammad’s Night Journey and Ascent to Heaven we carried out intifada as free men and we embraced the land in purity and washed in blood with which we watered our land for freedom and independence. | 1 |
Whether they gave the Belize money back or not is a moot point!! thoughts? anticipating the spin Mail with questions or comments about this site. "Godlike Productions" & "GLP" are registered trademarks of Zero Point Ltd. Godlike™ Website Design Copyright © 1999 - 2015 Godlikeproductions.com Page generated in 0.005s (8 queries) | 0 |
Widener’s Reloading and Shooting Supply reports that ammunition purchases in the Los Angeles County metro area have surged nearly 400 percent in the two months since the November 8 passage of Proposition 63. [Prop 63 goes into effect January 1, 2018. It will require a background check to be performed on all ammunition purchases and will prohibit the acquisition of ammunition from online outlets. The months since the passage of Prop 63 have been marked by a frenzy of online ammunition purchases. And, according to Widener’s, California has surged while “nationwide traffic to [their website] has remained relatively static. ” Widener’s spokeswoman, Anne Taylor said, “There’s been a massive influx of California hunters and sport shooters who are stocking up in the wake of California’s new laws, no doubt about it. There’s not just increased interest, it’s clear the gun owners who are buying are buying in bulk. We’ve seen our average order weight go up in the past couple months. ” Here are the percentages by which purchases from certain localities have risen during past two months: It is interesting to note that the most popular form of ammunition being purchased during this surge is the . 223, a popular round for rifles. Sales of . 223 “in the eight weeks following [the passage of Prop 63 are] double where they were in the eight weeks leading up to it. ” Next in popularity are the 9mm and . 308, both of which have seen “ %” gains in sales since proposition passed. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com. | 1 |
Written by Daniel McAdams As a candidate, Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the US should try to get along with Russia. It may well be that his seeming reluctance to take the US into World War III -- unlike his opponent -- may have contributed significantly to his victory. What is going to happen when in a few months' time a President Trump who wants better relations with Russia confronts a NATO and a Pentagon that continues to put troops and weapons on Russia's borders? Will Trump blink or will he face down Brussels and the deep state inside the Beltway? We look at the possibilities in today's Liberty Report: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 0 |
November 3, 2016 - Fort Russ News -
- Liliya Filatova , in Politobzor, Nov 1, 2016, translated by Tom Winter -
Right now, an angry crowd of veterans from the Chernobyl clean-up have gathered in front of the Kiev Verkhovna Rada: They are not receiving their benefits. The crowd tried to storm the parliament, so their deputies would hear then out and start to act rather than just shrug all over again.
Now the event is gaining an even larger scale as two thousand teachers have joined the Chernobyl cleanup veterans. A column of teachers partially blocked traffic for vehicles on Grushevskogo street.
The demands of the teachers are simple and reasonable: raise our wages, and not just yours, and cancel the increase in tariffs, which was physically impossible to pay since they are higher than the salaries.
The fatcat deputies of the Verkhovna Rada and the Prime Minister, who backdated salary increases for themselves and the president, have brought the citizens of Ukraine to the limit, as people take to the streets and storm City Councils. Recently in Vinnitsa protesters tried to storm the city council and the break in to the session hall.
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70-Year Gold/Oil Ratio What Does It All Mean? While the Gold/Oil ratio has now risen close to 30:1, it is incredibly extended above its long-term median average of 15.5. This indicates how fragile the global financial system really is at this point in history. Meaning, what we are seeing can now only be compared to what took place during the Great Depression. Adding fuel to the Gold/Oil ratio has been the fact that for two quarters in a row investment demand for gold has outstripped jewelry demand, also a first in history!
Top Citi Analyst Issues Important Update On The Gold Market ! | 0 |
I -KNOW- Hitlery AND the Dear Leader are in full 'cover my a$$' mode, and so tense you couldnt drive a toothpick up their rears with a sledge hammer because they know there is PROVABLE crimes and corruption still to be released in those emails. For me, the vast difference in the rally crowds are THE indicator of just how many of the American people believe anything Hillary or this admnistration says. | 0 |
The second video (bottom one ) proves what Trump is sayng is true , corruption with the Clinton gang is rife , he could use this in his arguments . http://www.opb.org/news/series/burns-oregon-standoff-bundy-militia-news-updates/ammon-bundy-verdict-oregon-standoff-malheur-court/ And lets not forget there were 15 undercover FBI infrmants doing the provications = set up . | 0 |
« on: Today at 08:34:33 PM » Duterte Wants Foreign Troops Out of Philippines in 2 Years 26 October 2016 , by Andreo Calonzo (Bloomberg) - Philippines will survive without U.S. help, he says in Japan- No talks with China about military alliance, Duterte says Logged | 0 |
By Jason Easley 5:35 pm A Democratic super PAC is injecting millions of dollars into the Florida Senate race in a bid to retire Sen. Marco Rubio.
A Democratic super PAC is injecting millions of dollars into the Florida Senate race in a bid to retire Sen. Marco Rubio.
CNN reported that Harry Reid’s super PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, is injecting millions of dollars into the Florida Senate race to help Rep. Patrick Murphy in his bid to defeat Marco Rubio: “This race is closing,” spokesman Shripal Shah told CNN. “Voters know that Marco Rubio is only looking out for himself and they’re going to hold him accountable for pushing a self-serving agenda at their expense.”
“This afternoon Senate Majority PAC made a seven-figure transfer to Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, a Florida based Super PAC supporting Patrick Murphy’s campaign. The move comes hours after Senate Majority PAC announced a record fundraising haul — $19.3 million — covering the pre-general reporting period (October 1st thru 19th) that will be filed with the FEC today.”
Democrats have been divided over the strategy for handling the Florida race. Sen. Chuck Schumer canceled future spending in Florida to direct resources into Senate races in North Carolina, Indiana, and Missouri. Reid sees an opportunity to knock out Rubio and eliminate him from presidential contention in 2020.
The retiring Senate Democratic leader has been loudly urging Democrats to spend big in Florida to end Rubio’s national political career.
According to Harry Enten at FiveThirtyEight , the polling suggests that pulling out of Florida is probably the right move for Democrats, but with cash to burn and a shot to beat Rubio, there is a case to be made for more spending.
Democrats on the ground wanted in Florida wanted more spending on the Senate race, and they’ve gotten their wish thanks to Sen. Harry Reid. | 0 |
Outbreak of Violent Riots A number of riots have broken out in Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Austin and Manhattan following the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency. One anti-Trump protester in Los Angeles is quoted in a CNN interview saying, “ People have to die ” and graffiti on a monument in New Orleans reads “ DIE WHITES DIE ” in response to Trump’s election. Rioters are breaking windows of businesses, looting stores, lighting trash cans on fire, shooting flares and brutalizing people who might support Trump or disagree with their violent leftist ideology.
Shortly after midnight on Wednesday morning, a female driver in Oakland was hit by another car on the highway, and when she pulled over to the right shoulder, a group of anti-Trump rioters surrounded her car, broke the back window and she sustained multiple serious injuries. A shocking video which surfaced Thursday shows a man in Chicago being ripped from his car and brutally attacked by multiple anti-Trump agitators who are seen punching and kicking him in the head as one steals his car, dragging the man as he hangs onto the back left window. Many believe this is the handywork of financier George Soros who has funded multiple uprisings in recent years. What we can all agree on is this is worse than a zombie apocalypse; this epidemic of hate and criminal behavior will only lead to more unrest if allowed to grow.
At times like these, it is more important than ever to ensure that you have the knowledge and ability to defend yourself and your loved ones from threats that may come at the most unexpected times, possibly when you are stuck in traffic and physically unable to get away from violent degenerates who may be at your window seeking to cause you harm.
Situational Awareness Let’s start with your general state of awareness in your day-to-day life. It is an unfortunate truth that many place themselves in needlessly volatile situations by not paying close attention to risks that they could face in their immediate surroundings, be it during simple daily tasks, like operating a vehicle or working around heavy machinery, or the more imminent threat of violent agitators that are now filling the streets in major cities, many of whom seek to cause damage to your property and/or harm to you and your loved ones. Utilizing techniques of avoidance, risk reduction, de-escalation and general situational awareness is essential to your survival.
How to Use Cooper’s Color Codes A scale of situational awareness called Cooper’s Color Codes, named after Colonel Jeff Cooper’s combat preparedness methods, is often used in firearms training for situational awareness. The four colors are used as a measure of the degree of situational awareness which an individual may reach at any given point in the day.
White — In condition white, your state of awareness is one that is relaxed and largely unaware of your surroundings. Generally, the only time a person should be in condition White is if he or she is asleep or somehow incapacitated.
Yellow — In condition yellow, you may be relaxed, but you have a heightened sense of awareness for who is around you and what noises and movements occur in your vicinity. You are not captivated by a cell phone screen; you are keeping track of who is behind or near you, especially when near a crowd. This awareness is in no way a paranoia; it is a general sense of awareness for threats to the safety of you and your loved ones.
Orange — In condition orange, you have identified something that is likely to cause harm, and you are focused in on a particular person or situation that poses a threat. This means that should an attack of any kind occur, you would be expecting this and ready for it at this stage.
Red — In condition red, you know that there is an immediate threat in your presence. However, this is not necessarily the point at which one who is armed would fire upon a target. Instead, this is the point where one who is armed may draw their firearm and make commands for an attacker to stop what they are doing. It is important to take steps to de-escalate at all cost, there is no reason to use deadly force if a situation can be solved without it.
Those who carry firearms, especially those who open-carry where concealed carry is criminalized, are obligated to have a heightened situational awareness at all times because any person who gets within arms reach could possibly attempt to take the firearm from them. On a number of occasions, concealed carry holders have stopped attempted robberies by merely maintaining a condition Yellow situational awareness and being prepared to draw their firearm in the moments they had as the gunman turned away from them. Many who seek to cause you harm are not expecting you to be prepared to fight back, and they will run when they see that you are prepared to defend yourself.
Weapons of Opportunity While firearms are effective tools of self-defense, they are not always available, and sometimes they are not practical; for this reason, it is important to consider keeping weapons of opportunity on your person, in your vehicle and even in your workplace. A weapon of opportunity is an everyday object that could be used as a defensive weapon if needed. Having situational awareness only becomes truly effective when you have the tools of defense at your disposal. Various weapons of opportunity are likely sitting all around your home and workplace; these are the heavy or sharp objects that can be grabbed at a moments notice, like a pen, key, belt or even a coffee mug. Various weapons of opportunity for your vehicle could be a crescent wrench, tire iron, lug wrench or crow bar. Make sure to check your local laws as there have been individuals who have been prosecuted for carrying opportune weapons like a baseball bat, but they had no substantiating evidence, like a baseball glove or ball, to show that they meant to use the item for its intended use.
Why Gun Control Kills In some states, like California and New York, there have been such extreme gun control measures that non-violent people have been prohibited from carrying firearms for self-defense. This means that non-criminals are treated the same as convicted felons in these states; this only endangers lives and forces well-to-do people into vulnerable positions in which they become defenseless targets of murderers and thieves, and as we see today, individuals are being taken out of their cars and brutalized by anti-Trump rioters, like in Chicago, on of the most anti-gun cities in the country. Laws have not stopped the illegal acquisition of firearms, but they have caused many peaceful people to be victimized by criminals, and it’s time that this bureaucratic overreach is reversed.
Reestablishing the foundations of self-defense and self-sufficiency in our society will require that we maintain awareness of threats to life and liberty and that we keep the tools of defense close by our side, ready to be used when the worst happens.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published November 16th, 2016 A Navy SEALs Secrets to Situational Awareness Situational Awareness Hard Core Chicks: Eight Self Defense Tactics Every Women… Emergency Survival Food Sales Soar as We Get Closer to… The Video Carjackers Don’t Want You To See | 0 |
Netflix released the first teaser trailer and announced a premiere date for its upcoming series, Dear White People, on Wednesday. [The series, based on the 2014 film of the same name, centers on a group of diverse students and their experiences with discrimination at the predominantly white, fictional Ivy League Winchester University. The series’ title takes its name from the title of the radio show hosted by Winchester sophomore Samantha White, played in the upcoming show by Logan Browning. “Dear white people: Here’s a list of acceptable Halloween costumes,” White says on her radio show in the series’ trailer. “Pirate, slutty nurse, any of our first 43 presidents. ” “Top of the list of unacceptable costumes: Me,” she adds, as images of white people in black face flash across the screen. Justin Simien, who wrote and directed the film, produced the series for Netflix and reportedly directed the first episode. The film was a smash hit at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, where it won the special jury award for breakthrough talent. The series also stars Antionette Robertson, John Patrick Amedori, Wyatt Nash, Marque Richardson and Jeremy Tardy, while Brandon P Bell reprises his role as Troy Fairbanks from the film. Dear White People premieres April 28 on Netflix. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department warned the State of North Carolina on Wednesday that its new law limiting bathroom access violated the civil rights of transgender people, a finding that could mean millions of dollars in lost federal funds. In a letter to Gov. Pat McCrory, Vanita Gupta, the top civil rights lawyer for the Justice Department, said that “both you and the State of North Carolina” were in violation of civil rights law, and gave him until Monday to decide “whether you will remedy these violations. ” A Justice Department official said that federal officials hoped that the state would agree to comply voluntarily with federal civil rights law by abandoning the measure. But the department has a number of tools it can use to try to force compliance, including denying federal funds or asking a court to do so, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The ultimatum escalated a contentious national debate over North Carolina’s new legal stance on transgender and gay people, and set up what could be a lengthy showdown between the state and the Obama administration. In a statement, Mr. McCrory, a Republican, said: “The right and expectation of privacy in one of the most private areas of our personal lives is now in jeopardy. We will be reviewing to determine the next steps. ” Phil Berger, the president pro tempore of the State Senate, accused the Justice Department of “a gross overreach” that he said “deserves to be struck down in federal court. ” Tim Moore, the speaker of the House, called the letter an attempt to “circumvent the will of the electorate and instead unilaterally exert its extreme agenda. ” The state measure, House Bill 2, known as HB2, was signed into law in March and says the bathroom a person uses is determined by his or her biological gender at birth. That requirement “is facially discriminatory against transgender employees” because it treats them differently from other employees, Ms. Gupta wrote. As a result, “we have concluded that in violation of Title VII, the state is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of Title VII right by employees of public agencies,” she said. The letter was first reported by The Charlotte Observer. The law has become an issue in the presidential campaign and has prompted boycotts of North Carolina from celebrities like Bruce Springsteen, as well as calls for repeal by a number of businesses, some of which have canceled plans to create new jobs in the state. Opponents cheered the Justice Department’s move. “I think it makes clear what we’ve known all along, which is that HB2 is deeply discriminatory and violates civil rights law in all kinds of manners,” said State Representative Chris Sgro of Greensboro. Matt McTighe, executive director of Freedom for All Americans, an L. G. B. T. rights group, said in a statement Wednesday that “actions have consequences, and Governor McCrory and his legislative allies are now paying the price for this law that they so hurriedly enacted. “HB2 is a solution in a search of a problem that simply doesn’t exist, and lawmakers must take immediate action to fully repeal it,” he said. “The state’s economy and reputation have suffered enough, and now students all across the state stand to lose out on nearly $1 billion in critical funding because of HB2. The livelihoods of North Carolina’s families are at stake, and there is no excuse for inaction. ” In December 2014, the attorney general at the time, Eric H. Holder Jr. directed the Justice Department to begin including gender identity — including transgender status — as a basis for discrimination claims under federal civil rights law. That decision reversed a policy at the Justice Department that specifically excluded transgender people from federal protection. Mr. Holder called the decision “an important shift,” meant to affirm the Justice Department’s commitment “to protecting the civil rights of all Americans. ” In addition, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission held last year that “equal access to restrooms is a significant, basic condition of employment” and that denying access to transgender individuals was discriminatory, Ms. Gupta noted, in her letter to Mr. McCrory. The Justice Department’s threat was not the only front opened Wednesday in the battle over transgender bathroom rights. In Illinois, a group calling itself Students and Parents for Privacy filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education, the Justice Department, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and the school directors of Township High School District 211 in Cook County, Ill. seeking to stop the district from “forcing to girls to use locker rooms and restrooms with biological males. ” In November, federal education authorities ruled that the school district, near Chicago, violated Title IX, the federal law that forbids discrimination on the basis of sex in public education, when it did not allow a transgender student who said she identifies as a girl to change and shower in the girls’ locker room without restrictions. The fact that the student, who is biologically male, now uses the bathroom and locker rooms at William Fremd High School, the lawsuit states, creates an “intimidating and hostile environment” for girls, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois. The suit also asks the court to set aside a Department of Education rule in which transgender students are covered under Title IX. Meanwhile, in Oxford, Ala. the City Council on Wednesday rescinded an ordinance it had passed the week before that forbade people to use a public restroom that did not match their gender at birth, according to the Alabama news website al. com. The news service reported that at least one of the three members who voted to rescind the ordinance in the vote was influenced by a city attorney’s opinion that the ordinance might be illegal under Title IX. | 1 |
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held an emergency press briefing on Saturday where he lit into the media for their “egregious” and “deliberately false reporting” of Friday’s inauguration of President Donald Trump and his first day in office.[ “Some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting,” Spicer said. He explained that one reporter “falsely tweeted out that the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. had been removed form the Oval Office … This was just plain wrong. ” The false report, which Spicer described as “irresponsible and reckless,” came from TIME magazine pool reporter Zeke Miller: Tweeting again: wh aide confirms the MLK bust is still there. I looked for it in the oval 2x didn’t see it. My apologies to my colleagues, — Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017, Apology accepted https: . — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017, Thanks to White House Chief of Staff for this wonderful picture of the MLK bust in the oval pic. twitter. — Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017, Spicer further noted that the media had attempted to paint Trump’s inauguration as appearing much smaller than President Barack Obama’s. “Photographs of the Inauguration proceeding were intentionally framed in a way to minimize the enormous support it had gathered on the National Mall,” Spicer said. He added, it was the first time in the nation’s history that white floor coverings had been used to protect the grass and that they amplified empty spaces, whereas the grass had minimized the appearance of spaces in the past. “Inaccurate numbers regarding crowd size were also tweeted,” Spicer said. “No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall does not put any out. ” He said this also applies to any attempts to count the numbers of protesters during the “Women’s March” on Saturday. “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about holding President Trump accountable. Well, I’m here to tell you that it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well. The American people deserve better,” Spicer said. “And as long as he serves as the messenger of this incredible movement, he will take this message directly to the American people where his focus will always be. ” Spicer’s criticism of the media’s fake news reporting resulted in a media meltdown on social media. MSNBC correspondent Reid called Spicer “the new Baghdad Bob. ” Sean Spicer is the new Baghdad Bob. That was positively Soviet. https: . — Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) January 21, 2017, Think Progress’s Judd Legum suggested Spicer had “torched his credibility” for confronting the media’s misreporting with the truth: Spicer torching his credibility on DAY ONE, — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) January 21, 2017, Naturally, other media figures from the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Salon also complained: In that rendition of history Spicer gave, with no q’s taken and false info given, the reality of what’s happening w rallies doesn’t exist. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 21, 2017, Spicer, before walking out without questions, says they will begin to hold the press ”accountable.” No idea what that means. — Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 21, 2017, I’m relieved @PressSec Spicer hauled in press to whine about crowd estimates. I worried he was going to announce we nuked Denmark. — Dana Milbank (@Milbank) January 21, 2017, 1) 100% false 2) Spicer knows it 3) Trump trotted out Spicer to say this and watched 4) this is ridiculous. https: . — Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) January 21, 2017, OMG: Spicer is accusing media of ”intentionally framing” photographs to minimize inauguration turnout! — Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) January 21, 2017, | 1 |
JPMorgan is, once again, paying money out to federal regulators for its chronic criminal activity. The latest payment of $264 million comes after it was discovered that the Too Big To Fail/Jail bank hired the relatives of Chinese government officials to win business in China—a clear violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
According to the Department of Justice, JPMorgan will pay a $72 million criminal penalty to the Department of Justice, a civil penalty of $61.9 million assessed by the Federal Reserve, and a $130.5 million disgorgement to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for a total of $264.4 million in fines.
In its statement, the SEC claimed “investment bankers at JPMorgan’s subsidiary in Asia created a client referral hiring program that bypassed the firm’s normal hiring process and rewarded job candidates referred by client executives and influential government officials with well-paying, career-building JPMorgan employment. During a seven-year period, JPMorgan hired approximately 100 interns and full-time employees at the request of foreign government officials, enabling the firm to win or retain business resulting in more than $100 million in revenues to JPMorgan.”
Amazingly, the corrupt practices were so common at JPMorgan that company executives used “Referral Hires vs Revenue” spreadsheets to show how the bribes were paying off. Not a single referral was denied, even though many of the children, relatives, and friends of the Chinese elite were not qualified for the jobs they received.
In fact, some of the hires were so incompetent they were referred to within JPMorgan as “photocopiers.” So much for meritocracy.
JPMorgan executives certainly knew they were violating FCPA, but the money was just too good. And, given the Justice Department’s track record of not prosecuting individual law breakers on Wall Street, what did they have to lose? JPMorgan’s criminality is pretty rational when analyzed fully.
While US regulators are happy to celebrate the fines, the Chinese government appears less-than-enthusiastic about diving into the scandal. The Financial Times speculates this may be because the Chinese anti-corruption authority, known as the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), has no idea where an investigation into the hiring program will take them.
Given the large amount of Chinese government business steered JPMorgan’s way (over $100 million) it seems likely the Chinese officials involved are people of considerable influence. CCDI typically targets lower-level officials and, when it goes high, it has the support of the Communist Party, which is, after all, the ruling authority in China.
Like most countries, China does not have the ridiculous light touch for corruption that the US has. If cited for corruption in China, a government official or businessperson is likely to go to jail. JPMorgan has broken the law perpetually and has yet to face serious consequences, despite a new 2015 directive at the Justice Department to hold individual corporate executives accountable for wrongdoing.
The post JPMorgan Pays $264 Million Fine For Bribing Chinese Officials appeared first on Shadowproof .
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Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Donald J. Trump questioned whether the U. S. must remain bound to its longstanding One China policy “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade. ” He also disparaged the American spy agencies that he will count on as commander in chief, dismissing a C. I. A. assessment that Russian hacking had influenced the presidential campaign as “ridiculous. ” Mr. Trump is expected to name as secretary of state Rex W. Tillerson. The chief executive of Exxon Mobil, he has made extensive deals around the globe and has close ties to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Above, Mr. Trump at the football game over the weekend. _____ • Prime Minister Hwang is now South Korea’s acting president, after Park ’s powers were suspended last week when the National Assembly vote to impeach her. If the Constitutional Court decides to remove her, here are some contenders to fill the presidency, including Ban the outgoing United Nations secretary general. Our reporter looks at how the scandal and the election of Mr. Trump might be affecting North Korea. _____ • Thousands of readers in the Philippines responded to the photographer Daniel Berehulak’s gruesome documentation of scores of homicides committed as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s antidrug campaign. Some expressed horror, but most applauded Mr. Duterte’s approach. “Slaughter might be harsh but I guess for drug peddlers, they deserve it,” one said. _____ • Syrians are streaming out of eastern Aleppo as government forces continue to hammer neighborhoods with airstrikes, but some are staying. “We are dead either way,” one man told a nurse. The Islamic State appeared to take advantage of the government’s focus on Aleppo, retaking the ancient city of Palmyra. _____ • Turks massed in mourning after twin suicide bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and wounded scores. A Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of that have crushed the city’s spirit and economy. “This is the new norm,” one Turk said. _____ • Our columnist Roger Cohen managed to get into one of Australia’s island detention centers for refugees. The world, he writes, “knows no more sustained, sinister or surreal exercise in cruelty than the South Pacific Australia has established for its trickle of the migrant flood. ” • An informal lending network administered through smartphone apps and online platforms is allowing investors in China to make American deals — sometimes inflating prices. • An investigation by The New York Times into the financial maneuvering at Hostess as the Twinkie was reintroduced found a blueprint for how private equity executives have amassed some of the greatest fortunes of the modern era. • Iran’s national airline and Boeing signed a $16. 6 billion deal for 80 airplanes, but its future under a Trump administration is uncertain. • A lawyer for Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is expected to try to delay her criminal trial today on charges of fiscal negligence in a 2007 arbitration case, when she was France’s finance minister. • The U. S. Federal Reserve Bank has all but announced it will raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time since December 2015. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Jakarta is preparing for the possibility of more terrorist threats after the Indonesian police foiled a major bomb plot over the weekend. [Jakarta Post] • The race for Hong Kong’s next chief executive has become more complicated. Leung the unpopular incumbent, said he would not seek a second term. [The New York Times] • And John Tsang, Hong Kong’s financial secretary, is hinting at a run. [South China Morning Post] • A pioneer is one of the most successful wine growers in China. [Hong Kong Free Press] • A church in southern Nigeria whose construction had been rushed collapsed onto worshipers at an ordination, killing at least 160 people. [Associated Press] • The movement in the United States is trying to improve its image, but its core message of racial separation and white supremacy is still the same. [The New York Times] • David Hallberg, the first American dancer to join the Bolshoi Ballet, returns to the stage two and a half years after an ankle injury. He performs in Sydney with the Australian Ballet on Tuesday, Friday and Dec. 19 and 21. • China has plans to recreate a model American farm, and possibly an entire Midwestern community, in Hebei Province, inspired by President Xi Jinping’s visit to Iowa in 2012. • And in our Daily 360 video, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei takes us on a stroll through Tompkins Square Park in New York, his old stamping grounds from 1983 to 1993. Four exhibitions of his work are currently in the city. Last week, the Pizzagate case escalated when a man fired a rifle inside a Washington restaurant falsely accused in fake news stories of ties to a child abuse ring. The history of the “ ” suffix begins with the 1970s Watergate scandal that led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation. Since then, the suffix has been synonymous with political wrongdoing. The Times columnist William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, popularized the practice. He introduced readers to Nannygate, Scalpgate, and Troopergate during the Clinton administration. Mr. Safire later admitted that he might have been trying to minimize Nixon’s crimes. But “ ” scandals have not been limited to the United States. Britain has had its share, and in Germany, there was the 1987 Waterkantgate, a scandal around a West German politician that resulted in his mysterious death. India had snoopgate, and Malaysia had cowgate. Argentina and Venezuela’s relations soured over Valijagate — which, if you speak Spanish, you’d have guessed turned on the contents of a suitcase. The unoriginal suffix even gets recycled now. Pizzagate was previously used to describe a soccer player’s use of the food as a weapon, and when New York’s mayor committed a : using silverware to eat a slice. Evan Gershkovich contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
By Joe Clark Election 2016 , Politics , Racism November 9, 2016 This Comment About Trump’s Win Will Make You THINK HARD About The Full Horror Of What Just Happened
On November 8, 2016, an almost evenly divided America made a consequential choice.
And in the end, they chose to elect the least most qualified candidate in U.S. history to become the 45th President of the United States of America.
However, one Twitter user said something so profound, that it should send a chill up the spine of any decent and rational American. The tweet said:
“Our first black president will have to have over the White House to someone endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. Just let that sink in.” Our first black president will have to hand over the White House to someone endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. Just let that sink in.
— Salon (@Salon) November 9, 2016
Yes, we should all allow that sink in for a few moments.
After the election, neo-Nazis, Alt-Righters, White Supremacists, and the Ku Klux Klan are all celebrating Trump’s election.
Meanwhile, few, if any, minorities are doing the same, because they understand what his presidency will mean for their lives and the lives of their children.
And while we can keep telling ourselves that “this is not who we are,” it’s important to recognize that it was that same denial that brought us to this point in our history.
It’s time we took a hard look in the mirror and at the country we’ve created.
Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
On Sunday, June 11, a “Resist March” against President Donald Trump will replace the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade. [“When they come for one of us, they come for all of us. Join the Resistance at ResistMarch. org,” a banner on the march’s website reads. According to a video on the website, posted by Canadian Indie pop twin Teagan and Sara, the march will start at “8 a. m. sharp” at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. “It’s time that we all stand together, as one, and resist. ” Southern California Public Radio (SCPR) reported that the march will end with the L. A. Pride festival in West Hollywood. Breitbart News previously reported that the annual Gay Pride parade had been canceled in favor of the Resist March. The festival will cause the shutdown of several major roads in West Hollywood, some of which have already been shut. SCPR noted that San Vicente Boulevard was closed between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue starting at 7 p. m. on Thursday, June 8, and that it will remain closed through 10 a. m. on Monday, June 12. Hollywood Boulevard will reportedly be closed off between La Brea and Highland Avenue as early as 6 a. m. through noon on Sunday. SCPR also noted that the following streets will be closed as early as 8 a. m. and will reopen as the “Resist” march passes through: In Charlotte, North Carolina, gay Trump supporters were denied in their effort to join the Gay Pride parade on a float, according to the Associated Press. Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter. | 1 |
Locals Caught in Crossfire Between Troops, ISIS
While early fighting in Mosul was presented as comparatively easy by Iraqi officials, as the troops near the city, the fighting is starting to get more fierce, and the civilian population trapped in the area is increasingly caught in the crossfire .
Increased fighting, and higher population density are a dangerous combination, and locals by and large are being prevented from fleeing the area. Unsurprisingly, this is leading to reports of a growing number of civilians killed and wounded in the area.
This has the PR people going into high gear, trying to manage the narrative around the deaths, with Western and Iraq officials accusing ISIS of forcing civilians into the city to use as human shields, and preventing them from relocating outside the city.
While some reports suggest this may be accurate, the US has also talked openly of conducting airstrikes against all “fighters” fleeing the city, which has led the Iraqi government to openly warn the civilian population of Mosul against fleeing , lest they get targeted as welll.
Civilians getting mistaken for fleeing ISIS fighters has been an ongoing problem for the US, who killed hundreds of civilians around the Syrian city of Manbij in such mistakes. Manbij was a much smaller city than Mosul, which has a population of over a million people potentially in the line of fire. | 0 |
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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If history is written by the victors, it is typically filmed by the crowd pleasers. Whether Hollywood histories chronicle the exploits of brave gladiators, courageous soldiers or noble civilians, they almost always exalt the past in a similar cinematic register, with soaring speeches, swelling strings, sweeping montages, thrilling fights and breathless romances. When the filmmaker Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter,” “Midnight Special”) was writing the spare, understated script for his new drama, “Loving,” he knew that his quiet approach was unusual, particularly for a film about a historical subject so well suited to the fall’s noisy film awards circuit. In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, an interracial couple, were married in Washington, D. C. A short time later, back home in Virginia, the pregnant Mrs. Loving and her new husband, a bricklayer, were yanked out of their bed by police enforcing the state’s Racial Integrity Act, which prohibited interracial marriage. They were arrested and ordered by a judge to dissolve their union or leave the state for 25 years. For nearly a decade, the Lovings persevered, until the 1967 Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, struck down laws. The Lovings’ case remade American history, yet Mr. Nichols described the emotional peak of the film as, “a man coming home and crying on the edge of the bed because he can’t take care of his wife. ” He spoke in his Arkansas drawl over lunch at a downtown Manhattan restaurant: “That’s what I’m giving people as a climax? But it’s so true and that’s what’s so crushing. That guy was good at one thing: going out and building a brick wall. That should have been enough. ” The film, starring Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the couple, has received some of the year’s best reviews for its deliberate restraint. “There are few movies that speak to the American moment as movingly — and with as much idealism,” The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis wrote, adding that the “insistent, quotidian quiet of ‘Loving’ can feel so startling. ” In part, that quietness emerged after Mr. Nichols watched Nancy Buirski’s intimate documentary “The Loving Story” and hours of archival footage of the couple. He was struck by Mildred’s polite dignity and Richard’s taciturn silence. When he learned that the Lovings opted not to attend the Supreme Court on the day of the ruling but instead receive the news by phone, he said his approach came into focus. “Immediately I saw that end scene, which may or may not represent reality: Richard playing with his kids on the lawn and not saying anything,” Mr. Nichols said. He was aware enough of the danger of such a contrarian choice that he called his producers at Big Beach to warn them, or at least temper their expectations. “I remember saying, ‘I don’t think this is going to be ‘The Help,’ though ‘The Help’ made a lot of money and got nominated for a lot of Oscars,” he said. “I guess I must have known we were taking a risk in its execution but I never thought there was another way. ” However, when Mr. Nichols was looking for financing, he met one investor who was not so confident. “He’d shown the script to his bigwig boss who said, ‘I just don’t get it. It’s like a courtroom drama without the courtroom,’” he said. When this financier asked Mr. Nichols if he could “punch it up,” Mr. Nichols said he launched into the sort of rebellious speech that is absent in his film. “What you need to worry about right now is not whether I’m going to punch up this script so you can be involved,” he recalled saying. “What you need to be worried about is how I will ever come back to work with you guys ever again because that is the most simplistic, stupid response I’ve heard. ” Peter Saraf, a Big Beach producer on the film, said that the production company knew what it was getting into. “Jeff’s idea was to tell the story from Richard and Mildred’s point of view and stick to it,” he said. “You can’t commit to that and then say oh, but we need the big courtroom moment with the gavel falling. ” Showtime’s 1996 movie “Mr. and Mrs. Loving,” produced with Hallmark Entertainment and starring Timothy Hutton and Lela Rochon, hit more predictable beats and portrayed Richard as more charming and garrulous. But Mr. Edgerton said in a telephone interview that he was drawn to Mr. Nichols’s version of the character, who was, “just shut down and emasculated and weathered by this situation,” he said, and more in keeping with the man in the documentary footage. “Every year in Hollywood, true stories get made and we feel the need to renovate them, and suit them up,” Mr. Edgerton said, then continued: “That’s legitimate sometimes. But to make Richard more articulate or defiant or to place him in that courtroom would have negated the idea of trying to tell a true story truthfully. ” Or as Ms. Negga put it, when discussing her character on the phone, “It would have been really unfaithful and quite grotesque to have made her any different. ” Though the two stars have been nominated for Gotham Independent Film Awards, one of the many ceremonies that make up Academy Award season, they will not have the explosive reels of other, often more famous, contenders. In today’s market, quiet adult dramas don’t sell themselves, and reviews only go so far. So Mr. Nichols, who notes that he is “not a filmmaker who wants to operate in obscurity,” and his cast have been busy selling the film in a way that might have mortified the Lovings. “If Mildred were alive now, I don’t think she’d want to do any junkets, any of this nonsense, any of this hoopla,” said Ms. Negga, on a day in which she joked that she had done 782 interviews. “And there’s not much that would have terrified Richard more. ” Mr. Nichols initially objected when the film’s domestic distributor, Focus Features, wanted to use the movie’s few memorable lines in the trailer, including, “We may lose the small battles but win the big war. ” (As Mr. Edgerton said, “Mildred didn’t talk much but when she did it was kind of worth quoting. ”) Then he relented. “This film doesn’t speak with the histrionics of other potential award contenders, but it does fit into the frame of the award season and that’s still how they’re going to cut the trailer,” he said. “The is just to get people into the theater. I get it. My hope is that people will go see the movie maybe expecting one thing but maybe pleased it’s something else. ” Mr. Nichols, polishing off his steak and fries along with his fifth of the day’s seven interviews, said that in the thundering horse race of the Oscar season: “‘Loving’ is not even a horse. We are a whole other animal. ” | 1 |
A federal judge approved a consent decree on Friday that would overhaul the Baltimore Police Department, days after the judge thwarted a Justice Department effort to delay a decision. The agreement between the federal government and city leaders would introduce a wide range of police reforms, including training, new technology and community oversight. The agreement rose from a scathing 2016 Justice Department report that found systemic racial bias in the police department. “The talk is over,” Brandon Scott, a Baltimore city councilman who leads the Police Oversight Committee, said after the decision on Friday. “It’s time for us to handle our business. ” The approval came as a relief to supporters who feared the agreement might be delayed or canceled under the new presidential administration. The pact was signed on Jan. 12, eight days before Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. Its supporters knew President Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, would be less likely to support it. On Monday, the Justice Department sought a delay so it could review all police reform agreements, including the one in Baltimore. But Judge James K. Bredar said Friday that he interpreted that request as the department’s trying to determine “whether it wants the court to enter the decree at all, or at least the current version of it. ” That opportunity had passed, he said. “The parties have already agreed to the draft before the court,” Judge Bredar wrote in his decision. “It would be extraordinary for the court to permit one side to unilaterally amend an agreement already jointly reached and signed. ” Mr. Sessions said in a statement that the decree “was negotiated during a rushed process by the previous administration and signed only days before they left office. ” “While the Department of Justice continues to fully support police reform in Baltimore, I have grave concerns that some provisions of this decree will reduce the lawful powers of the police department and result in a less safe city,” he said. He added that the agreement contained “clear departures from many proven principles of good policing that we fear will result in more crime. ” The Justice Department’s report found that the police in Baltimore, a city that is 63 percent black, disproportionately targeted black people, often for dubious reasons. The 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a man, while in police custody led to violent riots. The consent decree covers a wide range of reforms. It includes a requirement for officers to undergo 80 hours of training, including best practices on stopping, searching and arresting people, and technological upgrades like video cameras inside police vans. City leaders praised Judge Bredar’s decision to approve the agreement. Tessa president of the Baltimore branch of the N. A. A. C. P. said on Friday that residents she had spoken to “really wanted this to go through,” and were worried the effort they had put into the agreement would be for naught. “For all of that just to fall apart because they didn’t want to go through with it would have hurt everybody,” she said. The city’s mayor, Catherine Pugh, said at a news conference that the decision was “a great victory for the citizens of Baltimore, as well as the Baltimore Police Department. ” The next step is most likely to be the federal appointment of an independent monitor who will ensure the city is adequately addressing bias complaints. “Until the independent court monitor is assigned, everything else is on hold,” said Mr. Scott, the councilman. In his statement, Mr. Sessions said the Justice Department “stands ready to work with Baltimore to fight violence crime and improve policing in the city. ” | 1 |
World leaders' personal chefs sample Indian market fare Wed Oct 26, 2016 4:38PM News Bulletin The chefs to various heads of state pose for a photograph as they visit the spice market in the old quarters of New Delhi on October 25, 2016. (AFP)
The world’s most high-profile chefs are in India to explore one of the most gastronomic societies on earth.
Members of the exclusive cooking society "Le Club des Chefs des Chefs" have gathered up in New Delhi to sample India’s spicy and aromatic cuisine.
The culinary delegate comprising personal chefs to the world’s leaders decided to hold a meeting in India after being invited by the country’s president. They got the chance to explore the crowded alleys of Old Delhi’s pungent spice market and get a taste of the country’s authentic ingredients.
The top chefs get together every year for a general assembly. The meeting is supposed to provide a platform for the gourmands to exchange recipes. The elite chefs also discuss ways to use food diplomacy to connect communities. The club also seeks to promote local food and healthy eating habits. | 0 |
Shortly after receiving a diagnosis of pneumonia on Friday, Hillary Clinton decided to limit the information to her family members and close aides, certain that the illness was not a crucial issue for voters and that it might be twisted and exploited by her opponents, several advisers and allies said on Monday. To those she did inform, Mrs. Clinton was emphatic: She intended to “press on” with her campaign schedule, she said. Her confidants concluded that she did not want to be challenged over her preference to keep the pneumonia private and continue working. Mrs. Clinton’s inner circle was mindful of both her guardedness and her expectation of loyalty once her mind is made up. And she was optimistic that she could recover over the weekend, when she had only two brief events on her schedule, said the advisers and allies, who insisted on anonymity to disclose private conversations. But Mrs. Clinton’s penchant for privacy backfired. On Monday, her campaign scrambled to reassure voters about her health, a day after she grew visibly weak and was filmed being helped into a van: unsettling images that circulated widely and led her aides to disclose the pneumonia diagnosis two days after the fact. In a phone interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night, Mrs. Clinton said she had kept her diagnosis a secret because “I just didn’t think it was going to be that big a deal,” and tried to shift the discussion to her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, and his lack of transparency. “It’s really past time for him to be held to the same standards,” she said. Mrs. Clinton’s aides acknowledged that they should have been more forthcoming and said she would release more details about her physical fitness and medical history this week, a concession to the political pressure that she is under because she chose not to reveal her diagnosis sooner. But the manner in which Mrs. Clinton’s illness became public has also revived concerns among supporters, and criticism among detractors, about her seemingly reflexive tendency to hunker down, often citing a “zone of privacy,” when she senses a political threat. Her desire for tight control over personal information deepened during the partisan wars of the 1990s, influenced her use of a private email server as secretary of state and now threatens to make her look, again, as though she has something to hide. “Usually you would think that the truth sets you free, but in the experiences that Hillary Clinton has lived through, that’s not necessarily accurate,” said Jay Jacobs, a Democratic Party leader in New York and close ally of the Clintons. Referring to 1990s investigations of the Clintons, he said: “Whether it’s Whitewater or Travelgate or other things, when the facts came out, it still didn’t solve the problem. They did nothing wrong, but there was still controversy. She is a very private person, and she would rather not put out information that she did not feel needed to be shared. ” The new onslaught of questions about her health and medical records has been deeply frustrating to Mrs. Clinton and her team, who have sought to highlight the disparity between her and Mr. Trump over issues of transparency. Mrs. Clinton has released her tax returns, while Mr. Trump has not. She has provided exhaustive details about her policy proposals, while he has not. And she released considerably more medical information last year — in a letter from her physician, Dr. Lisa R. Bardack — than Mr. Trump did in his doctor’s letter, which contained little more than boasts about his “strength and stamina. ” Yet as much as they want the pressure to be on Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her advisers are now on the defensive. “She has been totally transparent on the important issues, including public policy ideas, far more than Trump,” said former Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a longtime ally of Mrs. Clinton’s. “But there’s also a combination of a natural desire for privacy and the fear that information will be politically misused. ” Mrs. Clinton has long relied on a intensely loyal group of aides who share her instincts for political warfare and her skepticism and even hostility toward calls for fuller disclosure. Some of these advisers, like Huma Abedin and Cheryl D. Mills, have worked with her since the 1990s, when Mrs. Clinton complained that a “vast conspiracy” was targeting her and her husband, President Bill Clinton. Ms. Abedin and Ms. Mills were among those Mrs. Clinton told of her diagnosis on Friday. Neither replied to emails on Monday. Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said Mrs. Clinton had not wanted her illness to deter her. “She just wanted to plow through it,” he told MSNBC, “and I think that’s part of what’s going to make her a great president. ” Most voters have not been moved by questions about Mrs. Clinton’s health: 74 percent of registered voters said they were unconcerned about her being healthy enough to carry out the job of president, a Fox News poll last month found. But trustworthiness is a glaring problem for Mrs. Clinton. Roughly six in 10 voters said they did not trust her, about the same percentage who said they distrusted Mr. Trump, according to a Washington News poll released last week. Mrs. Clinton had several opportunities before Sunday to disclose that she had pneumonia, including one at a news conference on Friday where she discussed her plans to defeat the Islamic State, called for a rethinking of the Obama administration’s approach to North Korea and ridiculed Mr. Trump’s praise for the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. (At a that night, Mrs. Clinton, known for more calibrated phrasings, loosely suggested that half of Mr. Trump’s supporters fell into a “basket of deplorables” — bigots of one kind or another, essentially. She apologized the next day.) On Sunday morning, when reporters learned that Mrs. Clinton had departed early from a ceremony in Lower Manhattan for the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a campaign aide said only that she had been “overheated. ” It was not until more than five hours after the startling video surfaced online, showing an ailing Mrs. Clinton being helped into a van, that her campaign released a statement from Dr. Bardack saying Mrs. Clinton had been told she had pneumonia and put on antibiotics. The statement said she had become dehydrated and overheated at ground zero. The events quickly intensified pressure on both Mrs. Clinton, 68, and Mr. Trump, 70, to be more forthcoming about their health and medical histories. Mr. Trump has said he will release more medical information this week. But they also reinforced a central vulnerability for Mrs. Clinton that has nothing to do with physical . “Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What’s the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?” David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Obama, wrote on Twitter. Clinton aides have ample reason to be careful on the subject of her health: Political opponents on the right have spread a variety of conspiracy theories insinuating that she is physically unfit for the presidency, and Mr. Trump has fanned those theories, repeatedly questioning her “stamina. ” After Mrs. Clinton had a coughing attack last week, Matt Drudge, editor of The Drudge Report, posted a spoof photo of her traveling press corps wearing surgical masks on her campaign plane. But on Monday, her campaign acknowledged its error. “We could have done better yesterday, but it is a fact that public knows more about HRC than any nominee in history,” Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman, wrote on Twitter in response to Mr. Axelrod. Mrs. Clinton does not plan to return to the campaign trail until Thursday at the earliest, advisers said, and it is unclear how she and her doctor will respond to interview requests about her health. Late Monday, she expressed gratitude to . “Like anyone who’s ever been home sick from work, I’m just anxious to get back out there. See you on the trail soon,” she said on Twitter, signing her post “H” to indicate that she had written it herself. | 1 |
Amy Albritton can’t remember if her boyfriend signaled when he changed lanes late that August afternoon in 2010. But suddenly the lights on the Houston Police patrol car were flashing behind them, and Anthony Wilson was navigating Albritton’s white Chrysler Concorde to a stop in a parking lot. It was an especially unwelcome hassle. Wilson was in Houston to see about an job Albritton, volunteering her car, had come along for what she imagined would be a vacation of sorts. She managed an apartment complex back in Monroe, La. and the younger of her two sons — Landon, 16, who had been disabled from birth by cerebral palsy — was with his father for the week. After five hours of driving through the monotony of flat woodland, the couple had checked into a motel, carted their luggage to the room and returned to the car, too hungry to rest but too drained to seek out anything more than fast food. Now two officers stepped out of their patrol car and approached. Albritton, 43, had dressed up for the trip — black blouse, turquoise necklace, small silver hoop earrings glinting through her blond hair. Wilson, 28, was more casually dressed, in a white and jeans, and wore a strained expression that worried Albritton. One officer asked him for his license and registration. Wilson said he didn’t have a license. The car’s registration showed that it belonged to Albritton. The officer asked Wilson to step out of the car. Wilson complied. The officer leaned in over the driver’s seat, looked around, then called to his partner in the report Officer Duc Nguyen later filed, he wrote that he saw a needle in the car’s ceiling lining. Albritton didn’t know what he was talking about. Before she could protest, Officer David Helms had come around to her window and was asking for consent to search the car. If Albritton refused, Helms said, he would call for a dog. Albritton agreed to the full search and waited nervously outside the car. Helms spotted a white crumb on the floor. In the report, Nguyen wrote that the officers believed the crumb was crack cocaine. They handcuffed Wilson and Albritton and stood them in front of the patrol car, its lights still flashing. They were on display for traffic, criminal suspects sweating through their clothes in the heat. As Nguyen and Helms continued the search, tensions grew. Albritton, shouting over the sound of traffic, tried to explain that they had the wrong idea — at least about her. She had been dating Wilson for only a month she implored him to admit that if there were drugs, they were his alone. Wilson just shook his head, Albritton now recalls. Fear surging, she shouted that there weren’t any drugs in her car even as she insisted that she didn’t know that Wilson had brought drugs. The search turned up only one other item of interest — a box of BC Powder, an pain reliever. Albritton never saw the needle. The crumb from the floor was all that mattered now. At the police academy four years earlier, Helms was taught that to make a drug arrest on the street, an officer needed to conduct an elementary chemical test, right then and there. It’s what cops routinely do across the country every day while making thousands upon thousands of drug arrests. Helms popped the trunk of his patrol car, pulled out a small plastic pouch that contained a vial of pink liquid and returned to Albritton. He opened the lid on the vial and dropped a tiny piece of the crumb into the liquid. If the liquid remained pink, that would rule out the presence of cocaine. If it turned blue, then Albritton, as the owner of the car, could become a felony defendant. Helms waved the vial in front of her face and said, “You’re busted. ” Albritton was booked into the Harris County jail at 3:37 a. m. nine hours after she was arrested. Wilson had been detained for driving without a license but would soon be released. Albritton was charged with felony drug possession and faced a much longer ordeal. Already, she was terrified as she thought about her family. Albritton was raised in a speck of a town called Marion at the northern edge of Louisiana. Her father still drove lumber trucks there her mother had worked as a pharmacy technician until she died of colon cancer. Albritton was 15 then. She went through two unexpected pregnancies, the first at age 16, and two marriages. But she had also pieced together a steady livelihood managing apartment complexes, and when her younger son was born disabled, she worked relentlessly to care for him. Now their future was almost certainly shattered. The officers allowed her to make a collect call on the coinless cellblock pay phone. She had a strained relationship with her father and with her son’s father as well instead she dialed Doug Franklin, an old friend who once dated her sister. No one answered. Near dawn the next morning, guards walked Albritton through a tunnel to the Harris County tower’s basement, where they deposited her in a holding room with another woman, who told Albritton that she had murdered someone. Albritton prayed someone would explain what would happen next, tell her son she was alive and help her sort out the mess. She had barely slept and still hadn’t eaten anything. She heard her name called and stepped forward to the reinforced window. A tall man with thinning hair and glasses approached and introduced himself as Dan Richardson, her defense attorney. Richardson told Albritton that she was going to be charged with possession of a controlled substance, crack cocaine, at an arraignment that morning. Albritton recalls him explaining that this was a felony, and the maximum penalty was two years in state prison. She doesn’t remember him asking her what actually happened, or if she believed she was innocent. Instead, she recalls, he said that the prosecutor had already offered a deal for much less than two years. If she pleaded guilty, she would receive a sentence in the county jail, and most likely serve only half that. Albritton told Richardson that the police were mistaken she was innocent. But Richardson, she says, was unswayed. The police had found crack in her car. The test proved it. She could spend a few weeks in jail or two years in prison. In despair, Albritton agreed to the deal. Albritton was escorted to a dark courtroom. A guilty plea requires the defendant to make a series of statements that serve as a confession and to waive multiple constitutional rights. The judge, Vanessa Velasquez, walked her through the recitation, Albritton recalls, but never asked why she couldn’t stop crying long enough to speak in sentences. She had managed to say the one word that mattered: “guilty. ” Police officers arrest more than 1. 2 million people a year in the United States on charges of illegal drug possession. Field tests like the one Officer Helms used in front of Amy Albritton help them move quickly from suspicion to conviction. But the kits — which cost about $2 each and have changed little since 1973 — are far from reliable. The field tests seem simple, but a lot can go wrong. Some tests, including the one the Houston police officers used to analyze the crumb on the floor of Albritton’s car, use a single tube of a chemical called cobalt thiocyanate, which turns blue when it is exposed to cocaine. But cobalt thiocyanate also turns blue when it is exposed to more than 80 other compounds, including methadone, certain acne medications and several common household cleaners. Other tests use three tubes, which the officer can break in a specific order to rule out everything but the drug in question — but if the officer breaks the tubes in the wrong order, that, too, can invalidate the results. The environment can also present problems. Cold weather slows the color development heat speeds it up, or sometimes prevents a color reaction from taking place at all. Poor lighting on the street — flashing police lights, sun glare, street lamps — often prevents officers from making the fine distinctions that could make the difference between an arrest and a release. There are no established error rates for the field tests, in part because their accuracy varies so widely depending on who is using them and how. Data from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab system show that 21 percent of evidence that the police listed as methamphetamine after identifying it was not methamphetamine, and half of those false positives were not any kind of illegal drug at all. In one notable Florida episode, Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies produced 15 false positives for methamphetamine in the first seven months of 2014. When we examined the department’s records, they showed that officers, faced with somewhat ambiguous directions on the pouches, had simply misunderstood which colors indicated a positive result. No central agency regulates the manufacture or sale of the tests, and no comprehensive records are kept about their use. In the late 1960s, crime labs outfitted investigators with mobile chemistry sets, including small plastic test tubes and bottles of chemical reagents that reacted with certain drugs by changing colors, more or less on the same principle as a home pregnancy test. But the reagents contained strong acids that leaked and burned the investigators. In 1973, the same year that Richard Nixon formally established the Drug Enforcement Administration, declaring “an global war on the drug menace,” a pair of California inventors patented a “disposable comparison detector kit. ” It was far simpler, just a glass vial or vials inside a plastic pouch. Open the pouch, add the compound to be tested, seal the pouch, break open the vials and watch the colors change. The field tests, convenient and imbued with an aura of scientific infallibility, were ordered by police departments across the country. In a 1974 study, however, the National Bureau of Standards warned that the kits “should not be used as sole evidence for the identification of a narcotic or drug of abuse. ” Police officers were not chemists, and chemists themselves had long ago stopped relying on color tests, preferring more reliable mass spectrographs. By 1978, the Department of Justice had determined that field tests “should not be used for evidential purposes,” and the field tests in use today remain inadmissible at trial in nearly every jurisdiction instead, prosecutors must present a secondary lab test using more reliable methods. But this has proved to be a meaningless prohibition. Most drug cases in the United States are decided well before they reach trial, by the far more informal process of plea bargaining. In 2011, RTI International, a nonprofit research group based in North Carolina, found that prosecutors in nine of 10 jurisdictions it surveyed nationwide accepted guilty pleas based solely on the results of field tests, and in our own reporting, we confirmed that prosecutors or judges accept plea deals on that same basis in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Seattle and Tampa. This puts field tests at the center of any discussion about the justice of plea bargains in general. The federal government does not keep a comprehensive database of prosecutions in county and state criminal courts, but the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at the University of Michigan maintains an extensive sampling of court records from the 40 largest jurisdictions. Based on this data, we found that more than 10 percent of all county and state felony convictions are for drug charges, and at least 90 percent of those convictions come by way of plea deals. In Tennessee, guilty pleas produce 94 percent of all convictions. In Kansas, they make up more than 97 percent. In Harris County, Tex. where the judiciary makes detailed criminal caseload information public, 99. 5 percent of convictions are the result of a guilty plea. A majority of those are felony convictions, which restrict employment, housing and — in many states — the right to vote. Demand for the field tests is strong enough to sustain the business of at least nine different companies that sell tests to identify cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine, LSD, MDMA and more than two dozen other drugs. The Justice Department issued guidelines in 2000 calling for packaging to carry warning labels, including “a statement that users of the kit should receive appropriate training in its use and should be taught that the reagents can give as well as results,” but when we checked, three of the largest manufacturers — Lynn Peavey Company, the Safariland Group and Sirchie — had not printed such a warning on their tests. (Lynn Peavey Company did not respond to our request for comment. A spokesman for the Safariland Group said the company provides agencies with extensive training materials that are separate from the tests and their packaging. We asked John Roby, Sirchie’s chief executive, about the missing warnings and requested an interview in May. He responded in writing a month later saying that the boxes carrying Sirchie’s cocaine tests had been updated and now display a warning that reactions may occur with both “legal and illegal substances. ” After our inquiry, Sirchie added another warning to its packaging, listing at the bottom of its printed instructions: “ALL TEST RESULTS MUST BE CONFIRMED BY AN APPROVED ANALYTICAL LABORATORY! ”) Even trained lab scientists struggle with confirmation bias — the tendency to take any new evidence as confirmation of expectations — and police officers can see the tests as affirming their decisions to stop and search a person. Labs rarely notify officers when a false positive is found, so they have little experience to prompt skepticism. As far as they know, the system works. By our estimate, though, every year at least 100, 000 people nationwide plead guilty to charges that rely on results as evidence. At that volume, even the most modest of error rates could produce thousands of wrongful convictions. After he arrested Amy Albritton, Officer Helms sent what remained of the crumb he found on the floor of her car to the Houston Police Department crime laboratory. He listed it as “. 02 grms crack cocaine” and noted on the submission form that he was also sending a “syringe unknown substance . 01 gr” — presumably the needle Officer Nguyen reported pulling from the ceiling lining and that Albritton had not seen and still could not explain. (Helms’s submission form, which was separate from the arrest report, said it came not from the ceiling but from the “suspect visor. ”) The last item Helms turned in was a ziploc bag of the “unknown wht powder” that had been removed from the BC Powder package. “HOLD + ANALYZE FOR COURT,” Helms wrote by hand. And then, with no court case pending, the evidence sat on hold, one of several thousand samples in the laboratory’s backlog of untested pills, plants, powders and assorted crumbs and pebbles. Albritton served 21 days of her sentence. When she was released, she took a taxi to the motel where she had planned to stay with Wilson, whom she never saw again after the arrest. (Helms and Nguyen would not comment for this article Wilson did not respond to requests.) The manager had kept her clothes, so she took a room again and waited for her friend Doug Franklin to fly in from Louisiana. The plan was that he would lend her the money to get her impounded car and keep her company on the drive home. When they retrieved the car, it had been sitting in the summer heat for more than three weeks. Albritton was overwhelmed by the smell of rotting hamburgers. When Albritton pleaded guilty, she asked Franklin to explain the situation to her bosses at the firm, but Franklin decided it was safer to say nothing. She was going to be fired in any case, he reasoned, and alerting an employer about the drug felony would only hurt her future prospects. Albritton had managed the Frances Place Apartments, a brick complex, for two years, and a free apartment was part of her compensation. But as far as the company knew, Albritton had abandoned her job and her home. She was fired, and her furniture and other belongings were put out on the side of the road. “So I lost all that,” she says. Albritton’s older son, Adam, then 24, had been living on his own for years and learned of his mother’s arrest only after she had begun her sentence. While Albritton was incarcerated, her younger son, Landon, remained with his father, who had threatened in the past to seek custody but never followed through. Albritton’s father, Tommy Franklin (no relation to Doug) was openly skeptical about her claim of innocence. “If the law said you had crack, you had crack,” she recalls him telling her. Albritton gave up trying to convince people otherwise. She focused instead on Landon. Using a wheelchair, he needed regular sessions of physical and occupational therapy, and Albritton’s career managing the rental complex had been an ideal fit, providing a free home that kept her close to her son while she was at work, and allowing her the flexibility to ferry him to his appointments. But now, because of her new felony criminal record, which showed up immediately in background checks, she couldn’t even land an interview at another apartment complex. With a felony conviction, she couldn’t be approved as a renter either. Doug Franklin allowed Albritton and Landon to move in with him temporarily, and Albritton took a job at a convenience store. Through all of this, the crumb of evidence remained in storage in the Houston crime lab. It was a closed case, and the prosecutor, as was standard practice, had filed a motion to destroy the evidence. Only some final paperwork — a request from the lab and a judge’s signature — was needed. But this was an extremely low priority in a complex bureaucracy. By 2010, the lab had been discredited by a decade of botched science and scandal. Thousands of untested rape kits were shelved from unsolved assaults. Errors in fingerprint matches were discovered in more than 200 cases. The lab had lost key blood samples employees had tampered with or falsified other evidence. And it was continuing to struggle with a significant backlog of evidence — one that stemmed from what amounted to an epic experiment in field testing. When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, more than 250, 000 mostly black refugees streamed into Houston, and local authorities openly anticipated a crime surge in which the refugees were portrayed as perpetrators. Charles McClelland, who retired in February as Houston’s police chief and was then an assistant chief, says the department decided that pursuing charges would also help suppress the number of predicted robberies and burglaries. “Anecdotally, it makes sense: Where does a person who has a problem get the money to buy drugs?” McClelland argues. “One could easily make the connection that they’re committing crimes. ” The city distributed thousands more of the color field tests than usual to patrol officers, and drug evidence swamped the section of the lab. Even as the Katrina refugees gradually left Houston, the emphasis on drug enforcement remained. By 2007, annual submissions to the lab had climbed to 22, 000, even as budget cuts had reduced the staff, leaving the scientists with far more samples than they could competently analyze. In 1972, the Department of Justice published a training guide for forensic chemists in the nation’s crime labs, emphasizing that they were “the last line of defense against a false accusation,” but 40 years later, that line had largely vanished. A federal survey in 2013 found that about 62 percent of crime labs do not test drug evidence when the defendant pleads guilty. But the Houston crime lab, for all its problems, would not be among them. James Miller, the lab’s manager, had long practiced a kind of evidentiary triage. Evidence tied to pending drug manufacturing, sale or possession cases — 50 a year on average — would receive immediate attention, because only laboratory analysis would be admissible in court. But evidence from cases in which the defendants pleaded guilty before going to trial — the overwhelming majority of the remaining thousands of submitted drugs samples — would also be tested. The city had no legal requirement to confirm that the substances were the illegal drugs the police claimed they were. But in Miller’s lab, everything would be checked, even if it took years. “All along, we’ve said we’re about the science,” he says — not securing convictions. So the evidence sat, waiting. The forensic scientists in Miller’s lab keep untested samples in Manila envelopes locked in cabinets below their work benches. Some sat there for as long as four years, lab records show. Albritton’s evidence stayed locked up for six months. On Feb. 23, 2011 — five months after Albritton completed her sentence and returned home as a felon — one of Houston’s forensic scientists, Ahtavea Barker, pulled the envelope up to her bench. It contained the crumb, the powder and the syringe. First she weighed everything. The syringe had too little residue on it even to test. It was just a syringe. The remainder of the “white chunk substance” that Officer Helms had tested positive with his field kit as crack cocaine totaled 0. 0134 grams, Barker wrote on the examination sheet, about the same as a tiny pinch of salt. Barker turned to gas spectrometry analysis, or the gold standard in chemical identification, to figure out what was in Albritton’s car that evening. She began with the powder. First the gas chromatograph vaporized a speck of the powder inside a tube. Then the gas was heated, causing its core chemical compounds to separate. When the individual compounds reached the end of the tube, the mass spectrometer blasted them with electrons, causing them to fragment. The resulting display, called a fragmentation pattern, is essentially a chemical fingerprint. The powder was a combination of aspirin and caffeine — the ingredients in BC Powder, the painkiller, as Albritton had insisted. Then Barker ran the same tests on the supposed crack cocaine. The crumb’s fragmentation pattern did not match that of cocaine, or any other compound in the lab’s extensive database. It was not a drug. It did not contain anything mixed with drugs. It was a crumb — food debris, perhaps. Barker wrote “N. A. M. ” on the spectrum printout, “no acceptable match,” and then added another set of letters: “N. C. S. ” No controlled substance identified. Albritton was innocent. Inger Chandler oversees the small unit of the Harris County district attorney’s office, where she has been a prosecutor for 12 years. units are a fairly new concept in law enforcement: Prosecutors convictions in light of new evidence, often in the form of previously unavailable DNA tests. units originally focused on murder and rape cases, but they also increasingly investigate drug convictions. In early 2014, Chandler took a call while sitting at her desk, encircled by stacks of case files and pictures of her toddler twins. Eric Dexheimer, a reporter at The Austin told her he had noticed a series of unusual exonerations coming out of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He’d tracked 21 drug convictions across Texas that had been reversed because labs had found that the drugs in question weren’t really drugs. The laboratory results came after defendants had already pleaded guilty. Did Harris County have any other bad drug convictions beyond what the courts had overturned? Chandler didn’t know, but she said she would try to find out. Chandler called Miller, the manager at the lab, and asked him if there was something wrong with any of their drug convictions. Miller was not surprised to hear from Chandler. He explained that the lab had indeed found problems with their drug convictions when his forensic scientists found discrepancies in the evidence — officially labeled “variants” — they sent the details by email to the district attorney’s office, and they had been doing so for years. Chandler hadn’t known any of this. She found the email inbox for lab notices, and it did indeed contain hundreds of messages that were sent from the lab. One after another, the lab notices said, “No Controlled Substance. ” In cases involving drug possession, that meant the defendants were not guilty. (Drug manufacturing and selling charges can hold even if the underlying substance is not illegal.) It was unclear if anyone had ever followed up on the notices. When Chandler entered several of the court case numbers into the district attorney’s system, however, she found that a majority of the convictions remained in place. She started a list. Over the course of the following year, she found that the district attorney’s office had failed to correct 416 “variants” between January 2004 and June 2015, all of them in cases that ended in guilty pleas. Some variants were legally ambiguous — the field test was positive, but for the wrong drug the drug weights were incorrect or there was too little of the evidence to analyze — but in 251 cases, the results were simple: “No Controlled Substance. ” Under the 1963 Supreme Court opinion in Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors must provide defendants with exculpatory evidence, even after a conviction. Chandler could have met that mandate simply by alerting the convicting court and the defense attorneys to the lab reports — “Every other Brady situation, as long as I give notice, I’m done,” she says — but in these cases, Chandler says, she knew very few of the wrongful drug convictions would be reversed if she let the system handle each of them individually. The exoneration effort needed to be centralized, so that someone would become responsible for finding the defendants themselves. Chandler took the list to Devon Anderson, Harris County’s district attorney. Anderson, a former judge, had been the top prosecutor for only seven months. Her husband, Mike Anderson, who took office as district attorney in January 2013, died of cancer eight months into his term, and Gov. Rick Perry appointed her to replace him. Now, as Chandler described the problem, Anderson felt sickened. The litany of wrongful convictions was not just enormous — it was still growing. Her office, she says, was to blame for “a breakdown at every point in the system. ” She hired a former prosecutor to research the cases and find the defendants. “It may sound corny, but it’s true: Our duty under Texas law is to seek justice,” she says. “A lot of people think it’s convictions, but it’s justice. ” In April 2014, The published Dexheimer’s story, which focused on 21 wrongful drug convictions across Texas caused by lab delays. But prosecutors in Harris County were still uncovering the scale of their own problem. Based in part on the information gathered by Marie Munier, the former prosecutor Anderson hired to examine the drug convictions, we determined that 301 of the 416 variants began as arrests by the Houston Police Department, with the rest coming from surrounding municipalities, and that 212 of those 301 arrests were based on evidence that lab analysis determined was not a controlled substance, or N. C. S. In our own examination of those 212 cases — thousands of pages of arrest reports, court filings and records, along with interviews of prosecutors, police executives, officers, defense attorneys and innocent defendants who pleaded guilty — we saw a clear story about both who is being arrested and what is happening to them. The racial disparity is stark. Blacks made up 59 percent of those wrongfully convicted in a city where they are 24 percent of the population, reflecting a similar racial disparity in drug enforcement nationally. Patrol units, not trained narcotics detectives, appeared to be the most prolific users. The kits, or the officers interpreting them, got it wrong most often when dealing with small amounts of suspected drugs. percent of the N. C. S. cases involved less than a gram of evidence. The smallest possession cases are the ones in which a field test can be of greatest consequence if officers find larger quantities of white powder in dozens of baggies or packaged in bricks, they have sufficient probable cause to make an arrest regardless of what a color test shows. (Though in those cases, too, they are generally required to test the drugs.) It’s widely assumed in legal circles that these wrongfully convicted people are in fact drug users who intended to possess drugs. Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to overturn wrongful convictions, says some who work toward exoneration have complained to him that those exonerated of drug charges often are just accidentally not guilty, and shouldn’t be added to the National Registry of Exonerations. The assumption is not entirely without basis — 162 of the 212 N. C. S. defendants had criminal histories involving illegal drugs. However, 50 had no criminal history involving drugs at all. All of the 212 N. C. S. defendants struck plea bargains, and nearly all of them, 93 percent, received a jail or prison sentence. Defendants with no previous convictions have a legal right in Texas to probation on charges, even if they’re convicted at trial. But remarkably, 78 percent of defendants entitled to probation agreed to deals that included incarceration. Perhaps most striking: A majority of those defendants, 58 percent, pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, during their arraignment the median time between arrest and plea was four days. In contrast, the median for defendants in which the field test indicated the wrong drug or that the weight was inaccurate — that is, the defendants who actually did possess drugs — was 22 days. Not only do the innocent tend to plead guilty in these cases, but they often do so more quickly. On July 29, 2014, Munier sent a letter to Amy Albritton. It was a form letter, one of hundreds Munier was sending to exonerated defendants, opening with the salutation “Dear Sir or Madam,” but the contents were highly personal. It stated that the Harris County district attorney’s office had learned that the drug evidence in Albritton’s case was not a controlled substance: “Accordingly, you were prosecuted for a criminal drug offense and convicted in error. ” Munier mailed the letter to the address on Albritton’s driver’s license, but Albritton did not receive it. She had long since moved on. She had struggled to rebuild her life as a felon. The hours at the convenience store were erratic, so she started waiting tables and tending bar as she tried to find work in property management again. In 2013, she heard about a small set of rentals in Baton Rouge that needed someone to run them day to day. The pay was low compared with what she had made at Frances Place, and there was no free apartment. But the owner agreed to interview Albritton, even with her drug felony, and quickly hired her. She had almost nothing to pack besides her clothes and Landon’s before relocating to the state capital. The reason this property owner was willing to hire a drug felon became apparent soon enough. The apartments were in disrepair, with broken heaters and plumbing, and the owner forced his property manager to deal with angry tenants. She had gone to work for a slumlord. Albritton quit and took a bartending position at the restaurant attached to a Holiday Inn near Louisiana State University. Tips included, she was earning about $15, 000 a year, but she liked her and impressed her bosses. One of them tried to promote her to shift supervisor, Albritton recalls, but the promotion was denied when a check by the hotel chain’s corporate office flagged the Houston conviction. She could pour drinks and do nothing more. She remembers how desperate she had been to leave her jail cell, naïvely believing that the punishment for pleading guilty would end with her sentence. “No,” she says. “You’re not ever free and clear of it. It follows you everywhere you go. ” In the two years since the efforts to overturn wrongful convictions began at the Harris County district attorney’s office, Inger Chandler and her colleagues at the integrity unit have struck 119 N. C. S. convictions from the record. At least 172 remain. They haven’t been able to locate all of the wrongly convicted, at times even after hiring private investigators, and some defendants they have reached have declined to interact with the courts, even to clear their record. Last year, as we examined records in Harris County, we came upon Albritton’s file and decided to search for her ourselves to find out what had happened to one representative figure out of hundreds. Her case fit the larger pattern of convictions for no controlled substance: It moved rapidly, with Albritton pleading guilty within 48 hours of her arrest, and it involved an exceedingly small amount of supposed drugs. We searched for Albritton in public databases, finding likely relatives but no phone numbers or a current address. We called her sister, who said that Albritton was in Baton Rouge and provided a cellphone number. It was disconnected. But knowing where Albritton lived now, we found a Facebook profile she had been updating regularly with details of her life, including her work. Interestingly, we also found that Albritton had pleaded guilty to a 2008 misdemeanor, a D. U. I. conviction in Louisiana, despite breathalyzer results showing her level at 0. 0. When we asked her about this, she said that she had caused a collision by pulling onto the wrong side of a highway, and because she was guilty of that, she did not protest the other charges she’s still unable to explain why she confessed to a crime there was no evidence she committed. In August, we called and left a brief message for Albritton at the Sporting News Grill. She returned the call a couple of hours later, her voice small, wondering what this was about. When we described the details from the lab report and the letter from the district attorney that she never received, Albritton gasped. She didn’t make a sound for several seconds before shouting into the phone: “I knew it! I told them!” If Albritton’s case is one of hundreds in Houston, there is every reason to suspect that it is just one among thousands of wrongful drug convictions that were based on field tests across the United States. The Harris County district attorney’s office is responsible for half of all exonerations by units nationwide in the past three years — not because law enforcement is different there but because the Houston lab committed to testing evidence after defendants had already pleaded guilty, a position that is increasingly unpopular in forensic science. Crime labs have been moving away from drug cases to focus on DNA and evidence from violent crimes. In some instances, the shift has been extreme. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s forensic laboratory analyzes the evidence in, on average, 1, 757 drug cases a year. Many of its 8, 000 annual possession arrests depend on results. The United States Department of Justice was once among the leading voices of caution regarding field tests, and encouraged all drug evidence go to lab chemists. But in 2008, the Justice Department funded a program developed by the National Forensic Science Technology Center, a nonprofit that provides training, to reduce backlogs. Titled Field Investigation Drug Officer, the program consisted of a series of seminars that taught local police officers how to administer color field tests on a large scale. In its curriculum, the technology center states that field tests help authorities by “removing the need for extensive laboratory analysis,” because “the field test may factor into obtaining an immediate plea agreement. ” The Justice Department declined repeated interview requests. Field tests provide quick answers. But if those answers and confessions cannot be trusted, Charles McClelland, the former Houston police chief, says, officers should not be using them. During an interview in March, McClelland said that if he had known of the false positives Houston’s officers were generating, he would have ordered a halt to all field testing departmentwide. Police officers are not chemists, McClelland said. “Officers shouldn’t collect and test their own evidence, period. I don’t care whether that’s cocaine, blood, hair. ” Judges, too, have the power, and a responsibility, some argue, to slow down the gears of the system. Patricia Lykos, the Harris County district attorney from 2009 to 2013, says that when she served as a judge in the 1980s and 1990s, she would ask the defendants questions about their lives and the crimes they were accused of committing. If she wasn’t satisfied that the defendant was guilty of the charge, Lykos says, she wouldn’t accept the plea. At times the situation is even easier to decipher, says David LaBahn, president of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. The defendant can be heard arguing his or her innocence to the appointed attorney. In such cases, when the prosecutor doesn’t have a lab report, “if I’m that judicial officer, this case is continued” — adjourned — “until everybody can do their job,” LaBahn says. But that means the defendant, depending on his or her custody status, could go back to jail until the case proceeds, presenting a significant dilemma. Last year, Devon Anderson, the current Harris County district attorney, prohibited plea deals in cases before the lab has issued a report. The labs issue reports in about two weeks, but defendants typically wait three weeks before they can see a judge — enough time to lose a job, lose an apartment, lose everything. And yet since Anderson implemented the rule, case dismissals have soared 31 percent, primarily because the lab has proved defendants not guilty. People plead guilty when they’re innocent because they see no alternative. People who have just been arrested usually don’t know their options, or even that they have an option. “There’s a in there, and it’s called the defense lawyer,” says Rick Werstein, the attorney now representing Albritton as she seeks to finalize her exoneration. Defense lawyers can demand a lab analysis, and they exist to help defendants navigate the consequences of the jail time while they wait, even as they explain the even higher costs of a felony conviction. They are fully authorized to pursue alternative deals.’ ”In fact, Richardson, Albritton’s original lawyer, says the prosecutor offered her a deferred adjudication, in which she may have been able to wait for the results of a lab test outside the walls of a jail cell. Richardson, who first said he had no memory of their conversations, says he told her about the offer but she refused it. Albritton says she has never heard of anything called deferred adjudication. Neither could explain what actually happened. Perhaps they simply accepted that the field test, with its promise of scientific inevitability, would eventually convict her. “The entire country works on these kits, right?” Richardson asks.” ’In the past three years, people arrested based on field tests have filed civil lawsuits in Sullivan County, Tenn. Lehigh County, Pa. Atlanta, Ga. and San Diego, Calif. Three of the four cases also named the manufacturers Safari land Group or Sirchie as defendants. Three of the cases have already been settled. In one of them, the Sullivan County case, Safariland secured a gag order on the plaintiff, explicitly to prevent media coverage, before entering settlement negotiations. The plaintiffs in each of the suits were people who were arrested, refused to plead guilty and were detained for a month or longer. So far, we have been unable find anyone who pleaded guilty based on results and later filed suit, though Werstein said he and Albritton are considering their additional legal options. The Texas Criminal Court of Appeals overturned Albritton’s conviction in late June, but before her record can be cleared, that reversal must be finalized by the trial court in Houston. Felony records are digitally disseminated far and wide, and can haunt the wrongly convicted for years after they are exonerated. Until the court makes its final move, Amy Albritton — for the purposes of employment, for the purposes of housing, for the purposes of her own peace of mind — remains a felon, one among unknown tens of thousands of Americans whose lives have been torn apart by a very flawed test. | 1 |
A subject not often discussed is the topic of how to repair strained or broken relationships. It is one that comes up in everyone’s life, so it will be useful to make a few suggestions about it here. We will talk about relationships from friends, family, and lovers.
Relationships among friends we will treat first. The first step in this process is to make an evaluation to determine whether the relationship is worth saving or rehabilitating. It is a simple fact of life that some relationships have an expiration date; when two people no longer have anything in common, or their paths take them in divergent directions, it may be difficult to find common ground. In this situation, it is always better to let the relationship die a natural death slowly, rather than rapidly. Abrupt terminations may leave the other party with negative feelings, and this should be avoided if at all possible.
There are some instances where repair is not possible. When someone has committed a fundamental violation of trust or respect, this is a warning sign that the person was never a friend in the first place. Another point to keep in mind is that repair of a broken relationship requires—no, demands—the participation of both parties. If the other person is unwilling to participate in the process, then your efforts will be futile, and will come to nothing.
Once we have determined that the friendship is worth repairing or sustaining, the next step is to decide how to make the first approach to the other party. In this we must try to evaluate the reasons for the problems in the first place. We should make an honest assessment about how things got to where they are. Did someone say or do something that caused hard feelings on the other side? Was there some intervening cause that made the two parties diverge in plans and activities? These types of questions must be honestly and repeatedly asked. We have a tendency to minimize our own hurtful actions and exaggerate those of others, and this must be kept in mind.
The key rule at this point is to try to put ourselves in the shoes of the other party. We must try to see things from our friend’s perspective. For many people this can be difficult, as it involves getting past our own feelings of hurt or rejection and into the shoes of the other person. And yet it is essential. Very frequently the reasons for strained or broken friendships lies in the fact that there is some problem going on in the other person’s life. Only by being a perceptive student of human nature can we divine the cause. Sometimes the only thing that caused the strained relationship was some misunderstanding that was easily curable.
Keep in mind that we must try—at least in our own minds—to discover the source of the other person’s problem. This is not always possible, as human beings are not always rational. But we can at least make the effort. I remember in the film Hoffa that there was a great line from Jack Nicholson. He told one of his men, “Real problems, real grievances can be resolved. They can be negotiated. But imaginary grievances? That man is going to hate you for life.” I have no idea if Jimmy Hoffa every actually said this, but it sounds like something he would have said. He meant that we should avoid hurting the pride of our friends. We should be acutely aware how it is sometimes the intangible slights that can most rankle with a man.
When you have decided to make the first step, it is always better to initiate contact directly. Do not wait for the other person to do it. Depending on the circumstances, this should be done discreetly and without too much in the way of overpowering insistence. There is a certain type of finesse that a man should have at critical times, and this is one of them. The approach should be direct, but neither insistent nor demanding. A fish is best hooked with a lure gently laid.
Of vital importance here is that the approach be sincere. One should genuinely want to contact the other party. Sincerity is the glue that binds friendships together and permits their longevity. There should be no hypocrisy or falsity in any of our dealings with friends. This kind of thing is immediately apparent and, once detected, its whiff surrounds the offending party like a permanent cloud. If the other party is receptive to the approach, we can then gradually feel our way forward, taking care to avoid the reasons why the friendship became strained in the first place. Things may never quite go back to what they were, but at least we can find solid ground for a new frame of reference.
Two examples will suffice here. The historian William Shirer worked closely with famed correspondent Edward R. Murrow when the two were in Germany in the 1930s. Yet after the war was over, the two grew apart. Shirer’s account of the estrangement suggests that he was repelled by Murrow’s enthusiastic adoption of the anticommunist hysteria of the time. Shirer found himself gradually blackballed from most major news networks before being forced out completely. He broke with Murrow over these events. Many decades later, he approached Murrow; all venom spent, the two were able to find common ground again.
Another example makes the same point. Theodore Roosevelt was a strong-willed, insistent man, to say the least. He was in a position to choose his successor as president, and to this end he selected a man very different from him, the affable and rotund William Howard Taft. Taft eventually began to find Roosevelt an overbearing and unwelcome presence in his life. The two men eventually broke completely, a result of their personality differences and different conceptions of leadership. To his credit, Roosevelt eventually approached his old friend privately to patch things up. They were never the same, of course, but at least some cordiality was restored.
Relationships with family are of a fundamentally different sort. Because we are linked by bonds of blood (or perhaps marriage), it will be more difficult to disentangle ourselves from those with whom we have become estranged. On the other hand, it may be easier to repair such grievances, or at least find common ground, since there may be more shared experiences with the other party that act in our favor. The key here is not to expect too much. Although shared history and common blood may work in our favor, they can be counterbalanced to some extent by the fact that irrational family antagonisms can run deeper than those from strained friendships. Patience and persistence are most important here, perhaps more so than friendships with those unrelated to us.
Repairing strained relationships with lovers is perhaps the most difficult. When a man and woman have been united in the past through the coital act, an entirely different set of emotions and motivations come into play. Relationships between lovers can fail or become strained for an infinite number of reasons, and it would be impossible to discuss all of them here. It is enough for me to state my opinion that it is nearly impossible to bring an intimate sexual relationship back to what it was after it has been broken.
Strained is one thing; broken is quite another. My own experience leads me to believe that once a sexual relationship is done, it is done. One cannot really go back to what it was before. Amicable dealings are certainly possible, and happen all the time; but I would not call this friendship. I would call it an uneasy equilibrium. Love’s inflammatory presence scorches all it leaves in its wake.
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Sending empathetic, healing Love Energy out to the world, and beyond... Love, Compassion, Mercy, Kindness, Forgiveness...This is what my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has taught me. He loves us. It's not too late to come to Jesus Christ. Have compassion for yourselves and repent to receive forgiveness. Deep Underground Military Bunkers can't save you.15 And the kings of the earth, and princes, and tribunes, and rich, and strong, and each bondman, and free man, hid them(selves) in dens and stones of hills.16 And they say to hills and to stones, Fall ye on us, and hide ye us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb;17 for the great day of their wrath cometh, and who shall be able to stand? ~~Revelation 6:15-1716 For God loved so the world [Forsooth God so loved the world], that he gave his one begotten Son, that each man that believeth in him perish not, but have everlasting life. ~~John 3:16 Page 1 | 0 |
The struggle continues for a binding treaty to #StopCorporateAbuse By Adam Parsons Posted on November 9, 2016 by Adam Parsons
In the last week of October, civil society came another step closer to achieving a legally binding instrument on transnational corporations (TNCs) and other business enterprises with respect to human rights. Delegates from many large social movements and networks met alongside state representatives at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, to further proceedings for an open-ended intergovernmental working group set up two years ago. Despite considerable opposition from Western powers to a binding treaty in any form (particularly the United States, United Kingdom and other countries of the European Union), activist groups are now ramping up the struggle as part of a Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples’ Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity .
The fact that this process is now an official part of the UN agenda is itself remarkable. Since the 1970s, there have been a long series of failed attempts to develop binding international systems to regulate corporations for their human rights violations. The abortive efforts to create a code of conduct for TNCs through the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) were completely thwarted by the early 1990s, until fresh proceedings were launched in 1998 under a subordinate body of the then-Human Rights Commission. In 2003, the Sub-Commission approved a ‘non-voluntary’ set of norms that could hold TNCs accountable, although these were rigidly opposed by the business sector, and ultimately declared to have ‘no legal standing’ by the Human Rights Commission.
As an alternative, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, who became renowned for pursuing a less ambitious or ‘partnership’ approach to corporate regulation. His UN Guiding Principles, when eventually released in 2011, were accepted by all governments but remain voluntary and non-binding, only calling on corporations to act with due diligence. Civil society organisations wholly decried the inadequacy of the proposed follow-up mechanisms, which they stated even risked undermining efforts to strengthen corporate responsibility and accountability for human rights.
Against this background, it was therefore a huge step forward in 2013 when a grouping of countries, predominantly from the Global South, called for a renewal of efforts towards a legally binding framework to regulate the activities of TNCs and to provide appropriate protection, justice and remedy to the victims of human rights abuses. An historic resolution was adopted by a majority of States (again mostly from the Global South, including Russia and China) at the Human Rights Council in June 2014, establishing an intergovernmental working group with the mandate of drafting a legally binding instrument. It is the first time in almost 25 years that a UN intergovernmental body is dedicating itself to the regulation of corporations, which is set to be an intensive process with considerable hurdles if a genuine legal regime for TNCs is to be eventually agreed and implemented.
‘Damage to life’
The case for holding TNCs to account for their activities could not be tighter, considering the gap that exists in the international legal architecture which means they cannot be prosecuted directly for human rights abuses. Yet the harm that TNCs are wreaking is well-documented, referred to by the Global Campaign as ‘damage to life’; for example, through repressing social struggles and resistance, causing pollution in the extractivist industries, displacing indigenous peoples from their land, exploiting workers through poor labour conditions, and so on. Over several years, a Permanent People’s Tribunal has given representatives from affected communities the opportunity to testify on the socio-environmental impacts of harmful corporate activities, and to highlight the numerable cases that demonstrate how TNCs are able to act with effective impunity. Indeed it is the consistent work of many human rights defenders that has brought the issue of corporate impunity to the agenda of the Human Rights Council, leading to demands for the rights of affected persons to be central to a binding treaty, both in terms of regulation and remedy.
Campaigners talk of an entire ‘architecture of impunity’ that has protected the operations of TNCs for decades, and placed the rights of corporations above the rights of people through the privatisation of legal norms and institutions. Some of the largest TNCs have greater economic power than many nation states, while their tremendous political power is reinforced and protected on a legal level by a multitude of norms, treaties and agreements. Often described as a new global corporate law, or the lex mercatoria , it is made up of mechanisms such as the Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions and arbitration tribunals that are enshrined in bilateral trade agreements; or the International Monetary Fund’s imposed structural adjustment programs (now replicated in Europe under the so-called Competitiveness Pact policies); or the World Trade Organisation’s dispute-settlement system. While the rights of TNCs are shielded by this complex global legal framework based on trade and investment rules, there are no adequate counterweights or enforceable mechanisms to control the social, cultural, environmental or labour impacts of their operations. The result is a normative asymmetry between the binding norms that protect investor interests, and the soft law that reduces TNCs obligation to respect human rights to mere voluntary measures.
A binding treaty to regulate the activities of TNCs could therefore provide a vital counterpoint to the controversial free trade and investment agreements that are being continually negotiated in secret, without any democratic legitimacy. As the UN’s Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, Alfred de Zayas, has forcefully argued , these ongoing agreements—such as the TTIP, TPP, CETA and TISA—are all prepared without the inclusion of key stakeholders or parliaments, and are thus in direct violation of international human rights law. They also enable international investors to override the national sovereignty of democratic States, and seek to impose their own system of ‘arbitration’ that isn’t required to adhere to any nation’s law and constitution. Inequality and asymmetry are built into the legal foundations of the current trade and investment regime, which is solely intended to serve the immediate profits of investors, speculators and transnational enterprises, at the wider expense of social and economic progress.
Inverting the normative pyramid
In this context, the implications of mainstreaming human rights into trade agreements and WTO practice through a legally binding instrument are potentially radical and transformative. The basic intent of civil society proposals is to invert the international normative pyramid to place the rights of social majorities at the top, hence the repeated calls for a final treaty to obligate States to introduce a binding human rights supremacy clause into all trade and investment agreements they sign, in conformity with the principles of the UN Charter. The repeated calls for States to comply with their extraterritorial obligations in the area of economic, social and cultural rights—as set down in the Maastrict Principles —is also central for ensuring that human rights can assume their rightful role as the legal basis for regulating global trade and finance.
As a result of invoking the pre-eminence of these hierarchically superior norms, it could require renegotiating all existing trade and investment agreements, and could certainly overturn the investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) regime, as well as the secretive corporate arbitration system in its entirety. Indeed if States and TNCs were truly compelled to respect and comply with the conventions, recommendations and declarations that are the established basis of international human rights law, then it could lead to an exhaustive list of necessary reforms to the global economic system: strict regulations on financial transactions and speculation, the closure of tax havens, the cancellation of illegitimate public and sovereign debt, the reversal of privatisations on public goods and services to ensure the right to food and health, and so much more.
This greater vision is upheld by a joint civil society proposal to elaborate an International People’s Treaty , which aims to go much further than articulating the need for control mechanisms to halt human rights violations committed by TNCs. The growing demand for access to justice is also linked to the ideal of creating international law “from below,” and establishing “peoples’ sovereignty over the commons” by opposing the expansion of TNCs into sectors that should be controlled by communities and citizens. As part of a work-in-progress, the current base document for global consultation has a lengthy section on alternatives to the dominant socioeconomic paradigm, emerging from the experiences and proposals of the many social movements, scholars, activists and affected communities who are resisting the growing power of TNCs in their diverse spheres.
A radical alternative proposal
At the centre of these proposals is the need to promote effective mechanisms for the realisation of fundamental human rights as governments formulate a new international political, economic and legal order, based upon an equitable distribution of wealth and respect for nature. The principle of sharing is therefore recognised as the basis of all transitional measures that promote cooperation and solidarity, as emphasised in the section of the People’s Treaty on envisioning new economies:
“To address the basic needs of more than half of the world’s population and end the disruption of the vital cycles of the Earth system, global and national economies have to redistribute wealth to reduce asymmetries under the limits of nature. Some sectors and countries still need to improve their wellbeing while others need to reduce their overconsumption and waste. Well-being for all will only be sustainable when we share what is possible and available. The real challenge is not only to eliminate poverty but, more importantly, to eliminate the concentration of wealth and power and achieve economic and social justice based on rights.”
No doubt many will dismiss this broader vision of global equity and justice as politically unrealistic, in light of the growing number of corporate abuse scandals across the world, and the continuing disregard for basic labour and human rights standards in many developing countries. Campaigning groups are still trying to resist corporate capture of the process for a binding treaty through the Human Rights Council, and are calling on all States to at least participate in good faith, considering the overt antagonism of the European Union during the first session held in 2015. The prospect of achieving a concrete draft proposal next year in line with progressive civil society demands is currently less than optimistic, even with the staunch support of countries like Ecuador, Cuba and Bolivia. Without massive, continual and unending support from ordinary citizens for securing the basic socioeconomic rights of all—as envisioned in STWR’s flagship publication , Heralding Article 25 —the balance of power will remain firmly in the hands of transnational capital and its servile political representatives.
Nevertheless, the treaty process remains an important opportunity for interlinking popular resistance struggles, building counterpower, and slowly cracking the immense wall of corporate impunity. It is a process that should concern not only human rights activists, but everyone who campaigns for a more democratic, sustainable and egalitarian world that places people and nature ahead of transnational corporate interests.
Adam Parsons is the editor at Share The World’s Resources . This entry was posted in Commentary . Bookmark the permalink . | 0 |
Bangladeshi pundit Anushay Hossain writes for CNN: “The ugly truth behind Saudi Arabia’s love for Melania Trump” is that her husband, President Donald Trump, makes her behave the way “the Saudi government likes women to behave. ”[Furthermore, she writes, the First Lady does not deserve feminist credit for choosing not to wear a headscarf, because “that choice really is not as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. ” From CNN: Donald Trump’s first major trip overseas may be fraught with diplomatic land mines for the President, but the Trump administration can at least comfort itself with the clear hit that Melania Trump has been with the Saudi press. The fact that Melania is communicating with the media and the public in Saudi Arabia — mainly through what Saudi news reports have deemed her “classy and conservative” fashion choices — works well in the notoriously kingdom. Her intense appeal makes sense, considering the first lady represents so much that Saudi citizens find familiar and can relate to, especially visually. Melania walks behind her husband, is quiet and reserved, does not make obvious demands (at least not ones we can hear) and most importantly, she looks beautiful and polished. All of that should come as no surprise, given whom Melania is married to. After all, how the Saudi government likes women to behave is similar to how Donald Trump has said he likes women to behave. And they both prefer women to look pretty in pictures, rather than hold actual positions of power. Read the rest of the hot take here. | 1 |
If you’ve never taken a vacation, you may be missing out on one of wintertime’s most fun diversions, said Nadine Davidson, a travel planner with the Los Angeles travel agency TravelStore who specializes in ski trips. “Skiing is an opportunity to be immersed in a beautiful snowy environment,” Ms. Davidson said, “and you don’t have to be a skier to enjoy a ski getaway. ” Here, she shares her advice on planning a ski trip: BUDGET WISELY Although ski vacations can accommodate a range of budgets, travelers should be aware that trips usually involve paying for lift tickets, which are around $100 a day at many ski resorts, as well as equipment rental, which runs from $75 to $100 daily. Additionally, Ms. Davidson recommended that novice skiers sign up for a few lessons to learn how to ski safely — these can run $50 an hour for group lessons and $100 or more for private sessions. FACTOR IN TERRAIN AND CROWDS For beginners, Ms. Davidson said, a successful ski getaway means picking a resort with manageable terrain and minimal crowds, because packed slopes can be daunting for newcomers. Aspen, Colo. for example, isn’t the ideal destination for inexperienced skiers because Aspen Mountain is full of challenging terrain. And although an area like Mammoth Mountain in California has plenty of beginner terrain, it is usually crowded, whereas June Mountain, about 30 minutes away, sees fewer skiers but also has gentle terrain. Ms. Davidson said new skiers could also buy an ski trip from a reliable ski operator such as Ski. com these trips take factors into consideration that are relevant to novices. CONSIDER YOUR GROUP When choosing a ski destination, the needs of your fellow travelers matter. If children are in tow, for example, you will probably want a resort with a day care or a ski school for children. Also, if you’re with young children or older travelers, it’s smart to pick a resort where the walk from the resort to the ski area is no more than five minutes. “Kids and older skiers may find it challenging to carry bulky and heavy ski equipment too far,” Ms. Davidson said. PLAN ALTERNATIVE ACTIVITIES You may plan your ski vacation months in advance, but you won’t know what the conditions at your destination will be until just before your trip. “Some areas like Whistler in Canada can go from great snow one day to rain the next, which means that skiing is out,” Ms. Davidson said. To avoid disappointment, have nonskiing activities planned as backups such as snowmobiling, dog sledding and ice skating. Also, some popular destinations have a vibrant cultural scene such as Beaver Creek, Colo. which is home to the Vilar Performing Arts Center, which hosts plays and music performances. SHIVANI VORA | 1 |
Posted on November 4, 2016 by DavidSwanson
For the past eight years millions of people have expended billions of words speculating about exactly how the United States kills people with missiles from drones (and missiles from other sources, such as manned aircraft, targeting people identified with drones). There is good reason to believe that for each such attack there exists a video and audio record of what the drone pilots saw and what they and their colleagues said to each other as they decided to launch a missile and as they observed its results.
This is a level of documentation we rarely have with killings by domestic police officers, who are typically filmed by observers with phones, a method of documentation that excludes the leadup and the aftermath.
It’s also a level of documentation that is almost entirely denied to the public, meaning that it doesn’t actually do us much good. As far as I know we have not seen a single video or heard a single audio recording of a drone murder. The “Collateral Murder” video is a powerful record of a non-drone attack.
With drones, however, we do have one (incomplete) transcript of what was said during the hours leading up and the minutes following one particular attack. This was an attack in Afghanistan in February 2010 that killed zero fighters but numerous innocent civilians. According to survivors, 23 men, women, and children were killed. According to the U.S. military 15 or 16 were killed and 12 wounded. The U.S. military apologized and paid some $4000 to the family of each acknowledged victim.
The ACLU obtained the transcript in 2011, and it was published by the Los Angeles Times , which wrote an account of the incident, but I didn’t pay much attention until the new film, National Bird , dramatized part of it. I think it deserves a bit longer excerpt than either the Times or National Bird provided. So, here is my selection plus commentary. Feel free to read the whole thing at the links above and make of it what you may.
00:38 (JAG25): We are going to hold on containment fires and try to attempt PID, we would really like to take out those trucks.
PID means positive identification. This individual is eager to send missiles into trucks on the ground in Afghanistan but is aware of the need to identify somebody in one or more of them as an armed fighter. In fictional fantasies like Eye in the Sky or presidential speeches, targets must exclude any possibility of killing civilians and the targeted people must be known, specifically identified, be beyond any possibility of arrest, and be “immediate and continuing” threats to the United States of America. None of those criteria or anything like them are even discussed in this actual drone attack. Instead, the question of whether to launch hellfire missiles at automobiles is whether the targeted people are males over 10 years old and whether at least one of them has a gun. As we’ll see, even those standards are not met, but they are discussed.
00:38 (Slasher03): Copy that. Break, break, Slasher, we passed you coords for the vehicle on the west side of the river again you have multiple dismounts in the open break. On the east side of the river there’s an additional vehicle majority of the dismounts are inside a compound located just to the north of that vehicle if you get eyes on that compound. Compound has multiple movers as well as one pickup truck hot.
00:38 (Slasher03): Kirk97, Slasher in addition if you’re able to pick up illumination it appears the two vehicles are flashing lights signaling between.
Before anyone was murdered on this day, everyone was discussed for hours with words like “vehicle,”“compound,”“dismounts,” and “movers”— which simply has to have a different impact than “cars,”“houses,”“pedestrians,” and “people walking around.”
…
00:41 (Pilot): Does he have a weapon?
00:41 (Sensor): Can’t tell yet
00:41 (MC): Can’t tell
CLASSIFIED
…
00:42 (Kirk97): Jag25/Slasher03/Kirk97 we are eyes on a vehicle, personnel in the open, definite tactical movement, cannot PID weapons at this time, how copy?
…
Still, they are hoping to positively identify a weapon. But, in the absence of that justification, they have spotted “definite tactical movement.” How, one wonders, given that these were a bunch of civilian commuters, does such movement differ from a handful of families and students walking about and arranging themselves into a couple of SUVs and a pickup truck?
00:43 (Sensor): possible mortars (reference to what the JTAC is trying to PID)
00:43 (Pilot): Kirk97, good copy on that, be advised personnel in the open, by the vehicles moving tactically definitely carrying objects at this time we cannot PID what they are however we’ve got eyes on and we are working our best
…
So now there are automobiles with objects and human beings in them, and those automobiles are moving (as they are principally designed to do).
00:44 (Jag25): Jag25, roger, ground force commander’s intent is to destroy the vehicles and the personnel, right now Kirk97 is showing that the individuals egressed the trucks holding cylindrical objects in their hands *radio static*
…
Personnel egressed some trucks, meaning that some people got out. And they had objects with them. As you read on, see if you notice eagerness or wariness to interpret such a phenomenon as a threat.
00:44 (Pilot): Be ready for a lot of (exploitive deleted) squirters dude
00:44 (Pilot): These guys look to be lookouts, man
…
People who get out and walk away from a group are “squirters” though not yet “bugsplat” (what drone pilots have sometimes called those they’ve killed). They are also “lookouts.” This identification of them as “lookouts” is made on the basis of the fuzzy little green linear shapes these people appear as in the video being observed, not on the basis of a high resolution color image in which something like binoculars or facial expressions could be identified.
00:45 (MC): See if you can zoom in on that guy, ‘cause he’s kind of like
00:45 (Pilot): what did he just leave there
00:45 (Pilot): Is that a *expletive* rifle?
00:45 (Sensor): Maybe just a warm spot from where he was sitting; can’t really tell right now, but it does look like an object
Well an object could be a rifle. There’s at least a 1% chance, as Dick Cheney would say.
00:45 (Pilot): I was hoping we could make a rifle out, never mind
Why was this man or woman hoping that? Why not fearing it? After all, it could mean being ordered to do something horrific: to kill. Even believing that killing to be somehow justified and possibly even somehow legal, the drone pilot of our imagination faces it regretfully and somberly. Not these guys.
00:45 (Sensor): The only way I’ve ever been able to see a rifle is if they move them around, when their holding them, with muzzle flashes out or slinging them across their shoulders
…
And yet no such identification happens on this day. Nonetheless, 23 people lose their lives while others lose their limbs. You can see the survivors and hear them tell their stories in National Bird.
00:48 (Slasher03): jaguar25, slasher03 again, on the west side you have 10 pax that are dismounts that appear to be huddled down, hunkered down, holding position they are all static on the east side, you have the original vehicle with 2 dismounts waiting outside, believe you had up to two to three to four that are still inside the vehicle, then just north of that position you have the compound where our 1 individual exited the vehicle and rendezvous, you have multiple movers within that compound as well as a hot pickup truck
…
Pax does not of course mean peace. It means passengers. “Hot” I believe actually means hot, as pilots are able to observe heat recorded by heat sensors. They sometimes observe the cooling of a body on the ground as the blood leaves it.
END OF 0023z VIDEO SEGMENT BEGINNING OF 0054z VIDEO SEGMENT
…
The line above suggests that there is a video we could be shown. Exactly whose embarrassment — er, I mean, national security — overrides our right to see it?
00:54 (Jag25): … we believe we may have a high level Taliban commander …
…
Don’t they always? If you want to prove they don’t always, make the videos public.
00:55 (Pilot): wouldn’t surprise me if this was one of their important guys, just watching from a distance, you know what I mean?
00:55 (Sensor): yea he’s got his security detail
…
A group of people, by virtue of containing multiple people, is now wishfully seen as a Taliban bigshot with a “security detail.”
00:55 (Pilot): … Be advised on the west side of the river we still have one vehicle with ten pax, two lookouts, could be definite tactical movement with a commander over watching, definitely suspicious how copy?
…
These bees are acting suspicious, said Winnie the Pooh.
00:56 (JAG): roger good copy, due to distance from friendlies we are trying to work on justification, we’re gonna need PID
00:56 (Pilot): Good copy on that, no PID on weapons at this time only tactical movements on the west side, can you pass coords for the east please?
…
00:59 (Sensor): not sure what compound they came from or what we are apparently dealing with.
…
These guys have no idea who they are looking at, but they are working on coming up with a “justification” to murder them.
00:59 (Pilot): what about the guy under the north arrow, does it look like he is hold’n something across his chest
00:59 (Sensor): yea it’s kind of weird how they all have a cold spot on their chest
00:59 (Pilot): It’s what they’ve been doing here lately, they wrap their *expletive* up in their man dresses so you can’t PID it
…
The conversation oozes with respect for the people whose country is being “liberated.”
1:00(Sensor): maybe five in the back of the bed 1:00 *broken radio chatter*
1:00 (Jag25): Jag25 have you loud and clear
…
1:01 (Pilot): Jag25, Slasher03, Kirk97 it looks like the dismounted pax on the hilux pickup on the east side is carrying something, but we cannot PID what it is at this time but he is carrying something
1:02 (Sensor): He slung it on his shoulder whatever it was, just switched arms with it or something, and is getting in the truck
…
01:03 (Sensor): the screener is reviewing, they think something is up with that dude as well. I’ll take a quick look at the SUV guys, sorry
1:03 (JAG25): Slasher03 JAG25 1:03 (Sensor): what do these dudes got, yeah I think that dude had a rifle
1:03 (Pilot): I do too
…
There’s a wishful guess that a group of two dozen people traveling through an extremely dangerous country might have a gun. Wait and see what that is taken to justify.
1:04 (Pilot): All players, all Players from KIRK97, from our DGS the MAM that just mounted the back of the hilux had a possible weapon, read back possible rifle
…
1:04 (JAG25): Kirk we notice that, but you know how it is with ROEs, so we have to be careful with those, ROE’s *broken radio chatter*
…
1:04 (Sensor): sounds like they need more than possible
…
A MAM is a military aged male and an ROE a rule of engagement. These guys are figuring out that they should come up with more than the possibility of a gun before blowing up this convoy.
1:05 (JAG25): copy, slasher03 1:05 (Sensor): that truck would make a beautiful target, ok that’s a Chevy suburban
1:05 (Pilot): yeah,
…
Beautiful.
1:07 (MC): screener said at least one child near SUV 1:07 (Sensor): bull (expletive deleted)…where!?
1:07 (Sensor): send me a (expletive deleted) still, I don’t think they have kids out at this hour, I know they’re shady but come on
1:07 (Pilot): at least one child… Really? Listing the MAM, uh, that means he’s guilty
1:07 (Sensor): well maybe a teenager but I haven’t seen anything that looked that short, granted they’re all grouped up here, but.
…
The eagerness to spot a gun is just not matched by eagerness to spot a child. And having a child on the road with his or her family early in the morning is taken as a sign of evil deeds. Or if the child is a military aged male (later defined as having an age in the “double digits”) that is taken as “guilt.” Guilt is the language of a court. Drone piloting has often been discussed as law enforcement, although it violates numerous laws and does not enforce any.
1:07 (Pilot): Yeah review that (expletive deleted)…why didn’t he say possible child, why are they so quick to call (expletive deleted) kids but not to call (expletive deleted) a rifle
1:08 (MC): two children were at the rear of the SUV… I haven’t seen two children
…
1:09 (Sensor): little bit of movement by the SUV. I really doubt that children call, man I really (expletive deleted) hate that.
…
1:10 (MC): is this the child entering the rear of the SUV?
1:10 (Sensor): they’re moving, I’ll stay with the pickup truck
…
1:11 (Pilot): they just threw someone into the back of that truck, and were like, wrestling with somebody did you see that?
1:11 (Senor):Yeah I saw those two dudes wrestling.
1:11 (Pilot): they probably are really using (expletive deleted) human shields here, that’s probably what that is.
…
Here is an incredible case of believing ones own propaganda. People are here imagined to be forcing victims into their trucks in order to use them as “human shields,” a phenomenon as ill conceived in U.S. culture as “voter fraud.”
1:21 (Pilot):yeah, exactly man. So what’s the, we passed him potential children and potential shields, and I think those are both pretty accurate now, what’s the ROE on that?
1:21 (Sensor): Ground commander assessing proportionality, distinction
…
And here we are back to eye-of-the-murderer medieval “just war” theory in which someone pretends to determine that killing a certain number of children would be “proportionally” acceptable, although no empirical test of such a thing has ever been devised, and President Obama claims that no shots are fired by his drone warriors without “near certainty” that no civilians will be harmed. You can’t calculate how many civilians are acceptable to kill AND claim that you’re certain of not killing any.
01:32 (Sensor): Wonder what these other dudes at this compound are doing. Picked‐up at third vehicle on their train.
01:33 (MC): Guilty by association.
…
I suppose they know that’s not a legal term.
01:48 (Pilot): JAG25 just want to confirm that you copied we have about 20 pax dismounted, they are outside the trucks praying at this time and we’re 3 1⁄2 miles from the friendly location.
…
01:48 (Sensor): … Praying? I mean seriously, that’s what they do.
01:48 (MC): They’re gonna do something nefarious.
…
When I was very briefly in Afghanistan I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t pray. I also didn’t meet anyone who did anything nefarious. I have also never heard a presidential speech in which President Obama explains that he targets people who pray.
01:50 (MC): Adolescent near the rear of the SUV.
01:50 (Sensor): Well, teenagers can fight.
01:50 (MC): Pick up a weapon and you’re a combatant, it’s how that works.
…
Got that?
01:52 (Sensor): Oh sweet target. I’d try to go through the bed, put it right dead center of the bed.
01:53 (MC): Oh that’d be perfect.
01:52 (Sensor): Like more of them from the other vehicles are around this one right now.
…
Such cool, level headed reluctance to use excessive force is no doubt what we would hear in police videos as well.
01:54 (Sensor): MAM near SUV appear to be holding a weapon.
01:54 (Jag25): Roger, still awaiting confirmation.
01:54 (Pilot): JAG25 be advised, our screener just called 1 MAM near the SUV in the line of 3, appears to be holding a weapon.
…
01:56 (MC) :one weapon on ground may have picked it up and walking around the pickup.
01:56 (Sensor): I didn’t quite catch that but I believe it.
…
I didn’t see it either. Should I believe it too?
02:29 (Pilot): Can’t wait till this actually happens, with all this coordination and *expletive*
(agreement noises from crew)
02:29 (Pilot): Thanks for the help, you’re doing a good job relaying everything in (muffled), MC. Appreciate it
…
02:48 (Sensor): Still a sweet *expletive* target, geez….Take out the lead vehicle on the run and then uhh bring the helos in
…
02:54 (MC): Looks like they’re bringing a Reaper in
…
02:54 (Sensor): *Expletive*that, man
02:54 (MC): just claim we’re here first
02:54 (MC): At least we know these guys have weapons
02:55 (Muffled talking off comms, some profanity, a chuckle)
…
Laughing and eagerness to be the one to pull the trigger.
02:58 (Sensor): Hey, that dude just put a weapon down right above the truck. See it?
02:59 (Pilot): See it. See if DGS will call that
…
DGS is an office that is supposed to approve before eager pilots push the button. A veteran in National Bird describes routinely trying to restrain the eagerness of pilots at Creech Air Force Base to kill.
03:01 (Sensor): Aww where is he going? Just pulling off the road maybe. They probably mostly left their weapons in the vehicles. I’ll be damned, it looks like a short dude back there.
…
No weapons? They must be inside. A child? It must be a short dude.
03:05 (Pilot): Jag 25 standby one. Kirk 97, we’re checking. Looks mostly to be military aged males. We have seen approximately two children. Standby.
03:05 (Pilot): Dude the only thing I can see if this isn’t something [expletive deleted]is the locals trying to get away. You know what I mean? But I don’t think so.
…
Here a pilot surmises the situation accurately but chooses not to believe it.
03:06 (Sensor): 24 or 25 at the praying stop.
03:07 (Sensor): CLASSIFIED view I saw the one that looked short enough to be a child.
…
03:08 (Pilot): And Jag 25, our screeners are currently calling 21 MAMs no females, and 2 possible children. How copy?
03:08 (JAG25): Roger. And when we say children, are we talking teenagers or toddlers?
03:08 (Sensor): I would say about twelve. Not toddlers. Something more towards adolescents or teens.
03:08 (Pilot): Yeah adolescents
…
03:10 (Pilot): And Kirk 97, good copy on that. We are with you. Our screener updated only one adolescent so that’s one double digit age range. How Copy?
03:10 (JAG25): We’ll pass that along to the ground force commander. But like I said, 12‐13 years old with a weapon is just as dangerous.
03:11 (Sensor): Oh we agree. Yea.
…
04:05 (Pilot) : Yeah. Alright, so the plan is man, uh, we’re going to watch this thing go down, the helo’s are going to take out as much as they can and when they Winchester we can play clean up.
…
04:07 (Pilot) : As long as you keep somebody that we can shoot in the field of view I’m happy.
…
Happy! It’s good to stay positive about your job! Everybody knows that.
04:09 (Pilot) : Yeah, well that’s what we were talking on this. I was talking to the JTAC he said the exact same thing man. Um they called them an adolescent. We called it you know… most likely double digits age range. And he was like that’s old enough to be dangerous.
…
04:13 (Pilot): It’s a cool looking shot
04:13 (Sensor): O, awesome | 0 |
D 20
Legend: Leader and polling margin from RealClearPolitics . SoS’s party from WikiPedia . A.G’s party from Ballotpedia .
* Previous week’s margin in parenthesis (thus). Flipped states ( thus ).
Still very much a horse-race; Clinton flipped Florida (though by a tiny amount); but Trump flipped Nevada and North Carolina. (All this data is averaged over the 10/26 – 11/6 time frame, and I can’t imagine they capture late shifts in any direction.) To the Times interactive once again :
Remember the interactive focuses on swing states, listed in the table above. We give Trump every state where he is ahead: Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada (!), Iowa. Trump has 44 paths to victory; Clinton, 19. We reserve Florida and New Hampshire, because Clinton’s margin in both states is razor thin, and give her Virgina, Pennsylvania, Wisconson, and Colorado:
So even if Trump wins Florida, he has to win New Hampshire, too. Hoo boy. And to think all this campaign had to do was gag him and take away the Android phone he was tweeting from. The slightest bit of self-discipline on Trump’s part, and Clinton is suddenly in the race of her life. Shows her extreme weakness as a candidate, and the decadence of the Democrat nomenklatura that forced her nomination through, not to mention the decadence of the political class, which can’t seem to get approximately half the electorat to accept their view that Trump is history’s worst monster, despite extraordinary unity of purpose and a deluge of propaganda. Prediction: This election will resolve nothing, and volatility will increase.
Now let’s look at the House and Senate:
This week, the House:
Looking good for our friend, gridlock.
This week, the Senate:
Last week:
It’s a tossup (though you’ve gotta note 7 of the 8 toss-ups are Republicans. I wonder if the coin will land on its edge?
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It’s a coin toss (though you’ve gotta note 7 of the 8 toss-ups are Republicans). I wonder if the coin will land on its edge?
Corruption
Policy
“Why the age for Social Security benefits doesn’t need to go up to 70” [ MarketWatch ]. Part of a symposium. Wall Street is already gearing up to have another go at a Grand Bargain, which (IMNSHO) Clinton supports (given that she supports the logic of Simpson-Bowles, as shown by Wikileaks).
“Marijuana News Roundup: 3 of 5 States on Track to Approve Recreational Use” [ 247 Wall Street ]. Arizona (Proposition 205): 48% in favor; 47% opposed; 4% undecided California (Proposition 64): 58% in favor; 37% opposed; 5% undecided Maine (Question 1): 50% in favor; 41% opposed; 9% undecided Massachusetts (Question 4): 62% in favor; 33% opposed; 4% undecided Nevada (Question 2): 47% in favor; 43% opposed; 11% undecided
A pure play in paraphernalia.
Our Famously Free Press
The Voters
“The Verifier – Polling Place Equipment – 2016” [ Verified Voting ]. Handy tool that shows voting systems state-by-state.
“[E]lectronic voting machines aren’t as commonplace as one might assume. Three-quarters of the country will vote on a paper ballot this fall, says Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a group that promotes best practices at the polls. Only five states—Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New Jersey—use “direct recording electronic” (DRE) machines exclusively. But lots of other states use electronic machines in some capacity” [ Wired ].
“Lack of poll workers and low numbers of voting machines are key contributors to long voting lines, and precincts with more minorities experienced longer waits” [ Brennan Center ]. No duh!
“MIAMI CUBANS 4 TRUMP AND THE BATTLE FOR THE NATION” [ Cuba Counterpoints (MsExPat)].
“[Philadelphia’s] crippling weeklong transit strike ended early Monday, ensuring that all buses, trolleys and subways will be up and running by Election Day” [ AP ].
Downballot
“As the final, frantic hours of the campaign for control of Congress come to a close, Democrats look like slightly-better-than-even favorites to reclaim the Senate, while Republicans appear certain to hold the House after a Donald Trump-induced October scare” [ Politico ]. “If Democrats manage to flip the Senate, senior party aides and strategists involved in battleground races said they’re looking at a majority of 52 seats, best case. That would be a letdown from their earlier hopes of a 54- or 55-seat advantage and put Republicans in the pole position to win back the chamber in 2018.”
The Trail
Best pro-Trump piece I’ve seen: “The GOP’s ‘Ungrateful Bastard’ Caucus” [ American Greatness ].
Best pro-Clinton piece remains: “Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: It’s Important” [ Common Dreams ].
The best reasons I can think of to vote for each candidate (as opposed to against the other candidates). In no particular order: Trump: A realist foreign policy Clinton: More of the same Stein: Break the two-party duopoloy Johnson: Sanity on marijuna legalization
These reasons are, of course, entirely incommensurate.
“The American Conservative Presidential Symposium” [ The American Conservative ]. Michael Tracey: “Trump might be better than Hillary on foreign policy (my top issue), but he’s far too volatile to conclude that with any certainty, and he may well end up being catastrophically worse. The Clintons’ outrageous stoking of a war fervor over Russia is quite simply depraved and should disqualify them from reentering the White House…. Democrats deserve punishment for nominating a candidate with such severe legal problems, stifling a genuine populist insurgent in the most craven possible fashion (I supported Bernie Sanders but find his recent hectoring pro-Clinton conduct highly off-putting). Their shambolic, ‘rigged’ primary process can’t be countenanced, nor can the 2016 electoral debacle as a whole, so I’ll do my small part in rejecting this horror show by declining to vote.”
Realignment
“America’s Ruling Elite Has Failed and Deserves to Be Fired” [ Of Two Minds ]. ” 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.” Tellingly, the author omits the FIRE sector. So I would say their definition of elite is odd.
“[E]ducation levels are a more significant factor this year. Obama won a majority of those with a high school diploma (or less) in 2012, while Romney won college-educated voters. This year the numbers are reversed. Among white voters with only a high school education, Trump leads by over 25 points. Among whites with a college degree, Clinton leads by about 10 percent. This is the first time since serious polling began in 1952 that this has happened [ RealClearPoltiics ]. And when I ask myself who sent the United States heading toward Third World status, it’s not those without college degrees. In fact, it’s Clinton’s base.
“The Last Gasp of the American Dream” [ The Archdruid Report ].
[M]illions of Americans trudge through a bleak round of layoffs, wage cuts, part-time jobs at minimal pay, and system-wide dysfunction. The crisis hasn’t hit yet, but those members of the political class who think that the people who used to be rock-solid American patriots will turn out en masse to keep today’s apparatchiks secure in their comfortable lifestyles have, as the saying goes, another think coming. Nor is it irrelevant that most of the enlisted personnel in the armed forces, who are the US government’s ultimate bulwark against popular unrest, come from the very classes that have lost faith most drastically in the American system. The one significant difference between the Soviet case and the American one at this stage of the game is that Soviet citizens had no choice but to accept the leaders the Communist Party of the USSR foisted off on them, from Brezhnev to Andropov to Chernenko to Gorbachev, until the system collapsed of its own weight…
If George W. Bush was our Leonid Brezhnev, as I’d suggest, and Barack Obama is our Yuri Andropov, Hillary Clinton is running for the position of Konstantin Chernenko; her running mate Tim Kaine, in turn, is waiting in the wings as a suitably idealistic and clueless Mikhail Gorbachev, under whom the whole shebang can promptly go to bits. While I don’t seriously expect the trajectory of the United States to parallel that of the Soviet Union anything like as precisely as this satiric metaphor would suggest, the basic pattern of cascading dysfunction ending in political collapse is quite a common thing in history, and a galaxy of parallels suggests that the same thing could very easily happen here within the next decade or so. The serene conviction among the political class and their affluent hangers-on that nothing of the sort could possibly take place is just another factor making it more likely.
“Why Trump Is Different—and Must Be Repelled” [Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker ].
For the past months, and into this final week, as for much of the past year, many New Yorkers have been in a position that recalls parents with a colicky baby: you put the baby down at last, it seems safely asleep, grateful and unbelievably exhausted you return to bed—only to hear the small tell-tale cough or sob that guarantees another crying jag is on the way. The parents in this case, to fill in the metaphorical blanks, are liberal-minded folk; the baby’s cries are any indicators that Donald Trump may not be out of the race for President—as he seemed to be even as recently as last week—and may actually have a real chance at being elected. Disbelief crowds exhaustion: this can’t be happening. If the colicky baby is a metaphor too sweet for so infantile a figure as the orange menace, then let us think instead, perhaps, of the killer in a teen horror movie of the vintage kind: every time Freddy seemed dispatched and buried, there he was leaping up again, as the teens caught their breath and returned, too soon, to their teendom.
Of course, Gopnik — a bad-faith liberal who should really stick to writing gauzy atmospheric pieces about Paris — is both passive-aggressive and infuriatingly smug. To “fill in the metaphorical blanks,” both the “colicky baby” and the teen horror movie villain are infantilized and displaced versions of The Other: The Trump voter that Eurostar-rider Gopnik hates and fears, because he’s afraid their going to kill him and take his stuff.
Democrat Email Hairball
“Dow surges 300 points as FBI clears Clinton on eve of election” [ USA Today ]. Hmm. Insider’s paradise.. .
Stats Watch
Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure, October 2016: ” In October, Americans’ daily self-reports of spending averaged $93, similar to September’s $91 average. However, it is among the highest for the month of October in the survey’s nine-year trend” [ Econoday ]. “The latest spending average is similar to the $91 recorded in October 2008, a measure taken at the beginning of a steep slide in Americans’ spending amid the financial crisis of 2008.” Eight years of crap and back to square one, except for the lost wealth, of course. Best economy ever!
Labor Market Conditions Index, October 2016: “Average hourly earnings are one of 19 indicators tracked in the labor market conditions index but the component no doubt made an outsized contribution to the October composite which rose” [ Econoday ]. (This is the Fed’s experimental index.) “Elements of last week’s employment report, especially wages, are consistent with a pivot higher for the labor market and today’s gain in this index could be offering its own signpost.” Dear Lord, a “pivot. I thought “pivot” was a Beltway word, but it seems to have migrated. Ugh.
Employment Situation (11/4): “[T]he deceleration of employment growth continues in what’s now been a very steady decline going on 2 years. And with employment growth decelerating at this rate it’s likely the unemployment rate will remain elevated indefinitely” [ Mosler Economics ].
Real Estate: “When it comes to the state of the industrial real estate market, landlords continue to have the upper hand over tenants, due to ongoing market factors, according to the Third Quarter Industrial Outlook report recently issued by commercial real estate firm JLL” [ Logistics Management ]. “Looking at total U.S. absorption, JLL observed that more than one-third is derived from four key markets that indicate a bulk of the activity still remains in primary industrial cities. These markets include: Chicago at 6.4 percent; Houston at 8.5 percent; Dallas/Fort Worth at 8.6 percent; and Philadelphia/Harrisburg at 10.5 percent…. When asked to rank the top three types of occupiers for industrial estate property at the moment, [Aaron Ahlburn, director of industrial research for JLL] cited e-commerce, traditional retail, and 3PL [third-party logistics] and logistics/parcel delivery players.” So, a bet on continued globalization?
Shipping: “Truck, rail pricing power may shift in early 2017” [ Journal of Commerce ]. “Shippers moving freight throughout the US are enjoying the kind of pricing power they usually only hold during recessions, thanks to a thick layer of excess truck capacity and overstocked inventories, combined with lower fuel costs and fuel surcharges. The strong dollar and skittish consumer demand, at least for items bigger than packages, also play a role.” Weirdly, the happy talk headline isn’t supported by any data in the article.
Shipping: “Calls grow for Pakistan to adopt shipbreaking code in wake of last week’s deadly inferno” [ Splash247 ]. “The speakers at the [National Trade Union Federation] protest called for a shipbreaking code to be instituted in Pakistan, noting how workplace accidents at Indian breaking yards had dropped since New Delhi put in its own ship recycling regulations.”
Shipping: “The world’s seas were a safer place for those navigating them from June to September 2016, maritime security intelligence firm Dryad Maritime reported.Security incidents, including piracy, boardings and robberies, fell compared with the first half of 2016” [ Lloyd’s List ].
Shipping: “Cargo thieves have traditionally targeted compact high-value items such as cash and electronics, but lately, improved warehouse security has pushed the crooks to diversify their portfolios and start stealing a range of items, including food, alcohol, and clothing” [ DC Velocity ]. “Rather than lurking around DCs [distribution centers], cargo thieves are increasingly focused on mobile targets like trucks and trailers. Examples of recent thefts include hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of salmon in Norway, cases of whiskey in London, and truckloads of nuts around the globe…. In another escapade, thieves snatched six pallets of maple syrup destined for Japan from a Montreal company’s truck yard, making off with $150,000 in sweet merchandise…. In past years, these items might have been difficult to resell, but the Internet makes it easy to locate a buyer for almost anything.”
Shipping: ” transportation hiring suggests companies increasingly are putting workers in place to meet another big seasonal push toward web-based sales. They’ll need sales demand to show up since hiring in the retail and manufacturing sectors both slipped back last month. Jobs at goods-producing companies overall were flat in October, a sign that any expansion in demand in the next couple of months will have to come from shipments heading to consumers” [ Wall Street Journal ].
Honey for the Bears: “New registrations of commercial vehicles in gross vehicle weight (GVW) classes 4 to 8 are down 4.2 percent through August of this year, according to the Englewood, Colo., consulting firm IHS Markit” [ DC Velocity ]. “The statistics could foreshadow rough results for corporate earnings, since large trucks are almost exclusively used for business purposes… [Then again] part of the explanation for these statistics may be that owners are holding on to their vehicles longer.”
The Bezzle: ” DOJ, SEC now investigating Wells Fargo sales practices” [ FCPA Blog ].
The Bezzle: “Airbnb tide appears to be on the ebb” [ Hotel News Notes ]. As regulators catch up, regulatory arbitrage decreases. “That is, if Airbnb does not change direction. It has the capability of doing that—its market capitalization is supposedly now some $30 billion, larger than the combined Marriott-Starwood empire.:
Gentlemen Prefer Bonds: “Barack Obama will go down in history as having sold more Treasuries and at lower interest rates than any U.S. president” [ Bloomberg ]. “He’s also leaving a debt burden that threatens to hamstring his successor.” I know. Let’s cut “entitlement spending”!
The Fed: “Overall, there is still a very strong probability that the Fed will move to tighten at the December FOMC meeting unless forthcoming data is extremely weak and there is an unexpected victory for Republican candidate Trump, which triggers a sharp deterioration in risk appetite” [ Economic Calendar ]. This is based on the Labor Market Conditions Index.
Political Risk: “This will be a light week for economic data” [ Calculated Risk ]. “The key event will be the US election on Tuesday.” That’s so understated you’d think McBride was a Brit!
Political Risk: “With the U.S. election just one day away, Bloomberg compiled a cross-asset guide to how Wall Street strategists predict the markets will react in the event that Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton wins the presidency. We’ve also included a separate scenario on how they might move if the Democrats recaptured the Senate and the House of Representatives along with the presidency; a Trump victory likely entails that Republicans would keep control of both houses of Congress” [ Bloomberg ].
Rapture Index: Closes down 1 on drug abuse [ Rapture Index ]. Current: 188. Record High: 189 (October 10, 2016). From the Drug Abuse section: “There has been greater restriction on opioid drugs.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 20 Fear (previous close: 14, Extreme Fear) [ CNN ]. One week ago: 30 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 7 at 10:42am. Never made it to single digits. I assume a rebound is coming, either way, after Tuesday.
Police State
“Dozens, if not hundreds, of criminal convictions in Ohio could be in jeopardy because [G. Michele Yezzo] longtime forensic scientist at the state crime lab now stands accused of slanting evidence to help cops and prosecutors build their cases” [ Columbus Dispatch ]. “In the records, colleagues and supervisors described these concerns about Yezzo: She threatened to use a gun to shoot her co-workers and herself. She threw a 6-inch metal plate at one co-worker. She exposed her breasts to BCI agents at a bar, flipped off her boss and acted in a hostile manner to almost every lab employee, according to records. She was accused of calling an African-American scientist a racial slur, something Yezzo denies. She frequently broke into crying spells for no apparent reason Forensic scientists quit because of her erratic behavior. At one point her union, the Fraternal Order of Police, refused to back her.” Wowsers. The FOP.
Our Famously Free Press
“Vox Scams Readers Into Thinking Prescient World Series Tweet Was A Scam [Update]” [ DeadSpin ].
Gaia
Guillotine Watch
“Too Smug to Jail” [Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone ]. “As we reach the close of an election season marked by anger toward the unaccountable rich, The Economist has chimed in with a defense of the beleaguered white-collar criminal.”
[T]his is the crucial passage:
“Most corporate crime is the result of collective action rather than individual wrongdoing—long chains of command that send (often half-understood) instructions, or corporate cultures that encourage individuals to take risky actions. The authorities have rightly adjusted to this reality by increasingly prosecuting companies rather than going after individual miscreants.”
Yikes! This extraordinary argument is cousin to the Lieutenant Calley defense , i.e., that soldiers bear no responsibility for crimes they were ordered to execute. The Economist here would have you believe that there’s no such thing as an individual crime in a corporate context.
Class Warfare
On neoliberalism [Matt Stoller, Facebook , via Atrios ].
Neoliberalism is a kind of statecraft. It means organizing state policies by making them appear as if they are the consequences of depoliticized financial markets. It involves moving power from public institutions to private institutions, and allowing governance to happen through concentrated financial power. Actual open markets for goods and services tend to disappear in neoliberal societies. Financial markets flourish, real markets morph into mass distribution middlemen like Walmart or Amazon.
Neoliberalism is not faith in free markets. Neoliberalism is not free market capitalism. Neoliberalism is a specific form of statecraft that uses financial markets as a veil to disguise governing policies.
What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed
Stoller is paraphrasing his review of Greta Krippner’s Capitalizing on Crisis , which sounds well worth a read.
“Uncovering Credit Disparities among Low- and Moderate-Income Areas” [ Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis ]. “Eggleston found that LMI [lower abd middle-income] neighborhoods with relatively better credit tend to be in metros with a larger percentage of white residents, and they are typically found in the East, West and parts of the upper Midwest. They also tend to be in metros that have lower poverty rates.”
News of the Wired
“Shyness: small acts of heroism” [ Times Literary Supplement ]. ” The most surprising chapter is the one that discusses shyness in animals, where a “shy–bold continuum has been found in over a hundred species”. Moran shares unlikely-sounding research about “friendlier lemon sharks”, “lizard cliques” and a line of nervous pointers bred by scientists at the University of Arkansas, who found that the dogs could never be socialized: shyness was in their genes…. [The author] suggests that ‘natural selection prefers a range of personalities in the same species.'” Hmm.
“In their study of more than 12 million Facebook users, the researchers found that a lower mortality risk was associated with the number of friend requests accepted — as in, those who accepted more friend requests tended to live longer than those who accepted fewer requests. Friend requests extended, on the other hand, had no particular relationship at all to mortality. As the news release so plainly phrased it, ‘This finding … suggests that public health interventions urging people to go out and try to make more friends may have no effect on health” [ New York Magazine ].
“‘Time crystal’ created in lab” [ Science News ]. “Scientists have created the first time crystal, using a chain of ions. Just as a standard crystal repeats in a regular spatial pattern, a time crystal repeats in time, returning to a similar configuration at regular intervals.”
” In Accessorize to a Crime: Real and Stealthy Attacks on State-of-the-Art Face Recognition, researchers from Carnegie-Mellon and UNC showed how they could fool industrial-strength facial recognition systems (including Alibaba’s ‘smile to pay’ [!!!] transaction system) by printing wide, flat glasses frames with elements of other peoples’ faces with ‘up to 100% success.’ The glasses cost $0.22/pair” [ Boing Boing ] ( original ).
* * *
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here . And here’s today’s plant (Rainbow Girl):
Rainbow Girl writes: “Lantern Hill Pond, autumn afternoon. What survived in spite of the (now decommissioned) silica mine that operated on its southern shore (to the right).” Still, there’s always something hopeful about seeing a sunny clearing ahead, from inside the shady woods.
Readers, Water Cooler is a standalone entity, not supported by the very successful Naked Capitalism fundraiser just past. Now, I understand you may feel tapped out, but when and if you are able, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your continued help. Donate | 0 |
By Lauren McCauley The state of Michigan has reportedly issued preliminary approval for bottled water behemoth Nestlé to nearly triple the amount of groundwater it will pump, to be bottled and sold... | 0 |
Vladimir Putin: The United States continues to sleep with al-Nusra ‹ › GPD is our General Posting Department whereby we share posts from other sources along with general information with our readers. It is managed by our Editorial Board Trump Caught Again, Ripping Off Kids Charity This time By GPD on October 27, 2016 Trump golf course sponsors charity fundraiser for kids — and then asks for half of the money DAVID EDWARDS Officials at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County complained this week after one of Donald Trump’s golf courses hit the charity with $20,000 in charges to hold a fundraiser that was expected to cost little or nothing.
The Palm Beach Post reported in July that the Trump International Golf Club is required to allow charities to use its facilities because the course is built on county land. Each year the charity is selected by a different county commissioner. This year, County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay selected the Boys and Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County to receive the benefit. And Trump’s course signed on to sponsor the fundraiser.
But McKinlay learned this week from Assistant County Administrator Todd Bonlarron that Trump’s people were requiring the charity to pay $20,000 in golf and catering fees. In the past, fees had reportedly been capped at $5,000.
In an email this week, Mark Casale, vice president philanthropy for the Boys and Girls Clubs, told McKinlay and Assistant County Administrator Todd Bonlarron that Trump’s course was effectively asking for half of the proceeds from the fundraiser.
Read more at Raw Story Related Posts: | 0 |
The fire that killed at least 30 people in a space in Oakland, Calif. on Friday was one of the deadliest in the United States in many years, a tragedy that highlighted both the importance of fire safety codes and the vital role they have played in turning mass casualty blazes into rare events. They have become infrequent thanks to safety measures that started to emerge at the turn of the 20th century, when fires at theaters and nightclubs not infrequently killed hundreds of people. “The adoption and implementation of fire codes, having an effective enforcement system that’s been put in place at the city, county or state level — those have been the key elements that have made the difference we have seen,” said James Pauley, president of the National Fire Protection Association. “When a deadly fire happens it is usually because something isn’t followed or something goes wrong or we learn something new.” He pointed to the first standards for sprinkler installation and the construction of fire escape routes, implemented in the early 1900s, as a watershed moment for fire safety. Many of the new standards were motivated largely by deadly blazes like the Triangle fire in 1911, which claimed 146 lives in New York. The Oakland fire highlighted the unique danger faced by what experts call “assembly occupancy” buildings like theaters and nightclubs, where large numbers of people are typically crammed into one or two big, often darkened spaces with a handful of exits. Venues like that were at particular risk in the 19th and early 20th century. A fire at the Iroquois Theatre in Chicago killed 602 people in 1903 and one at the Coconut Grove nightclub in Boston killed 492 people in 1943, according to a report by the National Fire Protection Association. The space in Oakland appears to have been especially vulnerable: it was a warehouse that had been converted into a makeshift nightclub and labyrinth of artist studios spread across two floors connected by a rickety staircase made of wooden pallets. The building had only two exits. Theater and nightclub fires, both today and in the past, tend to have a few things in common: overcrowding, combustible interior decorations, inadequate exits or stairwells, and heat sources like candles, stage lights or pyrotechnics that can spark a blaze. That was the case in the last mass casualty fire that struck an American nightclub. One hundred people died when a pyrotechnic display at a concert in West Warwick, R. I. started a fire that consumed the Station nightclub in a matter of minutes in 2003. The walls were covered in flammable material and the building had no sprinklers, allowing the flames to spread rapidly, according to a report on the disaster by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the Department of Commerce. The scene was captured on video by a local TV news cameraman who was filming a segment inside the club when the fire began. Panicked patrons can be seen scrambling for the front door, and concertgoers trampled one another as a bottleneck formed. The most recent mass casualty blaze in the United States, until the Oakland fire, occurred at a Texas fertilizer plant in 2013, when a deliberately set fire set off an ammonium nitrate explosion that killed 15 people, injured 260 more and damaged buildings across the town of West. Perhaps the greatest danger when it comes to fire safety is complacency, Mr. Pauley said — a feeling people may develop that disaster is unlikely to strike them because it hasn’t so far. That can manifest itself in many small but dangerous ways: a blocked fire escape or broken sprinkler system that is never addressed because it has never been needed. “Fire is not one of the things that is generally on people’s minds today as something that they need to be concerned about,” Mr. Pauley said. | 1 |
Trump’s Tulsi Gabbard Factor November 21, 2016
Exclusive: By inviting in Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat hostile to “regime change” wars, President-elect Trump may be signaling a major break with Republican neocon orthodoxy and a big shake-up of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Two weeks after Donald Trump’s shocking upset of Hillary Clinton, the imperious and imperial neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist understudies may finally be losing their tight grip on U.S. foreign policy.
The latest sign was Trump’s invitation for a meeting with Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Monday. The mainstream media commentary has almost completely missed the potential significance of this start-of-the-work-week meeting, suggesting that Trump is attracted to Gabbard’s tough words on “radical Islamic terrorism.” Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.
Far more important is that Gabbard, a 35-year-old Iraq War veteran, endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries because of his opposition to neocon/liberal-hawk military adventures. She starred in one of the strongest political ads of the campaign, a message to Hawaiians, called “The Cost of War.”
“Bernie Sanders voted against the Iraq War,” Gabbard says. “He understands the cost of war, that that cost is continued when our veterans come home. Bernie Sanders will defend our country and take the trillions of dollars that are spent on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars and invest it here at home.”
In the ad, Gabbard threw down the gauntlet to the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, by accusing them of wasting trillions of dollars “on these interventionist, regime change, unnecessary wars.” Her comments mesh closely with Trump’s own perspective.
After the meeting on Monday, Gabbard released a statement confirming that the focus of the discussion had been her opposition to escalating the war in Syria by following neocon/liberal-hawk suggestions for a “no-fly zone” that would require widespread U.S. military destruction of Syrian government installations and the killing of a large number of Syrians.
“President-elect Trump asked me to meet with him about our current policies regarding Syria, our fight against terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, as well as other foreign policy challenges we face,” Gabbard said. “I felt it important to take the opportunity to meet with the President-elect now before the drumbeat of war that neocons have been beating drag us into an escalation of the war to overthrow the Syrian government — a war which has already cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions of refugees to flee their homes in search of safety for themselves and their families. …
“While the rules of political expediency would say I should have refused to meet with President-elect Trump, I never have and never will play politics with American and Syrian lives. …
“I shared with [President-elect Trump] my grave concerns that escalating the war in Syria by implementing a so-called no fly/safe zone would be disastrous for the Syrian people, our country, and the world. It would lead to more death and suffering, exacerbate the refugee crisis, strengthen ISIS and al-Qaeda, and bring us into a direct conflict with Russia which could result in a nuclear war.”
Trading Places
So, the surprise election results on Nov. 8 may have represented a “trading places” moment for the neocons and liberal hawks who were eagerly counting the days before the “weak” President Barack Obama would turn over the Commander-in-Chief job to former Secretary of State Clinton who had made clear that she shared their hawkish agenda of escalating the war in Syria with a “no-fly/safe zone,” and ratcheting up the New Cold War with Russia. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressing the AIPAC conference in Washington D.C. on March 21, 2016. (Photo credit: AIPAC)
There was even speculation that one of Clinton’s neocon favorites within the State Department, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, might be rewarded with State’s top job for her “regime change” in Ukraine that sparked the start of the New Cold War in 2014.
Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan , sabotaged President Obama’s emerging strategy of collaborating with Russian President Vladimir Putin on sensitive global issues. In 2013-14, Putin helped orchestrate two of Obama’s brightest foreign policy successes: Syria’s surrender of its chemical weapons arsenal and Iran’s guarantee that it would not develop nuclear weapons.
But those agreements infuriated the neocons who favored escalating both crises into direct U.S. bombing campaigns aimed at Syria and Iran – in accordance with the desires of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Saudi monarchy. Yet. there was perhaps even greater alarm at what the next move of the Obama-Putin tag team might be: demanding that Israel finally get serious about a peace deal with the Palestinians.
So, the neocons took aim at Ukraine, which neocon National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman identified as “the biggest prize” and an important stepping stone to an even bigger prize, a “regime change” in Moscow removing Putin .
While Gershman’s NED funded (with U.S. taxpayers’ money) scores of projects inside Ukraine, training anti-government activists and journalists, Nuland took the point as the key organizer of a putsch that removed elected President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014, and replaced him with a fiercely anti-Russian regime.
Given the geopolitical sensitivity of Ukraine to Russia, including its naval base on the Crimean peninsula, Putin had little choice but to react, supporting a referendum in Crimea in which 96 percent of the voters favored leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia – and assisting ethnic Russian rebels in the east who resisted the violent ouster of their president.
Of course, the mainstream Western news media presented these developments as simply a case of “Russian aggression” and a “Russian invasion.” And, faced with this new “group think,” Obama quickly abandoned his partner, Putin, and joined in the chorus of condemnations.
Nuland emerged as a new star inside the State Department, a hero of the New Cold War which was expected to funnel trillions of tax dollars into the Military-Industrial Complex.
Trump’s Heresy
But Trump surprisingly adopted the position that Obama shied away from, a recognition that Putin could be an important asset in resolving major international crises. The real-estate-mogul-turned-politician stuck to that “outside-the-mainstream” position despite fierce attacks from rival Republicans and Democratic presidential nominee Clinton, who even mocked him as Putin’s “puppet.” President Barack Obama meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the sidelines of the G20 Summit at Regnum Carya Resort in Antalya, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice listens at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
After Trump’s upset victory on Nov. 8, many pundits assumed that Trump would fall back in line with Washington’s hawkish foreign-policy establishment by giving top jobs to neocons, such as former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, or Netanyahu favorites, such as former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney or ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
So far, however, Trump has followed a different course, more in line with the libertarian thinking of the Koch brothers – not only the more famous ones, Charles and David, but also their long-estranged brother William, who I’m told have become behind-the-scenes advisers to the President-elect.
Though Trump did offer high-profile meetings to the likes of Romney and Giuliani, he has yet to hand over any key foreign-policy job to the Republican neocon wing. His one major announcement in that area has been naming as National Security Advisor retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who led the Defense Intelligence Agency when it produced a prescient warning that U.S. policy in Syria would lead to the creation of an “Islamic State.”
Though Flynn is regarded as a hardliner in the fight against Islamic jihadist terror, he is seen as an independent thinker regarding how best to wage that war. For instance, Flynn has objected to the notion that drone strikes, i.e., killing off individual jihadists, is a route to success.
“We’ve tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline that ‘we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts’ and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,” Flynn said . “And you know what? It doesn’t matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason to fight us even harder.”
That leaves open the possibility that a President Trump might eschew the “whack-a-mole” approach that has bedeviled the “war on terror” and instead go after the “mole nest” – if you will – the Saudi monarchy that has long financed Islamic extremists both through the fundamentalist Wahhabi brand of Sunni Islam and by supplying money and weapons to jihadists dating back at least to the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1980s, the origin of modern Islamic terrorism.
Traditional U.S. politicians have recoiled from facing up to the hard reality that the Saudi monarchy is the real “terror central” because of Saudi Arabia’s enormous riches and influence, which is now enhanced by its quiet alliance with Israel in their joint campaign against the so-called “Shiite crescent,” from Iran through Syria to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Taking on this Saudi-Israel nexus has long been regarded as political suicide, given Israel’s extraordinary lobbying power and Saudi Arabia’s exceptional wealth. But Trump may be assembling a team that is “crazy” enough to take on that mission.
So, while the fight over the future of U.S. foreign policy is far from over – the neocons will surely flex their muscles at the major think tanks, on the op-ed pages and inside the halls of Congress – the Trump transition is showing some creativity in assembling a national security team that may go in a very different direction.
Much will become apparent in Trump’s choice of Secretary of State. If it’s someone like Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, or Rep. Gabbard or a libertarian from the Kochs’ world, that would be bad news for the neocons. If it’s someone like Romney, Giuliani, Bolton or Woolsey, then that will mean that President-elect Trump has blinked and the neocons can breathe a sigh of relief.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ). | 0 |
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at the White House that President Donald Trump asked his national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn to resign in response to an “erosion” of trust between the two. [“The issue pure and simple came down to a matter of trust and the president concluded that he no longer had the trust of his national security adviser,” Spicer said during the White House press conference on Tuesday. He also revealed that there was “a series of other questionable instances” that also contributed to the erosion of the president’s trust. Spicer said that Trump was “concerned” about Flynn after it was clear that he had misled the Vice President about phone conversations with his Russian counterparts about sanctions. After the Justice Department notified the White House counsel that they had evidence Flynn was not telling the truth, Spicer confirmed that they investigated the legal ramifications of his actions. Spicer revealed that the Justice Department didn’t notify the administration about their knowledge of the calls until January 26, nineteen days ago. Spicer added that Flynn’s actions were not illegal, as determined by the White House counsel, but it created what he called an “unsustainable situation. ” “That’s why the president decided to ask for his resignation, and he got it,” Spicer added. | 1 |
Time to rewrite the science textbooks: The periodic table has new names for four elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the gatekeeper to the periodic table, announced on Wednesday the proposed names for elements 113, 115, 117 and 118: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson. The new names for the four superheavy, radioactive elements will replace the seventh row’s uninspired placeholders of ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium and ununoctium. Iupac officially recognized the elements in December and gave naming rights to teams of scientists from the United States, Russia and Japan, who made the discoveries. The proposed names had to follow Iupac rules and are now available for public review. People have until November to object to the proposals, and Iupac has the final say. Nihonium, symbol Nh, was discovered by scientists at the Riken institute in Japan. They are the first from Asia to earn the right to propose an addition to the table. The name comes from “Nihon,” which is one of the two Japanese words for Japan. The other word, “Nippon,” made its way to versions of the periodic table in 1908 as element 43, nipponium, but was never officially accepted. At the time, researchers were unable to replicate the experiments of Masataka Ogawa, a Japanese chemist who isolated the element. Two decades later, it was revealed that Dr. Ogawa had in fact found a new element: element 75, by then already known as rhenium. The team that discovered element 113 told Iupac that they had chosen nihonium in part to honor the work of Dr. Ogawa. A trio of research institutions — the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, in Russia Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California — were given the right to propose names for elements 115 and 117. Moscovium, symbol Mc, is named for Moscow, which is near the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Tennessine, symbol Ts, gets its name from the state of Tennessee, where Oak Ridge National Laboratory is. After californium, it is the second element named for one of the 50 states. Naming rights for element 118 belonged to the same Russian researchers and the Americans from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. They selected Oganesson, symbol Og, for Yuri Oganessian, who helped discover several superheavy elements. If accepted, it will be only the second time that an element is named for a living person. The first was element 106, seaborgium, named for Glenn T. Seaborg. The names may disappoint some people, like the 150, 000 music fans who signed a petition to get element 115 named “lemmium” after Lemmy Kilmister of the band Motorhead, or the 50, 000 Terry Pratchett book lovers who wanted element 117 to be named “octarine,” or New York Times readers who suggested “trumpium” and “godzillium” for the new elements. | 1 |
A specialist bomb squad has been scrambled to the Swedish city of Gothenburg after an explosion, just 24 hours after a suspected car bomb rocked Stockholm. [The incident occurred in the stairwell of an apartment block just after 10 pm on Friday evening, reports. “I thought it was another country that has come to attack. I thought it was a war … ” said one witness. Authorities suspect the blast was caused by an “attack” involving some form of homemade device, and the National Guard and a police bomb squad were called to the scene. “We suspect that there are some kind of bomb attacks carried out here” said Pål Engebretsen, the police officer leading the investigation last night. “Some people were seen running from the scene in connection with a bang, but who these people are we do not know at present” added police press officer Thomas Fuxborg on Saturday morning. JUST NU: Explosion i Göteborg — dörr söndersprängd i Majorna https: . pic. twitter. — (@GoteborgsPosten) March 10, 2017, “We will examine who lives near the stairwell and knock on doors to see if anyone saw or heard anything yesterday” he continued. By Saturday morning, the emergency services, National Guard and police bomb squad had left the scene. “We have not received the results of the technical investigation yet” added Mr. Fuxborg. “But bomb technicians found no metal residues which usually indicates a hand grenade was used, but something else has exploded there. What it is is still unclear”. He said it was possible the device was homemade and said motives could include scaring someone specific in the building or simply “mischief”. The number of grenade attacks and car fires in the relatively small nation has shot up in recent years — allegedly because of warring migrant gangs — and the number of fatal shootings has doubled in nine years. Since Mr. Trump made his intervention last month, there have been grenade attacks in Stockholm and Malmö, shootings and riots in the “No Go Zone” of Rinkeby in Stockholm, and ambulance workers demanding “military” defence so they can enter the area. | 1 |
City and state officials in New York have agreed to pay two men who were wrongfully convicted of setting a fire in 1980 in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn about $31 million to settle their claims of being unjustly prosecuted. The blaze caused the death of a woman and her five children. The two men, Amaury Villalobos and William Vasquez, spent almost 33 years in prison on charges of murder and arson before their guilty verdicts were overturned in 2015 in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on the recommendation of the Conviction Review Unit of the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. A third man convicted in the blaze, Raymond Mora, was also cleared by the ruling, but he died in prison in 1989. According to a statement by Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, who has the power to settle claims, the city will pay Mr. Villalobos and Mr. Vasquez $9. 7 million each. Officials in the office of Eric T. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, said the state had agreed to pay each man $5. 75 million. “Following a careful and thorough review of the facts of this case, my office was able to reach a settlement with the claimants that will serve the best interests of all parties,” Mr. Stringer said in a statement on Friday. “We have reached an agreement that recognizes the years these men spent incarcerated and allows them and their families closure. ” In February 1980, a townhouse at 695 Sackett Street burned to the ground, and the tenants — Elizabeth Kinsey, 27, and her five children — were killed. The townhouse’s owner, Hannah Quick, told the police at the time that it had been arson and that she had heard the three defendants inside the townhouse just before the fire and then had seen them walk out. Ms. Quick, a drug dealer, said she had been feuding with one or two of the men over drugs. All of the men were convicted at a trial in 1981. But years later, as she was dying, Ms. Quick told her daughter that she had lied about the men’s involvement in the fire. The case found its way to the Conviction Review Unit, whose leader, Mark J. Hale, said he had no idea how the case had proceeded to trial in the first place. In an interview conducted when the men were exonerated, Mr. Hale said that Ms. Quick’s motives to lie might have included liability for the fire and an insurance payment she received. Although a fire marshal testified at the men’s trial that he had found evidence of arson, Mr. Hale said evolving fire science disproved the 1980 analysis. Reports by experts that were filed by Mr. Villalobos’s lawyer and the district attorney’s office showed that despite the initial testimony, there was no evidence of arson and the fire was most likely an accident. “It’s a significant settlement,” Joel Rudin, Mr. Vasquez’s lawyer, said. “This is a case where the system completely failed these men. ” | 1 |
EMAIL US: [email protected] Home › POLITICS › MUTINY AT THE FBI: COMEY WARNED BY HIS OWN AGENTS TO INDICT CLINTON OR WATCH THE FBI’S REPUTATION GO DOWN IN FLAMES MUTINY AT THE FBI: COMEY WARNED BY HIS OWN AGENTS TO INDICT CLINTON OR WATCH THE FBI’S REPUTATION GO DOWN IN FLAMES 0 SHARES
[10/31/16] MIKE ADAMS – As America inches toward open revolt over the runaway criminality and collusion of the democrats and the media , another kind of revolt is taking place inside the FBI. According to multiple sources in the independent media — now the only remaining “free press” in America — FBI director James Comey was forced into announcing a reopening of the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server by “livid” FBI agents who threatened to go public if Comey didn’t act.
James Comey, long since suspected to be a Clinton operative who deliberately allowed Hillary Clinton to get away with a vast number of felony crimes and national security violations, now finds himself with his back against the wall. If he releases the evidence against Hillary Clinton already possessed by the FBI, he will face the wrath of Obama, the Clintons, the corrupt Loretta Lynch (DOJ) and the entire leftist media. If he once again gives Hillary Clinton a free pass on her numerous crimes, he then faces a mutiny inside the FBI which promises to bypass his authority and leak the criminal evidence directly to the alternative media. FBI agents under Comey are desperately trying to save their agency from going down in flames
Agents inside the FBI, in other words, refuse to allow James Comey to let the agency go down in flames as just another corrupt branch of the “Clinton crime family.” Via the Daily Mail UK :
James Comey’s decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI , including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.
This dovetails with my own sources who tell me that the recent acquittal of the Oregon ranchers has also driven a stake through James Comey’s reputation, as he is the FBI official who reportedly ordered the execution of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, whose suspected execution by FBI agents was caught on tape .
Because the Oregon ranchers have now been acquitted by a jury, it means FBI head James Comey seems to have ordered the shooting and killing of an innocent man .
Under Comey — and to the dismay of the many great agents working inside the FBI — Comey may have turned the agency toward a lawless armed tyranny that guns down innocent Americans while letting corrupt criminal politicians go free. For many FBI agents who have spent their entire careers serving the FBI as honest, dedicated federal agents, the thought of allowing James Comey to single-handedly commit political arson and burn down the FBI’s hard-won reputation is just too much to bear.
Resignations are beginning to pile up on Comey’s desk as livid FBI agents head for the exits…
Via the Daily Mail:
“The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,” said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades… [Comey] told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.
“And while the decision to reopen the case may appease FBI agents and republicans, in the short-term, we suspect it does very little to restore overall faith in his competence. As such, we continue to question just how long Comey can hold out before being forced to resign his post,” adds Zero Hedge . “At a bare minimum, in light of his continued questionable judgement and serious doubts raised about the integrity of the first investigation, we fail to understand how an independent investigation into Hillary’s email server isn’t warranted.” James Comey is an arsonist, and he’s going to burn the FBI to the ground unless his agents mutiny
The upshot of all this is that James Comey is an arsonist. If his own agents don’t force him to apply the law to the Clinton investigations, Comey will burn the agency to the ground, leaving its reputation in ashes. And that, sadly, will make the world a very dangerous place for all the FBI agents in the field, because everyday Americans would begin to see them all as corrupt, lawless tyrants working as part of a criminal regime in Washington that refuses to apply laws to its own kind.
The truth is that most FBI agents are hard working, professional men and women who are desperately trying to shut down the operations of terrorists, financial fraudsters, kidnappers, murderers and other dangerous criminals. Yet if James Comey doesn’t defend the FBI’s reputation by indicting Hillary Clinton , he will likely be placing FBI field agents in grave danger as they face the wrath of citizens who begin to see them all as part of a corrupt criminal tyranny run by the political mafia in D.C.
Comey, in other words, is more dangerous to the entire FBI than any other single person in Washington right now. If he doesn’t find his moral compass and guide the FBI through this crisis with law and order intact, he’s going to go down in history (and in flames) as the man who forever destroyed the credibility of the FBI and likely turned his field agents into ready targets for an enraged populace.
No doubt, he’ll get an extra bonus from Loretta Lynch if he once again decides to nullify the rule of law in America and announce that Hillary won’t be subject to the same laws that would immediately ensnare anyone else. Remember: If Comey gives Hillary Clinton a free pass, he demonstrates to all Americans that lawlessness is now the accepted standard of conduct in Washington . And if our political leaders will not be held to account for their crimes, then practically speaking, why should any citizen feel compelled to follow any federal laws at all? James Comey: If you want to salvage the FBI’s reputation, announce a recommendation for the indictment of both Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch
If there’s one thing abundantly clear in all this, it’s that both Hillary Clinton and Loretta Lynch should be behind bars . Clinton is a lifelong criminal and mafia boss. Lynch is a third-rate attorney who was tossed into the DOJ solely because of her gender and skin color, not her credentials. And neither one respects the laws of America, of course. Both are deeply corrupt.
If the FBI hopes to have any reputation remaining after the Hillary Clinton campaign implodes either before or on November 8th, Comey needs to come out strong right now and lay out the evidence that unambiguously shows Hillary Clinton had CLEAR INTENT to violate national security laws , among other serious crimes.
All Comey would have to say is something like, “In the view of the FBI, Hillary Clinton is clearly not qualified to serve as Commander in Chief, and we recommend she be indicted for violations of national security…” and so on. With a single sentence, Comey could reinvigorate the FBI and position himself as an historic American hero.
Right now, I’d imagine the Clinton machine is mailing bloody body parts in tiny wooden coffins to James Comey’s home address, along with notes that say something like, “You’re next.” Let’s watch and see if he grows a spine and refuses to be intimidated. Post navigation | 0 |
Women’s Breaststroke: In the days leading up to this race, the American Lilly King criticized her Russian opponent, reigning world champion Yulia Efimova, for her “drug cheating,” a reference to Efimova’s doping suspension which ended in early 2015. During qualifying the two rivals exchanged taunts, which led to a tense final. In the end, King had the last word, breaking an Olympic record in the process. Her time of 1:04. 93 beat the 1:05. 17 swam by Australia’s Leisel Jones in 2008. Efimova took the silver at 1:05. 50. Follow us here for the latest updates on our Olympics coverage. In a interview with NBC, King said, “You wave your finger No. 1 and you’ve been caught drug cheating?” “I’m not a fan,” she added. Read Karen Crouse’s story on the race and the rivalry here. Men’s 100 Backstroke: The United States has claimed every gold medal in the men’s backstroke since Canada’s Mark Tewksbury touched the wall of a second before the American Jeff Rouse in 1992. Ryan Murphy, a Olympian, kept the streak intact Monday and set an Olympic record in the process. He was timed in 51. 97, missing the world record, set by Aaron Peirsol in 2009, by of a second. Xu Jiayu of China won the silver, barely, over Murphy’s teammate, David Plummer. Xu was timed in 52. 31 to Plummer’s 52. 40. — KAREN CROUSE On paper, Tuesday looks like one of those days destined for Olympic magic and neverending highlight reels. Gymnastics: Simone Biles and the U. S. women’s gymnastics team are the heavy favorites in the team competition. The Americans dominated in individual qualifying and would have to fall hard to miss gold. Swimming: Katie Ledecky made her freestyle debut in an competition at last summer’s world championships and won. If she wins the gold against a strong field that includes Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, Ledecky will be of the way to becoming the first swimmer since Debbie Meyer in 1968 to win the 200, 400 and 800 at the same Olympics. One of the most anticipated showdowns of the Rio Games takes place when Michael Phelps tries to avenge his 2012 Olympic loss to South Africa’s Chad Le Clos in the butterfly. Katinka Hosszu shattered the world record in the 400 individual medley on Saturday, and she will look to do the same to her world mark in the 200 I. M. How to Watch: NBC broadcasts on a tape delay, but you can stream all the events here. Japan returned to the top of the men’s gymnastics world, beating Russia and China in the team event. The event was a renewal of the longtime gymnastics rivalry between Japan and China. China had won the last two gold medals, in 2008 and 2012. But Japan had Kohei Uchimura, the world’s best gymnast — and perhaps the best of all time — anchoring their team. In the final rotation, Japan took on Russia in the floor exercise, holding a slim lead of 0. 208 points. Japan went first. After an outstanding score from Kenzo Shirai and a good one from Ryohei Kato, Uchimura locked down the win with a 15. 6. Combined, it was the best team floor exercise score of the night. Russia finished second, and China took the bronze. A second Olympic boxer has been arrested and jailed on charges of sexual assault, a Brazilian police official said Monday, raising concerns over safety at the athletes’ village for the locals who work there. The arrest of the boxer, Jonas Junius of Namibia, came on Sunday after a judicial order requesting it. The authorities transferred Junius from a police precinct to a prison in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, said a police official, Rodrigo Moreira. The accuser was Brazilian, Moreira said. The boxer “attempted to grab and kiss the cleaning lady” in the hallway of the 11th floor of a building in the Olympic Village on Sunday, the Rio de Janeiro state civil police said in a statement. The woman immediately contacted the police, Moreira said. The arrest came just two days after the Moroccan boxer Hassan Saada was arrested on similar charges, which led to his missing an Olympic bout Saturday and being disqualified for the rest of the Rio Games. He has been transferred to the same prison Junius was sent to on Monday and is serving a preliminary prison sentence. Junius, who carried his country’s flag in Friday’s opening ceremony, was scheduled to fight Hassan Amzile of France on Thursday in a bout in the round of 32. — VINOD SREEHARSHA Swimming: Conor Dwyer won the bronze medal in the men’s freestyle, missing a silver by 0. 03 seconds when Chad le Clos of South Africa edged him at the wall with a 1:45. 20. Sun Yang of China won the gold in 1:44. 65. Fencing: Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first United States Olympian in any sport to compete at a Games while wearing a hijab. Muhammad won her first match before losing in the round of 16. Tennis: Caroline Wozniacki, Denmark’s at the opening ceremony, lost to Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, . Field Hockey: Having already defeated Argentina, the No. team in the world, the United States women’s field hockey team did it again on Monday, beating Australia, which is ranked No. 3. Both victories came by a score. Swimming: The Olympian Lilly King heads into the breaststroke as one of only two American women — Katie Ledecky is the other — to enter the Games with the world’s top time in an event this year. Rugby: Women will receive Olympic medals in rugby for the first time ever when the rugby sevens bronze and gold medal matches are decided. | 1 |
Americans Go to the Polls to Choose Destiny for Nation November 08, 2016 Americans Go to the Polls to Choose Destiny for Nation
Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump face voters on Tuesday as millions of Americans turn out on Election Day to pick the next U.S. president and end a bruising campaign that polls said favored Clinton. In a battle centered largely on the character of the candidates, Clinton, 69, a former secretary of state and first lady, and Trump, 70, a New York businessman, made their final, fervent appeals to supporters late on Monday to turn out the vote. World markets braced for the outcome of one of the most contentious U.S. presidential elections in history, with stocks up slightly on cautious expectations of a Clinton win. The dollar and bond yields slipped, while gold inched up. Oil markets were rattled as well. Clinton arrived to cast her ballot at an elementary school in her hometown of Chappaqua, New York, on Tuesday morning. Trump, who planned to vote later in Manhattan, began Election Day with a ritual call to the "Fox & Friends" morning news show. "I'm a little bit superstitious," he said. "I've won many primaries speaking to you first in the morning. Each then hoped to hold an evening victory rally about a mile apart in New York City.
The final week of campaigning was a grinding series of get-out-the-vote rallies across battleground states where the election is likely to be decided.
"We choose to believe in a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America," Clinton said in Philadelphia before a crowd of 33,000 - the largest of her campaign.
She was joined by Democratic President Barack Obama; his wife, Michelle; and Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, along with singers Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.
She later made another star-studded appeal in Raleigh, North Carolina, flanked again by Bon Jovi and by Lady Gaga in a midnight rally.
LISTEN MORE: PASTOR RICK WILES AND GUEST AARON BRICKMAN DISCUSS THE AMERICA'S ELECTION DESTINY
At an evening rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump brought much of his family and running mate Mike Pence on stage. The raucous event in the state that gave Trump his first primary win featured a fog machine and red-white-and-blue lasers.
Later, Trump visited the traditionally Democratic state of Michigan, where he framed his candidacy as a historic choice for blue-collar voters he hopes will send him to the White House.
“Today is our Independence Day,” Trump said in Grand Rapids. "Today the American working class is going to strike back, finally."
News from Reuters , Editing and commentary from TRUNEWS Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles | 0 |
The Corruption of the Clinton’s is like an endless dark pit of lies and manipulation.
I am so sick of Clinton’s and I can’t believe anyone would vote for her. This FBI that is lying and trying to change documentation should be held to a legal standard and people who have tried to hide documentation and have lied should be thrown in prison for treason!
As far as how the media treats Hillary Clinton, if you’ve noticed, they treat her like a queen. The liberal media likes to pamper, lie, and make sure America knows she is the best option. We, however, know better. So does Jason Chaffetz.
For those of you who do it know who Chaffetz is, he is the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman who famously told the guy who destroyed Hillary’s email server that he was served on live TV. Now he just served up a brutal threat to Hillary Clinton and she is running scared.
HOUSE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM CHAIRMAN JASON CHAFFETZ CONFIRMED IT WILL HOLD ADDITIONAL HEARINGS ON DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER WHEN MEMBERS RETURN FROM RECESS.
NEW FBI DOCUMENTS RELEASED MONDAY SHOW UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE PATRICK KENNEDY PUSHING THE FBI TO DECLASSIFY EMAILS IN EXCHANGE FOR A “QUID PRO QUO” DEAL — A MOVE CHAFFETZ AND HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN DEVIN NUNES FOUND DEEPLY TROUBLING.
“Undoubtedly there will be, based on the documents the FBI released today there are new facts that need to be investigated. I’m very concerned about the quid pro quo that was in negotiation between the State Department and the FBI,” Chaffetz told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Chairman Nunes and I believe Patrick Kennedy should be relieved of his duties immediately pending an investigation. This is a manipulation if not an outright crime and so we’re gonna drive into that.”
While the downgrade discussed between the agency officials didn’t come into fruition, the congressmen were clear they believe the proposal was inappropriate. | 0 |
CALABAZO, Colombia — Skinny but imposing with aviator glasses, a bushy mustache and a toothy smile, Julio Henríquez Santamaría was leading a community meeting in this sylvan hamlet when he was abducted by paramilitary thugs, thrown into the back of a Toyota pickup and disappeared forever on Feb. 4, 2001. Ahead of his time, Mr. Henríquez had been organizing farmers to substitute legal crops like cacao for coca, which the current Colombian government, on the verge of ending a civil war fueled by the narcotics trade, is promoting as an antidrug strategy. But Hernán Giraldo Serna, or his men, didn’t like it, or him. From his early days as a marijuana farmer, Mr. Giraldo had grown into El Patrón, a narcotics kingpin and paramilitary commander whose mission had devolved into a murderous criminal enterprise controlling much of Colombia’s northern coast. Mr. Henríquez was hardly his only victim Mr. Giraldo, whose secondary alias was the Drill because of his rapacious appetite for underage girls, had all kinds. But Mr. Henríquez became the emblematic one, with a family tenacious enough to pursue Mr. Giraldo even after he, along with 13 other paramilitary leaders, was whisked out of Colombia and into the United States on May 13, 2008, to face drug charges. It happened in a extradition that stunned Colombia, where the men stood accused of atrocities in a transitional justice process that was abruptly interrupted. In the whoosh of a jet, and at the behest of the Colombian president, Álvaro Uribe, the United war on drugs seized priority over Colombia’s efforts to confront crimes against humanity that had scarred a generation. Victims’ advocates howled that it was like exporting “14 Pinochets. ” Mr. Henríquez’s family, meanwhile, quietly vowed to hold at least one of them accountable for the Colombian blood that stained the cocaine shipped to American shores. “We hope that the effort we have made over all these years means that things won’t end with impunity,” said his daughter Bela Henríquez Chacín, 32, who was 16 when her father was murdered and hopes to speak at Mr. Giraldo’s sentencing in Washington next month. The Henríquezes will be the first foreign victims ever given a voice in an international drug smuggling case in the United States, experts believe. Whether this recognition is more than symbolic remains to be seen. Mr. Giraldo’s fellow extraditees have received relatively lenient treatment for major drug traffickers who were also designated terrorists responsible for massacres, forced disappearances and the displacement of entire villages, an investigation by The New York Times found. Once the paramilitary Colombians — several dozen, all told — have completed their American prison terms, they will have served on average seven and a half years, The Times found. The leaders extradited en masse will have served an average of 10 years, at most, for drug conspiracies that involved tons of cocaine. By comparison, federal inmates convicted of crack cocaine trafficking — mostly dealers who sold less than an ounce — serve on average just over 12 years in prison. What’s more, for some, there is a special dividend at the end of their incarceration. Though wanted by the Colombian authorities, two have won permission to stay in the United States, and their families have joined them. Three more are seeking the same haven, and still others are expected to follow suit. “In the days of Pablo Escobar, they used to say they preferred a tomb in Colombia to a prison in the United States,” said Alirio Uribe Muñoz, a member of the Colombian Congress. “But maybe now extradition is a good deal. ” For 52 years, with abundant American support, the Colombian government has been locked in a ferocious armed conflict with leftist insurgents. Though it initially empowered paramilitary forces as military proxies, the government withdrew official sanction decades later, long after landowners and cartels had them. Before their demobilization in the the militiamen came to rival the guerrillas as drug traffickers and outdo them as human rights abusers. Now, eight years after the paramilitaries were extradited, Colombia has reached a peace deal with their mortal enemies, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (the FARC). Facing an Oct. 2 vote on the accord, the country is in the midst of a polarizing debate about crime and punishment for the FARC, informed by what went wrong during the paramilitary peace process. Nobody is advocating that justice be abdicated to the United States this time. But the paramilitary chapter of the country’s history is not closed, and remains “totally full of blanks,” said María Teresa Ronderos, the author of “Recycled Wars,” a history of Colombian paramilitarism. “Nobody knows what happened to those guys. ” For years, the Justice Department shrouded the militiamen’s cases in secrecy, not only sealing sensitive documents but also hiding basic information and sometimes even erasing defendants like Mr. Giraldo from the public docket. Using interviews, recently unsealed legal briefs, transcripts of hearings, internal government documents, and information obtained from Colombia and the United States, The Times examined the cases of 40 extradited paramilitary members and associates. Most were handsomely rewarded for pleading guilty and cooperating with the American authorities they were treated as offenders despite extensive criminal histories in Colombia and they received credit for time served there, even though the official rationale for their extradition was that they were committing crimes in Colombian jails. Take Salvatore Mancuso, who the government said “may well be one of the most prolific cocaine traffickers ever prosecuted in a United States District Court” and whom Colombian courts found responsible for the death or disappearance of more than 1, 000 people. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he faced 30 years to life in prison. Because of his extensive cooperation, however, prosecutors — one of whom characterized Mr. Mancuso in an interview as “always a gentleman to me” — asked for just under 22 years. A federal judge sentenced him to 15 years and 10 months. In the end, he will spend little more than 12 years behind bars in the United States. “It’s crazy,” said Roxanna Altholz, the associate director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, who represents the Henríquezes. “These individuals are the worst of the worst. They are drug lords and war criminals. Why should they be getting any benefits?” Early on, federal prosecutors addressed Ms. Altholz’s qualms by saying, “We’re going to put them away it doesn’t matter what for. ” But as she and other human rights advocates saw it, it did matter: Crimes against humanity outrank drug crimes, and the United States could have indicted the men for crimes of torture, too — or simply given the Colombian transitional justice system a chance. The American authorities think the extraditions served a critical purpose at a historic juncture, “demonstrating to the Colombian people that there are no such things as untouchables,” as one put it. Eventually, said a Department of Justice spokesman, Peter Carr, the Americans provided the Colombians with “unique and unprecedented” access to imprisoned foreign defendants so that the transitional justice process, called Justice and Peace, could continue. Mr. Giraldo will be the last of the extradited paramilitaries sentenced. Though the United States Marshals Service said it was improbable that The Times would be able to meet with him — demanding that permission be obtained from the prisoner, his lawyer, his warden, an assistant United States attorney general and a federal judge — a reporter and a photographer did succeed in visiting Mr. Giraldo at a Virginia jail last month. In a baggy blue coverall, El Patrón, 68 now, appeared a markedly deflated version of his formerly fearsome self. His hair has grayed, his weight has dropped, his step has slowed. He passes his days weaving purses from bags and selling them to other inmates for “siete pollos,” seven portions of chicken from the commissary. “Look,” he said proudly, tugging at the shoulder strap of a bag. “They are . ” Shortly before midnight on May 12, 2008, Mr. Giraldo was jostled awake in a jail in Barranquilla, instructed to pack a small suitcase and then hustled onto a flight to Bogotá, the capital. No explanation was offered. Once in Bogotá, he was handcuffed to waist chains, shackled at the ankles and loaded onto an American government plane with a veritable who’s who of paramilitary heavyweights. They flew in stony silence, furious that Colombia’s president, with whom they had a “shared ideology,” as Mr. Giraldo put it, had broken his promise not to extradite them. After years of declining to turn over the men, President Uribe had suddenly made an urgent appeal to the Americans: Those wanted paramilitary leaders? Take them. Immediately. He wanted them picked up after the Colombian Supreme Court closed for the day and flown out before the court resumed the next morning, said a United States official who agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity. Mr. Uribe said he feared that the court might block the extraditions if they did not act hurriedly. The Americans snapped into action, though it was a logistical challenge. They needed to “move the men from four corners of Colombia to one location, then the aircraft needed to go wheels up with all prisoners onboard prior to the court opening for business the next day,” the official said. At one point, the official said, the Drug Enforcement Administration had six aircraft “in play” to ferry the men through Bogotá and Guantánamo, Cuba, to courthouses in Florida, New York, Texas and Washington, D. C. Why did the American government go to such lengths to accommodate a Colombian president who, as it turned out, may have had political motivations of his own? “The driving policy during the Bush administration was cooperation on efforts,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division. “Not human rights, not atrocities, not to make victims of crimes against humanity committed by these bastards have a day in court in Colombia. “So what do you do if overnight you get as a gift from the president of Colombia 14 guys wanted for narcotics? You just welcome them. ” This is a crime story tangled up in geopolitics. Colombia is the United States’ closest ally and largest aid recipient in the region, and the partnership has focused on combating narcotics, guerrillas and terrorism. Both the guerrillas and the paramilitary groups funded their activities with drug money, collecting “war taxes” and providing security for traffickers in their areas. But the drug enforcement authorities focused primarily on the at first the paramilitaries, while opponents in the war on drugs, were technically on the same side as the Colombian and American governments in the civil war. After 2000, however, when paramilitary troops reportedly committed at least 75 massacres, Washington shifted its perspective. On Sept. 10, 2001, a day before his attention turned elsewhere, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell designated the United Forces of Colombia, known as the AUC, a foreign terrorist organization, just like the FARC. Drug indictments of key paramilitary leaders followed, and Mr. Uribe, elected in 2002 with a vow to crack down on leftist rebels, used the threat of extradition to motivate the paramilitary leaders to lay down their arms. Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Uribe, whose toughness made him a popular president, wholly embraced extradition as a drug tool. “The biggest commodities traded between Colombia and the U. S. were coffee, cocaine and ” said Robert Feitel, Mr. Giraldo’s lawyer. But for years, Mr. Uribe carved out an exception for the paramilitary men, saying he wanted to give Justice and Peace a chance. The initial Justice and Peace Law was relatively toothless a Times editorial called it the “Impunity for Mass Murderers, Terrorists and Major Cocaine Traffickers Law. ” But in 2006, the Colombian Constitutional Court strengthened it, granting victims a central role, increasing the maximum punishment to eight years in prison, and demanding full and truthful confessions. Much to Mr. Uribe’s consternation, the leaders then began confessing not only their war crimes but also their ties to his allies and relatives. The Colombian Supreme Court — responsible for investigating lawmakers — undertook an aggressive “ ” inquiry that ensnared many in the president’s coalition. Mr. Uribe fought back, accusing the justices of leftist bias and conspiracies against him. His intelligence agency illegally wiretapped the Supreme Court and individual judges he denied involvement. Then in April 2008, Mario Uribe, the president’s cousin and a former Senate president, was arrested and accused of conspiring with paramilitary death squads. A few weeks later, Colombia woke up to police photos of the paramilitary leaders being boarded onto American planes. “The whole country was shocked,” said Miguel Samper Strouss, a former vice minister of justice in charge of transitional justice policy. “It was like they had extradited our chances for knowing the truth and for getting justice and reparation for our victims. ” By 2008, the Justice and Peace process, while slow and flawed, had become a real process. Some 200, 000 victims had registered to participate thousands of crimes had been confessed and thousands of hidden graves revealed. Publicly, Mr. Uribe — whose representatives did not respond to The Times — justified his interruption of this process by claiming that the men had been continuing to run their illegal operations from jail. The commanders themselves, however, firmly believed that Mr. Uribe shipped them out to silence them. And many of their victims’ leading advocates agreed. “They were, collectively, going to deliver testimony that directly implicated Uribe,” said Senator Iván Cepeda, who founded the influential Movement for Victims of State Crimes. “Afterward, the authorities entered the cells where they had their computers, their USBs, and they took it all. All the work they had been doing, all the proof they were going to present to Justice, disappeared. “Those extraditions marked a before and an after,” Mr. Cepeda continued. “If the intention really was to achieve silence and impunity, it was obtained to a high degree. Only now, after so many years, are we starting to see results. ” At the Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Va. the other Colombians used to rise when Mr. Giraldo entered an English language classroom. They would sharpen his pencils and fetch his papers, said Ted Hull, the superintendent. Were it not for that, Mr. Giraldo’s jailers would have had no hint that he was ever a force to be reckoned with. That the senior prisoner who limps from sciatica and speaks with his hands because he never conquered English once ran a paramilitary bloc found responsible for 1, 800 serious human rights violations with over 4, 000 victims — they said. Mr. Giraldo is now the type of docile inmate who reflexively crosses his wrists behind his back even when they are not cuffed. Yet here in the territory that Mr. Giraldo controlled, from the bustling market in the port city of Santa Marta up through the Sierra Nevada foothills and back down to the Caribbean coast, he remains the godfather in the brimmed hat and jaunty scarf whose commanding presence is still palpable. “This man, from the time he demobilized, left behind armed groups guarding his territory,” said Priscila Zúñiga, the security adviser to Santa Marta’s mayor. “We have not stopped, from 2006 to 2016, having an illegal armed presence in the area. ” Now it’s called the Giraldo Clan. Ms. Zúñiga spoke in the modular office that she has stationed beside the marketplace, along with a new police post inside, to signal that the government is wresting control from Mr. Giraldo’s men, who still try to extort an “inoculation” fee for “protection” in his name. The heavy police presence jumps out at visitors, but in general the region hides its history, and lurking menace, well. It is nearly impossible to imagine bodies buried in secret graves beneath this landscape, where peaks rise above beaches dotted with weathered fishing boats as boughs of arborescent ferns dip into rivers with women scrubbing laundry. From the start, Mr. Giraldo’s personal history, pieced together from interviews, court records, government documents and his public confessions, intersected with Colombia’s intense civil conflict. He was born in 1948, the year that kicked off the decade of politically motivated bloodletting known as La Violencia. He did not seem destined for leadership. He had a education when he left home to become an itinerant farmhand. His lawyer, who likes to turn a phrase, says that even now, Mr. Giraldo remains “a quintessential campesino at heart” — “the kind of guy who wants to get up at the crack of dawn, and draw lines in the hardened earth under a blazing sun. ” By the 1970s, Mr. Giraldo was rising early to get in on “la bonanza marimbera” — the marijuana boom that preceded the cocaine boom. He organized a mule transport service to gather the marijuana from isolated farms and deliver it to the coast. He was first drawn into violence after his younger brother was killed during a robbery at the Santa Marta market. To avenge the death, Mr. Giraldo contracted a private security group led by a thug called Dracula six men were murdered at the start of a long “social cleansing” campaign to eliminate “undesirables” — thieves, prostitutes, homosexuals, unfaithful women, witches and leftists. After Dracula himself was killed, Mr. Giraldo took over his business, inheriting its subsidiary interest in the nascent cocaine industry controlled by the Medellín cartel. He transformed the security group into a ragtag militia when the FARC sought a foothold in his territory and tried three times to assassinate him. His troops trained under an Israeli mercenary, and to practice what they had learned, they slaughtered union workers at banana farms that were supposedly guerrilla strongholds. Mr. Giraldo was arrested as a mastermind of the massacres. That was when he came onto the Americans’ radar, identified in a diplomatic cable as a “ assassin of the Medellín cartel” whose detention “demonstrates that Colombian officials are not turning a blind eye to murders committed by the rightists. ” Eventually he was convicted and sentenced to 20 years. But by that point, eluding justice, he had exiled himself in the remote Sierra Nevada. From there he ruled his dominion for almost two more decades, protected by a personal security detail of 200 men but also by the elite families that backed him and the rural people dependent on him, the local authorities say. “He didn’t use a camp per se, like the guerrillas,” Ms. Zúñiga said. “His camp was the community because he was part of the community. So the houses were his houses, the farms were his farms. “Despite being, for us, a criminal, he was always seen with much respect — and not just respect out of fear, but respect for the order he gave to the area, because there was a great absence of the state there. ” When Mr. Henríquez’s older daughter, Nadiezhda, first met Mr. Giraldo, she encountered an almost benign side of him as a local authority. A young teacher then, she appreciated it when Mr. Giraldo resolved a dispute between her tiny school and the local fishermen storing their gear in the classrooms. She also got a glimpse at his more sinister side, however. She lost her three female students when their mother sent them away to protect them from El Patrón. “He was starting to rape girls,” she said. Like a feudal overlord, Mr. Giraldo exercised “a kind of droit du seigneur” over girls in the region, said a Colombian law enforcement official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the news media. “People brought him their daughters or facilitated his sexual relations with them because it was a way to safeguard their lives — if you have ties to the chief, you feel protected,” he said. After Mr. Giraldo laid down his arms, a prosecutor asked him at a public hearing why he was called the Drill. He blushed, but seemed proud of the nickname, observers said. The prosecutor then asked pointedly if it had anything to do with rumors that he liked virgin girls. “That could be,” he said. Colombian prosecutors began to take a closer look at his relations with girls and women, starting with the mothers of the 24 children he acknowledges. Eventually, they labeled Mr. Giraldo “the biggest sexual predator of paramilitarism. ” In the Justice and Peace process, he accepted responsibility for 35 acts of violence — some committed by his subordinates — including the rape of 11 girls under age 14. The prosecutors’ summary of the cases reads like a litany of uninformed consent wrapped inside a pathological dynamic. Victim No. 6: “It is documented that in the month of October of 2004,” the girl, referred to as Yajanis, visited an aunt who worked at Mr. Giraldo’s ranch. A few months later, “he proposed that she be his girlfriend, a proposition that she accepted, and on Dec. 25, 2004, they had their first sexual relations, when Yajanis was barely 13. ” He was 56. Based on an analysis of birth certificates, Humanas Colombia, a feminist organization, estimated that at least 13 underage girls bore children who were the “product of violent carnal intercourse committed” by Mr. Giraldo. Nine were under 14 when they gave birth. And some victims were probably too young to get pregnant, like the daughter of one of his cooks. Adriana Benjumea Rúa, the director of Humanas, said Mr. Giraldo had bought the child dolls and instructed her, ‘Never tell your mama, because I will kill her. ’” From the moment police inspectors arrived here to investigate the disappearance of Julio Henríquez, they were stonewalled. “The law of silence prevailed,” a police report said. Mr. Henríquez’s wife and older daughter had faced the same fears when they rushed to this village after getting the phone call that he had been abducted. “Leave it alone,” they were told, which infuriated Nadiezhda Henríquez Chacín, 42, now a human rights lawyer and a fierce one. “They will kill me one day, but it won’t be because I was afraid,” she said in an interview in Bogotá. An ardent environmentalist, her father himself had been fearless, determined to work alongside farmers and fishermen to reclaim the rugged region from the drug trade, she said. On his large property, he was creating a nature preserve, planting indigenous trees and uprooting marijuana and coca planted without his consent. He was not antidrug in a moralistic way, but alarmed by the deforestation caused by coca cultivation, his daughter said. Mr. Giraldo maintained at a hearing in Colombia that he had no direct involvement in Mr. Henríquez’s disappearance, but that he had instructed his men, “Everything that smells of subversion has to be removed from the area. ” And Mr. Henríquez had belonged to the guerrilla movement, though he had been granted amnesty 17 years before his abduction. But his new activism — he had just formed a nongovernmental organization called Mother Earth — was a threat, an soldier, Carmelo Sierra, told prosecutors. “It’s obvious Mr. Hernán did not agree with what this man was proposing to the peasants, because he grows coca — and because encroaching on his turf was sufficient motive to kill somebody,” Mr. Sierra testified. “The Mafia does not forgive. ” Mr. Sierra said Mr. Giraldo had sent a son, El Grillo (the Cricket) to deliver a warning: Leave town or deal with the consequences. But Mr. Henríquez did not budge. So seven of Mr. Giraldo’s men were plucked from a morning lineup, instructed to change into civilian clothing, loaded onto a flatbed and sent down the mountain “to disappear the gentleman from the NGO. ” “I sincerely do not know what happened to him,” Mr. Sierra testified. “I don’t know if they slit his throat, or chopped him into pieces. I don’t know how he died nor where they buried him. ” Eight months later, antidrug agents investigating Mr. Giraldo’s business were murdered along with tourists and a hotel worker at a beachside restaurant. This unleashed a big counternarcotics operation and then a bloody paramilitary power struggle, at the end of which Mr. Giraldo’s “resistance front” suffered a hostile takeover by another warlord, Rodrigo . In 2004, Mr. Giraldo and Mr. were indicted in Washington in a conspiracy to manufacture and distribute cocaine bound for the United States. In a superseding indictment the next year, prosecutors said the two men controlled or were involved in the shipment of thousands of kilograms of cocaine that left northern Colombia on “ boats,” rigged with extra motors and fuel. In 2006, Mr. Giraldo and over a thousand of his fighters laid down their arms — 597 of them along with 73, 400 rounds of ammunition — in the paramilitary peace process. The next year, Mr. Giraldo’s lawyer provided coordinates that ultimately led the authorities to Mr. Henríquez’s decomposed body in a clandestine grave. Nadiezhda Henríquez attended the exhumation with her mother. It was a chilling coda to years of hoping against hope. “I never thought we would find him as we found him: in a mountain tomb, so very green, beneath a tree, near streams that turn into rivers, with moss and stone of the Sierra Nevada,’’ Ms. Henríquez said in a statement filed with the court on Thursday. “With his two hands tied behind his back and two coups de grâce shots to the head, in clothing that was not his, missing a shoe, missing a foot, missing part of his mouth. Only bones. ” Mr. Henríquez’s family distrusted the Justice and Peace process, and pushed for Mr. Giraldo to be tried in an ordinary criminal court for the forced disappearance. In 2009, after his extradition, he was convicted in absentia, and sentenced to 38½ years in prison and reparations of 1, 000 grams of gold, about $43, 000. By that point, though, he was beyond the reach of Colombian justice. So the Henríquezes took their fight to America. A few months after Mr. Giraldo arrived in the United States, he was transferred to Northern Neck, whose inmate population was a combustible mix of Mexican drug traffickers, Central American gang leaders, “jihadi terrorists,” and Colombian combatants from both sides who got along fine, Mr. Hull, the superintendent, said. “To be honest with you — I don’t want to sound like I’m pandering or excusing terrorism — but both the FARC and the AUC, they were model inmates,” he said. “I got the vibe: ‘I’m busted, and I’m out.’ Every one of them was cooperating” with prosecutors. None of the paramilitary defendants went to trial. Almost all had private lawyers. Mr. Giraldo said that his family was poor, and that “a friend” was underwriting his American legal costs. Fees could be substantial: A document in Mr. ’s case reveals that he paid his lawyer $390, 000. “The only people who ever win in the great extradition game are the lawyers,” said Mr. Feitel, Mr. Giraldo’s lawyer. In the men’s defense, their American lawyers highlighted the political backdrop of their crimes, presenting them as freedom fighters whose movement became corrupted by drugs. One defense lawyer, referring to American support for the Colombian military, went so far as to tell a judge that a notorious paramilitary leader named Carlos Jiménez Naranjo “was initially, and we can put it right on the record, financed by our own government. ” The authorities, in some instances, did seem to view the men as “substantively different” from purely drug lords, as Judge Reggie B. Walton of the United States District Court in Washington put it when he sentenced Mr. to 16½ years. “He was engaged in trying to fight an enemy that I think, probably, had that enemy won, it would not have enhanced the quality of life for people in Colombia,” the judge said. “So, I mean, he was engaged in some activity that had some positive perspectives. ” Robert Spelke, a retired federal narcotics prosecutor and the one who called Mr. Mancuso a gentleman, said, “Some of these guys were real thugs, but not that many. ” He continued: “It’s hard sometimes to believe they did what they did. Clearly, they did some nasty things. But, you know, it was a civil war down there. I always wanted to believe that if I was put in the same situation, I would have done things differently. But I don’t know. ” Ms. Altholz, who represents the Henríquezes, said she saw an irony: “Because these individuals took some kind of role in fighting ‘the evils of Communism’ embodied in the FARC,” their identity as warlords had become a mitigating rather than aggravating factor in their cases. A Colombian law enforcement official said he had hoped for far stiffer penalties as a for losing the men to the American justice system. “We all made many sacrifices to pursue them,” he said. “They threatened me. They displaced some of my colleagues. They killed several of my friends. We believed that they were going to get punishment more in line with the damage they did — at the least sentences greater than 20 years. ” In those cases examined by The Times, the sentences that could be determined — some remain sealed — ranged from probation to just over 30 years. Because “time served” was easier to ascertain, and because many sentences were reduced to “time served,” The Times used that as a metric. In exchange for their cooperation, most of the men got sentence reductions — sometimes before, sometimes after and sometimes both before and after sentencing. There was one notable exception, as far as The Times could determine. Federal prosecutors in New York declined to allow Diego Murillo Bejarano — alias Don Berna — to exchange information for benefits. He got 31 years. The one other paramilitary leader who received a sentence over 30 years expects it to be cut by 35 percent to 50 percent because of his cooperation, his lawyers said. In one instance, a senior federal judge in Ocala, Fla. balked at the idea of a second sentence reduction for a paramilitary chief. There reaches a point, said Judge William Terrell Hodges, when any further reduction “tends to denigrate the seriousness of the subject defendant’s criminal behavior and threatens to invite public disrespect for the administration of criminal justice. ” When Hebert Veloza Garcia, known as H. H. was sentenced this spring in Manhattan federal court, a prosecutor pronounced him an “extraordinary defendant” — “in terms of his very serious criminal conduct, but also in terms of his extraordinary cooperation. ” In his case, as in most, it is not possible to ascertain precisely how his cooperation helped the American government because specific information is redacted. But Mr. Veloza, according to Ruben Oliva, his lawyer, gave “a confession” that laid the groundwork for his own indictment, and “his assistance served to deal severe blows to major drug trafficking organizations as well as the violent and corrupt organizations that exist to both serve and prey upon them. ” The American government found Mr. Veloza responsible for trafficking more than 450 kilograms of cocaine. Sentenced to 11½ years, he will be released this fall after seven and a half years behind bars in the United States. Then, despite “all of the horrendous things you’ve done in the course of your life,” Judge William H. Pauley III told him, he will “get the chance to hit the restart button. ” He hopes to stay in the United States, Mr. Oliva said — though he has a Justice and Peace sentence awaiting him in Colombia for 85 crimes including torture and homicide. So far, two paramilitary associates have won haven in the United States on their release from prison: Juan Carlos Sierra, known as El Tuso, who spent five years in American prisons, and Carlos Mario Aguilar, alias Rogelio, who spent about seven. Both men have pending arrest warrants in Colombia, Mr. Sierra’s in connection with a murder, according to the Colombian attorney general’s office. Their families have received political asylum, as has the family of a third paramilitary associate, Mauricio López Cardona, known as Yiyo, who has also applied to stay. So, too, has Guillermo Pérez Alzate, a paramilitary leader extradited with Mr. Giraldo and released in June, having served less than half his original sentence. As convicted drug traffickers, these men do not qualify for asylum. Instead, they request a rare form of protection against expulsion under the Convention Against Torture, arguing that they would probably be tortured by their government, now led by President Juan Manuel Santos, a centrist. “I’m not suggesting President Santos would be personally lying in wait,” Mr. Oliva said. “But these guys wouldn’t make it out of the airport. Literally, they’d whack them in the airport. ” Mr. Samper, the former justice official, whose father was president of Colombia in the 1990s, called this argument “unbelievable. ” “We have the world’s finest individual protection program, as recognized by the Human Rights Commission,” he said. As a warlord and a drug lord, Salvatore Mancuso was a bigger player than Mr. Giraldo. He was also, unlike Mr. Giraldo, verbosely apologetic. Once he entered the Colombian transitional justice process, he talked and talked. He even sobbed as he asked forgiveness of his victims. Then he was extradited, and after almost a year went by, he felt compelled to take action “to prevent the stagnation and virtual death” of Justice and Peace. Or so he said in a florid letter to an unlikely pen pal — Piedad Córdoba, then a Liberal Party senator and a victim of a paramilitary kidnapping. “Respected Senator,” he wrote. “The situation that arose from our extradition has generated a state of helplessness, both for the victims and for us. ” In a kind of private truth and reconciliation effort, Ms. Córdoba, along with victims’ advocates including Mr. Cepeda, traveled to the United States for jailhouse meetings with Mr. Mancuso — prison officials declined to let him be interviewed by The Times — and other warlords. Mr. Cepeda said he asked one of them point blank if he knew who had killed his father, a leftist senator murdered in 1994. The paramilitary leader, Don Berna, not only threw out some names but agreed to reveal them to Colombian prosecutors, he said. It took six months to arrange a meeting. “Finally, the stars aligned and we went with a Colombian prosecutor, and somebody from the Department of Justice, and succeeded in obtaining his testimony,” Mr. Cepeda said. “But that was me. A campesino from Córdoba or Antioquia, where there are thousands of victims, would never have been able to go through this exercise. ” Colombia’s attorney general and justices joined advocates in complaining to the Obama administration, which had inherited the cases, that their pursuit of justice was being thwarted. As a result, in 2010, the Justice Department created an “access plan,” promising to make about a dozen key paramilitaries available for or video interviews — if the men were willing. Mr. Carr, spokesman for the Justice Department, said that more than 2, 000 video depositions and interviews with paramilitary leaders had taken place, and that some had been televised to centers in Colombia from which victims could ask questions. Still, even in the cases of those leaders like Mr. Mancuso who participated most actively, these sessions were insufficient, according to a Colombian prosecutor who testified last year in his case. “In total, we progressed maybe 8 percent of what we have to progress,” said the prosecutor, Giovanni Álvarez Santoyo. He noted that Mr. Mancuso had been charged in 4, 800 “matters,” from “murder to forced disappearances, through forced removals, recruiting of minors, sexual violence, sexual slavery, and related crimes such as kidnapping, terrorism, theft and destruction of protected property. ” It is impossible to know how things would have been different if the leaders had not been extradited — whether more truth would have been divulged, whether greater or quicker justice would have been done, and whether the paramilitary groups would have been more successfully, or less successfully, dismantled. Iván Velásquez, who led the Supreme Court’s paramilitary corruption investigation, said at a forum in Bogotá a few years ago that the by paramilitary leaders was not impressive before or after the extraditions. “Many of them reduced a good part of their ‘collaboration,’ as we call their obligation to tell the truth, to relating in a decontextualized manner the murders committed — justifying them by portraying their victims as guerrillas dressed in civilian clothing — and revealing the locations of graves,” he said. Guaranteeing “nonrepetition” of their atrocities would have required far more — “revelations about the sponsors, financiers, promoters, beneficiaries or owners of those criminal structures, which in many cases remain intact,” he said. Over the past decade, 128 members have been sentenced in the Justice and Peace process, out of more than 1, 000 detained, according to the Colombian government. But even as the country prepares to set up another transitional justice system for the FARC, Justice and Peace keeps inching forward. As do the inquiries: In February, Mr. Uribe’s younger brother, Santiago, was arrested for supposed ties to a death squad, the Twelve Apostles. The former president himself was investigated last year for alleged paramilitary ties, but not charged. Now a senator, he considers investigations of him and his family to be politically motivated. Mr. Uribe is the most virulent critic of his successor’s peace deal with the guerrillas he accuses Mr. Santos of what he himself was accused of in relation to the militias: offering impunity to war criminals. President Santos has said he hopes that one dividend of the peace accord will be a reduction in the drug trafficking that financed the internal armed conflict. Coca cultivation has been soaring in Colombia, with a significant increase over the last couple of years in acreage dedicated to drug crops. Extradition as a panacea has fallen out of favor. Colombia extraditions to the United States were half as frequent in 2015 — 109 — as the year the paramilitary leaders were sent away. And the new accord, if approved by voters, would guarantee the guerrilla leaders protection against extradition for their drug smuggling — with the blessing of the Americans. “If you want to see that as the U. S.’s contribution to the peace process, you’re welcome to do so,” Kevin Whitaker, the American ambassador to Colombia, told Radio Caracol. This year, two young women cautiously approached the authorities in Santa Marta. They had decided to reveal that they had been victims of Mr. Giraldo’s sexual violence even after he surrendered and pledged to stop committing crimes. When they were under 14, they said, they were taken to Mr. Giraldo for conjugal visits, both in a special detention zone for paramilitary members and later in a jail. So potentially damaging are their allegations that the young women are now in protective custody. “This year, it fell to me, initially, to protect the two girls who made the denunciations, and we got them out of the area because Giraldo’s sons were going to kill them,” said Ms. Zúñiga, the Santa Marta security chief. Mr. Giraldo called the allegations “lies. ” “Lots of victims are popping up in Colombia because they give them money,” he said, referring to reparations, which relatively few victims have obtained. If proved, the allegations would be grounds to deny Mr. Giraldo the alternative sentence he would get under Justice and Peace. He would face spending the rest of his life in a Colombian prison — if the United States sent him back. This is an eventuality that the Henríquezes do not think they can bank on. It took almost eight years for the United States to recognize them as victims of standing in Mr. Giraldo’s American case. Their lawyers took a novel approach in arguing that the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 applied to them. They argued that even though Mr. Henríquez was a foreign victim of a foreign crime, his murder was a consequence of the drug conspiracy to which Mr. Giraldo pleaded guilty. The Justice Department did not agree, and for years did not confer with the Henriquezes about major case decisions or keep them apprised of proceedings. And the Henríquezes were in the complete dark because the Justice Department had gotten the judge to seal key events and records in the case — as well as to seal its motion requesting the sealing. It was not until the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed suit last year that the docket for the case was made public. Although Judge Walton initially denied the Henríquezes status as victims, he changed his mind after the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia urged him to reconsider. “I think the movants have established their burden of showing that but for the defendant’s involvement in the conspiracy the decedent would not have been killed,” he said at a hearing in March. Mr. Feitel, who considers the Henríquezes “pesky, phony victims barking at my client’s heels,” was disappointed. From a broader perspective, Paul G. Cassell, a former federal judge and an expert on victims’ rights, said international drug smuggling cases were generally treated like victimless crimes. “This is truly ” he said. It could have implications for violent drug lords like Joaquín Guzmán — El Chapo — whose extradition has been approved by Mexico. After the March hearing, Ms. Altholz called Mr. Henríquez’s daughters from outside the federal courthouse. “Ganamos!” she said. “We won!” The Henríquez sisters do not like to talk to each other about developments in the case because it dredges up their grief. “We’re like those little rubber dolls where you push a button and they fall apart,” Bela Henríquez said. “But I was happy. ” Nadiezhda Henríquez was more guarded. “These rights are merely procedural,” she said. “This has meaning, but it’s pretty limited in terms of what is internationally recognized as victims’ rights: truth, justice and reparation. ” In its prosecutions of the Colombian warlords, she said, the American government engaged in “negotiations over justice, and that is not justice. ” It focused on the harm done to the United States, and not on “what they did to us. ” The Henríquezes are asking for the maximum penalty for Mr. Giraldo — just short of life in prison. At the least, Ms. Henríquez said, “we want sufficient time so that this can be dismantled, so that in my land there can be peace. ” Whether the paramilitary forces were ever truly dismantled, and what role the extraditions played, have been matters of debate in Colombia. But the illegal armed groups — called bacrims, short for criminal bands in Spanish — that surged after the militias disbanded are formally considered their successors in the peace accord. In the Santa Marta region, the most recent of violence occurred in late 2013. Hundreds of civilians were forced to flee their mountain villages during a bloody confrontation between the Giraldo Clan and a rival group that lasted four months and left hundreds dead. Since then, his relatives have mainly fought one another. “If Giraldo were here in jail rather than in Virginia, we wouldn’t see the territorial disputes,” Ms. Zúñiga said. Still, she added, “I don’t think Santa Marta is ready for him to return. ” Bela Henríquez, though her American visa is pending, said she looked forward to confronting in a Washington courtroom the man convicted in absentia for her father’s disappearance. “I don’t know what Hernán Giraldo will be thinking, but at least he will have to see that the crimes he committed in Colombia have not been forgotten,” she said. “He will have to recognize that his ‘business’ cost lives, and not just the lives of one leader or one community. It will affect the families who had to bear the brunt of the violence, yes. But it will also influence the history of our whole country for generations to come. ” | 1 |
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When she stumbled across massive corruption and made-up statistics in her job at the United Nations, Rasna Warah knew she needed to act. But when she tried to blow the whistle, she was viciously attacked, publicly humiliated, threatened, intimidated, and more. Unfortunately, though, as Warah explains in her new book UNsilenced: UNmasking the United Nations' Culture of Cover-ups, Corruption and Impunity , her case is far from unique.
In fact, the corruption and lawlessness across the UN appears to be systemic. Some of the cases described in the book and the pages of The New American magazine make the scandals she exposed and the retaliation she suffered seem mild by comparison. Indeed, in her book, she actually spends very little time dwelling on her own case, but delves instead into some of the many other known and unknown scandals to rock the global organization.
Perhaps the most grotesque whistleblower-related story in recent memory surrounds the now-infamous case of Anders Kompass, the UN human-rights official who exposed child-rape by “peacekeeping” troops in Africa after the UN refused to act on it. But the book is filled with startling examples of corruption, mismanagement, and more, ranging from brazen theft of taxpayer money to the sexual abuse and exploitation of children by UN “peace” troops. Just the quotes from the UN whistleblowers exposing the putrid UN culture of impunity make the book worth reading. Apparently the UN did not want a “culture of snitches,” as one whistleblower put it.
It got so bad that in 2015, as Warah explains, a coalition of nine UN whistleblowers got together to raise the matter with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon. “Each of us has blown the whistle on serious wrongdoing, gross misconduct, and even criminal acts at the United Nations,” the group wrote in the letter, which is quoted in the book. “Our collective experience of reporting misconduct in the UN covers sexual exploitation, abuse of power, corruption, and other criminals activity over a period of more than a decade and a half.”
Instead of the UN scrambling to make things right, though, it responded in every case by attacking the whistleblower instead of the crimes, abuse, and the people behind the problems. “Each of us has faced retaliation for reporting the wrongdoing,” the whistleblowers continued. “Our cases are well-known, and sadly, deter others from reporting wrongdoing. This must change.” Unfortunately for humanity, despite threats from Congress to cut funding, and increasingly widespread media attention, nothing has changed, as the book documents extensively.
Warah's realization that something was very wrong at the UN began while she was serving at UN-Habitat as an editor of various publications, including the important “State of the World's Cities” report. Her troubles began in 2009, when she traveled to Bahrain with Anna Tibaijuka, the executive director of the UN-Habitat agency that focuses on promoting “sustainable” cities. During the visit, Warah explained, some Bahrain officials asked how their money was being used.
“The executive director did not provide an adequate response, and thinking that perhaps she had not been briefed about it, I made my own inquiries when I returned to Nairobi,” explained Warah, a Kenyan of Indian heritage. “I discovered that at least $350,000 of the $1 million donation Bahrain had made to UN-Habitat could not be accounted for. When I asked my supervisors if they knew where the money went, they descended on me like a tonne of bricks, even threatening to not talk to me any more.”
At that time, Warah realized that “the money had probably been used on personal projects or maybe even diverted to individuals within the organization.” In an interesting turn of events, Warah later concluded that the monarchy in Bahrain did not even really care if its money has been used properly. Instead, it seems that the regime was involved in a sort of tit-for-tat agreement.
“In 2007, the Prime Minister of Bahrain, Shaikh Khalifa, had been awarded the UN-Habitat Scroll on Honour award for ´his outstanding efforts in raising the living standards of Bahrainis,´” Warah added in an e-mail about her experiences. “This was just before Bahrain experienced its own Arab spring, when the monarchy's legitimacy was being questioned. The huge donation to UN-Habitat was probably how Bahrain's monarchy 'bought' international legitimacy through the UN.”
Around that same time, Warah had already started to question how some of the alleged statistics used in the State of the World's Cities reports were actually being computed. “Many UN agencies deliberately exaggerate the scale of a problem or disseminate statistics that are not based on any scientific survey or research,” she wrote in the book. Many also “manufacture data,” she added, “because that is how they remain relevant, how they push their agenda on the international stage, and how they attract donor [taxpayer] funding.”
Sometimes UN officials and other international bureaucracies make up numbers and lie to coerce governments into changing policies, she explained. The book cites a number of examples of cooked up numbers to justify bigger budgets, more power and prestige, and various policy prescriptions. Some of the alleged “famines” in Somalia, for example, appear to have been concocted by UN bureaucrats by simply inventing or massaging statistics. Clueless journalists then parrot the invented UN numbers as part of a process that Warah referred to as the “CNN effect.”
Warah considers it a crime akin to plagiarism that should be severely punished. “When a UN agency publishes inaccurate, misleading, or unscientific statistics, it is even more unforgivable because the world's governments (i.e. member states of the UN) rely on those statistics to determine their national policies, priorities, and programs,” she continued, adding that “millions of people's lives can be affected by a single misleading or erroneous statistic.”
In particular, during her stint editing the UN world cities report, she was concerned about the “Gini coefficient” numbers used for cities, which seek to measure income inequality. She tried to figure out how these were being arrived at. Unsurprisingly, her superiors at the UN office were not pleased with the curiosity and additional scrutiny, Warah explained.
“My questioning resulted in several acts of retaliation, including public humiliation at office meetings, threats of non-renewal of contract, intimidating questioning during an interview for a post I had applied for and petty revenges, like forcing me to share my office with visiting consultants, even though I had made it clear that as editor of this important report I needed privacy and silence to carry out my work,” she explained in an e-mail. “I left the organization soon after due to frustration and a sense that my supervisors were hell-bent on making my life miserable.”
In response to the retaliation, Warah filed an official complaint at the UN “Ethics Office,” which is supposed to investigate claims and provide relief to whistleblowers. The office claimed that, “while there probably was evidence of wrongdoing at UN-Habitat, they could not establish whether I had experienced any retaliation,” Warah said, adding that determining whether retaliation took place is key to getting justice from the UN's internal systems.
The book also contains a very informative introduction by Beatrice Edwards, the international program director at the whistleblower advocacy group Government Accountability Project. Despite her general acceptance of the UN line regarding why it was founded and its alleged humanitarian purposes, Edwards highlights a number of extremely serious issues. Among those is the fact that UN personnel enjoy immunity from national and local laws, leading to a total lack of accountability that produces lawlessness and impunity. She also blasts the UN's supposed “internal system of justice” as subject to manipulation, calling its set-up “increasingly opaque and arbitrary.”
And indeed, as the book shows, the UN's pseudo-justice system is almost tragically discredited, and totally undeserving of the term “justice.” According to the book, only between three percent and four percent of whistleblowers who sought assistance from the UN “Ethics Office” had the retaliation against them substantiated by the “Ethics” people. That means a stunning 96 percent or more of whistleblowers who reported being persecuted for blowing the whistle at the UN received no relief.
Imagine being a UN worker who has observed criminality, and thinking about those odds. Of course, most people would simply choose to stay silent rather than jeopardize their career and livelihood for such meager odds. And so, with potential whistleblowers terrorized into submission, the widespread corruption, criminality and other horrors that plague the UN go unreported. The UN knows that, too, as it acknowledges in its reports about the drastic under-reporting of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children by its scandal-plagued “peace” troops.
When Warah tried to blow the whistle and seek relief, she witnessed the failures firsthand. “Since the Ethics Office could not determine retaliation, I could not take my case forward,” she explained. “Later I realized that the Ethics Office fails to prove retaliation in about 98 per cent of the whistleblower cases it receives, which suggests that it protects senior UN management rather than UN whistleblowers.” Numerous UN whistleblowers who have spoken to this magazine in recent years have made the exact same charge, and the UN has done little to dispel that notion.
“The UN's culture of impunity ensures that those who do not rock the boat with uncomfortable truths get promoted while those who dare to speak out are castigated, ignored, demoted or fired,” wrote Warah in the book. “This is especially true in cases where the perpetrators of crimes are from powerful or influential countries that exert political pressure to ensure that their nationals' cases are not brought forward or are buried.” Think about the implications of that.
In the case of Danish UN diplomat Paul Bang-Jensen, who blew the whistle on the deliberate sabotage of a UN probe into Soviet atrocities in Hungary, and tried to protect the identity of witnesses to protect them and their families from torture and murder, the saga ended with his suspicious “suicide.” His death came after he had told his wife and others not to believe any claims that he would commit suicide. The New American magazine will publish an in-depth story on Bang-Jensen in the coming weeks.
There is so much more to learn from the UNsilenced book. For instance, Warah describes how international “aid” outfits bring in huge quantities of tax-funded food supplies right around harvest time, flooding the market with basically “free” food in huge quantities. This crushes prices, thereby destroying the incentive for locals to farm while perpetuating dependence on corrupt agencies funded by Western taxpayers, in addition to ensuring budget increases for global bureaucrats.
Another interesting fact brought out in the book: The British government's tax-funded propaganda arm, the BBC, has an unwritten policy that prevents the “news” agency from “coming down too hard” on the UN or its senior bureaucrats. The reason, according to an unnamed BBC journalist cited by Warah, is that exposing UN wrongdoing and crime might be perceived as “anti-development.” Other self-styled media organs refuse to expose UN wrongdoing because the left-wing journalists fear being associated with right-of-center individuals who want to shut down the UN, Warah, herself a left-winger, acknowledges in UNsilenced .
Some of the ideas proposed in the book to remedy the many problems include reforming the UN's internal justice system, setting up outside independent mechanisms, ensuring protection of whistleblowers, and more. Unfortunately, though, none of those recommendations get to the heart of the problem, which is that the dictator-dominated UN was flawed from the start and cannot be “reformed” enough to make it worth keeping. Surely protection for whistleblowers is needed — if only to ferret out criminals and bring them to justice, and to protect their victims, often children. But it will not solve the broader UN problem.
If there is anything to quibble about with the book, it is that it accepts as true many of the fundamental (and false) premises upon which the UN was established — the idea that “world peace” was the goal of leading UN founders such as butcher Joseph Stalin of Moscow and Soviet spy Alger Hiss of the United States, for instance. The book also occasionally treats leftist ideological claims — the idea that governments are responsible for feeding people, as just one example — as if they were facts. The ideological lens through which Warah reports, though, is easy to discern, and does not interfere with, or take away from, the excellent and brave work she has done exposing this cesspool of corruption and crime.
The book is well worth reading for anybody seeking information on UN corruption or the persecution of UN whistleblowers who try to do the right thing. For the sake of humanity and liberty, it needs to stop. Photos: Rasna Warah and her book UNsilenced
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American , is normally based in Europe. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU . He can be reached at
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BRISBANE, Australia — Officials in charge of an Australian writers festival were so upset with the address by their keynote speaker, the American novelist Lionel Shriver, that they publicly disavowed her remarks. Links to her appearance were also temporarily unavailable on the festival website, leading supporters of Ms. Shriver to complain of censorship, but festival officials said it was only a technical malfunction on their website, which was repaired later. The event, the Brisbane Writers Festival, which ended Sunday, also hurriedly organized counterprogramming, billed as a “right of reply” for critics of Ms. Shriver, whose speech belittled the movement against cultural appropriation. They scheduled the rebuttal opposite a session Saturday afternoon in which Ms. Shriver was promoting her new novel, “The Mandibles. ” Ms. Shriver had been billed as speaking on “community and belonging” but focused on her views about cultural appropriation, a term that refers to the objections by members of minority groups to the use of their customs or culture (or even characters of their ethnicity) by artists or others who do not belong to those groups. Ms. Shriver criticized as runaway political correctness efforts to ban references to ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation from Halloween celebrations, or to prevent artists from drawing on ethnic sources for their work. Ms. Shriver, the author of 13 novels, who is best known for her 2003 book, “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” was especially critical of efforts to stop novelists from cultural appropriation. She deplored critics of authors like Chris Cleave, an Englishman, for presuming to write from the point of view of a Nigerian girl in his book “Little Bee. ” Ms. Shriver noted that she had been criticized for using in “The Mandibles” the character of a black woman with Alzheimer’s disease, who is kept on a leash by her homeless white husband. And she defended her right to depict members of minority groups in any situation, if it served her artistic purposes. “Otherwise, all I could write about would be white women from North Carolina,” she said. Ms. Shriver donned a sombrero for much of her speech — an allusion to a case in the United States in which articles of impeachment were drawn up (and later rescinded) against student government members for doing the same during a tequila party at Bowdoin College. To frequent laughter from the audience, Ms. Shriver warned that the movement that began in America had already reached Britain — where she lives most of the year — and might be headed to Australia. Actually, it seems to have already arrived. In the middle of Ms. Shriver’s speech on Thursday night, an Australian writer of Sudanese and Egyptian origin, Yassmin got up and walked out, making live posts on Twitter about her dismay at what she described as “a poisoned package wrapped up in arrogance and delivered with condescension. ” “I have never walked out of a speech,” Ms. wrote in a post published on Medium. com and Guardian. com. But Ms. Shriver’s, she added, “became a celebration of the unfettered exploitation of the experiences of others, under the guise of fiction. ” The movement against cultural appropriation has grown in recent years, targeting singers like Miley Cyrus, who “twerk” onstage, and white men who wear dreadlocks. After her Brisbane speech, Ms. Shriver was accosted by a festival participant in the hallway of the State Library of Queensland, who shouted, “How dare you come to my country and offend our minorities?” The author said that the woman had clearly not actually heard her speech, which made no mention of Australian minorities. The festival’s director, the poet Julie Beveridge, responded to the outrage by organizing the “right of reply” session, inviting as speakers Ms. as well as the author Suki Kim, whose book “Without You, There Is No Us,” was based on her six months working undercover as an English teacher in North Korea. Ms. Kim complained that books by white male writers on North Korea were better received in some quarters than books like her own. Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Son” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2013, though Mr. Johnson did not speak Korean and had spent only three days in North Korea, Ms. Kim said. She attributed that acclaim at least partly to racism from institutions dominated by white men. “The reality is that those from marginalized groups, even today, do not get the luxury of defining their own place in a norm that is profoundly white, straight and, often, patriarchal,” Ms. said in her criticism of Ms. Shriver. Ms. Beveridge wrote on the festival’s website, after links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were taken down, “As a festival of writers and thinkers, we take seriously the role we play in providing a platform for meaningful exchange and debate. ” She could not be reached on Monday to ask why links to Ms. Shriver’s speech were removed from the festival website. Links to the rebuttal remained active. Ms. Beveridge has said that the festival’s keynote speech was intended to set the tone for the festival, which drew scores of authors to this eastern Australian city. “Lionel Shriver, by her own admission, did not speak to her brief,” Ms. Beveridge said. “The views expressed during her address were hers alone. ” Ms. Shriver described the festival’s response as “not very professional,” and, at a later appearance at the festival, said she was disturbed by how many of those on the political left had become what she described as censorious and totalitarian in their treatment of artists with whom they disagreed. | 1 |
Posted on November 1, 2016 by DCG | 1 Comment
From ABC News : At least 17 people were killed and over 40 injured in Chicago’s street violence over the weekend.
Two Chicago newspapers that analyzed police data from Friday afternoon to early Monday called it 2016’s deadliest weekend . Chicago police couldn’t immediately confirm that, though a spokesman said their weekend homicide count from Friday midnight through Sunday was 18.
Either way, the toll surpassed the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times’ analysis of holiday weekends when violence typically spikes. The Tribune reports six people were fatally shot over Memorial Day weekend, five over Fourth of July, and 13 over Labor Day .
The October weekend deaths included seven people under 20 years old. Seventeen-year-old twin brothers were killed in a Sunday drive-by.
There’s been a spike in street violence this year with over 600 homicides already. Rahm “murder mayor” Emanuel | 0 |
It’s hard to imagine a tax code more favorable to real estate developers than the one we already have. Donald Trump has come up with one. Thanks to some major loopholes in the existing tax code that treat real estate developers as a special privileged class, it’s entirely possible (even likely) that Mr. Trump pays little or no federal income tax. But Mr. Trump’s new tax proposal doesn’t just preserve those breaks, it piles on new ones for real estate developers like Mr. Trump himself — at an estimated cost of more than $1 trillion in tax revenue over a decade. Moreover, this doesn’t count Mr. Trump’s more general tax cuts, which deliver the biggest windfalls to the highest earners. Many real estate developers would reap further gains from those provisions if they became law. Even conservative Republican tax experts have denounced the specific real estate measures Mr. Trump has outlined. “If you want to create a recipe for an abusive tax shelter, take those elements and bake for 15 minutes,” said Douglas an economist who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office and is now president of the American Action Forum, a conservative advocacy group. He was also an economic policy adviser to former Republican presidential candidate John McCain. “It’s a phenomenal benefit for housing and commercial real estate interests. ” Let’s start with carried interest, a tax loophole that allows private equity operators, hedge fund managers and real estate partners to convert ordinary income into capital gains, which are taxed at a lower rate. Wealthy hedge fund managers and private equity partners like the former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney have attracted much of the criticism for exploiting the loophole, but the concept originated with real estate developers long before hedge funds were commonplace. Instead of taking a fee for their management services (which would be taxed as ordinary income) people who earn carried interest take a percentage of assets under management and a percentage of the eventual profits, a formula often described as “two and twenty. ” The percentage of profits is taxed at the lower capital gains rate. In what at first might seem a laudable effort to put the public interest ahead of his own financial gain, Mr. Trump called for abolishing the loophole. “We will eliminate the carried interest deduction and other special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors, and people like me, but unfair to American workers,” Mr. Trump said in Detroit on Aug. 7. But his fellow real estate investors and the Wall Street interests he lambastes needn’t worry. He’s offering them an even better tax break that renders carried interest irrelevant. Mr. Trump has proposed a new rate — 15 percent on all corporate and business income — that is lower than the current capital gains rate of 20 percent on profits from the sale of assets, which is already well below the top tax rate on ordinary income of around 40 percent. The new lower rate would apply to “ entities,” according to Mr. Trump’s plan, “Tax Reform That Will Make America Great Again. ” entities pay no tax at the business level as the name suggests, income is taxed at individual rates when it is distributed to the owners. Such entities include limited liability companies, or L. L. C. s, and sole proprietorships, S Corporations, and many partnerships. The Tax Foundation estimates that they account for 60 percent of all business income in the United States. While they can be found in all sectors of the economy (including private equity and hedge funds) they are especially prevalent in real estate. Mr. Trump identified 564 separate business entities in his financial disclosure forms, most of them L. L. C.s and partnerships. That amounts to a huge tax cut even for people who had been paying taxes on carried interest at the preferential rate, “since most carried interest is generated by a business entity,” said Alan Cole, an economist at the Tax Foundation’s Center for Federal Tax Policy. The center warned last year, before Mr. Trump’s latest revisions, that his overall plan could cost over $10 trillion in reduced tax revenues over 10 years, depending on how it is calculated. “The rich who already benefit from carried interest will get a big tax cut,” Mr. agreed. The Tax Policy Center estimated that lowering the rate on business income from entities to 15 percent would cost $1 trillion over 10 years. Mr. Trump already benefits from enormous depreciation benefits, which allow active real estate developers like him to use paper losses to offset other earned income. Mr. Trump’s proposals go even further, allowing for immediate rather than spreading them over several years. “We will allow businesses to immediately expense new business investments,” he said in Detroit. The idea of immediately expensing capital investments rather than writing them off over time has many supporters among tax experts, including the Tax Foundation and Mr. . Among other things, it simplifies the calculations and in theory would promote capital spending at a time it’s been lagging. But few, if any, support expensing capital investments while also allowing an interest expense deduction. That’s because the combined deductions provide a reason to borrow even when it doesn’t make economic sense. As a simple example, consider a landlord’s $1, 000 investment in a new garage door for a rental property. Someone who borrows $900 at 5 percent would spend just $100 out of pocket, but could deduct $900 plus interest, or $945, generating a large tax loss. Even assuming Mr. Trump’s favorable business tax rate of 15 percent goes into effect, the tax benefit ($142) is greater than the cash spent, creating a purely tax incentive. Here’s what the 2005 President’s Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform under President George W. Bush concluded: “Allowing both expensing of new investments and an interest deduction would result in a net tax subsidy to new investment,” the report found. “Projects that would not be economical in a world might become viable just because of the tax subsidy. This would result in economic distortions and adversely impact economic activity. ” Steven M. Rosenthal, a veteran tax lawyer and senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, put it in terms Mr. Trump might use: “Coupling an interest deduction with expensing is ridiculous. ” Every other proposal to expense business investments, including the House Republican plan, limits interest deductions. Eliminating the interest deduction “will generate an enormous amount of kvetching out of highly leveraged investors, real estate developers among them,” said Mr. . “I have no sympathy for that. If your business model depends on interest deductibility, that’s not a business, it’s a tax shelter. ” Mr. Trump hasn’t explicitly addressed whether interest payments should remain deductible, as they are now, but various advisers have said he supports maintaining the deduction. (The Trump campaign didn’t respond to my requests for comment.) That shouldn’t be all that surprising, given how much debt Mr. Trump’s empire carries. The Times recently estimated his companies have at least $650 million in debt. “Trump is a debt king,” said Mr. Rosenthal. “He’s made a living from deducting interest. He’s never going to give that up. ” The changes and inconsistencies in Mr. Trump’s tax reform proposals have left many experts scratching their heads. “Trump has no overarching principle that I can identify,” said Mr. . “I want a tax code to express values. It should be about something,” That leaves it open to speculation that Mr. Trump’s plan is mostly about himself and other wealthy real estate developers. It’s hard to tell for sure, since he hasn’t released his tax returns. If, as I’ve suggested, he pays little or no tax because he can use the existing tax code to reduce his taxable income to near zero, or even a loss, his proposals that extend even more breaks to developers might have relatively little impact on his own tax obligations. Still, to the degree they would reduce his tax rate to 15 percent and accelerate depreciation while maintaining the interest deduction, they would ensure that Mr. Trump — and most of his friends on Wall Street who would be well positioned to exploit his new loophole — would never pay anything close to the 33 percent top rate he’s now proposing for his fellow Americans. | 1 |
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