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WASHINGTON — Major changes to nutrition labels on food packages became final on Friday, with calorie counts now shown in large type and portion sizes that reflect how much Americans actually eat. It was the first significant redrawing of the nutrition information on food labels since the federal government started requiring them in the early 1990s. Those labels were based on eating habits and nutrition data from the 1970s and ’80s and before portion sizes expanded significantly. Federal health officials argued that the changes were needed to bring labels into step with the reality of the modern American diet. The Food and Drug Administration proposed the changes in 2014, but consumer advocates worried that many of the major elements would not survive lobbying by the powerful food industry. A number of companies vigorously opposed, for example, a separate line for added sugars. But the final rule, announced by Michelle Obama on Friday, mostly remained intact, including the line on added sugars. “This has to be scored as a huge win,” said Marion Nestle, a professor in the department of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “The F. D. A. ’s final rules confirm what the agency proposed originally on the most important elements. The big ones — calories, added sugars — survived. ” The changes jump out. The calories are in large bold numbers, and are easier to spot at a glance. A single ice cream serving is of a cup — compared with the current half cup. Most food manufacturers will be required to use the new label by July 2018. Producers with less than $10 million in annual food sales will have an additional year to comply. Millions of Americans pay attention to food labels. The changes are meant to make them easier to understand — a critical step in an era when more than of adults are obese, public health experts say. The epidemic has caused rates of diabetes to soar and has increased risks for cancer, heart disease and stroke. Comments from companies and trade associations seemed to reflect acceptance. The American Beverage Association said its members had already put clearer calorie counts on the front of beverage bottles as a part of Ms. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign. The Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents food and beverage companies, said, “We look forward to working with F. D. A. and other stakeholders on messages and activities to help consumers understand what the new labels mean. ” But the sugar industry did not relent in its criticism. The Sugar Association said it was “disappointed” by the F. D. A. ’s decision to require a separate line for added sugars. It argued that the rule lacked “scientific justification. ” The association said, “We are concerned that the ruling sets a dangerous precedent that is not grounded in science, and could actually deter us from our shared goal of a healthier America. ” Getting the original nutrition labels on food packages was a major battle. Dr. David Kessler, the former F. D. A. commissioner, said the fight went all the way to the Oval Office, where the first President George Bush sided with the agency in what was considered a major victory for public health. “They got this right,” he said of the new changes in an interview on Friday. “This will affect people’s lives. It gives really important information to people who want to use it. ” It is also important for the food and beverage industry, he said. “By putting added sugars on the label, it creates incentives for industry to make healthier products, because they don’t want to look bad with all of that sugar on the label. ” Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said he believed the new line for added sugars would help change behavior. “A lot of people will be shocked to see how much sugar is in soda,” he said. “Teachers and parents will leap at that as something to show their kids. ” A can of Coke has 140 calories and 39 grams of sugar, which, according to Mr. Jacobson, is about the equivalent of 9. 2 teaspoons. He said a shortcoming of the new rules was that companies could still express sugar in grams, not in teaspoons. | 1 |
Genius Kid Trolled White House Halloween Party, Idiot Obama Didn’t Notice Posted on November 1, 2016 by Robert Rich in Politics Share This
During certain holidays, Barack and Michelle Obama invite a few kids to the White House to join them in the festivities. However, the most recent incident wasn’t like all the rest as one kid decided to troll everyone there with a genius costume idea – and our idiot president didn’t even seem to notice what he did.
Yesterday, a few kids were invited to the White House Rose Garden in order to dress up for the annual Halloween trick-or-treat event. Although most kids were there for the candy and games, there was one costume that stood above the rest – a duck.
Now, this wasn’t exactly your typical duck costume with a kid inside, and he wasn’t your ordinary kid either. As can be seen in a picture posing with Obama, the duck was actually bandaged with its arm in a sling, thereby actually making it a “ lame duck .” Obama meets kid dressed as "lame duck" for Halloween at WH pic.twitter.com/5q4l04b5pM
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 31, 2016
Of course, Obama is about to adopt that name after the election as he begins the home stretch of his presidency. Although he hasn’t done anything except for forcing his legacy down America’s throat, these are the few months where slacking off is actually accepted from a man in his position.
At this point, a few things are unclear, including whether this kid was suggesting that Obama was a lame duck for his entire presidency or if our so-called Commander-in-Chief actually caught the genius pun. While some say he took the comedic jab with a bit of humor, others suggest the moron missed the subtle trolling entirely as it was just one of the endless droves of children in costumes that he took a picture with.
It’s unknown who was actually in the costume or if the idea came from the child or their father, but it’s being shared around social media for good reason. Obama has been nothing but a lame duck for the past 8 years after idiot voters actually believing the “hope and change” spiel voted for the man twice.
Fortunately, his days of freeloading and kicking back are about to become a thing of the past. Although nothing will change during his “lame duck” months, freeloaders of our nation are about to get a kick in the backside when Donald Trump is elected. We have been doing nothing for far too long – it’s time we kick things into high gear and actually do some great things, just like we used to do. | 0 |
Rep. Mike Kelly ( ) has introduced legislation that would repeal Obamacare’s controversial Cadillac Tax. [The provision would impose a 40 percent excise tax on all health insurance plans provided by employers that have a value of more than $10, 200 for individual coverage and $27, 500 for family coverage. The bill (H. R. 173) dubbed the “Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2017,” is by Democrat Rep. Joe Courtney (CT). “As President Obama comes to Capitol Hill to try to save his failed health care law, I am proud to take one of the first steps in repealing and replacing this law in order to save the American people from its harmful consequences,” Kelly said in a press release. “The widespread pain of Obamacare’s higher costs and broken promises is already being felt by countless families and workers, yet with the law’s looming Cadillac Tax, in many ways the worst is yet to come. ” Though the Cadillac Tax was originally scheduled to take effect in 2018, currently it is slated for implementation in 2020. According to the press release, “analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation” finds “the tax will impact approximately 42 percent of American employers and their employees. ” “The Cadillac Tax is a major reason why the Affordable Care Act will make health care even less affordable and accessible for so many households across America,” Kelly continued. “Sensible health care policy should encourage employers to offer a full range of health plans to their associates, not punish them with an unfair tax for doing so. ” “The sad result will be higher deductibles and fewer services for hardworking Americans,” he added. “With most Pennsylvanians covered by health insurance, this Obamacare tax will be a disaster felt especially close to home. ” | 1 |
Thursday on ABC’s The View,” Whoopi Goldberg said President Donald Trump firing of FBI Director James Comey felt “like a coup. ” Goldberg said, “Does this feel like a coup to anybody? It feels like a coup. First, the whole Justice Department got, everybody got gutted, all the things got gutted. It just feels — and he got all the generals — it feels kind of coupy. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
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Why isn’t the Democratic Party landsliding the worst and cruelest Republican Party in the past 162 years?
Just take a glance at their record votes and you’ll wonder why the Republican representatives don’t just incorporate themselves and be done with any pretense that they are real people.
A brief look at a compilation of Republican votes during the years 2011-2012, when the Republicans controlled the House, demonstrates that they regularly choose Wall Street over Main Street, drug and oil, banking and insurance companies over consumers. And that Republicans want tiny enforcement budgets against corporate crime to assure that hundreds of billions of your health and other consumer dollars are not recovered from the corporate criminals ($60 billion a year alone in business frauds on Medicare).
Repeatedly, these Republicans, often a unanimous 100% of them, in a bizarre kind of corporate-conditioned response, vote in favor of corporations shipping American jobs overseas rather than voting to protect American workers. This Republican-controlled congress was intent on defending and increasing massive tax breaks for the wealthiest at the expense of the lower income families, attacking Medicare, social security, and other programs assisting elderly Americans, even assaulting women’s health and safety, opposing stronger food safety enforcement and preventing toxic pollution controls while at the same time protecting rapacious student loan companies and keeping victims of mortgage companies and banks defenseless against onslaughts of insurmountable debt accumulation.
They also passed a bill to pay members of Congress during a GOP-led government shutdown, however, while refusing to guarantee that soldiers would get paid during the same shutdown. Moreover, the Republicans have this strange antagonism toward encouraging more people to vote, and assuring that every vote counts.
Go past the façade of the Republican rhetoric praising heroic veterans are their grim votes against protecting veterans from rip-offs as borrowers for their consumer, education and housing needs.
Fast forward to the last two years and you’ll find the same corporatist grip on the House. Fifteen times House Republicans have voted for measures attacking women’s health; blocked all votes on comprehensive immigration reform; gave the back of their hand against children’s well-being; twice voted unanimously against affirming that climate change is real and passed tax cuts of which 99.6 percent go to the richest 1 percent of Americans. Furthermore, they have voted unanimously against even considering a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Citizen’s United decision that opened the floodgates of big corporate money in elections. They continue to protect secret money in elections and twice voted against even allowing a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act giving women new tools for equal pay for equal work.
One hundred percent of all House Republicans voted against allowing a vote to let American workers earn just seven job-protected paid sick days each year – less than has been given for years in western-European countries.
So in hock are they to the student loan industry, the Republicans have repeatedly voted against bringing up for a vote the student loan refinancing bill. One hundred percent of House Republicans voted against even bringing up a bill to stop big companies from dumping their U.S. charter and fleeing abroad to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Lead-poisoned children in Flint, Michigan got the straight-arm by 236 House Republicans. Republicans held zero hearings in 2016 on the president’s 2017 budget – an unheard of breach of legislative duty.
House Republicans in recent years have stupidly cut the IRS budget facilitating $400 billion of uncollected taxes each year, thereby swelling the federal deficit that the GOP is supposed to care about. The Republicans are knowingly complicit in protecting tax evasion.
Worse, these Republicans are complicit in shielding over $330 billion each year in computerized billing fraud. This corporate crime wave estimate comes from the leading expert on billing fraud, Harvard Professor Malcolm Sparrow (author of License to Steal ), backed by an earlier report from the Government Accountability Office of the Congress. There simply is too little budget for adequate investigators and prosecutors even when every dollar in enforcement brings about ten dollars in recoveries and fines!
Why doesn’t all of this anti-human record make news? First, these bills are almost always blocked by the Democrats in the Senate. Second, many of these votes by the House Republicans are blocking votes to require on-the-record roll call votes that show each member’s position on a bill. Third, let’s be clear, the media, which has reporters swarming all over Capitol Hill, is not doing its job.
Fourth, there aren’t a tiny fraction of the civically active people back home organized to publicize the votes by their member of Congress. Fifth, the lack of dynamic leadership by Congressional Democrats included being rolled by a Republican strategy to up the GOP’s advantage in the number of gerrymandered districts in 2010 (brilliantly reported in David Daley’s new book, Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind The Secret Plan to Steal America’s Democracy ).
In the final analysis, the blame is on the Democratic Party that does not give us a competitive election process over substantive matters uppermost in the minds of the American people. It took strenuous demands by some civic leaders in Washington, D.C. just to get the House Democrats to compile these aforementioned Republican votes and passively release them in a concise form to the public and then only a month before the November elections! With few exceptions, Democrats astonishingly do not campaign on such a base Republican misery index.
Unfortunately, many Democratic candidates are dialing for the same campaign dollars as their Republican opponents and many Democratic incumbent candidates are ensconced in safe, non-competitive electoral districts (often because of their gerrymandering). Consequently, they don’t make an effort to show the callousness and cruelty of the Republican Party.
For any further explanation of this Democratic Party’s dysfunctional indifference to winning back the House of Representatives, based on the abysmal record of the Republican Party, call in some social psychologists specializing in group machoism.
To see the full list for yourself – see 2012 and 2016 .
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! | 0 |
Wednesday 9 November 2016 by Lucas Wilde Racists, Misogynists and Homophobes all absolutely delighted
Every bigot you’ve ever met is a little bit happier today.
Donald Trump has won the Presidency in a result that wasn’t fuelled by hatred or racism by everyone, or not even perhaps the majority, but nonetheless a result that absolutely every narrow-minded tosspot was definitely hoping for.
“Yay!” said racist, Simon Williams.
“What a great morning to be American – like every morning, obviously, as every other nation is inferior.
“But this morning is just super-bloody-duper.
“The moment I saw the news I looked at my collection of Nazi-themed hats and said ‘boys, we are back in business’. Because previously I was discouraged from wearing Nazi-themed hats, you see. PC gone mad, I tell you that.”
Reasonable conservative voter, Kevin Carmichael, said, “it is a shame that we seem to attract the racists.
“I guess that’s the risk you take when you run a campaign based on a simple fear of brown people, but hey, we got the votes, and we won, and that’s all that matters.
“Yes, it is. You just watch. It’s going to be great.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently witterings below - why not add your own? | 0 |
As the American financial system collapsed in the fall of 2008, Stephen K. Bannon began to fantasize about destroying something else: the elite economic and political establishment that he believed had created the crisis. Mr. Bannon, who was named Donald J. Trump’s campaign chief on Wednesday, was at the time a highly improbable revolutionary, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs banker and a budding filmmaker. But his Southern roots tugged at him: panicked by the swooning market, his father, a telephone company lineman with no college degree, had sold much of the stock in his retirement account. “Steve felt it was outrageous,” said Scot Vorse, his former business partner and a longtime friend. It was the start of a remarkable reinvention that turned a polished corporate dealmaker who once devised $10 billion mergers on Wall Street into a purveyor of media who dwells in the darker corners of American politics. The website he runs, Breitbart News, recently accused President Obama of “importing more hating Muslims” compared Planned Parenthood’s work to the Holocaust called Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator, a “renegade Jew” and advised female victims of online harassment to “just log off” and stop “screwing up the internet for men,” illustrating that point with a picture of a crying child. With its provocative content, style and populist message, Breitbart is, in many ways, a mirror of Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign — which explains why the Republican nominee was so drawn to Mr. Bannon, Breitbart’s chairman. “Steve is a fighter. He loves the fight. He loves the scrum,” said Andrew Marcus, who met Mr. Bannon, a Navy veteran, while making a documentary about Breitbart’s founding editor, Andrew Breitbart, who died in 2012. Mr. Bannon, 62, who grew up in a Democratic family in Virginia that fled the party in favor of Richard Nixon’s Republicanism, has quietly advised Mr. Trump throughout his campaign, according to friends and colleagues. But as Mr. Trump’s candidacy has started to sputter and flail, Mr. Bannon’s role has intensified, so much so that Mr. Trump asked to meet with him over the weekend and offered him the position of chief executive. That vaunted post, which makes Mr. Bannon the single most influential figure in the Trump campaign, is a leap of faith by a candidate who has long eschewed political professionals: Mr. Bannon has never before worked on a national campaign, let alone overseen one. But his résumé is thick with the kind of experience Mr. Trump covets: a deep understanding of how the news media works and how public perceptions are molded. Over the past decade, Mr. Bannon has built a small but potent media empire designed to directly challenge the country’s cultural and political elite, whom he sees as incorrigibly detached from America and responsible for dismantling its backbone — an industrial economy that employed its families and the secure borders that protected them. He made movies that lionized Sarah Palin and vilified the Occupy Wall Street movement as fraudulent rebels backed by liberals. A trailer for that film, called “Occupy Unmasked,” is a fevered compilation of rioting, profanity, a burning American flag and a man appearing to brush his bare behind against a police car. “We are finally telling you the true story of the radicals behind the Occupy movement,” Mr. Breitbart, the film’s star, says grimly into the camera. Mr. Bannon, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has made little secret of his desire to frighten Americans out of complacency, fusing relentless provocation and a hodgepodge of conservative ideas to make the case for rebellion against the political order. “Fear is a good thing,” he said in a 2010 interview. “Fear is going to lead you to take action. ” His timing was serendipitous: Mr. Bannon’s ventures in film and news were perfectly timed to capture the emerging fury of the Tea Party movement, which was still smarting from the federal bailout of Wall Street banks like his former employer, Goldman Sachs, and the growing sense that the nation’s top tier had sold out the working and middle classes. By 2014, Mr. Bannon had jumped from the political sidelines into the arena. When a Republican candidate named David Brat challenged Eric Cantor, the House majority leader known for his close ties to Wall Street, Breitbart News put its thumb on the scale, publishing dozens of positive articles about the underdog’s bid. Mr. Bannon was childhood friends with a top adviser to Mr. Brat, whose victory stunned Republican elders. It was a foretaste of the movement Mr. Trump would soon lead. “He is somebody who puts his activism on par with his intellectual work,” said David Bossie, president of the conservative group Citizens United, who has collaborated on film projects with Mr. Bannon. “A lot of intellectuals sit back and write columns and let other people do the work,” Mr. Bossie said. “Steve is a believer in doing both. ” The credential that has earned Mr. Bannon a spot in the Trump campaign — his stewardship of Breitbart News — was something of an accident. The death of Mr. Breitbart, at age 43 of heart failure, was a shock to his reporters and fans. Mr. Bannon threw himself into the management of the site, opening branches in Los Angeles and London and leading conference calls during which he issued directives on what stories to pursue. His business acumen has paid off: Breitbart received 18. 3 million unique visitors in July, according to data from comScore, up about 40 percent from the year prior. The site has outpaced conservative rivals like The Daily Caller, and Breitbart executives say that monthly traffic has increased by 16 times since the year Mr. Bannon took over. But some inside Breitbart chafed at Mr. Bannon’s outspoken style of management, complaining that he upbraided staff members and seemed to embrace outright advocacy over journalistic principles. In March, several top reporters and executives resigned, saying that Mr. Bannon’s insistence on articles favorable to Mr. Trump had compromised Mr. Breitbart’s ethos that nothing was sacred. “He is someone who is prone to tirades at all hours of the night,” said Kurt Bardella, a former spokesman for Breitbart, who quit after complaining that the site had transformed into “Trump’s de facto ‘super PAC. ’” Ben Shapiro, a former editor at Breitbart, said Mr. Bannon’s language could be startling. “There are very few people who have dealt with Steve Bannon who have not been cursed at,” he said. Tensions spiked after Michelle Fields, a Breitbart reporter, accused Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, of shoving her at a rally. (Battery charges against Mr. Lewandowski were later dropped.) To the surprise of many on staff, Breitbart published an article that questioned portions of Ms. Fields’s account, a rare case of a publication publicly challenging its own reporter. She later quit. Allies of Mr. Bannon say that he is simply a manager with high expectations — a description echoed on Wednesday by Breitbart’s chief executive, Larry Solov, who in a memo to the staff described Mr. Bannon as “a huge piece of manpower. ” Mr. Marcus, the documentary filmmaker, said that it frequently fell to Mr. Bannon to rein in the excessive instincts of Breitbart News and its staff in meetings. “He was a voice of reason,” Mr. Marcus said of the time he spent inside the company, following Mr. Breitbart around. “Steve was the one saying, hey, maybe you want to dial that back a bit. ” Like Mr. Trump, who remains closely involved with his real estate business despite his candidacy, Mr. Bannon is not walking away from his pastimes. A new documentary he directed, “Torchbearer,” which follows the “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson to the Parthenon and other famed locations, is scheduled to be released this fall. The film may echo the bleaker themes of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “We discuss how empires rise and fall, and how they lose God in their societies,” said Mr. Bossie, of Citizens United, who is a producer. Asked if Mr. Bannon could succeed as a campaign manager, typically the ultimate insider role, Mr. Bossie said that Mr. Bannon’s outsider status would be “a plus, not a minus. ” “This,” he added, “is the year of the outsider. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The United States again ranked first in global weapons sales last year, signing deals for about $40 billion, or half of all agreements in the worldwide arms bazaar, and far ahead of France, the No. 2 weapons dealer with $15 billion in sales, according to a new congressional study. Developing nations continued to be the largest buyers of arms in 2015, with Qatar signing deals for more than $17 billion in weapons last year, followed by Egypt, which agreed to buy almost $12 billion in arms, and Saudi Arabia, with over $8 billion in weapons purchases. Although global tensions and terrorist threats have shown few signs of diminishing, the total size of the global arms trade dropped to around $80 billion in 2015 from the 2014 total of $89 billion, the study found. Developing nations bought $65 billion in weapons in 2015, substantially lower than the previous year’s total of $79 billion. The United States and France increased their overseas weapons sales in 2015, as purchases of American weapons grew by around $4 billion and France’s deals increased by well over $9 billion. The report, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, ” was prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and delivered to legislators last week. The annual review is considered the most comprehensive assessment of global arms sales available in an unclassified form. The report adjusts for inflation, so the sales totals are comparable year to year. Constraints on the expansion of foreign weapons sales are “due, in part, to the weakened state of the global economy,” wrote Catherine A. Theohary, a national security policy specialist at the Congressional Research Service and author of the study. “Concerns over their domestic budget problems have led many purchasing nations to defer or limit the purchase of new major weapon systems,” she added. “Some nations have chosen to limit their purchasing to upgrades of existing systems and to training and support services. ” Russia, another dominant power in the global arms market, saw a modest decline in orders for its weapons, dropping to $11. 1 billion in sales from the $11. 2 billion total in 2014. Latin American nations, in particular Venezuela, have become a focus of marketing for Russian arms, the study found. China reached $6 billion in weapons sales, up from its 2014 total of over $3 billion. Among arms manufacturers that also are NATO allies, Germany has found success in marketing naval systems to the developing world, while Britain has done the same with warplanes, according to the report. The most significant overseas weapons sales for the United States last year included new agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar and South Korea. Over all, the largest buyers of weapons in the developing world in 2015 were Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Pakistan, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. After the United States, France, Russia and China, the study found that the major global arms suppliers were Sweden, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Britain and Israel. | 1 |
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said on Wednesday that he had no doubt the assassin of Russia’s ambassador had belonged to the outlawed Turkish organization of Mr. Erdogan’s rival, Fethullah Gulen. The president’s assertion, 48 hours after the ambassador was gunned down by an police officer at an Ankara art gallery, essentially doubled down on the Turkish government’s contention that evidence showed the assassin was a sleeper agent of Mr. Gulen, a Muslim cleric. Mr. Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States, has denounced the assassination and denied any complicity in it. His spokesman has called such accusations “nonsense” meant to distract attention from what amounts to a spectacular security lapse in the Turkish capital. The Russian ambassador, Andrey G. Karlov, was shot multiple times on Monday evening by the policeman, Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22, who shouted jihadist slogans and said, “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!” His words suggested he was avenging victims of Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict. Mr. Altintas was fatally shot by other police officers. “There is no reason to hide that he’s a member of the Feto network,” Mr. Erdogan was quoted as saying by Turkish news media, using the acronym for what the government calls the Fethullah Gulen terrorist organization. “All his connections, from where he was educated to his links, point to Feto. ” The government of Russia, which has sent investigators to Turkey to collaborate on the inquiry into Mr. Karlov’s assassination, has been far more cautious in public statements about the killer’s possible affiliation or motive, saying it was premature to draw any conclusions. Mr. Gulen has been accused by the Turkish government of remotely directing the failed coup attempt on July 15, which he has denied. Since then, the government has requested his extradition from the United States and arrested or dismissed thousands of people in the security forces, civil services and educational institutions suspected of being Gulen followers, describing them as seditious infiltrators. The purge was further widened on Wednesday with the suspension of nearly 2, 000 teachers and school employees, Reuters reported from Ankara, quoting an unidentified Education Ministry official. The Turkish authorities also have arrested more than 100 journalists and closed dozens of news media outlets, in what press activists have called an unprecedented repression. The Committee to Protect Journalists, an advocacy group, reported on Dec. 13 that Turkey has become the world’s leading jailer of journalists. | 1 |
Trump won because Democratic Party failed working people, says Sanders Former Democratic candidate said he will not rule out another presidential bid in 2020 By Lauren McCauley - November 11, 2016
Adding his voice to the chorus of condemnation heaped on the Democratic Party in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday attributed the Republican win to the failure of the liberal elite to represent working people.
“It is an embarrassment, I think, to the entire of [the] Democratic Party that millions of white working-class people decided to vote for Mr. Trump, which suggests that the Democratic message of standing up for working people no longer holds much sway among workers in this country,” the progressive senator and one-time presidential candidate told the Associated Press .
“You cannot be a party which on one hand says we’re in favor of working people, we’re in favor of the needs of young people but we don’t quite have the courage to take on Wall Street and the billionaire class,” he continued. “People do not believe that. You’ve got to decide which side you’re on.”
Sanders—who, according to hypothetical polls conducted during the primary, would have posed a more formidable challenge to Trump than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton—told the news outlet that he is “not ruling out” another presidential bid in 2020. But, the 75-year-old senator from Vermont said that, for now, he is focused on rebuilding the party.
Among the potential changes to be made, Sanders told AP that he would recommend Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) to lead the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a position that Ellison has been reportedly vying for.
The interview comes one day after Sanders issued a statement saying he is prepared to work with the president-elect “[t]o the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country.”
But, the senator indicated on Thursday he did not think that would be likely. “I hope I’m wrong, but I believe that he is a fraud, and I think despite all of his rhetoric about being a champion of the working class, it will turn out to be hollow,” Sanders said.
In an appearance on CNN late Thursday afternoon, when asked if he could have beaten Trump , Sanders said, “What good does it do now?” | 0 |
Shah Rukh Khan, the Indian actor known as the “King of Bollywood,” said he was detained for a few hours at an American airport on Thursday. Again. To detain one of India’s biggest celebrities would itself attract international headlines, but this, he said, was the third time that he had been held then released while traveling in the United States. His treatment at American airports was already a sore point among his fans as well as critics of airport security procedures, with each episode sparking outrage and discussion. Mr. Khan was estimated to have a net worth of $600 million in 2014, making him one of the richest actors in the world, just after Jerry Seinfeld. Mr. Khan did not name the airport or say why he had been held, but Rich Verma, the American ambassador to India, said in an apology on Twitter that the incident had happened at Los Angeles International Airport. Mr. Khan’s previous interactions with immigration officials followed a similar pattern of being held for a few hours before being released. In 2009, Mr. Khan, 50, was detained in Newark while in the United States to promote his film “My Name is Khan,” which was about racial profiling of Muslims after the Sept. 11 attacks. In the movie, his character insists he is not a terrorist when he is searched at the San Francisco airport. Then in 2012, he was held in White Plains, N. Y. on his way to address students at Yale. “Whenever I start feeling too arrogant about myself, I always take a trip to America,” he later told the students. With humor, he relayed his frustration on Thursday to his 20. 7 million Twitter followers. (For reference, he has roughly the same number of followers as Eminem, Nicki Minaj and Kourtney Kardashian.) Nisha Biswal, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, tweeted: “Sorry for the hassle at the airport, @iamsrk — even American diplomats get pulled for extra screening!” Mr. Khan responded to her tweet: “No hassle ma’m. ” He said he respected the protocol and did not expect special treatment. “It’s just inconvenient. ” A spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection said she could not discuss individual cases, citing privacy laws. On Twitter, the incident prompted condemnation and accusations of racial profiling. Mr. Khan’s immediate response to Thursday’s episode, complete with a Pokémon Go joke, is in line with how he has spoken about his past detentions. In his address to Yale students in 2012, he made light of his interaction with immigration officials. “They always ask me how tall I am and I always lie and get away with it and say 5 feet 10 inches. Next time I am getting more adventurous. ‘What color are you?’ I am going to say white. ” In 2013, he wrote about his experience and about the stereotypes he encounters as a Muslim with the last name of Khan, including his security at American airports. “I wonder, at times, whether the same treatment is given to everyone whose last name just happens to be McVeigh (as in Timothy)?” he wrote, referring to the Oklahoma City bomber. | 1 |
Learning Horrors of War from Vets November 9, 2016
Americans shed some guilt for sending young soldiers to war by saying “thank you for your service” but it’d be better to ask vets about their war experiences, says ex-U.S. Army chaplain Chris J. Antal who served in Afghanistan.
By the Rev. Chris J. Antal
Veteran’s Day too often only serves to construct and maintain a public narrative that glorifies war and military service and excludes the actual experience of the veteran. This public narrative is characterized by core beliefs and assumptions about ourselves and the world that most citizens readily accept without examination.
The U.S. public narrative reconciles deep religiosity with a penchant for violence with an often unexamined American National Religion. The core beliefs of this religion include the unholy trinity of governmental theism (One Nation Under God, In God We Trust, etc.), global military supremacy, and capitalism as freedom. These core beliefs provide many U.S. citizens with a broad sense of meaning and imbue the public narrative with thematic coherence. U.S. Marines patrol street in Shah Karez in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Robert Storm)
War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning , as Christopher Hedges wrote. Yet this kind of coherence has a moral and psychological cost. The consequence of an unexamined faith in American National Religion is a moral dualism that exaggerates U.S. goodness and innocence and projects badness on an “other” who we then demonize as the enemy and kill.
Walter Wink described this moral dualism as a “theology of redemptive violence,” the erroneous belief that somehow good violence can save us from bad violence.
Veteran’s Day, in the context of American National Religion, enables selective remembering, self-deception, and projected valorization. In short, it serves to perpetuate lies in order to avoid facing uncomfortable truths about who U.S. citizens are and what kind of people we are becoming.
Imagine a Veteran’s Day where citizens gathered around veterans and asked, “what’s your story?” Citizens who risk this bold step begin to bridge the empathy gap between civilians and veterans and open up the path for adaptive change and post-traumatic growth.
I believe one citizen who approaches a veteran with the invitation, “what’s your story?” does more for the veteran than a thousand patriotic platitudes like “Thank you for your service” could ever do.
Only a First Step
Asking the question is only the first step. A citizen who wants to give back to veterans should cultivate narrative competence, the capacity to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories one hears or reads. The voice of veterans, if we open our ears to hear them, often provides an essential counter-narrative to the U.S. public narrative. Coffins of dead U.S. soldiers arriving at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in 2006. (U.S. government photo)
Violent, sudden, or seemingly meaningless deaths, the kind of deaths often experienced by veterans, can make the world appear dangerous, unpredictable, or unjust. The experience of warfare can often undercut our sense of meaning and coherence and shatter assumptions. Because of this many veterans carry a depth of pain that is unimaginable to many citizens.
The voice of the veterans often reveals uncomfortable truths and invites collective examination of core beliefs and assumptions, especially those that form the bedrock of American National Religion.
Imagine a Veteran’s Day where communities join together for authentic dialogue between veterans and civilians. Such a gathering would empower veterans to share the kind of stories that would help the community face real problems. What new story might emerge in the process? How might we become a better people as a result?
The Reverend Chris Antal was a chaplain with the US Army in Kandahar, Afghanistan and later in the US Army Reserve. While in Afghanistan, he delivered a sermon that said, “We have sanitized killing and condoned extrajudicial assassinations…” He nearly lost his job. This past April, in an open letter to President Obama, he resigned his commission in protest over the use of drones, nuclear proliferation and our government’s claims of impunity to international law. He is minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rock Tavern, New York. More background here.) | 0 |
NARAL recommends way to celebrate Hillary’s birthday, proves they’re not playing with a full deck Posted at 2:42 pm on October 26, 2016 by Doug P.
Today is Hillary Clinton’s birthday , and the people at NARAL suggest celebrating the occasion by … well, here’s Dana Loesch to sum it up: You seriously made gender cards real things. https://t.co/dO8io4txQk
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 26, 2016
Yes — yes they did: Celebrate @HillaryClinton ’s birthday with a deck of Gender Cards—she’s the Ace of Hearts! https://t.co/sTqjAFVmh0 #ImWithHer
NARAL sees Planned Parenthood’s “Woman Card” and raises them some “Gender Cards.” The Gloria Steinem one looks like Steven Tyler. Disrespectful to Mr. Tyler. https://t.co/sjzm8OCrBy
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) October 26, 2016 @NARAL @HillaryClinton If you didn't include Margarent Sanger in the deck, you've failed. | 0 |
Last year was a success for Americans who are fed up with mass immigration, outsourcing, and trade deals that they think are hollowing out their society. [Here are a handful of wins from 2016 — victories achieved by Americans in the face of opposition from the media, big business, the political establishment, and progressives. 1) The collapse of Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio. Bush infamously called illegal immigration an “act of love” and wanted to force Americans to compete with an unlimited supply of foreign professionals for decent jobs. He said he wanted to grant legal status, and U. S. citizenship, to tens of millions of illegal aliens. He declared enforcing immigration law was not an “American value. ” Rubio, of course, pushed for the “Gang of Eight” bill that would have flooded America with 33 million new migrants seeking U. S. jobs and granted amnesty plus an unlimited supply of foreign college graduates and refugees — after swearing to the Tea Party voters who put him in the Senate he would never vote for an amnesty bill. GOP voters reacted by tanking Bush in South Carolina and dealing Rubio a humiliating defeat in Florida during the Republican primaries. 2) Electing Donald Trump as President of the United States. Voters elected Trump not because he was a billionaire celebrity who writes his own tweets, but because he campaigned at great personal expense and risk to build a wall, deport illegal aliens, reform programs, halt the illicit drug trade, prevent Islamic terrorism, renegotiate trade deals outsourcing U. S. jobs, and curb American involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts. Rubio and Bush were comically out of touch with Americans’ concerns about these issues. In a mere 18 months, the conventional wisdom about ratcheting up immigration and handing out amnesty to illegals was swept away. Trump’s first term is very promising for immigration reformers — and at the very least, Hillary Clinton will never have the chance to make her open borders “dream” a reality. 3) Victims of illegal alien crime and their families receiving national awareness, sympathy, and outrage on their behalf. Forget reporters calling them a “hate group” and a “hate rally” — for the first time these families told their stories directly to their fellow citizens on the national stage and asked for justice. Celebrities are told they’re “so brave” for posing nude and tweeting about women’s’ rights, but it takes real courage to recount your son’s death at the hands of an illegal alien, publicly, in the hopes no parent is ever made to suffer such a loss. Illegal alien crime is almost completely preventable, and Americans rewarded the only candidate who took their side in this crisis with the presidency. 4) Fewer Americans trust the media and its stealthy pleas for amnesty and mass immigration. Despite media propaganda about mass immigration and the aggressive denials that any drawbacks exist, over half of all voters are openly insisting they want immigration levels halved or reduced to zero. Another 58 percent believe illegal aliens should not be allowed to stay in the U. S. period. Breitbart News previously reported on a poll that found 75 percent of voters want unemployed Americans to receive U. S. jobs, compared to only three percent who think the U. S. should import more foreigners to fill them. percent said politicians “who would rather import foreign workers to take jobs rather than give them to current U. S. residents [are] unfit to hold office. ” Meanwhile, trust in the media continues to hover at an low. 5) The facts about immigration continue to “come out of the shadows. ” There is now no excuse for leftists and the media to sneer at anyone who questions mass immigration as “demagogues. ” million migrants is an enormous number of people to fit into a country in only a few decades. Businesses got cheaper workers and Democrats got more voters, but the nation got millions of new residents who have little incentive to assimilate. Voters are finally allowed to ask: Do we want to live in a country where barbaric practices — such as beheadings, animal sacrifice, and female genital mutilation — take place? Do we want our children to learn “the value of diversity” instead of math, reading, science, writing, and American history? The media can no longer cover up these stories so easily, and political correctness lost much of its power over the immigration debate. 6) The nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Thanks to the Democrats’ nuclear option, the Sessions is almost certainly a “lock” for Attorney General. A Department of Justice will crack down on lawless sanctuary cities, help craft tougher sentences to penalize drug trafficking, and overhaul the department to answer voters’ calls for law and order. 7) Paul Ryan abandoning the visa program. This visa program would have given 198, 000 jobs to migrants instead of unemployed or underemployed Americans. Ryan’s decision to not continue the program may be a sign that one of the nation’s leading advocates for importing foreign workers may have learned a lesson or two. The program allows companies to annually bring in 66, 000 foreign workers instead of hiring Americans. The program provides the companies with cheap seasonal workers, minimizes the need for companies to recruit and train Americans, and it also cuts the salaries paid to American workers, say advocates. Ryan’s December 2015 language expanded the visa program by saying that foreign workers would not count towards the annual 66, 000 limit if they had worked for a employer during the prior three years. In effect, the “returning worker exemption” covertly quadrupled the size of the program from 66, 000 visas per year up to 264, 000 visas per year. That is an increase of up to 198, 000 outsourcing visas each year. Ryan has retreated on his “ Plan” before Trump assumed office, but cautious voters should still assume that he adheres to his immigration and amnesty beliefs. 8) The death of the bill promising to slash prison sentences for drug traffickers, including many illegal aliens. As murders rise in major cities and a raging opioid epidemic claims tens of thousands of lives, some Republicans partnered with Democrats to spring federal drug traffickers from prison. As Breitbart News has previously reported: Nearly a quarter of all inmates in federal prison are according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, most of which are Mexicans. The bill would have released illegal alien drug traffickers into American communities without requiring their deportations. Fortunately, under a Trump administration, the bill has virtually no chance of becoming law. | 1 |
The Zika Virus Is Harmless - It Does Not Cause Birth Defects - We Told You So Moon of Alabama
After nearly a year of causing hysteria, mass travel cancellations and unnecessary abortions it finally daunts to "journalists" and "experts" that the Zika virus is harmless. It can cause a very minor flue - two days of a low fever and uncomfortable feeling for a quarter of those infected - that is all. It does not cause, as was claimed by sensationalists in the media and various self-serving "scientists", birth defects like microcephaly.
We told you so.
The piece refereed to a Congressional Research Service report and various sound scientific papers. It concluded: There is absolutely no sane reason for the scary headlines and the panic they cause.
The virus is harmless. It is possible, but seems for now very unlikely, that it affects some unborn children. There is absolutely no reason to be concerned about it.
The artificial media panic continued and huge amounts of money were poured into dangerous insecticides to kill mosquitoes (and important pollinators) that did not do any harm. Indeed, generous use of some of these insecticides likely were the very cause of a blip in microencephaly cases in northeastern Brazil.
In March we wrote: Reading About Zika May Hurt Your Brain .
We listed 35 "news" headlines about potential catastrophes related to a Zika epidemic. The common factor - all those headlines included the miraculous little word may . The pieces were pure speculations though some quoted this or that "expert" who was hunting for new research funds or lobbying for some pharmaceutical or pesticide conglomerate.
In June we added: Zika Virus Does Not Cause Birth Defects - Fighting It Probably Does .
New serious research found what some people in Brazil had suspected from the very start of the small and strictly locally limited jump in microencephaly cases in Brazil: [D]octors in the Zika affected areas in Brazil pointed out that the real cause of somewhat increased microcephaly in the region was probably the insecticide pyriproxyfen, used to kill mosquito larvae in drinking water: The Brazilian doctors noted that the areas of northeast Brazil that had witnessed the greatest number of microcephaly cases match with areas where pyriproxyfen is added to drinking water in an effort to combat Zika-carrying mosquitoes . Pyriproxyfen is reported to cause malformations in mosquito larvae, and has been added to drinking water in the region for the past 18 months.
Pyriproxyfen is produced by a Sumitomo Chemical - an important Japanese poison giant. It was therefore unsurprising that the New York Times and others called the doctors report a "conspiracy theory" and trotted out some "experts" to debunk it....But [s]cientist at the New England Complex Systems Institute also researched the pyriproxyfen thesis. They found : Pyriproxifen is an analog of juvenile hormone, which corresponds in mammals to regulatory molecules including retinoic acid, a vitamin A metabolite, with which it has cross-reactivity and whose application during development causes microcephaly . ...[T]ests of pyriproxyfen by the manufacturer, Sumitomo, widely quoted as giving no evidence for developmental toxicity, actually found some evidence for such an effect , including low brain mass and arhinencephaly—incomplete formation of the anterior cerebral hemispheres—in rat pups. Finally, the pyriproxyfen use in Brazil is unprecedented—it has never before been applied to a water supply on such a scale. ...Given this combination of information we strongly recommend that the use of pyriproxyfen in Brazil be suspended pending further investigation.
Today the Washington Post finally admits that the Zika virus does not cause birth defects: [T]o the great bewilderment of scientists, the epidemic has not produced the wave of fetal deformities so widely feared when the images of misshapen infants first emerged from Brazil.
Instead, Zika has left a puzzling and distinctly uneven pattern of damage across the Americas. According to the latest U.N. figures, of the 2,175 babies born in the past year with undersize heads or other congenital neurological damage linked to Zika, more than 75 percent have been clustered in a single region: northeastern Brazil.
The localities where the flue virus occurred outside of a small area in Brazil saw no increase in birth defect numbers. The number of (naturally occurring) microcephality cases stayed constant despite a large increase in (harmless) Zika virus infections. The numbers in Brazil also turned out to be partially inflated because of a lack of standard diagnosis criteria and unreliable statistics. A factor we had pointed to in our very first piece.
The WaPo piece today muses about several "possible" causes for the local increase in cases in northeastern Brazil that indeed happened. It quotes some of the very "experts", like from the pharmaceutical industry influenced CDC, that were wrong on the issue since the first panic headline. It strenuously avoids to even mention the most likely cause - the excessive local use of an insecticide that is supposed to cause birth defects - in developing mosquitoes. Thus the reporting is still void of journalistic ethics and irresponsible in its conclusions.
It did not take much effort to get this right. An hour or two of skimming through publicly available sources of good standing, some basic higher education and sound reasoning was enough. But instead of doing such basic inquiries "journalists" and media "served" panic and speculations by biased "experts". Keep this story in mind for the next sensationalist onslaught of panic headline. There surely will be some "interests" behind those; just don't expect unbiased facts and basic logic reasoning. Share This Article... | 0 |
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Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was the ranking minority member on the House Benghazi committee, so he knows firsthand how Republican witch-hunts work from up close personal experience.
On CNN’s New Day this morning, he revealed the real motivation behind the FBI Director’s stunningly improper memo to Congress last week.
“I don’t think the American people have a clue how hard the Republicans – particularly on my committee – have been on the FBI. This is a man – Director Comey – who they loved. They said he was the greatest thing in the world, very honorable.”
“When he came out with the decision in July to not prosecute Mrs. Clinton, they suddenly turned against him. He knows that if he makes any misstep, the Republicans are going to be all over him and they’re going to try and bring harm to him. The thing that he did say in our hearing, and it stuck with me, is that ‘there should not be a double standard to the disadvantage of Mrs. Clinton.'”
Cummings is heavily implying that the FBI Director was so intimidated by Congressional Republicans and the threat of being dragged in front of a Congressional investigation committee himself that he caved in and fed them the kind of vaguely worded red meat memo the Trump campaign desperately needed to keep their failing campaign on life support.
Even Comey himself admitted that his memo was going to be widely misinterpreted , which is probably why CNN’s host began her interview with Congressman Cummings by saying, “Trump is lying about the email probe.”
It hasn’t taken long for the roof to cave in on Comey’s career anyway, as his obvious meddling in the election has drawn bipartisan complaints about illegal electioneering by the FBI Director, his former boss to condemn his actions and for the Senate minority leader Harry Reid to demand answers from the FBI about the Republican candidate’s love affair with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Reid’s point was not lost on the Congressman from Maryland who told CNN:
“There has been a lot of information out there about Mr. Trump, Mr. Manafort and the Russian government and alleged attempts to take over our election. Members of Congress have asked for months, for the FBI to provide us with information if Mr. Trump, Mr. Manafort and any elements of the Russian government have any coordination or connection with each other.”
“They have not given us one syllable. So the question here is: Do we have a double standard here?”
Of course there’s a double standard!
The FBI has a responsibility to keep certain things secret, and when it comes to partisan elections that responsibility is key to the ability of our electoral democracy’s basic functioning. Newsweek’s Kurt Eichenwald pointed out cogently that Republican George W. Bush was investigated by the FBI in 1996, prior to running for President. Yet, the Clinton White House didn’t grab his FBI file and air all of the dirty laundry claiming a very partisan need for transparency during an election. Otherwise, the FBI could decide to influence every election in America, and over time the FBI would pick the elected officials to their liking.
Nothing can un-ring the bell that FBI Director Comey struck by letting loose his vague memo, but everyone can understand there is a sexist, partisan and blatant double standard at play by Republicans celebrating a vague memo, which only happened because an official sworn to be non-partisan decided he valued his political career more than the integrity of our electoral system.
Watch it here: | 0 |
Russia-US Plutonium Deal No Longer In Effect 11/02/2016
RUSSIA TODAY President Vladimir Putin has signed an act suspending a 2000 agreement between the US and Russia on reprocessing weapons-grade plutonium extracted from decommissioned warheads.
The bill has already been published on Russia’s official legal information website, meaning it’s now in force.
It mentions that a decision to restore the agreement can only be made by Russia’s president.
The deal between Moscow and Washington was ratified in 2000. As a means to safely utilize weapons-grade plutonium, it suggested a specific procedure to turn it into nuclear plant fuel. Starting from 2018, it was planned to reprocess 34 tons (68,000 pounds) of plutonium, which would have been enough to produce thousands of nuclear weapons, RIA Novosti reported.
Yet, while Russia has prepared the infrastructure necessary for the process, the US said it found the procedure too costly and instead opted for mixing plutonium with special dilutants to store it indefinitely.
Russia suspended the deal “ due to drastic changes of circumstances, the rise of threat to strategic stability as a result of hostile actions of the US towards the Russian Federation and the inability of the US to provide for the accepted obligations to utilize the excess weapons-grade plutonium in accordance with the agreement ,” the new bill read.
For the agreement to be resumed, Washington should reduce the US military presence on the territory of NATO members that joined the bloc after 2000, cancel its Magnitsky Act which bans entry to the US to a list of Russian citizens, as well as lift other anti-Russian sanctions and compensate the loss Moscow suffered as a result of such policy.
The bill on suspension – which is a “ forced measure ,” according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov – was first submitted by the president’s office earlier this month and then approved by parliament.
Commenting on the suspension of the deal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that it would not affect any of Moscow’s other commitments related to international nuclear security and does not interfere with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. | 0 |
Наука и техника
Исследователи из Ирландии встали на тропу войны с женским недугом современности – безумным похудением. Эксперты заявили, что им удалось изобрести чудодейственный препарат, регулирующий в организме человека уровень загадочного гормона грелина – «повелителя голода и аппетита». Предполагается, что инновационный медикамент станет спасением для барышень, страдающих анорексией.
У пациенток после ирландского чудо-средства появится нормальный аппетит. Любая 40-килограммовая дюймовочка, которая долгие годы работала над собой, чтобы добиться торчащих рёбер и впалых щёк, вдруг начнёт грезить о своём злейшем враге – о еде! Тростиночке вместо традиционного салатного листика вдруг захочется чего-нибудь существенного – жирного борща со шкварками, например. Да-да, сотни калорий в одной несчастной плошке. Но кто же думает о калорийности еды после долгого мучительного голодания?
Не верится, что ирландским учёным удастся в наше время много заработать на таблетке для «потолстения». А как же золотые слова супермодели Кейт Мосс: «Нет ничего вкуснее, чем чувствовать себя худой»? Да некоторые худышки считают эту цитату своим жизненным кредо. Малоежки ни за что не поменяют завидную аристократическую костистость на что-то банальное, вроде свиной котлеты. Как же трогательные статусы в социальных сетях: «Голод – твой друг, он не предаст тебя, как еда», «Мир анорексии – мир гламура, выбившийся из потока обычной жизни», У меня есть преимущество – я худая»? А если с обладательницей неотразимых ножек-спичек на фоне приёма ирландских пилюль произойдёт страшная катастрофа – плюс 20 сантиметров в талии? А если жертва диет, истосковавшаяся по вкусностям, настолько пристрастится к еде, что потеряет голову – и превратится в заложницу холодильника? Коварный гормон грелин уж очень любит пошалить.
Желание соответствовать идеалу глянцевой красоты доводит девушек не только до анорексии, но и до противоположного расстройства пищевого поведения – булимии. Пациенты с этой странной хворью, которая дословно переводится как «волчий голод», склонны к неконтролируемому обжорству, «пищевым срывам» и вечно плохому настроению. Благо, про них тоже позаботились учёные. В прошлом году всезнающие исследователи Англии, решив, что клин клином вышибают, изобрели волшебный … суп от булимии. В состав блюда входит особый вид крахмала, способствующий быстрому наступлению чувства насыщения.
Британские эксперты в вопросах диетологии настолько увлеклись производством диетического питания, что помимо супа изобрели ещё несколько продуктов для похудения: хлеб, йогурт и коктейль. Осталось только представить миру жиросжигающую картошку-фри и антицеллюлитное пирожное – и исполнится мечта всех худеющих дам. В сочетании с низкокалорийной колой такие продукты будущего, пожалуй, пойдут на ура!
Питаться нормально – умеренно и без всякого фанатизма – непростое дело. На эту тему есть хороший «стишок»:
когда идёшь чеканным шагом из всех углов так вкусно пахнет нельзёй
В наш век изобрели множество средств для коррекции фигуры – от чая до вибропояса. Новости с пометкой «шок», вещающие миру об очередном средстве против лишних килограммов, появляются в сети с завидным постоянством. Вес и похудение, формы и рельефы, салаты и тортики – мы чересчур много думаем о пустых вещах. Отсутствие каши и винегрета в голове куда ценнее содержимого наших тарелок. Наполненный едой холодильник – это огромный соблазн и большая проблема лишь для тех, кто не желает наполнить радостью жизнь. | 0 |
Grassroot Voter Fraud Investigation Hacked Election monitoring group hacked after exposing faulty electronic voting machines The Alex Jones Show - October 27, 2016 Comments
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By: Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge | Recall that in a March 2015 interview with CBS, just after the NYT reported of Hillary’s use of a private email server, president Obama told the American public he had only learned about Hillary’s “unusual” arrangement from the press. As we further reminded readers one month ago, CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante asked Mr. Obama when he learned about her private email system after his Saturday appearance in Selma, Alabama. “ The same time everybody else learned it through news reports ,” the president told Plante. “ The policy of my administration is to encourage transparency, which is why my emails, the BlackBerry I carry around, all those records are available and archived ,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m glad that Hillary instructed that those emails about official business need to be disclosed.” Unfortunately, the “transparency” of the Obama administration was severely tarnished in late September , when in the FBI’s interview notes with Huma Abedin released by the FBI it was first revealed that Obama had used a pseudonymous email account: “Once informed that the sender’s name is believed to be pseudonym used by the president, Abedin exclaimed: ‘How is this not classified?'” the report says. “Abedin then expressed her amazement at the president’s use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email.” To be sure, this was not definitive evidence that Obama was aware of Hillary’s email server, nor that there may have been collusion between the president and the Clinton campaign. That changed today, however, when in the latest Podesta dump we learn that in an email from Cheryl Mills to John Podesta , the Clinton aide upon learning what Obama had just said… … countered with something quite stunning: we need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov That, ladies and gentlemen, is proof that the president not only lied, but did so with the clear intention of protecting the Clinton campaign. As a further reminder, Politico previously reported that the State Department had refused to make public that and other emails Clinton exchanged with Obama. Lawyers cited the “presidential communications privilege,” a variation of executive privilege, in order to withhold the messages under the Freedom of Information Act. It is therefore unknown what the president’s “alternative” email account was, or who hosted it. This also explains why in a prior Wikileak, Podesta told Mills in an email titled “Special Category” that she thinks “ we should hold emails to and from potus? That’s the heart of his exec privilege. We could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I(t) seems like they will. ” Mills did not respond by email. The Clinton-Obama emails were turned over to the State Department, which later announced it would not release them. * * * So just how did Mills and Podesta “clean up” the fact that Obama lied to the American people, a tactic some could allege is evidence of an attempt to cover up a presidential lie to protect Hillary Clinton. What we do know, and we assume this is completely unrelated, between March 25-31, just a couple of weeks after Mills said “we need to clean this up,” Bleachbit was used to wipe Hillary’s private server clean. But of course, that is purely a coincidence. Since we are confident others will also demand an answer, in light of the latest revelation hinting at a collusive cover up extending to the very top of US government, or as Cheryl Mills dubbed it a “clean up”, perhaps it is time for the State Depratment to unveil just what was said between the president and the Clinton campaign? Submit your review | 0 |
Dispatches from STEPHEN LENDMAN H illary and others irresponsibly accused Russia for the damning leaked emails – aiming to distract attention from her wrongdoing. Sputnik News interviewed former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray. He explained “(t)he source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all.”
“I discovered what the source was when I attended the Sam Adam’s whistleblower award in Washington,” he explained. “The source of these emails comes from within official circles in Washington DC. You should look to Washington not to Moscow… WikiLeaks has never published any material received from the Russian government or from any proxy of the Russian government. It’s simply a completely untrue claim designed to divert attention from the content of the material.”
The pieces are in place to assure a Hillary victory on Tuesday. But the system is now so broken due to rifts inside the ruling class, that surprises might be inevitable. Photo by IoSonoUnaFotoCamera
Hillary, campaign aides, DNC officials and media scoundrel press agents irresponsibly blame Russia working collaboratively with Trump. The Big Lie repeated enough gets most people to believe it. Given Hillary’s unpopularity, maybe the tactic is less effective in her case. Whistleblower insiders uncover important information everyone has a right to know. They leak it to sources like WikiLeaks. Julian Assange and others working with him then publish it – including a treasure trove of damning Hillary and Podesta emails. … Will it make a difference next Tuesday? Not if things are rigged for her as Trump claims. If he loses and challenges the outcome, things could get pretty dicey ahead. NOTE: ALL IMAGE CAPTIONS, PULL QUOTES AND COMMENTARY BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS ABOUT THE AUTHOR STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected] . His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com . =SUBSCRIBE TODAY! NOTHING TO LOSE, EVERYTHING TO GAIN.= free • safe • invaluable If you appreciate our articles, do the right thing and let us know by subscribing. It’s free and it implies no obligation to you— ever. We just want to have a way to reach our most loyal readers on important occasions when their input is necessary. In return you get our email newsletter compiling the best of The Greanville Post several times a week. | 0 |
a reply to: Violater1 She wants your vote. And she will say anything to get it. She changes her mind as fast as public opinion changes. ROFL Damm - If we could get someone in office who would change their opinion to public opinion AND FOLLOW THROUGH, they would be my hero. They spend all their money finding out what we want, then they lie. Why can't we just get a representative in office? edit on 26-10-2016 by Isurrender73 because: (no reason given) | 0 |
Many of us do not share Donald Trump's past values, but we do love America. In my opinion, it is not about him. It is about: 1. Who will preserve and a protect the constitution? 2. Who will protect the second amendment? 3. Who will not send your son or daughter into harms way unless there is a good reason. 4. Who does not support partial-birth abortion? 5. Who wants to fix our inner cities and our infrastructure? 6. Who will improve our economy and bring jobs back to the USA? 7. Who is a nationalist and not a globalist? 8. Who will protect our vets from dying in the streets and on park benches and get them help when they need it? 9. Who supports our police, firemen, military men and women? 10. Who will protect our borders from criminal elements and terrorist? 11. Who will not leave Americans to die in foreign countries under the hands of terrorist? 12. Who is now a professed Christian and changed man according to many Christian leaders and pastors? These are just a few reasons to vote for Donald Trump. | 0 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name => Credit: VDare.com.
From the start of Donald Trump’s campaign, the media have covered him dishonestly. They have consistently portrayed him as a closet “white supremacist” who deliberately appeals to “ racists .” They have tried to tie him to a wicked movement known as the “Alt-Right.” They are now working on another dishonest angle: that Donald Trump is “mainstreaming hate” and bringing “racism” into public discourse. The media clearly want to stampede voters into Mrs. Clinton’s camp so as to spare us the agony of a “racist” in the White House.
The demonization campaign has backfired. By trying to hang racial dissidents around Donald Trump’s neck, the media have given American Renaissance and other organizations far more publicity than ever before. At the same time, constant shouts of “racist” and “bigot” don’t seem to hurt Mr. Trump: instead they are wrecking what is left of media credibility. The biggest irony, though, is that Donald Trump is probably not one of us at all. But even small deviations from the cast-iron orthodoxy of race are enough to plunge our rulers into dark fantasies about Donald Trump as a secret David Duke fan.
Media dishonesty started immediately. When Mr. Trump pointed out that some immigrants from Mexico were criminals, the press acted as if he had said all Mexican immigrants are criminals. Then, when alert news hounds discovered that those of us they love to call “haters” and “white supremacists” liked Mr. Trump, there was no end of articles with titles such as : “ Meet the Horde of Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Other Extremist Leaders Endorsing Donald Trump ,” “ Top Racists And Neo-Nazis Back Donald Trump ,” “ ‘Heil Donald Trump’: Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists Show Support ,” and “ The White Nationalists Who Support Donald Trump .”
These articles had a simpleminded purpose: discredit Mr. Trump by parading before the reader any Nazi, Kluxer, or racially conscious white person who had anything nice to say about the candidate. The implication was that if “racists” were going to vote for Donald Trump he must be “racist,” too.
This was deceitful and one-sided. When the chairman of the American Communist Party endorsed Hillary Clinton , no one suggested this meant she was a communist.
It is true that Mr. Trump gave the media just enough of an excuse to pretend he really is a closet “bigot” because he did not repudiate “racists” with the snorts of indignation respectability requires. There was the famous exchange in February when a reporter pushed Mr. Trump to disavow an endorsement from David Duke. As The Hill reported it: “ ‘David Duke endorsed me? OK, alright. I disavow, OK?’ Trump said, seeking to quickly move on to another question.”
That same month, there was another famous exchange with Jake Tapper of CNN :
Tapper: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?
Donald Trump: Well just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.
The media leaped on these exchanges with shouts of joy . “Trump refuses to disavow white supremacists! That’s because he is one!”
There are far better explanations. First, Donald Trump is a pugnacious man. He doesn’t like being pushed around by anyone, especially not by journalists who hate him . If Mr. Tapper had belligerently demanded that Mr. Trump agree that the sky is blue, Mr. Trump would have bridled at that.
Second, Donald Trump probably doesn’t know anything about David Duke or white supremacy. I would be astonished if he has ever looked into the thinking of David Duke or any other alleged “white supremacist.” It is his feistiness and his ignorance of white advocacy that explain his answers, not some carefully concealed racial consciousness.
The press has also pounced on Donald Trump’s retweets of “racist” material, which is supposed to be yet more proof that he is a secret supremacist. Business Insider, for example, published this shocking story: “ 5 times Donald Trump has engaged with alt-right racists on Twitter .” Not one of these tweets is obviously “racist,” and it would be surprising if Mr. Trump or his skeleton staff took the time to vet the sources of the thousands of tweets @realDonaldTrump has sent during the campaign.
Now the press is working on another smear-Trump angle. Recently, I have been contacted by journalists from such places as Bloomberg News, Reuters, and the New York Times , who clearly want to write that Donald Trump is “mainstreaming hate,” that he is responsible for a huge surge in the Alt-Right. They want to know about all the people who have been flocking to AmRen.com because of what Donald Trump says. They want me to tell them about people who have been “emboldened” to “speak out against minorities” because Donald Trump has led the way. They would love to find someone who now thinks he is free to run down the street shouting “nigger!” because Mr. Trump wants to take a hard look at Muslim immigrants.
I have explained to them as patiently as I can that they have it the wrong way around. No one comes looking for AmRen.com because Donald Trump wants to build a wall. They come looking for us because the media have written about us in their attempt to convince the world that Mr. Trump is a “racist.” They come looking for us because Mrs. Clinton kindly called attention to us by complaining about the Alt-Right and her “basket of deplorables.” I also try to explain that if the media had not launched its malicious campaign of trying to hold Donald Trump responsible for the views of certain people who support him, few people would have heard of the Alt-Right. In their zeal to paint their enemy in the darkest colors, they are promoting the Alt-Right, not Donald Trump.
I explain that racial dissent has been growing like never before, for reasons that have nothing to do with the campaign. It is Trayvon Martin , Michael Brown , Black Lives Matter, and black rioters who are sending hundreds of thousands of frustrated white people our way– not Donald Trump. This will not change whether Mr. Trump wins or loses. The top landing pages on AmRen.com are analyses of race and crime–something Mr. Trump never talks about.
I also explain to reporters that it is idiotic to think Mr. Trump has mainstreamed “hate,” by which they mean sensible observations about race. I ask them to name a single person who has been “emboldened” to say something “racist” just because Donald Trump is the GOP nominee. Of course, they can’t. If anything, it is the opposite. Mr. Trump has been called every name under the sun for the mildest, most common-sense observations about Muslims and immigration. Anyone tempted to come out of the closet is likely to hesitate more than ever. Things could change if Mr. Trump becomes president, but the candidate himself has done very little to spread our ideas.
What Donald Trump has done is spark an unprecedented interest in politics among disaffected young people who recognize that Mitt Romney and John McCain are no different from Barack Obama when it comes to preserving whites, their society, and their culture. I know a number of millennials who never bothered to vote before but who certainly will in November. I know some who have made their first political contribution or who have spent weekends volunteering for the Trump campaign.
I point out to reporters that this is what elections are supposed to be all about: giving the voters real choices. I note that the Trump/Clinton contest will almost certainly produce a record voter turnout for a modern election. Haven’t our rulers been wringing their hands over a lack of political engagement, especially among the young? Well, now they have engagement, alright, but they don’t like it. They don’t like it because so many people are stumping for the candidate they love to call a “ threat to democracy .” Liberals are such transparent hypocrites. They claim to love democracy, but suddenly start worrying about its health if the people refuse vote the way they tell them to.
The whole Trump-is-a-racist fracas shows just how painfully fragile orthodoxy has become. I may be wrong, but I have no reason to think Donald Trump thinks at all as we do. He has never said or done anything to suggest he is anything more than an ordinary American with normal instincts: He doesn’t want criminals sneaking across the border, he thinks sanctuary cities for illegals are crazy, he doesn’t see why we need more Muslims, and he is angry when immigrants go on welfare. Millions of ordinary Americans clearly agree with him, and not because they are racially aware. It is because they are decent, fair-minded people who also have a nagging sense that the country is changing in unwelcome ways.
I am convinced that Mr. Trump does not have a sophisticated understanding of race. So far as I can tell, he doesn’t have a sophisticated understanding of much of anything. He has stumbled by instinct onto a few sensible policies that white advocates have been promoting for a long time, but not because he is one of us.
Maybe–just maybe–he will move in our direction. It’s not impossible to imagine a President Trump asking, in an offhand way, “What’s wrong with white people wanting to remain a majority in the United States?” Or he might casually note that you can’t expect as many blacks as Asians in AP classes because they don’t have the same levels of intelligence. But I can imagine the opposite, too: President Trump so bogged down in Beltway baloney that he never even builds the wall.
There is one thing that Donald Trump has changed. He has proven that Republican bromides about taxes and small government don’t excite people. He has proven that there is tremendous anger against political insiders of both parties. He has proven that Americans do want their country to come first. They don’t want it to try to save the world or to be a dumping ground for people who have wrecked their own countries.
And even if he has not “mainstreamed racism,” he has shown that if you have a backbone you can withstand what is surely the most intense and concentrated program of hate ever directed at an American. On October 11, Roger Cohen wrote in the New York Times that Donald Trump is a “phony, liar, blowhard, cheat, bully, misogynist, demagogue, predator, bigot, bore, egomaniac, racist, sexist, sociopath,” and a “dictator-in-waiting with a brat’s temper and a prig’s scowl.” [ Trumpism After Trump ] This must be one of the most unhinged, hysterical outbursts in the history of American political journalism. And it is unusual only for its wordiness, not its tone.
Don’t the editors of the Times realize that this kind of frothing explains why more Americans believe in Bigfoot (29 percent) than trust newspapers (20 percent)? Virtually the entire industry is so consumed with rage at Donald Trump and contempt for his supporters that it cannot control itself. Open, petulant bias is driving more and more Americans to social media and to sites like AmRen.com for their news.
Despite the concerted shrieking of virtually the entire American ruling class, Donald Trump is going to get close to half of the vote on November 8. Some 60 million people are going to vote for a man for whom Roger Cohen [ ] has emptied his dictionary trying to insult. Only one major newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump. Only one . And this is a man whom the American people might choose as their president. What better proof could we have of the stark difference between printed opinion and public opinion, between what Americans think and what our rulers want us to think? Donald Trump has ripped away whatever was left of the pretense of media objectivity.
Whether he wins or not, whether he is one of us or not, Donald Trump has laid bare the collusion between big media and a political system in which both parties collaborate to run the country in their interests and those of their big donors. Voters–finally–have a chance to vote against the entire corrupt system. On November 8th they could bring it crashing down, but even if it still stands, it is visibly weakened, badly discredited. These are the perfect conditions in which our ideas will flourish as never before.
Jared Taylor [ Email him ] is editor of American Renaissance and the author of Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America . (For Peter Brimelow’s review, click here .) His most recent book is White Identity . (Reprinted from VDare.com by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
By Jason Easley on Tue, Nov 1st, 2016 at 9:38 pm The more things change, the more they stay the same. The House Freedom Caucus is planning a secret meeting, which in typical Republican fashion was leaked to the press, to discuss ousting Paul Ryan and demanding more ransom from GOP leadership. Share on Twitter Print This Post
The more things change, the more they stay the same. The House Freedom Caucus is planning a secret meeting, which in typical Republican fashion was leaked to the press, to discuss ousting Paul Ryan and demanding more ransom from GOP leadership.
Politico reported , “One of the most pressing questions preoccupying Washington is what the group will do about Paul Ryan. The Wisconsin Republican has said he intends to seek another term as House speaker but has rankled members of the group of several dozen Republican lawmakers that drove John Boehner out of the Speakership last year. The Freedom Caucus is also weighing proposals meant to empower its members, some at the expense of GOP leadership’s authority.”
There have been early rumblings that Speaker Ryan may be open to making a few deals on policies like tax reform with Hillary Clinton if she wins the election. One of the reasons why these deals may never happen is because of the ability of far right Republicans to cause trouble.
If Ryan’s Republican majority shrinks, he will be an even bigger hostage to the far-right wing of his caucus. The dysfunctional dynamic in the House is going to continue even if Hillary Clinton wins the election. Ryan has run into the same hurdles that John Boehner faced. House Republicans are deeply divided and unable to agree on much of anything.
The fact that the Freedom Caucus is holding a secret meeting is a sign that nothing is going to change. If Paul Ryan doesn’t cave to their demands, they will force Ryan out of the Speaker position.
A group of House Republicans is plotting new ways to keep the House from working properly before a new president has even been elected.
This is a reminder that Washington is fine. It’s the Republican Party that’s broken. | 0 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters posed for the camera, their shawls and bandannas covering their identities but not their jubilation, as they captured the main roundabout in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz early this month in what could have been called “operation hoist the flag and pull out a smartphone. ” The shaky cellphone video directly contradicted Afghan and American military spokesmen, who were promising that Kunduz was safe from falling for a second time in one year. During the invasion, insurgents their victory and flooded social media with videos, often shot by fighters narrating their movements in close to real time. In the video from the roundabout, one of the many fighters in the background is heard saying into a phone: “I will call you back. The flag is going up. I have to film it. ” It was not an isolated incident. When the Afghan government said the insurgents were far from the southern provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, the Taliban quickly put out a video showing a fighter driving around the city’s outskirts in a seized government Humvee, steering wheel in one hand and microphone in the other. The video, shown below, was aimed at displaying the ease with which Taliban fighters were moving near the city. But it also rubbed salt on the wound: The Taliban are making constant use of the American equipment they have captured from Afghan forces, including the Humvee the fighter was driving. Increasingly, the Taliban — who, when they controlled the government, banned television and jailed people for photography — rely on their fighters not only to gain territory and strike at the Afghan security forces, but also to record the moment and share it. It appears that they are drawing inspiration from the Islamic State’s strategy. In the past, the Taliban released elaborate videos of suicide bombings long after the fact, their material falling far short of the Islamic State’s slick production values. Recently, though, they have been aiming for updates and have greatly improved on quality. A few days ago, the insurgents released footage filmed by cameras of a suicide car bomb targeting the Nawa district center in Helmand Province. In a country where social media use is becoming more and more vital, the Taliban are making sure to flood the information channels with their message. And with the government already on the defensive both on the battlefield and in the fight over perceptions, the insurgents are also going out of their way to deny the government access to those channels. In places like Helmand Province, as soon as the fighting intensifies, the Taliban force the cellphone network providers to shut down their signal towers. Government officials struggle to get their message out, with local officials and press officers often out of reach. “We don’t touch their towers, but we tell them to stop the signals of certain towers close to the battlefield,” the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. He said they had appointed media officers on the front lines because “we want to fill the vacuum ourselves. ” Physically, too, they have limited the reach and movement of the Afghan government over the past year. The insurgents have often cut off the main highways and sometimes struck government convoys on them, starting firefights with Afghan forces like the one this video shows near the main highway in Baghlan Province. By sharing videos of such acts, the Taliban clearly want to highlight the vulnerability of the Afghan forces’ supply chain. In the early days of the war, there was a motto that rolled off military tongues: the battle for hearts and minds. In the war’s 15th year, many here feel that the Afghan and coalition forces have given up on those hearts and minds in the countryside, where the public has been trampled by both sides. The government that was supposed to be a better alternative has let people down with corruption and abuse, and has now limited its ambitions to just hanging on — concentrating force around urban centers and hoping for a political resolution to the war. The Taliban’s effective turn to social media tactics does not change the fact that, ideologically, they represent a dark past. “Their propaganda is aimed at their own fighters — they want to exaggerate their victories to give them morale and to create fear,” said Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Interior, who has a unit of his own for the online battle. “They cannot win over the people with such propaganda. ” Still, for the most part, the government’s public communication is stilted, and often limited to bombastic slogans or undeliverable promises that do not match the reality that most of the Afghan people are living. By owning the information channels moment to moment, the Taliban are spreading the perception that they are of putting the government on the defensive beyond the battlefield, in a way that resonates with a growing segment of the Afghan public. And little has been done so far to counter it. | 1 |
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show. The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his foray into the airline business and his purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an period. Although Mr. Trump’s taxable income in subsequent years is as yet unknown, a $916 million loss in 1995 would have been large enough to wipe out more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years. The $916 million loss certainly could have eliminated any federal income taxes Mr. Trump otherwise would have owed on the $50, 000 to $100, 000 he was paid for each episode of “The Apprentice,” or the roughly $45 million he was paid between 1995 and 2009 when he was chairman or chief executive of the publicly traded company he created to assume ownership of his troubled Atlantic City casinos. Ordinary investors in the new company, meanwhile, saw the value of their shares plunge to 17 cents from $35. 50, while scores of contractors went unpaid for work on Mr. Trump’s casinos and casino bondholders received pennies on the dollar. “He has a vast benefit from his destruction” in the early 1990s, said one of the experts, Joel Rosenfeld, an assistant professor at New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate. Mr. Rosenfeld offered this description of what he would advise a client who came to him with a tax return like Mr. Trump’s: “Do you realize you can create $916 million in income without paying a nickel in taxes?” Mr. Trump declined to comment on the documents. Instead, the campaign released a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss. “Mr. Trump is a businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement said. “That being said, Mr. Trump has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes. ” The statement continued, “Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it. ” Separately, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Marc E. Kasowitz, emailed a letter to The Times arguing that publication of the records is illegal because Mr. Trump has not authorized the disclosure of any of his tax returns. Mr. Kasowitz threatened “prompt initiation of appropriate legal action. ” Mr. Trump’s refusal to make his tax returns public — breaking with decades of tradition in presidential contests — has emerged as a central issue in the campaign, with a majority of voters saying he should release them. Mr. Trump has declined to do so, and has said he is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. At last Monday’s presidential debate, when Hillary Clinton suggested Mr. Trump was refusing to release his tax returns so voters would not know “he’s paid nothing in federal taxes,” and when she also pointed out that Mr. Trump had once revealed to casino regulators that he paid no federal income taxes in the late 1970s, Mr. Trump retorted, “That makes me smart. ” The tax experts consulted by The Times said nothing in the 1995 documents suggested any wrongdoing by Mr. Trump, even if the extraordinary size of the loss he declared would have probably attracted extra scrutiny from I. R. S. examiners. “The I. R. S. when they see a negative $916 million, that has to pop out,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. The documents examined by The Times represent a small fraction of the voluminous tax returns Mr. Trump would have filed in 1995. The documents consisted of three pages from what appeared to be Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns. The pages were mailed last month to Susanne Craig, a reporter at The Times who has written about Mr. Trump’s finances. The documents were the first page of a New York State resident income tax return, the first page of a New Jersey nonresident tax return and the first page of a Connecticut nonresident tax return. Each page bore the names and Social Security numbers of Mr. Trump and Marla Maples, his wife at the time. Only the New Jersey form had what appeared to be their signatures. The three documents arrived by mail at The Times with a postmark indicating they had been sent from New York City. The return address claimed the envelope had been sent from Trump Tower. On Wednesday, The Times presented the tax documents to Jack Mitnick, a lawyer and certified public accountant who handled Mr. Trump’s tax matters for more than 30 years, until 1996. Mr. Mitnick was listed as the preparer on the New Jersey tax form. Mr. Mitnick, 80, now semiretired and living in Florida, said that while he no longer had access to Mr. Trump’s original returns, the documents appeared to be authentic copies of portions of Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax returns. Mr. Mitnick said the signature on the tax preparer line of the New Jersey tax form was his, and he readily explained an obvious anomaly in the way especially large numbers appeared on the New York tax document. A flaw in the tax software program he used at the time prevented him from being able to print a loss on Mr. Trump’s New York return, he said. So, for example, the loss of “729, 293” on Line 18 of the return printed out as “5, 729, 293. ” As a result, Mr. Mitnick recalled, he had to use his typewriter to manually add the “” thus explaining why the first two digits appeared to be in a different font and were slightly misaligned from the following seven digits. “This is legit,” he said, stabbing a finger into the document. Because the documents sent to The Times did not include any pages from Mr. Trump’s 1995 federal tax return, it is impossible to determine how much he may have donated to charity that year. The state documents do show, though, that Mr. Trump declined the opportunity to contribute to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Fund, the New Jersey Wildlife Conservation Fund or the Children’s Trust Fund. He also declined to contribute $1 toward public financing of New Jersey’s elections for governor. The tax documents also do not shed any light on Mr. Trump’s claimed net worth of about $2 billion at that time. This is because the complex calculations of business deductions that produced a tax loss of $916 million are a separate matter from how Mr. Trump valued his assets, the tax experts said. Nor does the $916 million loss suggest that Mr. Trump was insolvent or effectively bankrupt in 1995. The cash flow generated by his various businesses that year was more than enough to service his various debts. But fragmentary as they are, the documents nonetheless provide new insight into Mr. Trump’s finances, a subject of intense scrutiny given Mr. Trump’s emphasis on his business record during the presidential campaign. The documents show, for example, that while Mr. Trump reported $7. 4 million in interest income in 1995, he made only $6, 108 in wages, salaries and tips. They also suggest Mr. Trump took full advantage of generous tax loopholes specifically available to commercial real estate developers to claim a $15. 8 million loss in 1995 on his real estate holdings and partnerships. But the most important revelation from the 1995 tax documents is just how much Mr. Trump may have benefited from a tax provision that is particularly prized by America’s dynastic families, which, like the Trumps, hold their wealth inside byzantine networks of partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations. The provision, known as net operating loss, or N. O. L. allows a dizzying array of deductions, business expenses, real estate depreciation, losses from the sale of business assets and even operating losses to flow from the balance sheets of those partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations onto the personal tax returns of men like Mr. Trump. In turn, those losses can be used to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income from, say, book royalties or branding deals. Better still, if the losses are big enough, they can cancel out taxable income earned in other years. Under I. R. S. rules in 1995, net operating losses could be used to wipe out taxable income earned in the three years before and the 15 years after the loss. (The effect of net operating losses on state income taxes varies, depending on each state’s tax regime.) The tax experts consulted by The Times said the $916 million net operating loss declared by Mr. Trump in 1995 almost certainly included large net operating losses carried forward from the early 1990s, when most of Mr. Trump’s key holdings were hemorrhaging money. Indeed, by 1990, his entire business empire was on the verge of collapse. In a few short years, he had amassed $3. 4 billion in debt — personally guaranteeing $832 million of it — to assemble a portfolio that included three casinos and a hotel in Atlantic City, the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, an airline and a huge yacht. Reports that year by New Jersey casino regulators gave glimpses of the balance sheet carnage. The Trump Taj Mahal casino reported a $25. 5 million net loss during its first six months of 1990 the Trump’s Castle casino lost $43. 5 million for the year. His airline, Trump Shuttle, lost $34. 5 million during just the first six months of that year. “Simply put, the organization is in dire financial straits,” the casino regulators concluded. Reports by New Jersey’s casino regulators strongly suggested that Mr. Trump had claimed large net operating losses on his taxes in the early 1990s. Their reports, for example, revealed that Mr. Trump had carried forward net operating losses in both 1991 and 1993. What’s more, the reports said the losses he claimed were large enough to virtually cancel out any taxes he might owe on the millions of dollars of debt that was being forgiven by his creditors. (The I. R. S. considers forgiven debt to be taxable income.) But crucially, the casino regulators redacted the precise size of the net operating losses in the public versions of their reports. Two former New Jersey officials, who were privy to the unredacted documents, could not recall the precise size of the numbers, but said they were substantial. Politico, which previously reported that Mr. Trump most likely paid no income taxes in 1991 and 1993 based on the casino commission’s description of his net operating losses, asked Mr. Trump to comment. “Welcome to the real estate business,” he replied in an email. Now, thanks to Mr. Trump’s 1995 tax records, the degree to which he spun all those years of red ink into tax gold may finally be apparent. Mr. Mitnick, the lawyer and accountant, was the person Mr. Trump leaned on most to do the spinning. Mr. Mitnick worked for a small Long Island accounting firm that specialized in handling tax issues for wealthy New York real estate families. He had long handled tax matters for Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and he said he began doing Donald Trump’s taxes after Mr. Trump turned 18. In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Mitnick said he could not divulge details of Mr. Trump’s finances without Mr. Trump’s consent. But he did talk about Mr. Trump’s approaches to taxes, and he contrasted Fred Trump’s attention to detail with what he described as Mr. Trump’s brash and undisciplined style. He recalled, for example, that when Donald and Ivana Trump came in each year to sign their tax forms, it was almost always Ivana who asked more questions. But if Mr. Trump lacked a sophisticated understanding of the tax code, and if he rarely showed any interest in the details behind various tax strategies, Mr. Mitnick said he clearly grasped the critical role taxes would play in helping him build wealth. “He knew we could use the tax code to protect him,” Mr. Mitnick said. According to Mr. Mitnick, Mr. Trump’s use of net operating losses was no different from that of his other wealthy clients. “This may have had a couple extra digits compared to someone else’s operation, but they all benefited in the same way,” he said, pointing to the $916 million loss on Mr. Trump’s tax returns. In “The Art of the Deal,” his 1987 book, Mr. Trump referred to Mr. Mitnick as “my accountant” — although he misspelled his name. Mr. Trump described consulting with Mr. Mitnick on the tax implications of deals he was contemplating and seeking his advice on how new federal tax regulations might affect real estate . Mr. Mitnick, though, said there were times when even he, for all his years helping wealthy New Yorkers navigate the tax code, found it difficult to face the incongruity of his work for Mr. Trump. He felt keenly aware that Mr. Trump was living a life of unimaginable luxury thanks in part to Mr. Mitnick’s ability to relieve him of the burden of paying taxes like everyone else. “Here the guy was building incredible net worth and not paying tax on it,” he said. | 1 |
They stood in line at Trump Tower, sometimes up to half an hour, handing over their cash for mementos of the : mini, chocolate bricks stamped “Trump. ” Trump monogrammed sweaters, towels and glassware. Trump cologne. “I bought it for my two sons,” said Shanon Loggins, 47, of Lufkin, Tex. showing off a golden shopping bag embossed with the Trump crest that carried two bottles of Success by Trump, a fragrance for men. “They need to be successful,” she explained. Business is good for Donald J. Trump. People are flocking to his Midtown Manhattan skyscraper, dining in his restaurants and buying his wares. Reporters are fastidiously chronicling the comings and goings of his transition team, his properties providing the backdrop for television live shots. Mr. Trump has taken the staid task of preparing to assume the presidency and turned it into an exercise in conspicuous and carefully choreographed branding. But as the makes use of his vast real estate holdings, he is also raising questions about whether he is exploiting the high profile and stature of the office to conduct what could be seen as a promotional tour for the Trump Organization. The venues he has picked to conduct his official transition planning attest to his success as a real estate developer: Trump Tower, the Manhattan skyscraper where he lives and works amid eateries and boutiques the upscale, private Palm Beach, Fla. club where he has chosen to hold meetings over Thanksgiving and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N. J. Mr. Trump especially liked the Bedminster setting, he told his aides, because the images of him receiving potential cabinet appointees at the front door of the clubhouse resembled 10 Downing Street in London. In planning future transition meetings, Mr. Trump and his team are considering other properties of his that might fit his desire for rich, regal symbolism. “It stinks,” said Norman Eisen, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer for President Obama from 2009 to 2011. Because there is no specific law prohibiting public officeholders from financially beneficial what Mr. Trump is doing is probably not illegal, Mr. Eisen added. “But that doesn’t make it right,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of the unsavory marketing of his brands that he also did during the campaign. ” Unsavory or not, it is all part of the stagecraft and spectacle that Mr. Trump has directed from his office in Trump Tower — all of which is being ravenously consumed by the news media and his loyal followers. Most days since Mr. Trump became the the lobby of Trump Tower has been a public staging area for aspects of the transition that Mr. Trump most wants people to see. Potential cabinet appointees march across its buffed marble floors, past the cameras that stream the scene live to and into the gold mirrored elevators. This week there were people like Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, who disparaged Mr. Trump as “a cancer on conservatism” when they were battling for the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump and his staff have even devised a proper greeting protocol for arriving guests. As Mr. Perry made his way through the lobby on Monday, a young woman looped her arm around his and escorted him past the cameras. The same woman was also on hand over the weekend to accompany visiting guests when Mr. Trump moved the meetings to Bedminster. The golf club was even more of a display of munificence, with Mr. Trump turning to the cameras to embrace Mitt Romney, who just months ago condemned Mr. Trump as a “phony” and a “fraud. ” He is now a leading candidate for secretary of state. There were more ethnically diverse potential cabinet candidates there, as well, like T. W. Shannon, the first speaker of the Oklahoma House, and Michelle Rhee, a former schools chancellor in Washington, who is . When Mr. Trump was done interviewing them, he would see them off outside and, once again, banter with the news media. “Tremendous talent — we’re seeing tremendous talent,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday. “People that, as I say, we will ‘make America great again.’ These are really great people. These are really, really talented people. ” As the cameras rolled during the weekend at Bedminster, temperatures dropped sharply, sending journalists into the gift shop, where the only attire they could find was a winter hat with Trump embroidered on it. The market for anything stamped Trump has been bustling. At the gift kiosk on the lower level of Trump Tower — between the Trump Ice Cream Parlor and the Trump Grill, with its $25 prix fixe lunch — the line on Monday morning was about two dozen people deep. Cashiers were doing their civic diligence, asking anyone purchasing Trump campaign gear like the “Make America Great Again” hats ($25) whether they were American citizens. (Law prohibits foreigners from giving money to campaigns.) Marilyn Bryan, 70, of Terre Haute, Ind. was sitting at a table outside the kiosk with her daughter Trisha. In May, Ms. Bryan was at a Trump rally in her hometown when someone passed out next to her, knocked her down and broke her femur. That might have been enough Trump for anyone else. But she decided that as long as she was visiting New York this week, she might as well stop by the tower to take in the scene. “What’d we spend? $200?” she asked her daughter. Inside her shopping bag were a hat, the golden Trump chocolate bars and some other Trump knickknacks she planned to give to her relatives. The chocolate, they were somewhat disappointed to learn, was actually made in Fort Wayne, Ind. Standing nearby were Paul and Lea Foster of Hidden Hills, Calif. After purchasing two hats and two Ms. Foster, 62, marveled at Mr. Trump’s ability to cash in on his name. “He’s sure figured out how to make money,” she said. Her husband nodded. “He’s a businessman, a promoter,” said Mr. Foster, 81. “Let’s hope he knows how to run the country. ” | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that President Trump violates the “Pay your taxes” rule and “I worry that if half the country wants this guy to be president, we do need the UN to step in, or the United Federation of Planets, or something. ” Maher said Trump “violates every rule. Don’t lie. Don’t accuse people of things they’re not guilty of. Don’t boast. Pay your taxes. Serve your country. Don’t be a racist, don’t insult … the handicapped people, and other people who are not as lucky to be as as you are, Donald. I worry that if half the country wants this guy to be president, we do need the UN to step in, or the United Federation of Planets, or something. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
In a major omen of potential election disaster for Republicans, Donald Trump has scored the lowest rating in the history of Gallup’s presidential leadership poll.
Gallup released their presidential leadership survey, and the results were historically bad for Donald Trump:
Voters rate Trump worse than any other presidential candidate in Gallup’s records on having the personality and leadership qualities a president should have. Previous readings were taken in late October in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 campaigns. In those years, between 52% and 61% of registered voters said the two major-party candidates had the right personality and leadership qualities — a sharp contrast to Trump’s current 32%. Clinton’s rating of 51% is one percentage point below the previous low score.
Clinton’s score, while low, was one point of the range for previous presidential cycles going back to 2000. Trump’s score was twenty percent below the lowest score in the history of the poll.
Voters aren’t going to elect a man to be the next president who they view as lacking the basic qualities of presidential leadership. The popular vote total in 2016 may reflect the nation’s political polarization, but there is a reason why electoral map projections continue to look very good for the Democratic candidate.
Donald Trump has failed the most elemental test for any presidential candidate. He doesn’t look, act, or behave like a person who has the qualities needed to occupy the Oval Office and lead the United States of America.
The last week before election day tension that is in the air is normal, but the fundamental motivating factors of this contest haven’t changed. Democrats are holding on to their electoral map advantage, while Donald Trump has become the central issue and question on the ballot.
Republicans look to be heading for a major ballot box disaster because voters do not believe that Donald Trump is fit to be president. | 0 |
- < “You Ruined Your Own Communities, Don’t Ruin Ours”–Chicago Whites Demonstrate Against Black Lives Matter After Black Shot > November 8, 2016, 10:08 am A+ | a- Warning
Commenter Muse points out that last weekend there was a cops-shoot-black-man-in-white-neighborhood story that would have been huge national news a few months ago, especially because local whites counterdemonstrated against Black Lives Matter with signs such as:
You ruined your own communities
Don’t ruin ours
#BlueLivesMatter
But this news is being sat on by the national press. Muse writes:
Over the weekend in Chicago, an off duty fireman approached a car that was blocking the entrance to a firehouse. A dispute ensued, and two off duty policemen became involved and the African American driver was shot to death. He reportedly was brandishing a gun. Crickets from the national media. Here we have a cop shooting a black man, and all of a sudden no one except local Chicago media wants to talk about it. Who called the dogs off on election night eve?
Mt. Greenwood is an interesting neighborhood. Mostly ethnic Irish city workers. Cops, fireman, Streets and San (water department) etc. These are the best jobs in the metropolitan area for the blue collar workers, but they have to live in the city due to the residency requirement for Chicago workers. They have nowhere else to go on he southside, so it looks like they are making a stand. There was a face off yesterday between local residents and BLM yesterday. | 0 |
Sex workers reject ‘biased’ BBC prostitution documentary Sex workers reject ‘biased’ BBC prostitution documentary By 0 47
Sex workers say the BBC’s ‘Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone’ documentary, which portrays the lives of women in the Holbeck area of Leeds, Britain’s first legal red light district, is “biased” and unrepresentative.
They argue the program buys into stereotypes and general ignorance, including the view that women are driven into prostitution by drug habits rather than economic pressures brought on by austerity.
Read more
The show follows the daily lives of Sammi Jo, Stacey, Debi and Kayleigh, who sell sex to pay for their addictions. They work in an area also known as Red Light Zone, where women can sell sex between 7pm and 7am without being arrested.
Sammi Jo, who had to be taken from her parents as a child due to abuse, said she turned to drugs and drink “as a comfort.”
Mother-of-three Kayleigh recounted how despite her family’s attempts to help her get clean she would quickly relapse.
“I came off of it and within two days I robbed my brother’s PlayStation games to go sell for money, and that just led into a routine of, I’d have heroin, go work, and I’d have heroin to forget about working,” she told the program.
“It’s just a total vicious cycle.”
But sex workers union English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) believes the show is “biased” and shows only the darker side of the industry.
“This BBC3 film is yet another biased piece on the sex industry,” a spokeswoman for the group told RT.
“Most street-based sex workers are not drug users yet the film chooses to focuses only on women on drugs. It ignores the truth that in many areas around the UK the majority of sex workers are on the streets because of benefit cuts and sanctions.
“If the press ignore that they are colluding with the government in hiding the devastating consequences of their austerity policies, 80 percent of which have targeted women.”
The group said the Red Light Zone provides Leeds sex workers with a safe environment to operate.
According to local police, prostitutes have been three times more likely to report violent incidents since decriminalization came into place in Holbeck. In the first year, between 2014 and 2015, 61 violent incidents were reported to the police. The previous year only 49 cases of assault were reported.
“Some women were glad to work in the Leeds ‘no arrest zone’ because it meant they weren’t being constantly harassed by the police,” the ECP spokeswoman added. Immigration raids
The ECP said it is the police themselves who are endangering the lives of sex workers.
“Since the immigration crackdown everyone is on edge and hiding from officials. Women feel that once again the police are prioritizing criminalization over protection and this is deterring them from reporting violence,” the group complained.
Last week the London Metropolitan Police raided six massage parlors in Soho and Chinatown, arresting 24 people – 17 of whom were seized on “suspicion of immigration offenses.”
The Met released a statement saying the operation was “aimed at bringing to justice those who seek to profit from the exploitation of vulnerable people.”
The ECP, however, claims the swoops are “part of a racist witch-hunt against migrant sex workers, which has got worse since Brexit, even though women have the right to be here under EU law.”
Via RT . This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license. | 0 |
With Hillary Clinton collapsing in the polls, her media guards have now emerged with the dregs of the opposition research barrel: the supposed connection between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. | 0 |
— Tim Carney (@TPCarney) October 27, 2016
Uh oh, Hillary Clinton’s getting sanctimonious again without wasting any time on introspection: This is heartbreaking. No child in America should feel afraid to practice their religion or embrace their heritage. https://t.co/QAfnEXH6ls
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 27, 2016
Cue the disclaimers: Unless they are pro-life, in which case "religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed"! https://t.co/ShpS3pvkQI
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 27, 2016
That, and so much more: Unless they don't want to pay for someone else's birth control. https://t.co/0JSn6pjkaN
— Emily Zanotti (@emzanotti) October 27, 2016 She had a bad dream about Trump? What about the Christians facing prison & massive fines from people like you for practicing their religion? https://t.co/MNnNT2xTcY
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) October 27, 2016 Unless you are a religious Christian or Jew. Then change your benighted religion, simpleton. https://t.co/yIT6veu84N
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 27, 2016 Tell that to the Little Sisters of the Poor. https://t.co/O8OYufqext
— The Mo Mofia (@molratty) October 27, 2016
The progressive “rules” change if your religion goes against left-wing power grabs. Trending | 0 |
Comedian George Lopez lashed out a female audience member who was apparently offended by his jokes. [“There are only two rules in the Latino family,” Lopez said Saturday night during a live show in Phoenix. “Don’t marry somebody black and don’t park in front of our house. ” Video posted by TMZ shows a woman in the audience giving Lopez the middle finger and appearing to be offended by the comic’s pun. Lopez apparently saw the woman protesting his set and proceeded to offer her some pointed advice: “Sit your f*ckin’ ass down! Sit your f*ckin’ ass down! I’m talking, b*tch. You paid to see a show. So sit your f*cking ass down!” [Warning: Explicit Language] But the former ABC star’s harsh demands appeared to enrage the woman even more. Determined to take back control of his show, he doubled down: “You can’t take a joke, you’re in the wrong motherf*cking place,” he said as the crowd cheered him on. “Sit your f*cking ass down or get the f*ck out of here,” Lopez warned. Toward the end of the clip, Lopez apparently had the woman removed from the building. “I tell you what, I’ll make the choice for you. Get the f*ck out of here,” he said as the woman was escorted from her table. “Four seats just opened up front. ” The comedian appeared to address the controversy on his Twitter account Tuesday morning. “You have 2 choices have a good day or get the f*ck out,” he tweeted. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
Rebels Blame Internal Fights for Growing Losses by Jason Ditz, October 31, 2016 Share This
The Syrian Army has entered the town of Tel Kurdi , on the outskirts of Damascus, entering the area over the weekend and pushing into yet another rebel-held area, bringing their forces yet closer to the rebel city of Douma, the last major rebel holding around the capital.
Tel Kurdi, like all the remaining rebel areas in Ghouta, was under siege for some time, and the rebel forces within fell back almost immediately, with no reports of major fighting, and the rebels bragging of a “scorched earth” policy destroying everything of value on their way out.
One of the members of the rebel council blamed the mounting losses on internal fights among the fashions. Indeed, over the past several months a lot of towns and villages in the area have fallen, either in military offensives or in negotiated pullouts.
The negotiated pullouts have been the most effective way to displace large amounts of rebels lately, with the rebels getting sent north into Nusra Front territory around Idlib. This is increasingly boiling down to government control of the area around Damascus, and increased rebel influence in the north. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
— Jeff B/DDHQ (@EsotericCD) October 26, 2016
Election Day may be just around the corner, but there’s still plenty of time for more dirt to be unearthed. Hillary’s neck-deep in the WikiLeaks revelations, of course. But it seems Trump’s not out of the woods yet, either. At least not according to the Daily Beast’s Justin Miller: A new, disgusting bombshell about Trump and women tonight @thedailybeast
— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) October 26, 2016
Oh? | 0 |
The funeral for Elie Wiesel was a gathering of his family and close friends, held on Sunday at a synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. But outside on East 62nd Street stood people, some in tears, who had never met the man who survived the Holocaust to become a clarion voice for those victims who did not. “He was someone who protected us he interceded against our worst instincts,” Sarah Bardin, 44, a preschool teacher who had come to pay her respects, said as she cried. She knew Mr. Wiesel, who died on Saturday at 87, only through his prolific writing. His works, including the memoir “Night,” gave voice to the Jews murdered during World War II and demanded they never be forgotten. Without him, Ms. Bardin said, the world felt like a more vulnerable place. Inside the Orthodox Fifth Avenue Synagogue, about 100 people attended a ceremony that not only reflected Mr. Wiesel as a man of extraordinary scholarship and influence who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his life’s work, but also remembered him as a friend, a mentor, a husband, a father, a grandfather. In a wheelchair, his widow, Marion, listened as Mr. Wiesel was eulogized by his son Elisha, a partner at Goldman Sachs. He spoke of what it was like growing up with a man of such stature but who still had time for unconditional love. A young grandson, Elijah, spoke of sharing simple moments with a man who was a moral titan to many. Elijah recalled the fun of making English muffins together, smothered in blueberry jam. Mr. Wiesel was liberated from the Buchenwald camp as a with the numbers tattooed on his arm. At his funeral he was remembered for a legacy little known by those outside his immediate circle: He loved to laugh, Ted Koppel, the television news anchor said in a eulogy. He spoke of how funny Mr. Wiesel was, and of their friendship that was spent finding ways to make each other laugh. “It made clear his love of the Jewish people extended to all mankind,” Menachem Rosensaft, a friend of over 50 years, said of the service. Mr. Rosensaft, a professor of law at Columbia and Cornell, said he had been a teaching assistant for Mr. Wiesel when he taught at City College in New York beginning in the 1970s. In attendance was Sheila Johnson Robbins, a member of the board of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, the organization he started to promote understanding among ethnic groups in conflict. “He gave us the sense of responsibility, to follow in his footsteps, and continue his mission — to never forget,” she said after the service. “And everyone is thinking of him as a thinker, a writer,” she added. “He was also a man — he loved chocolate!” Around noon, the coffin with Mr. Wiesel’s body was wheeled from the synagogue surrounded by a dozen mourners, a simple pine box that is customary in Jewish funerals, a blue velvet cloth draped over it. Later that day, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of burying a person with expediency, he was interred at Sharon Gardens cemetery, in the Westchester County town of Valhalla. “He was not just a leader for the Jewish people, but for mankind,” Ronald Lauder, the businessman and philanthropist, said after the service. “I would not be who I am without him. What he taught me is that we have to stand up to indifference. He would say, ‘The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. ’” At the burial in Valhalla on Sunday afternoon, family members and friends shoveled dirt onto the coffin, as is Jewish tradition. Among those at the burial was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who began a friendship with Mr. Wiesel over 25 years ago when he invited Mr. Wiesel to speak at Oxford University, where Rabbi Boteach was in residence. “What went through my mind the entire time was that the six million of the Holocaust were never granted the dignity of a burial their ashes were merely scattered,” Rabbi Boteach said. “Here we were with the privilege of burying the Holocaust’s greatest witness. ” | 1 |
The hardest feeling to fight is..? Trying not to kill yourself from not having anyone or any money!!Lmfao forever on this lame dumb planet I can't wait to die and get thecguck away from, for fuckin ever, bitch!# Anonymous Coward | 0 |
‘That’s the CRAP young people pay attention to.’ Team Hillary trashes millennials #PodestaEmails21 Posted at 1:24 pm Sam J.
Sorry millennials, Team Hillary doesn’t think much of you or your taste in pop culture.
In fact in this particular email, “Michael” calls you trivial and the the things you like, “crap.”
Because nothing inspires millennials like calling them young and dumb. How do we get dumb young people to support Hillary? We get morons like @MileyCyrus & @katyperry to knock on doors! https://t.co/RbJl04WZuG pic.twitter.com/ude7XFherP
— Derek Hunter (@derekahunter) October 28, 2016
Enter Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus and a horde of other “pop culture” icons who appeal to the young and dumb. @derekahunter @benshapiro Combine that with BJs from Madonna and the youth outreach is complete! How did we lose to this? #rhetorical
Oh yeah! Totally forgot about Madonna’s promise … oddly enough Hillary didn’t really climb all that much in the polls after that. @derekahunter @MileyCyrus @katyperry For a good laugh give both of them a civics test. 😂
— Dale Mitchell (@thurzday60) October 28, 2016
THAT would be hilarious. | 0 |
Speaker At Trump Rally Says He Hopes Hillary Clinton Dies In A Fiery Car Crash (VIDEO) By Andrew Bradford on October 30, 2016 Subscribe
When historians write accounts of the 2016 race for the White House, it’s very likely that one of the things which will get special attention is the level of violence–both physical and verbal–which has emanated from those who slavishly support GOP nominee Donald Trump.
If you doubt this fact, consider what was said earlier today at a Trump rally being held in Las Vegas. Author and self-described “capitalist evangelist” Wayne Allyn Root was giving a rambling speech as a warm-up before Der Fuhrer Donald took the stage, and while portions of it were comparable to the rantings of Charles Manson after too much caffeine, it was the language Root used (highly militaristic and warlike) that you cannot help but notice. At various points in his unhinged diatribe, Root used the following phrases : “Trump warriors” “Trump army” “Trump revolution”
Then, in full psychotic rant, Root attempted to mix together plot elements from the O.J. Simpson case with the movies Driving Miss Daisy and Thelma and Louise , telling the ecstatic crowd : “It’s Hillary in a White Ford Bronco. She’s got Huma driving and they’re headed for the Mexican border. I have a name for the future TV movie. It’s called Driving Miss Hillary. And the ending, if we all get our wish, is like Thelma and Louise!”
Finally, Root ended his echo of Nuremberg by declaring: “I will give you my country when you pry it from my cold dead hands.”
When I listen to Wayne Allyn Root (or any of the other fanatical Trumpkins), the movie that comes to mind for me is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Featured Image Via Right Wing Watch About Andrew Bradford
Andrew Bradford is a single father who lives in Atlanta. A member of the Christian Left, he has worked in the fields of academia, journalism, and political consulting. His passions are art, music, food, and literature. He believes in equal rights and justice for all. To see what else he likes to write about, check out his blog at Deepleftfield.info. Connect | 0 |
Life at migrant centers in Germany: RT talks to volunteers, refugees about their hopes & fears 20:39 Get short URL © Pascal Rossignol / Reuters Some have faced criticism in their own country for aiding asylum seekers, while others are themselves migrants who have seen their accommodation centers burnt down. RT Russian talked to residents and volunteers at migrant centers in Germany.
Miriam Düsterhöft, 27, studies social science at university and believes that working at one of the refugee centers in Düsseldorf, Germany, will be a good experience.
Düsterhöft told RT Russian that she wants to help refugees to integrate into Europe. Read more Christian refugees persecuted by Muslim asylum seekers in German shelters – survey
“At first it was very difficult. There was a lack of essentials, it was hard to communicate with refugees. Many didn’t make any effort to learn German,” she said.
One of the issues at the center was a lack of interpreters of Persian or Kurdish. There was a man who translated from Arabic for men, and a woman translating for female residents.
“[Kurdish and Persian] women do not communicate with men, they are afraid to speak about certain things. Even we [volunteers] don’t know what they feel or need.”
Asylum seekers have to spend at least six months at the center before authorities can grant them refugee status and provide them with accommodation. Sometimes they have to wait longer before receiving the status, or because the condition of the accommodation provided is much worse than that of the center, Düsterhöft said.
Düsterhöft’s style of clothing at the center differs greatly from what she wears in her everyday life. Here at the migrant center she wears long skirts and trousers, and covers her hands with sleeves.
“This is my decision – I have a lot of tattoos all over my body, and I don’t want to confuse people who aren’t accustoed to this. I don’t think that it infringes on my rights.”
“No one has ever tried to rape me,” she added. This isn’t a random comment – asylum seekers have been accused of numerous sexual harassment incidents towards women and children in Europe since the start of 2016.
Earlier in October, a female interpreter for a French journalist was raped near the notorious Calais ‘Jungle’ migrant camp. Reports also emerged that the woman’s attackers were three Pashto-speaking male asylum seekers. Read more
Düsterhöft said she hasn’t had any major conflicts with refugees. The most serious incident was when the father of one child asked not to draw animals or humans during classes because Islam forbids the depiction of people.
“We solved this issue and removed the controversial exercise,” she said. ‘There are bad people both among Europeans and migrants’
The mother of 18-year-old student Fiona Braun, who is giving German lessons to refugees, says that her life hasn’t changed with the arrival of asylum seekers.
“My daughter works with refugee children from Syria and Afghanistan in camps in Vienna and in Bratislava,” Jana Olearnikova told RT Russian.
“She [Fiona] now has a lot of female friends among migrants. Fiona comes home with new recipes that she learned from the Arab girls,” she said, adding that she welcomes “the opportunity to dive into Arab life” and likes “the diversity of cultures in Europe.”
Olearnikova said she’s not afraid to walk alone in the evenings, despite the stories that have emerged since the refugee crisis started.
“Of course, there may be criminals and bad people among migrants, but they may be among the Europeans, too,” she said. Syrian refugee: ‘ISIS killed my entire family, I have nowhere to go’ Read more More than 300,000 refugees in Germany work illegally, pay kickbacks to asylum center staff - reports
Aid Abu Kasem was an architect back in Syria. He understands that when he receives refugee status, he won’t be able to find the same job in Germany.
“But I don’t mind. The most important thing for me is to find myself in a new reality. I'm learning German, it’s very difficult, but I’m trying,” he told RT Russian.Kasem says it will be difficult for him to settle into his new home.
“I know that in Germany there are common swimming pools and common saunas for men and women. They bathe together naked, although completely unfamiliar with each other. I can’t understand it. I guess I just won’t attend such places."
He said that the center in the town of Zirndorf, Bavaria, where he is currently living, was set on fire twice.
“It’s unpleasant. I didn’t do evil to anyone and shouldn’t suffer for the fact that these people hate anyone who runs away from war."
“ISIS [Islamic State/IS] killed my entire family, I have nowhere to go, so I decided to start a new life,” he added. | 0 |
If Donald J. Trump wins the White House and proceeds to persuade Congress to pass his tax agenda, Americans will get a small tax cut, wealthy Americans and businesses will get a huge tax cut, and the budget deficit will widen substantially unless there is the type of economic boom he promises amid lower taxes and lighter regulation. If Hillary Clinton wins the White House and persuades Congress to pass her agenda, wealthy Americans will pay higher taxes, businesses will face tax rules that make it less advantageous to relocate overseas, and the money those changes produce will go to fund the rest of her policy agenda, from child care to roads, bridges and other infrastructure. That, in a nutshell, is the tax policy choice Americans face when they vote in November, based on plans the two candidates have released and discussed in major speeches this week. Of course, campaign proposals never end up in law in exactly the form candidates talk about them on the stump. But tax policy puts some hard numbers on the sometimes vague rhetoric of the campaign trail. It shows where exactly a candidate’s priorities and vision are, in terms. Elections have consequences, and this is what those consequences might look like if a President Clinton or a President Trump got Congress to reshape the tax code their way. Current: The federal tax rate on income over $467, 000 for a married couple is now 39. 6 percent. Many families benefit from large deductions for things like home mortgage interest and state income tax. Many of these families also have a substantial portion of their income from capital gains, usually taxed at 23. 8 percent. What Mr. Trump would do: He would cut the top marginal income tax rate to 33 percent. An analysis by the Tax Foundation of the House Republicans’ tax plan, on which Mr. Trump’s is based, found it would increase income for the richest 1 percent by 5. 3 percent. Mr. Trump also advocates lowering the tax rate on all business income to 15 percent — and has advocated that the rate apply to all sorts of businesses, including partnerships and sole proprietorships. That opens up room for people to find ways to turn what is now taxed as individual income into “ ” business income at that low 15 percent rate, especially those in position to hire tax lawyers to help them figure out the details. For example, an executive who is paid $1 million in salary could instead form a limited liability corporation to “sell” $1 million of management services to his or her old company, cutting the tax rate to 15 percent. What Mrs. Clinton would do: She envisions a 4 percent tax surcharge for income over $5 million, meaning that the very highest earners would effectively have a nearly 44 percent top marginal rate. She also envisions implementing a rule so that those with income over $1 million pay at least 30 percent, aimed at preventing high earners from paying low overall rates thanks to the lower capital gains tax. She would also limit the value of tax deductions, and require longer holding periods to get the low capital gains tax rate, among other steps that would make the tax code less favorable to the affluent. Current: For a married couple making between $18, 551 and $75, 300, the official marginal tax rate is 15 percent. But in practice, about 45 percent of American taxpayers pay no individual income tax (they do pay federal payroll taxes) because of various tax credits that particularly favor families with children. What Mr. Trump would do: He intends to lower taxes across the board in line with a proposal earlier in the year by House Republicans, which reduced the 15 percent income tax bracket to 12 percent. The Tax Foundation estimated that plan would raise income for families in the percentiles by 0. 5 percent, and for taxpayers by 0. 2 percent. Mr. Trump also wants to make child care . If the policy were implemented as a typical deduction, it would provide no advantage for the 45 percent of people paying no tax and provide the biggest advantages to people in tax brackets. His campaign has indicated that the Trump administration would find ways to make its advantages shared more broadly, though staffers had no details. What Mrs. Clinton would do: Americans in the bottom 95 percent of income would see little or no change to their taxes under Mrs. Clinton’s plan, according to the Tax Policy Center’s analysis. She wants a child care tax credit as part of a broader effort to make child care more affordable, and while she has not enumerated all the details of what she has in mind, a refundable credit would avoid the problems created by offering a tax deduction and would be valuable for and families even if they don’t pay federal income tax. Current: When a person dies, the first $5. 45 million of the estate is exempt from taxation, $10. 9 million for a married couple. Assets above those levels are generally taxed at 40 percent before being passed on to heirs. What Mr. Trump would do: He intends to eliminate the estate tax, or the “death tax” as he and other Republicans refer to it, allowing even the wealthiest people to pass along their assets to heirs without being taxed. What Mrs. Clinton would do: She would lower the levels of exemptions to $3. 5 million for individuals and $7 million for a couple. More families would have to pay, and very wealthy families would pay taxes on a higher portion of their assets. She would also increase the tax rate on affected estates to 45 percent. Current: It’s complicated. The official corporate income tax rate is 35 percent, higher than for most advanced countries. But the United States also offers a complex range of deductions that mean the effective rate — what is actually collected by the government — is much lower. If that combination of a high rate but low tax collections doesn’t sound very good, congratulations: Tax writers in both political parties agree with you. What Mr. Trump would do: He would sharply cut the top tax rate on corporate profits to 15 percent. And he would apply that rate to partnerships and other types of businesses that currently pass their profits on to individuals who then are taxed at individual income rates as high as 39. 6 percent. He would simultaneously eliminate a wide range of business deductions. With the new, lower rate, businesses that earn money overseas and currently keep it outside the United States would have less incentive to do so. So they might repatriate money, pay the lower tax and invest it at home. The proposal would sharply reduce the tax burden on companies, reducing government revenue by $1. 9 trillion over the next decade, according to the Tax Foundation’s estimate. What Mrs. Clinton would do: She seeks a series of tweaks to the corporate tax code to try to dissuade companies from moving operations abroad to save on taxes. One provision would change a key rule to make it harder to execute “tax inversions,” in which a United States firm merges with a foreign competitor and moves its corporate headquarters overseas in order to get access to lower taxes in the merger partner’s country. Another would limit the deductibility of interest when it is used as a tool to avoid American taxes. A third provision is an “exit tax” on companies that relocate outside the United States without first repatriating earnings kept abroad. Mrs. Clinton has also pitched tax credits for companies that hire workers from apprenticeships or share profits with their workers. In her speech Thursday, she said she would reduce red tape facing small businesses as they try to pay their taxes. Current: The United States is on track to have a budget deficit of $534 billion in the current fiscal year and a total of $9. 3 trillion over the coming decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That would gradually push the total debt relative to the economy to 86 percent from about 75 percent. What Mr. Trump would do: He just overhauled his tax plan on Monday, and there aren’t detailed estimates available yet. But his earlier plan was estimated to reduce federal revenue by $9. 5 trillion over the next decade. If not offset by either huge spending cuts or a major burst in economic growth, that would make cumulative budget deficits over the decade roughly twice as big as they are currently estimated to be, even before accounting for potentially higher interest rates as a result. His new proposal would probably reduce tax revenues by less than his original did, though exactly how much has not been fully modeled. What Mrs. Clinton would do: Her tax proposals are estimated to increase federal revenue by $1. 1 trillion over the decade. She has said she would use that increased revenue to cover the cost of other policy proposals, with the intention of making her overall agenda have a neutral effect on the budget deficit. | 1 |
Michael (Cliff) Waters Lead Analyst of Energy Transfer Partners
L.P. 1300 Main St. Houston, Texas 77002
(713) 989-2404
[email protected]
If you are able to actively participate in protecting the sacred land, make the journey to North Dakota and standing with the Standing Sioux Tribe.
Ariana Marisol is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She graduated The Evergreen State College with an undergraduate degree focusing on Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram. | 0 |
By Jon Rappoport But… After Trump’s stunning victory, the media narrative will continue: Riots are okay. Now we are a nation “deeply divided.” This horrible... | 0 |
At Stanford University, in a conference room above a Starbucks and other shops, a panel of five gathered in June 2015 to decide whether a sexual assault had occurred on campus. Several months later, after a process marred by procedural errors, five different panelists convened to rule on the matter again. The case involved a woman, a sophomore, who had met a player on Stanford’s powerhouse football team at a fraternity party one Saturday night. They went back to her room where, she said, he raped her. He said they had consensual sex. Seeking to avoid the trauma of a police investigation, the accuser turned to the university’s disciplinary board, one of many on college campuses that adjudicate sexual assault cases, and it would decide whom to believe. If the panel had found that sexual assault had taken place, the man could have been expelled. Both times, three of the five panelists — drawn from a pool of administrators, faculty members and students — concluded that the man, who remained on the football team throughout the case and is on the roster for a bowl game Friday, committed sexual assault. At many schools, this simple majority vote would have been enough to find the accused responsible. But Stanford had set an uncommonly high bar, requiring at least a decision. This year, amid growing dissent over how it handles these kinds of cases, Stanford changed its procedure in a way that victims rights advocates say favors the accused. It now requires a unanimous verdict from a board, making it an outlier among prestigious universities. Only one other school (Duke) in U. S. News World Report’s list of the country’s top 20 colleges that use such panels has such a stringent requirement. As awareness of sexual assault on college and university campuses has surged, institutions have struggled to balance the desire and legal obligation to cultivate a safe campus, where victims feel comfortable coming forward, with maintaining due process for the accused. At Stanford, however, that effort has set off a particularly vigorous debate, as a school that is an innovator across fields and has a sterling image to protect faces a community in which many believe it has fallen short of leading on one of the thorniest issues of the day. In the case with the football player, the woman, who had gotten a second hearing after presenting evidence of errors in the first proceeding, remains angry and has temporarily left the school to avoid the player. “I realized that I got into this school and deserved to get an education here,” the woman said in an interview. “He was a valued football player, but I had earned my right to be here, too. ” The man, who did not reply to repeated requests for comment, remains enrolled at Stanford and is expected to be a member of the team for its game against North Carolina in the Sun Bowl on Friday. Stanford officials said they could not talk about details of the case because of confidentiality rules and federal law. But they defended the system they have put in place to resolve sexual assault allegations. Stanford’s decision to require a unanimous panel of three, in place since February 2016, stemmed from recommendations made by a task force last year. “In deciding we wanted panelists, it made sense to go to a panel,” said Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford Law professor who is now chairwoman of a sexual assault advisory committee, “and having three people decide something by a preponderance of the evidence seemed to us the appropriate way of deciding whether a sanction should be imposed on somebody for his or her behavior. ” Reports of sexual assaults on and around Stanford’s campus increased to 39 in 2015, from 21 in 2010, according to data Stanford compiles under federal law, though it is possible victims were coming forward more often, rather than there being more attacks. Still, very few sexual assault cases that have gone through the university’s internal process in recent years have led to any significant punishment for the accused, a fact that Stanford attributes to a rigorous but fair standard to guard against wrongful judgments. Advocates for sexual assault survivors consider it a sign of a system stacked against victims. A New York Times examination of the Stanford case concerning the football player, based in part on a review of more than 100 pages of documents from Stanford’s proceedings, illuminates the school’s struggles and pitfalls in adjudicating these kinds of cases. “Everyone knows sexual assault on campus is a serious problem, and one that is very difficult to tackle,” said David a professor of comparative literature at Stanford and one of dozens of faculty members who have criticized the school’s sexual assault policies. “Many of my colleagues are deeply concerned about it,” he said, “and want Stanford to be a leader in addressing this issue assertively. ” The woman who made the accusation against the football player said that she decided to speak about it so the public might have a better understanding of the lapses that can occur when such cases are handled internally. The Times is not identifying her or the man she accuses of assault. Last season, as his case was proceeding, the football player was a regular for the Cardinal, which went and won the Conference title and the Rose Bowl. The football coach, David Shaw, a member of the N. C. A. A. Commission to Combat Campus Sexual Violence, said in an interview that he was aware that a “proceeding was happening” involving the player, but that he did not know the charge. He said he saw no reason to suspend him from the team without more information. The woman, now 22, frightened she might encounter the man on campus, left the university to study elsewhere last quarter and has not decided whether to return. After the case ended, she sought a temporary restraining order in state court against the man, but was denied, court records show, because the judge found that she did not demonstrate that there was an imminent threat. Stanford was empowered to handle the case internally by Title IX, a federal law dating to 1972 mandating equal access to higher education regardless of gender, and the United States Education Department’s interpretation of that law as requiring universities to carry out investigations of alleged sex crimes on campus. Most campuses now operate under guidelines that the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights explained to university administrators in a 2011 letter aimed at making students feel safe to report allegations. It urged a legal threshold based on a preponderance of the evidence, the legal standard in civil cases, rather than the higher threshold of beyond a reasonable doubt, used in criminal cases. Many universities had used the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, but the vast majority now have adopted the lower standard, including Stanford. At Stanford, the cases rely heavily on written statements from all parties produced by university staff members, rather than on interviews by detectives or forensic evidence, as in a police investigation, which some legal experts assert makes for a less proficient investigation. The accused and accuser appear separately before the panel. Each can submit questions, for the panel to ask the other, but it does not have to use them. This procedure reflects the broad latitude universities have been given to set up their own methods of examining and adjudicating cases. Many cases never end up before law enforcement because the accusers refuse to cooperate, trusting their universities to take action. Often, the accusers simply want the accused expelled or kept at a safe distance. “All I really wanted was a order,” the woman said in an interview. “I wanted little things to make being on campus more bearable. I knew he was never going to get suspended or expelled. That’s what kept me moving forward. ” Several independent experts said universities’ obligations to follow the law while supporting both the accused and the accuser as members of the campus community — and looking out for their own institutional interests — make flaws like those the woman found in her case all but inevitable. “Under Title IX, educational institutions are responsible for being all things to all people: the caregiver, the impartial investigator, adjudicator, sanctioner, trainer and preventer,” Gina Maisto Smith, a former prosecutor whose practice at the law firm Pepper Hamilton includes advising colleges on Title IX compliance, wrote in an email. “As much as schools are doing it better — and they are — and as much as they try to separate the process from the provision of resources and support, many, if not most, institutions lack the resources and dedicated personnel to separate and fulfill each of these roles effectively,” she added. “Even if schools have the resources to do so, exercising oversight of the entire process often leads to a perception of institutional bias and a lack of faith in the reliability of outcomes. ” Advocates for sexual assault victims say that Stanford’s process has made it more difficult for accusers to receive rulings in their favor. Critics say the university has done this to protect its public image Stanford maintains it wants to ensure fairness to the accused in a proceeding with standards lower than a criminal case. “Imagine a senior, who has paid four years of Stanford tuition,” said John W. Etchemendy, the outgoing provost, explaining why Stanford’s system includes significant protections against adverse findings for accused students. “Being expelled is really a punishment,” he said. “I think we as an institution have a duty to take that very seriously. ” This high bar for accusers has left the university open to criticism from victims’ rights advocates. “They are very keen on protecting the brand over supporting survivors,” said Stephanie Pham, a of the Stanford Association of Students for Sexual Assault Prevention. “If you ask, ‘Do I feel safe on campus?’ I do. When something happens, though, will Stanford protect me? The feeling is, no, they won’t. To have prevention, you need to hold people accountable. They haven’t. ” Earlier this month, Stanford was sued by a student who accused the university of failing to protect her from a student who she says sexually assaulted her after Stanford had heard at least one sexual assault complaint about him. He was sanctioned only belatedly, barred from campus for 10 years — after he graduated. The university called the suit “unfounded. ” Michele Dauber, a Stanford law professor and vocal critic of the university’s policies on sexual assaults, declined to comment on the case involving the football player because she did not know the specifics of it. But she said she doubted that the university’s proceedings complied with Title IX — particularly its requirement to have unanimous rulings, the standard in criminal cases, though Stanford’s proceedings are administrative actions. “You have to look at the process holistically, and when you see a series of hurdles and roadblocks, this becomes a very unfriendly place, if not one of the most unfriendly in the nation,” said Ms. Dauber, one of five Stanford professors (including Mr. ) who wrote an open letter in December 2015 to the provost complaining about the new policy. “The victim should not need to garner three votes to win while the respondent needs to garner only one. That is basic inequality. ” While defending current protocols, Stanford officials acknowledged that the school had relied on a flawed process for investigating campus sexual assault in years past. Before 2010, such cases were handled through the same disciplinary process as less egregious offenses like cheating. Rarely did claims result in students being expelled. That system, Mr. Etchemendy acknowledged, “was not . ” Stanford then set up what it called the Alternative Review Process, which included the panels that the woman who accused the football player went through. Of the 22 cases adjudicated by its panels, 13 resulted in a finding that the accused had acted improperly. Yet only one student has been expelled for sexual assault since 2014, Stanford officials said, with a few others voluntarily withdrawing, which Stanford counts as an expulsion. (Among them was Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer whose criminal sentence of six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus in 2015 received notoriety for its perceived leniency.) When the new policy was rolled out in February, the aim was to make expulsion the “expected” punishment for sexual assault, though after a panel determines that sexual assault has occurred, it must also decide unanimously to expel a student. Under the new system, one case has produced an expulsion. That outcome came through a “ resolution” process — also in the new system — allowing the Title IX coordinator to propose a resolution of the case acceptable to both students, forgoing a hearing. It is a process that some other universities have decided is inappropriate to apply to sexual assault cases — it potentially creates pressure for an accuser to negotiate with an assailant — and that the Department of Education has discouraged. Stanford officials said 10 of 16 cases so far under the current system had been decided in this way. But some faculty members, as well as lawyers who have represented accusers in the process, have objected to this option, calling it a form of plea bargaining. “It is frustrating because universities should be getting this right, and they are not, and the idea that they can keep pushing this under the rug doesn’t make the campus any safer, as we keep seeing as these incidents come to light,” said Crystal Riggins, a lawyer who has represented accusers at Stanford. “The process is complex and takes a long time. It is very difficult to get a decision from a panel, and these young women are terrified and traumatized and just want it to be done. ” The woman who agreed to talk about her case described an arduous process that took nearly nine months and, she said, was plagued by several lapses. On the afternoon of June 25, 2015, the woman, along with her lawyer, took their places at a crowded table inside the Tresidder Memorial Union at Stanford. Her lawyer was there only for support and was prohibited, under the rules of the proceeding, from guiding her testimony. In the middle of the table was a telephone for the young man to listen to the proceeding. She had about 30 minutes to give her account of what had happened four months earlier. Afterward, the football player was allowed to email questions to the panel that they could decide to ask or not. She began the hearing feeling that the deck was stacked against her. She said that only the night before did she see the accused’s statement for the first time, and that it included new statements from two of his football teammates. She said she had exchanged emails with an administrator in May and June 2015 and “not once” did that administrator “indicate that any other files had been added to the investigation file, nor did she respond to my previous questions regarding the investigation file,” according to her appeal, which included the email exchange with an assistant dean coordinating the process. When she asked to postpone the hearing so she could ask for redactions of statements that she deemed prejudicial as well as suggest questions for an investigator to ask the witnesses, she said she was denied without an explanation. “I was told to stick to the facts on my statement, and I did,” she said. “He was allowed to speculate on why I ‘targeted’ him. His teammates, who were not even involved in that night, basically said he was a great guy and was being punished for consensual sex. ” After listening to his version, she said that she offered questions to the panel. She said that they did not ask them. The next day she was notified that a majority of the panel agreed with her that a sexual assault had occurred, but the football player would not be given a finding of responsibility. By then, she said, she had already missed one quarter of school and would eventually miss two. She was, and remains, in therapy and on anxiety medications. Within days, with the help of a lawyer, she appealed the decision on the grounds that the “investigation process was so inequitable and unfair” that it violated her rights as a victim of sexual assault under Title IX. Along with numerous procedural errors, she said, she was bothered that the man’s status as a football player was injected into the proceedings by him and his teammates. Mr. Etchemendy, the provost, insisted there was no special treatment for athletes or anyone else. Despite two rulings that the football player had committed sexual assault, Mr. Etchemendy said, the coach of the football team would not have been notified because the player had not been found responsible. The player apparently received no punishment. “Unless there is reason — for safety — we do not inform the individuals’ teachers, their conductor in the choir if they’re in the choir, the football coach if they’re on the football team, or any other head of an activity that they participate in,” Mr. Etchemendy said. Before the second hearing, the panel saw statements from the accused that said he had been “reassured” by Stanford’s Title IX investigator that “situations like these more times than not result in nothing,” and that a lawyer for the Associated Students of Stanford University had reviewed his response and advised some changes, “but mostly began to sympathize with me,” and said that “what I was going through was unfair. ” The administrator organizing the hearing acknowledged that those statements should have been redacted because they were not testimony germane to whether a sexual assault had occurred. (Under the new system, an outside lawyer decides what will be allowed as evidence.) After the second panel came back the accuser appealed again. She asked that Stanford’s Office of Community Standards “issue a order to protect me” from the accused. One had been in place throughout the months of proceedings. On at least two occasions, the football player had to be asked to leave parties by a resident dean — and on another, by campus security — because of his apparently violating that order, both the accuser and the accused acknowledged in statements. “The past nine months of my life have been the worst of my life,” she wrote to Greg Boardman, Stanford’s vice provost for student affairs, on Oct. 20, 2015, as part of her appeal. “I’ve experienced fear, anxiety, depression, and hatred in ways I never imagined during the first 20 years of my life. An introduction to someone new in early February turned into my worst nightmare — every woman’s worst nightmare. ” Her appeal for a third hearing and a order was denied, without explanation. Stanford said that it accommodates accusers even after their cases come up short. They can secure special housing arrangements or even escorts to certain parts of campus. But officials said that they could not impose anything that looked like penalties, even for safety reasons, on those who are found not responsible — even if the vote found by or, now, that sexual assault had occurred. “I think you would face legal liability to that person if after that process he was told, ‘You can’t be in this part of the campus,’” said Ms. Karlan, the law professor who is chairwoman of the sexual assault advisory committee. The woman is trying to decide whether to return to campus or pursue her degree elsewhere. She said that she loved the school and that she was never happier than in her time there. She is worried about encountering the football player if she returns to campus. “But do I have to leave Stanford to feel safe?” she said. “I’m certain that this isn’t the way the Title IX process was meant to work. ” | 1 |
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity used his “Opening Monologue” to criticize the media for what he said was an effort to overturn the results of last November’s presidential election. Transcript as follows: The unelected fourth branch of government, the deep state, is trying to overturn the results of November’s election and throw this president out of office! So how did a bunch of unelected bureaucrats get so much power, feel so emboldened that think they can undermine a duly elected president of the United States and just take over? Plus, after this week’s assassination attempt on Republican lawmakers, the left’s come together kumbaya moment, like I said last night, is nothing more than an illusion. It is a farce to hide the left’s true intentions. We will expose all of this hypocrisy in tonight’s very important “Opening Monologue. ” All right, so the unelected fourth branch of government is now being aided and abetted by the destroy Trump media, all in a massive effort to damage and destroy President Trump. Now, this week alone, we have seen unprecedented and potentially criminal leaks from the deep state to the liberal Washington Post. Now, the liberal smear machine is masquerading as a news outlet in their reporting, citing, of course, once again anonymous sources that the special counsel is investigating the president for possible obstruction of justice and that Robert Mueller is also looking into Jared Kushner’s finances and business dealings. OK, how is it possible that they dare to leak information almost every single day without any fear of consequences? And by the way, they’re wrong so often. Present Trump responding to that report today, tweeting, quote, “I am being investigated for firing the FBI director by the man who told me to fire the FBI director. That’s a witch hung. ” Now, the president, of course, is referring to the deputy attorney general, Rosenstein, who in a memo laid out the strongest case on why Comey need to be fired. Now Rosenstein — now he wants an investigation by the special counsel to investigate why the president fired Comey and whether or not this was the right thing to do! This is insanity! And by the way, the special counsel now has 13 attorneys. And on top of that, including Hillary Clinton’s attorney and multiple attorneys that donated to both Obama and Hillary Clinton. Now, predictably, the destroy Trump media — they’re jumping all over this. They are, of course, hoping that it will lead to President Trump’s downfall. Let me remind you the Washington Post, ABC News, The New York Times, CNN, NBC — they have all gotten it wrong on this issue. They all at this point with the American public should have zero credibility. So we have to take these latest smoking gun reports come out late night every night with a grain of salt. Last night, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein — he issued this statement about trusting these stories about the, quote (ph) coming out of the fake news media. He said this. He said, “Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to, quote (ph) anonymous officials, particularly when they do not identify the country, let along the branch or the agency of government with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. ” Now, the Department of Justice has a long established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations. You know what? I don’t trust that (ph) either, at this point. On top of that, James Comey — remember, he testified last week the media has been so dead wrong when it comes to stories about Russia. And by the way, while all that is alarming, it proves everything we have been saying on this program. This deep state, this fourth branch of government, as we’re calling it, doesn’t care about getting the truth to you, the American people. And of course, the media — they’re the willing accomplices. Their goal is the exact opposite here. They are selectively leaking information, intelligence information that is meant to damage, in this case, the president of United States of America, which is exactly what we have been seeing now almost on a nightly basis. Here’s a perfect example. James Comey told President Trump he wasn’t under investigation. Somehow, that’s the only one thing that never got leaked to the press. Why? The reason should be obvious. And what’s worse is the growing targets for the deep state. They’ve been successful in totally slowing down the president’s agenda, Congress’s agenda. Now, so far, they haven’t been able to stop him, which means the deep state is now going after anyone who’s even close to the president, including his family and White House advisers, and by the way, even people in the media. The deep state now plans to create as much collateral damage as possible, targeting everyone and everyone (sic) from the president straight on down. So what we’re seeing now is this unelected fourth branch of government looking for retribution, overturning a duly elected election. (sic) And by the way, they’re not going to stop until this president is either stopped or thrown out of office. Here’s the problem. Whoever is leaking this information to the media — they need to be arrested. They need to be prosecuted. Every one of them needs to be put in jail. Why hasn’t every Obama holdover been fired? Why have the leakers, you know, not been discovered and arrested at this point? Now, these people have now become a clear and present danger to this country and to you and the things that you care about deeply. Now, because these people now have, of course, done this to the country, well, that raises a lot of questions. Of course, now we have the left and their vicious and vile daily hatred that is now tearing this country apart and creating a climate where what we saw last week is now in some ways even encouraged by some. Now, last night’s show of unity — remember, I’m not falling for it, the kumbaya moment at the congressional baseball game. It was nothing more than an illusion. Now, this week’s assassination attempt on these Republican lawmakers is the culmination of endless vitriolic rage, animus, hatred towards the president and Republicans. I’m not saying anybody but this individual is responsible, but this atmosphere is so unhealthy. And those that are unhealthy — are they susceptible to potential influence of daily lies, misinformation, conspiracy theories? Remember this stunning video from this week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we know where he’s at? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do we know where he’s at? (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Now, after everything that we have seen, can anyone say that they’re surprised that a lunatic went on a shooting rampage? For example, just this week, an opening night performance, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, New York City, or course, featured a Donald Trump lookalike getting what? Savagely murdered. Then of course, this most graphic example that we always warn you about before putting it up on he screen, Kathy Griffin, CNN host, posing like an ISIS fighter with a fake and bloody and severed head of President Trump. And that’s just a few examples of this vitriol. Remember back in January, Madonna literally threatening, fantasizing about blowing up the White House. Remember this? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MADONNA, SINGER: Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. Now, leftists, Hollywood liberals — they aren’t alone in viciously attacking the president. Then you got the destroy Trump media. Now, for months, 11 months almost, they have done the exact same thing, if not a lot worse. Take a look at what news looks like. It’s real fake news, though. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I understand where you were coming from. I understand why you liked him. But this man is lying to you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump’s critics, those who are worried about this president and this White House, saw a live special television event brought to you by narcissism, thin skin, chaos and deeply personal grievances. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president, in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he said today “America first,” it was not just the racial — I mean, the — I shouldn’t say “racial,” the Hitlerian background to it. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a very sad night for the country. You can’t polish this turd. (CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: — fake news. What if you had called him a fake president? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He’s there with his wife. Here’s there with his whole family, as I say, like the Romanovs. He’s got — he’s got Jared, who might be a part of this story (INAUDIBLE) And he’s got his daughter, Ivanka. It’s like a traveling royal Romanov family! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can’t defend what the president of the United States just said. (CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If he took a dump on his desk, you would defend it. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: And now we’re supposed to believe all of these media folks and Democrats are preaching unity? But yet they have done nothing but smear, slander, besmirch this president for months. In case you forgot. Take a look. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This executive order was and . UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Republican leaders and President Trump don’t give a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) about the people they were trying to hurt! UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will fight every day until he is impeached. Impeach 45! (CHEERS AND APPLAUSE) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Impeach 45! UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a bunch of scumbags. That’s what they are — UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those are very strong words, Congressman. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: — who are all organized around making money. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We see nothing that we can work — that I can work with President Bush (sic) on. I’m trying really hard to find something positive. This morning, he had three tweets. I was thinking he was more of a creature that stalked the night, that these just came out at night like a vampire (INAUDIBLE) tweet us (ph) these things. But now it’s spread to the morning. (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: And after Wednesday’s assassination attempt, the HuffingtonPost — they had to take down an article calling for the president’s execution. Take a look at the headline we showed you last night, “Impeachment is no longer enough, Donald Trump must face justice. ” And here’s the “Impeachment, removal from office are only the first steps. For America to be redeemed, Donald Trump must be prosecuted for treason. If convicted in a court of law, executed. ” Beyond disturbing. But there are plenty of other examples. Earlier this week, liberal Hollywood actor, activist Mark Ruffalo — he called on his followers to sign a petition that demands NBC News stop hiring conservatives for positions, white conservatives? We’ve also seen people like Robert de Niro and Mickey Rourke and Marilyn Manson advocating for violence against this president. And outside of Hollywood, then, of course, you have groups like Black Lives Matter. What do we want, dead cops. When do we want them, now. Pigs in a blanket, fry `em like bacon. Hillary Clinton supported that group. President Obama met with them in the White House! They’ve been spewing hate for years. And by the way, where was their criticism of Kathy Griffin and her ISIS pose? Take a look at Black Lives Matter. (END VIDEO CLIP) PROTESTERS: Pigs in a blanket, fry `em like bacon! Pigs in a blanket, fry `em like bacon! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) PROTESTERS: Now! UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) PROTESTERS: Now! (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Also, we have all seen the anger and rage that is springing up all over college campuses where — you know, showing you video — Berkeley, California, earlier this year, protesters starting a riot. Why? Because a conservative was going to speak at the university, the home of the Free Speech Movement. Now, while all these examples of hatred are shocking and alarming, they’re not new. Now, the roots of the left’s rage go back decades, if not further. In fact, it is part of the movement’s DNA. You know, groups like the Mayday Labor Movement, the Weather Underground, remember them, led by Barack Obama’s pals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, the Occupy Wall Street movement all started with, subscribed to radical ideology advocating for using violence to their advantage in their political objectives. So while the Democrats and the left are putting their hate on pause for 24 hours last night, not even 24 hours, you can bet they’re only getting started when it comes to the president, conservatives, Republicans in this country. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
BAKING SODA AND HONEY: REMEDY THAT DESTROYS EVEN THE MOST SEVERE DISEASES Oct 27, 2016 Previous post
This amazing remedy will help regain your strength and recover your health, and it can defeat even complex diseases such as cancer! The remedy is made of two ingredients – baking soda and maple syrup, which are an excellent combination against cancer.
As cancer cells feed on sugar, they let the maple syrup or honey in which leads to their own demise. The function of the sugar here isn’t to feed them, but to destroy them from within. In this way, baking soda is able to enter the cancer cells unnoticeably and alkalize them, effectively destroying whole colonies.
Here’s how to prepare the remedy:
Ingredients | 0 |
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A school in Austria had to be suddenly evacuated after it was accidentally discovered that a rock that had long been on display in a classroom was actually composed of radioactive material.
According to the U.K. Metro , the radioactive rock in a Salzburg school was actually a chunk of uranium , the same metallic element used to fuel nuclear reactors and produce atomic bomb warheads.
The discovery came when an anti-nuclear lecturer visited the school to deliver a presentation about the danger of nuclear materials, bringing with him an old-school radium-illuminated watch and a Geiger counter to show students how it measured radioactivity, such as the small amount emanating from the watch. PHOTOS: Everyday Home Hides Most Incredible 1950s Bomb Shelter We’ve Ever Seen
However, lecturer Thomas Neff soon realized that he was receiving abnormally high readings on the Geiger counter, so he began moving about the room in an effort to track down the anomaly.
He eventually came upon a display of various rocks, minerals and fossils, in front of which his Geiger counter veritably “exploded” off the charts, giving a reading of 102,000 counts per minute, about 100 times greater than the radioactivity of the watch, which itself was roughly 20 times greater than that which occurs normally.
Neff quickly halted his lecture and alerted school authorities, who immediately began evacuating students and faculty while experts were brought in to assess the danger and rectify the situation.
An alert was also sent out to other schools in the region, where subsequent searches of those locations turned up another 38 radioactive rocks in 11 different schools.
The uranium rocks have now been gathered in a safe place, though there is no word whether any students or teachers became sick from their exposure to the potentially deadly material .
Please share on Facebook and Twitter to spread this story about radioactive materials in the classroom. | 0 |
news outlet Vox attacked Marines on Memorial Day, claiming in an article that the Marine Corps has a “toxic masculinity problem. ”[The article, which was simply titled “The Marine Corps has a ‘toxic masculinity’ problem,” continued to claim that the Marine Corps often “marginalizes or mistreats female troops. ” The Marine Corps has a ”toxic masculinity” problem https: . pic. twitter. — Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox) May 29, 2017, Citing the Marines United nude photo sharing scandal, Vox staff writer and defense correspondent Alex Ward attempted to link the Marines with systemic sexism and listed ways how the Corps could get rid of their “toxic masculinity. ” “And to be fair, it’s not just the Marines. Sexual assault has increased in other services, and even in military academies,” concluded Ward in the article. “According to one Pentagon review, there were 6, 172 reports of sexual assault last year. ” “So as the service tries to win battles around the world, the most important fight may be the one closest to home,” he continued. “The battle for the soul of the Marine Corps. ” The article was criticized by numerous other journalists on Twitter: Dude who never served 👇 https: . — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) May 29, 2017, This piece is very unfortunate https: . — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 29, 2017, It’s fucking Memorial Day, — Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 29, 2017, Vox has a ”beta male staff writer” problem https: . — Charlie Nash (@MrNashington) May 29, 2017, “I’m an woman. This article is hysterical bullshit,” commented one user, while another added: “Yeah, you know that toxic masculinity saving lives. Just terrible. ” I’m an woman. This article is hysterical bullshit @voxdotcom. Marines were https: . — Lisa Lisa (@prolifemom123) May 29, 2017, @AlexWardVox Yeah, you know that toxic masculinity saving lives. Just terrible. — MUNTY (@altMonty) May 29, 2017, @AlexWardVox Good thing they are really good at killing the bad guys and protecting the freedoms of jerkoffs like you, — A Foot in Your Ass (@Afootinyourass) May 29, 2017, Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
CRTV and radio host Mark Levin said Wednesday that when those on the left “dumb down or mainstream violence,” some who are “on the edge … become violent and they act out. ” NOT FUNNY: Kathy Griffin ’Beheads’ Trump … https: . — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 30, 2017, In an episode of LevinTV, the conservative author addressed the shooting in Alexandria Wednesday by a radical leftist who targeted Republican members of Congress and which left Rep. Steve Scalise ( ) in critical condition. Levin said about the rise in violence on the left: The language is violent, the conduct is violent, and that it is getting increasingly more dangerous. Now, of course, the point is that you have kooks out there. You have people who are on the edge. When you dumb down or mainstream violence, these people become violent and they act out. Breitbart News compiled a list of 15 episodes of leftwing celebrities envisioning violence against President Donald Trump, including comedian Kathy Griffin’s shock “beheading” photo of the president, Madonna’s statement that she has “thought a lot about blowing up the White House,” Joss Whedon’s tweet that he wants a “Rhino to F*ck Paul Ryan to Death,” and Shakespeare in the Park’s stabbing “Trump” to death during a performance of Julius Caesar. Violence solves nothing. I want a rhino to fuck @SpeakerRyan to death with its horn because it’s FUNNY, not because he’s a #GOPmurderbro, — Joss Whedon (@joss) January 14, 2017, “I make no excuses for a murderer or a murderer like this guy [James] Hodgkinson, but on the other hand I make no excuse either for the rhetoric of the Left, for the media coverage on the Left, for the nature in which our president has been attacked — where assassination becomes mainstream,” Levin said. The host showed video of violent leftwing protests, including one in November in which Los Angeles protesters burned Trump in effigy as they shouted, “Not my president. ” “I don’t remember any of that happening with Obama, or Bill Clinton,” he added, asserting the left’s use of violent rhetoric and its insinuations and threats of violence are “beyond the pale. ” Levin likened the kind of violence coming from the left now to that during the 1960s, and referred to it as “ . ” “When Barack Obama’s buddies Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn — people like that — these underground movements that poisoned our universities and so forth took place,” he said. “And you’ll notice they’re violent, they’re they’re . They’re . ” | 1 |
By Julian Assange / counterpunch.org
In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.
On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.
The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.
This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.
The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks’ election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.
We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.
At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.
We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.
That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.
This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration’s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning’s treatment either.
Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.
This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.
The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone’s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks’ model of scientific journalism or an individual’s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.
Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton’s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications—because none exists.
In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.
WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.
We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks’ motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work.
WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.
Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public.
Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned.
Julian Assange is the founder of Wikileaks. His most recent book is The Wikileaks Files (Verso). 0.0 · | 0 |
Donald J. Trump wrested back control of the Republican presidential race on Tuesday with a commanding victory in the New York primary, while Hillary Clinton dealt a severe blow to Senator Bernie Sanders with an unexpectedly strong win that led her to declare that the Democratic nomination was “in sight. ” The Mr. Trump was poised to take most of the 95 Republican delegates at stake, substantially adding to his current lead over Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and significantly improving his chances of winning the Republican nomination. Mr. Cruz came away with no delegates, a major setback, while Gov. John Kasich of Ohio had a shot at picking up some in Manhattan and the capital region. Mrs. Clinton’s decisive victory ended a string of wins by Mr. Sanders and gave her more delegates than her advisers expected. Her base of support was Long Island, the five boroughs, and upstate cities, with female and black and Hispanic voters turning out for her in especially strong numbers. The two hometown winners beamed throughout their victory speeches, but it was Mr. Trump who particularly seemed like a different candidate. As he spoke in the lobby of Trump Tower, there were no freewheeling presentations of steaks and bottled water, as in the past. There was no reference to “Lyin’ Ted” or “Crooked Hillary” he called his opponent “Senator Cruz” instead, and made no mention of Mrs. Clinton. He also took no questions from the news media. And his speech sounded more presidential than any other he has given on an election night — a focused, tightened message about trade and the economy as he prepares to campaign in states hit hard by manufacturing industry losses. The speech reflected the growing influence of Paul Manafort, whom Mr. Trump empowered to help him win the nomination and who has taken on a greater purview, including messaging. “Our jobs are being sucked out of our states,” Mr. Trump said. “One of the big problems is economy and jobs, and that is my wheelhouse. ” He said, twice, that he was going to get up and go back to work for the nomination on Wednesday morning, a clear message about the intensity he is bringing to the fight. In the Democratic race, Mrs. Clinton was set to win roughly 30 more delegates than Mr. Sanders, out of 247 at stake. She already had a lead of more than 200 delegates in the race. Smiling broadly throughout her victory speech, Mrs. Clinton drew cheers as she thanked her adopted home state and then boomed, “Today, you proved once again, there’s no place like home. ” “The race for the Democratic nomination is in the home stretch and victory is in sight,” Mrs. Clinton added, reflecting the overwhelming mathematical advantage she has in delegates. Sanders advisers had said that beating Mrs. Clinton in her adopted home state represented one of their campaign’s best opportunities to damage her candidacy and sow doubts about her strength as a nominee. On Tuesday, however, Mrs. Clinton drew deep support among women and blacks — two groups that have been essential for her in many states — while Mr. Sanders was outpacing her among white men and people under 45, according to exit polls. “Bernie Sanders got very negative attacking Hillary Clinton and dividing the party in New York, and I think he now has to ask himself if he wants to keep going down that path,” said Jay Jacobs, a Clinton supporter who is the Democratic chairman in Nassau County on Long Island. “After New York, we’re moving into a phase of the campaign where we have to start uniting the party. ” Mr. Sanders and his team spent Tuesday looking past New York. Mr. Sanders held a rally at Pennsylvania State University in State College on Tuesday night, then flew home to Burlington, Vt. and spoke to reporters just after the race was called. “There are five primaries next week and we think we are going to do well and we think we have a path toward victory,” Mr. Sanders said. He also expressed concern about the closed primary system in New York and said he hoped it would change in the future. “Some three million New Yorkers were unable to vote today because they were registered as independents,” Mr. Sanders said. “That makes no sense to me. ” The Sanders campaign spent roughly $2 million more than the Clinton campaign on television ads in New York. The magnitude of the loss — both in the popular vote and in delegates — was steep for Mr. Sanders, who said he intended to get “recharged and take a day off. ” The senator’s advisers were optimistic that he would perform strongly in next Tuesday’s primaries in Pennsylvania as well as in Rhode Island and Connecticut. The other two states voting next week, Delaware and Maryland, are widely seen as Clinton strongholds. The Sanders campaign is already running television ads in those five states and Indiana, which votes May 3. “Bernie is in good shape going forward no matter who wins New York,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser on the Sanders campaign. “We could win enough delegates in Pennsylvania and Indiana to catch up further to her, and we have good opportunities all the way through California,” which votes June 7. Still, Mr. Devine acknowledged, “we’re going to have to have some big wins at the end” of the primary and caucus season. Mrs. Clinton, a former senator from New York, received support from roughly six in 10 Democrats on Long Island, and she overwhelmed Mr. Sanders in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. Mr. Sanders won many upstate rural counties, where few votes were cast, and he also did well in the Hudson Valley, given the enclaves of liberals and college students. On a major issue in their campaign, nearly of Democratic primary voters said that Wall Street does more to hurt the American economy than to help it, and a majority of those voters backed Mr. Sanders. But Mrs. Clinton received even stronger support from those who said Wall Street helps the economy. By a slim margin, Republican primary voters also said that Wall Street does more to hurt the economy than help it. Within the Trump campaign on Tuesday night, euphoria mixed with eagerness to move onto a number of states that are likely to be friendly to Mr. Trump. There have been other pivotal points in the Trump campaign, moments when he was described as becoming newly serious. It never stuck with the famously candidate. But Mr. Manafort is someone whom Mr. Trump views as something of a peer. No matter the margin of victory, New York Republicans gave Mr. Trump a restorative psychic boost after weeks when Mr. Cruz scored a big victory in the Wisconsin primary and outmaneuvered the Trump campaign in Colorado, Wyoming and elsewhere in winning and electing delegates backing his candidacy. Mr. Trump now has clear momentum heading into the next week’s primaries — so much so that he evinced fresh optimism on Tuesday about ultimately getting to the 1, 237 delegates needed to capture the nomination. “I think I’ll get there,” Mr. Trump said in an interview before the polls closed. New York has not been home to leading presidential candidates in both parties since the 1944 campaigns of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas E. Dewey, so the voting by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump merited unusual news media coverage on Tuesday morning. As a light mist fell, Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton cast their votes at an elementary school in their adopted town of Chappaqua. As news photographers and cameramen kept encroaching on her while she tried to vote, Mrs. Clinton finally shooed them away. “Guys, it’s a private ballot,” she said. The Democratic vote was marred by major irregularities at polling places across Brooklyn. The city comptroller’s office announced that the Board of Elections had confirmed that more than 125, 000 Democratic voters in Brooklyn were dropped between November and this month, while about 63, 000 were added — a net loss that was not explained. Mayor Bill de Blasio described “the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters,” while the comptroller, Scott Stringer, said his office would audit the Board of Elections. Mr. Trump voted for himself midmorning in New York City, which he called “a great honor” as he entered his apartment building. In the interview later, Mr. Trump described the experience of seeing his name on the ballot, saying he was moved by the enormity of what it means. “It does sort of hit you,” he said. Mr. Trump won majorities in all regions except for rural upstate areas. Some Republicans questioned why Mr. Cruz spent so little time in upstate New York, where Mr. Trump’s support two weeks ago was softer than it appeared. Instead, Mr. Cruz devoted his time mostly to the city and to fundraising. The primary was a seminal moment for Mr. Trump, both tactically in terms of delegates needed to clinch the nomination, and mentally, as he tries to right the ship after a rough couple of weeks that prompted him to reshuffle his small team of advisers, adding the seasoned campaign hand, Mr. Manafort. The coming weeks will test whether Mr. Trump can temper his message and his style for a new phase of the race, one where running a traditional campaign matters more than his ability to rally crowds. Indeed, Mr. Trump’s tone throughout the day was focused on what he repeatedly called, in interviews, a “corrupt” and “rigged” nominating process. Alfonse M. D’Amato, the former United States senator and a backer of Mr. Kasich, said the New York results would be critical for Mr. Trump to rebound in his fight with Mr. Cruz. “This will give him momentum that he needs after his setbacks,” Mr. D’Amato said. | 1 |
WW3 – Britain sends hundreds of soldiers and tanks to Russian border in biggest military deployment since Cold War Tweet
A total of 800 troops, drones and tanks are moving to Estonia as part of the biggest military build up on Russia’s borders since the Cold War
“Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing more to help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO,” Mr Fallon said.
London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania to patrol around the Black Sea, partly in support of Turkey. | 0 |
Hacking the System - Part FOUR Twenty Thousand Dollar Wire Transfer Returned # soundcloud.com 0
How The Project Establishing the Cover of The Investigator.Setting up the Business Relationship by an Investment of $20,000 got them access to Robert Creamer and the rest of AUFC .After getting a member of The Projects Team an Internship with the DNC Voter Registration Team subsequent meetings occurred and planning began for further opportunities. Thus opening the Door for The Team to Investigate Further. When News of The Projects Videos got out the DNC Voter Registration Team wanted to return the Money because of concerns that "The Money may be from Foreign Investment". But why did they take the Money in the first place and Why did hey need the Money so badly that First month??? Tags | 0 |
This election is causing millions of Americans a lot of stress. However, some are cracking under pressure more than most.
Take for example Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who last week decided to express himself in some weird variant of “Palin-speak” over something to do with Josh Ernest, President Obama,”DT,” the “liberal media,” Canada, and finally Kenya. Image via Mediaite .
Mediaite used its team of scientist to try and decipher this strange message that many theorize (actually probably just me) may have originated from an ancient extra-terrestrial right-wing alien entity.
“Hey, liberal media. It was White House press secretary Josh Earnest who refused to answer the question: will Obama stay in the US if Donald Trump wins? I said I’d pay a charter to any country they chose . I mentioned Canada, where the satire piece was written , and Kenya, where he once visited. Also, I am in need of serious professional help.”
By the way, the link that Hannity sent belongs to a site run by professional alt-right Twitter troll, Chuck Johnson, who was suspended from Twitter in May for threatening a civil rights activist.
Since then Hannity has unfortunately deleted the gloriously “drunken tweet” in question.
However, that didn’t stop the heartless, ruthless bastards on Twitter from trolling poor Hannity like there was no tomorrow. He's been possessed by Sarah Palin! https://t.co/k7N06DWfQK | 0 |
.@VP Biden: ”It is over. ”#ElectoralCollege pic. twitter. During a joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College results on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden gaveled down an objection to Georgia’s Electoral College results before ending the exchange over the objection with, “it is over. ” After an objection was raised to the certification of the Electoral College results from Georgia by Representative Pramila Jayapal ( ) Biden gaveled her down saying that any objection must be in writing and signed by both a member of the House and a member of the Senate. Biden asked Jayapal if her objection met those requirements, to which Jayapal responded, “Mr. President, even as people waited hours in Georgia and — ” Biden then gaveled her down again to state that the objection needed signatures from a member of the House and a member of the Senate. After Jayapal said in response that the objection had been signed by a member of the House, but not a member of the Senate, Biden stated, “Well, it is over. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Platinum Games is bringing Nier: Automata, the sequel to action RPG Nier, to the Playstation 4 on March 7 as players fight extraterrestrial machines as android protectors of humanity. | 1 |
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Posted on October 26, 2016 by Admin
By Vekar
One thing I have yet to see anyone bring up is how this “election” could be bait and switch at the last minute. In order to understand this however I need to explain the unique possibilities the NWO has created with these two “candidates” and how this is in fact a very old card from the 1900’s.
First we have Trump, everyone loves Trump because Trump is not Hillary, therefore he must be better, it is an argument based on the following: Stalin killed 47 million and one while Mao killed 47 million and TWO so Stalin is better than Mao! Trump is outright the “let’s go back to sleep” candidate, Hillary is not. Already I have seen and heard more than enough about how if only Trump goes in then at least four more years have been bought and the nation will survive juts four more years.
From the so called “militia” and “patriots” at AWRM and the “Intelligence” Report they yammer that if only Trump goes in then we can POSTPONE the coming war or buy ourselves more time to prepare, after all, they claim “time favors us not the enemy.” All this bearing in mind that Trump has gone back on his word many times, changed his mind, flip flopped on illegals, wants a bigger police state, is the most hated in the media, etc. Now let’s compare the next runner up quickly.
Hillary, it is currently chic to hate Hillary, you’re not in style if you like her, she will end the nation, doom the world and so on. Never mind that both Trump and Hillary were put up by the NWO, you are not allowed to run otherwise, this is old news. She is going to cause more war, she is a liar, cheat, she betrayed the nation, etc. Yet both her and Trump met with Netanyahu behind closed doors and apparently received his blessing to proceed, it is a trap and we should all know it and see it clearly. She is also the darling of the media.
Both of them have in common the 1900’s rise to power theme of Lenin and Hitler, both take after these two for both nations (Germany and Russia) were in collapse or outright collapsed, debauchery was the rule as well as corruption. Hillary is like Lenin, she is going in red banners flying and the Cheka on her heels to remove any “undesirables.” She is going to finish the job and push the agenda to the hilt even if it takes war to do it. Trump on the other hand is following Hitlers script, offering hope without promising anything except a bigger government, more powerful police state, etc. Trump will also see the plan to fruition but there is a subtle nuance between these two: one is offering to do it with an iron fist in a velvet glove the other is simply the iron fist.
Now comes the problem people are not seeing: if they force Hillary in despite all the public outrage then we know for a fact they have reached a level of preparation that is adequate to dealing with public backlash, even insurrection should it be minor or full. If they put Trump in then they are taking the back street approach because they have not gathered the resources yet to put us down and need to put someone in who will quiet the public just like Obama did for a time. This election is about purchasing time; nothing more, nothing less.
If Trump is put in then already we can see that most are going straight back to bed and not getting up for another four years at minimum, maybe eight. The militias and other “patriot” groups will declare a “partial victory” and that they can bury their guns again and whistle Dixie. They are mortified of having to take action so Trump is their obvious choice. Hillary on the other hand represents that steamroller coming down the hill at full tilt, they do not want that and seek to avoid it rather than fight it. The reality is time does NOT favor us here, time favors the enemy. If time favored us then we would not be here, diminished and in dire straits. Imagine how much could have been avoided had the militia stood up during Waco, again time favored the enemy. Ruby Ridge? Time favored the enemy as they whittle away and build their power base up bit by bit. They are not fools.
Consider those two possibilities then consider this: If Trump goes in and goes along with the “war with Russia” if indeed that is the plan for WW3 they laid out more than SIXITY years ago admittedly, people are FAR more willing to join Trumps army and go fight than they would Hillary. Something else to consider is perhaps they want a second civil war. Put Hillary in KNOWING it will cause an insurrection, fake one which we know they can do… Have Trump “reluctantly” take the reins and like Davis lead the way in marching the fools single file into the enemy guns just like the first one causing mass casualties for nothing. A second civil war of this sort would favor the enemy for it would absolutely end the nation, but who would fight for Hillary? Oh right, THAT’S why they are bringing in all those foreigners and foreign troops! Just change the uniform quickly and voila! Some would suggest this would favor the American Nationals… Not really, rather than fight intelligently for the Bill of Rights they would be fighting for TRUMP! They would be fighting to bleed us dry like the Confederates did in the civil war fighting “by the rules” and it cost them dearly. Only by fighting by OUR OWN RULES can we win, Trump would allow them to guide the slaughter one way or another all the while weakening us. Remember, the end game is to destroy ABSOLUTELY the last vestiges of Americans and our culture, whatever may be left of it, which is not much if anything.
Perhaps the above is where those warning about the “coming breakup of America” will occur, perhaps, perhaps not, but they now have the OPTION to do so! I want you to think on all this and let your mind run wild with other possibilities, but just remember that they are right now lining the ducks up (you) while the firing squad is forming up and loading their rifles. No matter WHAT you believe will be the outcome of this and no matter what happens one way or another know that this is all preplanned and they would NEVER allow this situation unless they had a humdinger of a plan hidden just beneath the surface, I hope I scratched that surface for you. Like you, they have a plan A, B, C and D, it is why they have succeeded for more than two centuries! Do not take them for the fool, they have proven they are not.
So maybe we will get Trump and the populace will quiet down while the communists march on with a different uniform, Cheka versus Gestapo. Then again Hillary might go in and just finish things and be done with it or prep the nation for the next phase. No matter what happens, be ready for it and do not let them sucker you into believing this honest or that TRUMP is honest! They are both in on it together! They merely represent two different paths for them to reach their ultimate goal! Share this: | 0 |
The White House is flatly denying media reports that the Trump Administration is considering using national guard troops as immigration officers to round up illegal aliens. [“There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said of the report, The Hill reported. “That is 100% not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this. ” Spicer continued, “I don’t know what could potentially be out there, but I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested. ” The Associated Press reported on a leaked “draft memo” claiming that up to 100, 000 National Guard troops could be used to round up unauthorized immigration. The AP reported the plan would round up illegal aliens living nowhere near the Mexican border. The headline appears to falsely claim “Trump weighs mobilizing Nat Guard for immigration roundups. ” Department of Homeland Security Spokesman David Lapan responded to an inquiry from Breitbart Texas stating, “The Department is not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement. ” The AP report claims: Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U. S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired Marine general. While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with missions on the U. S. border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north. The memo is addressed to the heads of U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U. S. Customs and Border Protection. It would serve as guidance to implement the executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders. The AP claims the January 25 “draft memo,” addressed to Obama holdovers in the CBP, calls for the troops to “perform the functions of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, and detention of aliens in the United States. ” Breitbart Texas reached out to Texas Governor Greg Abbott for comment on the alleged plans. “The Office of the Governor has not received, much less seen, a memo or request from the White House or Department of Homeland Security regarding the use of Texas National Guard troops for immigration enforcement,” Governor Abbott’s Spokesman John Wittman responded. “The White House has adamantly denied there are efforts underway to mobilize the National Guard for this purpose. ” The governors of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and New Mexico told the AP they were unaware of the memo. Editor’s Note: This article has been updated with additional information. 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 |
WASHINGTON — As Chase Sherman was returning home with his parents and fiancée from his brother’s wedding in November, he began to hallucinate. Apparently reacting to synthetic marijuana he took days earlier, he bit his girlfriend and tried to jump out of the back seat of the car as the family drove through Georgia toward Florida. About an hour outside Atlanta, at Mile Marker 55 on Interstate 85, his fiancée pulled over the car and his mother called the police, hoping they would help calm Mr. Sherman, 32. Less than a later, Mr. Sherman, who worked at a parasailing business on the Gulf Coast, was dead. He was stunned numerous times with Taser guns carried by two sheriff’s deputies, while handcuffed in the back seat of a rental car. Like other recent episodes involving the police, this one was captured on video, in this case by body cameras worn by the sheriff’s deputies as they tried to subdue Mr. Sherman. The video, a copy of which was obtained in recent days by The New York Times, is similar to recordings of fatal encounters involving law enforcement officers in Chicago North Charleston, S. C. and Staten Island. Each one depicts in stark terms a response from officers that resulted in a death. In this instance, there are no racial overtones: Both Mr. Sherman and the deputy sheriffs are white. The footage from Georgia was released Friday by prosecutors in Coweta County in response to requests from the family and the news media. It shows the sheriff’s deputies struggling to subdue Mr. Sherman as he tried to get out of the car, stunning him repeatedly with their Taser guns while he was handcuffed, and reacting frantically after realizing he was dead. Mr. Sherman’s death was a homicide due to “an altercation with law enforcement with several trigger pulls of an electronic control device,” according to his death certificate, which said that he had been shoved to the floor of the car and that his torso was compressed “by the body weight of another individual. ” “How can they do this when they know someone is having a breakdown?” said L. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for the Sherman family. “Once they started shocking him, how can someone comply when they’re being electrocuted over and over again?” Kevin and Mary Ann Sherman, Chase Sherman’s parents, said they were not sure what had caused their son’s odd behavior. They said they first became concerned when he began acting erratically while they were in the Dominican Republic for the wedding. Chase told his mother that he had taken the synthetic marijuana the day before they traveled there. “He was scared when we were down there,” Ms. Sherman said. “He said he heard different bad things were happening in different countries. He would see a couple of things that weren’t there. He thought people were watching him, and he didn’t want to go anywhere without his mom and dad or brother. ” But his parents said he had seemed fine on the flight back to Atlanta, where they were to change planes and continue their trip home to Destin, Fla. Then, as they waited at the Atlanta airport, Mr. Sherman grew agitated. The family decided it would be better to drive the rest of the way, so they rented a car. Not long into the drive, Mr. Sherman began trying to jump out of the car. “I couldn’t keep him in the car — he didn’t know where he was and was disoriented,” Kevin Sherman said. “I couldn’t keep him in the car by myself, so we needed to call for medical assistance. ” A body camera worn by one of the deputies started recording while en route to assist the Shermans. By the time he reached their car, parked on the shoulder of the highway, another deputy was already grappling with Mr. Sherman, who was handcuffed, in the car’s back seat. On the video, Mr. Sherman seemed alternately calm and desperate to get out of the car. To try to stop him, one of the deputies took out a Taser gun and pointed it at him, telling him to stop moving. Mr. Sherman grabbed the Taser gun, and a fight for it ensued. With Mr. Sherman’s mother and his fiancée, Patti Galloway, watching from the front of the car, the deputy shot him several times with the Taser, and the second deputy punched him in the head. The deputies then told the two women to get out of the car, and Ms. Sherman pointed her finger at the two deputies, pleading with them not to stun her son. Mr. Sherman was stunned again, and then he appeared to wrestle away control of the Taser despite still being handcuffed. Moments later, an emergency medical technician who had arrived at the scene tried to help subdue Mr. Sherman. “O. K. I’m dead, I’m dead,” Mr. Sherman said as he was shoved to the floor and wedged between the front and back seats. “I quit, I quit,” he could be heard saying. The medical technician pushed down on Mr. Sherman’s body. “I got all the weight of the world on him now,” he could be heard saying before Mr. Sherman was shocked again. But suddenly realizing that Mr. Sherman was not breathing, the deputy sheriffs and the medical technician pulled him out of the car and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation while his parents and Ms. Galloway watched. “There was no way for him to resist,” said the lawyer, Mr. Stewart. “For four minutes and 10 seconds after he said ‘I quit,’ they still tased him and kept him on the ground. That’s torture, and they killed him. ” Mr. Sherman’s death was initially investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which made the evidence it collected available to the district attorney of Coweta County, Peter J. Skandalakis. Mr. Skandalakis said Friday that his office’s investigation into Mr. Sherman’s death was continuing. “I really haven’t formed a final opinion about it,” he said, adding that his office had planned to release the video before the inquiry’s conclusion because of “public interest in the case. ” He said he hoped to meet eventually with the Sherman family. In the meantime, the deputies who responded to the family’s request for help have not been suspended, according to Mr. Stewart, and are still working. | 1 |
George Orwell 0 Comment
Yesterday’s bombshell from the FBI on Hillary’s campaign seems like is much worse than previously expected.
James Comey said that the FBI discovered “new emails” pertinent to the previous investigation on “several devices.” The agency has found a staggering number of emails, and they were found on Huma Abedin’s estranged husband’s laptop.
VIA America’s Freedom Fighters
That’s not even the worst part. It was previously discovered that Abedin had been archiving her email account from her work at the State Department on her personal email account, although the reason why is unclear.
More from Zero Hedge:
We first laid what was the most likely explanation yesterday, when we showed several examples of Huma Abedin emails being sent from her work email account to her personal account at [email protected], courtesy of a Judicial Watch FOIA release. Of the more than 160 emails in the latest Judicial Watch release, some 110 emails – two-thirds of the total – were forwarded by Abedin to two personal addresses she controlled. The Washington Times reported in August 2015 that the State Department had admitted to a federal judge that Abedin and Mills used personal email accounts to conduct government business in addition to Clinton’s private clintonemail.com to transact State Department business.
One email from May 15, 2009, was sent by Abedin from her State Department email to her personal email. Abedin was archiving in her personal email account an email Hillary Clinton sent her from Clinton’s private email server at [email protected]. Abedin was asked to print out attachments to an email Mills sent via a private address the previous day to Clinton involving “timetables and deliverables” for her review via Alec Ross, a technology policy expert who then held the title of senior adviser for innovation to Secretary Clinton.
However, while forwarding Hillary’s emails to her personal email server for “convenience” is one thing, what is more troubling is the amount of redaction involved in these emails which migrated to the open email account, which as we now know ended up in Anthony Weiner’s computer: in the above example, the two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent redacted, with “PAGE DENIED” stamped across the first redacted page.
At this point it’s impossible to know why Abedin did what she did; however, the fact that FBI reopened this case this close to the election let’s us know there’s something seriously, seriously wrong with this entire ordeal.
This is more proof that she is CROOKED, and should be tried for treason!
| 0 |
Current and former officials at the United Nations responded negatively to President Trump’s announcement Thursday that the U. S. is pulling out of the Paris climate accord — with one senior U. N. adviser calling Trump “an idiot” and a former climate envoy saying the U. S. is now “a rogue state. ”[Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and senior adviser to the U. N. since 2002, told Bloomberg Television Friday that President Trump lives in a “dream world” and is an “idiot” for his decision to pull out of the treaty. He also blamed the decision on the left’s favorite boogeymen — the Koch Brothers. “The president doesn’t know what he’s doing, this is obvious he’s an idiot,” he said. “But what’s happening behind here is real politics. This is the victory paid and carried out for 20 years by two people: David and Charles Koch. ” “This is all about the Koch brothers, I’m sorry to say it, they have bought and purchased the top of the Republican Party,” Sachs said, pointing also to House Speaker Paul Ryan ( ) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ( ) support of Trump’s position. Sach’s Koch claim is particularly unusual in that President Trump and the Koch Brothers have frequently clashed on a number of issues. The conservative patriarchs refused to back Trump in 2016, while Trump mocked conservatives who sought their backing — once accusing Sen. Marco Rubio ( ) of being their “puppet. ” Little Marco Rubio, the lightweight no show Senator from Florida, is set to be the ”puppet” of the special interest Koch brothers. WATCH! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016, Sachs, who was retained by current António Guterres this year, is known for his views. In April, he wrote a column titled: “Donald Trump’s Climate Fantasies. ” “In less than 100 days, we have learned that Trump is a man living in a fantasy world. He issues decrees, barks orders, sends out midnight Tweets, but to no avail. The facts — real ones, not his ‘alternative’ variety — keep intervening,” Sachs wrote. He has also called Trump a “ font of lies” in a column in March. Sachs’ remarks come after a former U. N. special envoy on climate change, Mary Robinson, said the decision makes “a rogue state on the international stage. ” It isn’t the first time Robinson, a former president of Ireland, has made such remarks. In November, she said in a Reuters interview, “It would be a tragedy for the United States and the people of the United States if the U. S. becomes a kind of rogue country, the only country in the world that is somehow not going to go ahead with the Paris Agreement. ” Guterres was more restrained in his language, calling Trump’s decision “a major disappointment. ” “The decision by the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change is a major disappointment for global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote global security,” Guterres’ spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement Thursday. However, he remained optimistic and said he “looks forward to engaging with the American government and all actors in the United States and around the world to build the sustainable future on which our grandchildren depend. ” Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY | 1 |
One day after what was demonstrably one of the stories by the media focused on the “removal” of Steve Bannon, President Trump’s top adviser, from the National Security Council (NSC) he attended a council meeting, the Washington Examiner reported on Thursday. [“White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has attended the first meeting of the National Security Council after he was removed from the principals committee Wednesday,” the Examiner story said. Despite the headlines about Bannon’s removal, most media outlets included the fact that the change on the council only meant Bannon was no longer a permanent member on the council but that he retained top security clearance and could attend council meetings. “Bannon is still permitted to go to NSC meetings,” Fox News reported on Wednesday. CNBC reported that Bannon can attend council meetings by invitation of the president or H. R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser. “He is one of the president’s closest and most trusted advisers,” a White House source told CNBC when asked why Bannon attended. | 1 |
BREAKING: Clinton Fixer Reveals Sick Smear Hillary Ordered Against Monica
“Should I call her and talk this through or better to leave with you?” Podesta had written at 1:55 pm. “I’m worried she’ll get on with Cheryl and we’ll end up in a bad place. I’m in a session that lasts till 3:30 your time. Is that timely or should I walk out?”
Was was unclear was why Clinton needed to be sobered up so early in the day. Had she been consuming certain medications that had left her woozy? Had she been puffing marijuana joints? Had she been drinking booze? Advertisement - story continues below
Or was she simply not taking the situation seriously — whatever it was — and needed to be made to understood reality, i.e., was “sobered up” being used metaphorically?
It was known that the Democrat nominee had a penchant for drinking while on the campaign trail.
“She likes to drink,” Amy Chozick, national political reporter for the The New York Times, told ABC News in February of 2015, six months before the email was sent. “We were on the campaign trail in 2008 and the press thought she was just taking shots to pander to voters in Pennsylvania. Um, no.”
Additionally, earlier this month Chozick issued a tweet from Clinton’s campaign plane claiming that the nominee wanted to take off immediately “so we can have some drinks served.” "We need to take off so we can have some drinks served," Hillary says on her campaign plane https://t.co/XrZsEHOXwb
— Amy Chozick (@amychozick) October 10, 2016
Clinton may suffer from a drinking problem — certainly, heavy drinking while campaigning for president would indeed be a problem. Advertisement - story continues below | 0 |
Ivey Slaughter jumped into the passing lane on Oregon State’s first possession of the second half on Saturday and stole the ball, and then she drove the length of the floor in one of those timely moments that have defined her senior season at Florida State. That steal was a big reason the Seminoles were able to rally from a deficit to advance to the Stockton Region final in California, beating Oregon State, to set up a rematch with South Carolina. The Gamecocks won that 2015 tournament meeting by 6 points. Slaughter recorded a nine steals and added 11 points and 8 rebounds. “She really changed a lot of things,” said Leticia Romero, who led the Seminoles with 18 points. Oregon State ( ) failed in its bid to return to the Final Four. Sydney Wiese, the Beavers’ leading scorer this season, finished with just 9 points, shooting 3 of 14, and missed all 10 of her tries in her final game. Shakayla Thomas, the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year, recorded her third straight for the Seminoles ( ) with 12 points and 11 rebounds. The Seminoles trailed by 17 points late in the first quarter and by 10 midway through the second, but Florida State Coach Sue Semrau had a quick reminder for her team. “If we could convince them how good we are defensively, things could change,” she said. She added, “I was stunned that we were missing the shots that we were missing. ” The Seminoles stormed back with a big run, closing the gap to by the break and opening the third quarter with a burst to take a lead. Oregon State tied the score at with 6 minutes 55 seconds to play as Gabriella Hanson’s free throws capped a run. But Florida State responded. Wiese struggled to get clean looks and never got comfortable with her shot. The Beavers were 2 for 17 from range and shot 36. 4 percent over all after a talented senior class led the team to the past three Conference titles. Kolbie Orum was the Beavers’ lone player to score in double figures, with 12 points. S. CAROLINA 100, QUINNIPIAC 58 Kaela Davis, A’ja Wilson and South Carolina ( ) overpowered Quinnipiac ( ) the No. 12 seed, from the opening tip, scoring the first 16 points and advancing to the Stockton Region final in a rout. Davis scored 28 points, with five . Wilson added 24 points, and the Gamecocks’ athleticism and swarming defense were too much for the Bobcats. Quinnipiac started 0 for 10 from the field and took more than seven minutes to score as it struggled to get off shots and to establish its usually prolific perimeter game. OREGON 77, MARYLAND 63 The freshman Sabrina Ionescu led five Oregon players in double figures with 21 points, and the Ducks ( ) continued their run through the N. C. A. A. tournament by upsetting Maryland ( ). The freshman Ruthy Hebard added 16 points for Oregon, which advanced to a regional final for the first time. The Ducks will play Connecticut on Monday in Bridgeport, Conn. Brionna Jones and Shatori each had 16 points for the Terrapins. The Maryland offense, whose average of more than 90 points a game led the nation, was held to its lowest point total this season. Oregon Coach Kelly Graves said before the game that his young team, which starts three freshmen, might not know it is not supposed to be winning. The Ducks became the second No. 10 seed to advance to a regional final, after the 1991 team from Lamar University of Texas. | 1 |
The New World Order elite want to steal Russian land, they don't care how many Americans or Russians die in the process. Vote Trump! | 0 |
AS prices for new vehicles continue to rise, the cost of an average new car may be a stretch for typical households. A new analysis from Bankrate. com found that a household could not afford the average price of a new vehicle in any of the 50 largest cities in the country, though cars are more affordable in some cities than others. “The new reality is that cars are becoming more expensive,” said Steve Pounds, a personal finance analyst for Bankrate. “People are having to make tough decisions about financing. ” The average price of a new car or light truck in 2016 is about $34, 000, according to Kelley Blue Book. That’s in part because new cars are loaded with helpful but expensive safety features like systems. Bankrate calculated an “affordable” purchase price for major cities, using median incomes from United States census data, and factoring in costs for sales taxes and insurance. In San Jose, Calif. — the heart of Silicon Valley — the median income is about $84, 000, and an “affordable” new car purchase price is about $33, 000 — close to, but still below, the average new car price. In cities, however, affordable purchase prices for a typical family are far below the average cost of a new car. In Hartford, Conn. where the median income is about $29, 000, an affordable purchase price is about $8, 000 — about a quarter of the average price. That sort of squeeze helps explain why many people are borrowing more, for longer periods of time, to finance a car purchase. Experian Automotive said that in the first quarter of this year, the proportion of new cars bought with the help of financing rose to more than 86 percent, and the average loan amount topped $30, 000, which is the highest since Experian began tracking the data. The average term for a loan is now 68 months — about five and a half years — and some loans stretch as long as seven years. (Auto leases are also becoming more popular because they often offer lower payments than a traditional car loan. Leases accounted for more than 30 percent of transactions in the first quarter, Experian reported. With a lease, the customer makes payments for a set period of time, then typically can choose either to return the car to the dealer or to buy it.) loans carry risks. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warns that borrowers who take out loans end up paying more for the car over all, and also run a greater risk of being “upside down” on the loans, meaning owing more than the car is worth. Bankrate noted that a traditional rule of thumb is the “ ” rule: Car buyers should aim to put down at least 20 percent in cash, take out a loan for no more than four years and keep the cost of principal, interest and insurance to no more than 10 percent of household income. If you have to abandon those guidelines, the car you want may simply be too expensive. “To me, if you need to finance to five, six or seven years, you can’t afford it,” said Jeff Bartlett, deputy cars editor at Consumer Reports. Ron Montoya, senior consumer advice editor with Edmunds. com, noted that interest rates were still low for loans, but advised shoppers to keep the loan term at no more than five years. (Edmunds has an online calculator that you can use to estimate how much you can afford to pay. He also recommends checking the cost of insuring a specific model before buying it, so you won’t be shocked when you get your insurance bill after you’ve made the purchase. Here are some questions and answers about buying a new car: When is the best time to shop for a new car? While car sales may abound on holiday weekends like the Fourth of July, shopping on a weekday may actually be preferable. There is less traffic to deal with when taking test drives, and sales representatives have more time to answer your questions. “Buy when it’s right for you,” Mr. Bartlett said, not just because dealers are promoting incentives. Mr. Pounds suggests shopping when car manufacturers are beginning to introduce new model years — typically in late summer or early fall. Prices may be more reasonable for the outgoing model year at that time. But be aware that you may have fewer vehicles to choose from. How can I make sure I’m choosing the right financing option? People are often diligent about researching the type of car they want to buy, but they’re much less likely to do their homework when it comes to financing the purchase, according to a report this month from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. To help consumers the bureau has created an auto loan “shopping sheet” that can help you calculate the total cost of a car loan and compare offers. Should I buy a used car instead? Used cars, particularly those that are just two or three years old, often offer the best value, Mr. Bartlett said. Not only is the initial price lower, but costs like collision insurance and taxes are also lower. If getting the latest safety features, like automatic braking, is a priority, however, make sure to look only at very recent model years. And be sure, he said, to have a used car inspected by a reputable mechanic before you buy it. | 1 |
Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Bretibart News Daily to talk about the crisis in North Korea, and whether the Trump administration will be able to break a cycle of provocations and negotiations that stretches back for decades. [Gaffney said things could be different this time, and maybe not in a good way, because “North Korea is now in a position to attack with horrific effect the United States itself — not just our friends and allies and forces in the region, but the continental mainland of the United States. ” “One of the ways in which they could do that, we believe, is through unleashing, perhaps via a nuclear device overhead — currently there are two North Korean satellites circling the Earth, and passing over the United States with regularity, that could conceivably house an electromagnetic pulse optimized nuclear weapon,” he explained. If detonated, such a weapon could “take out the United States by destroying our electric grid,” an offensive capability Gaffney described as a “ ” even before North Korea develops intercontinental ballistic missiles. “These are real threats that are now to us, here at home,” he said. “I think that somewhat changes the ‘Groundhog Day’ exercise that we’ve been going through for decades now. ” Gaffney quoted Vice President Mike Pence talking about putting an end to “willful deception,” by which he meant “the willful deception of the North Koreans as they have entered into a succession of agreements with us, including that they would not get nuclear weapons — which of course they predictably violated with impunity. ” “In fact, they were rewarded for doing it, in subsequent negotiations and concessions made to them,” he added. “But there’s another kind of willful blindness, or willful deception if you will, that’s operating here. And that is I believe the deception we’ve indulged in, in this country, with respect to China,” Gaffney said. “We’re endlessly told the Chinese are the solution to this problem. If only the Chinese will restrain their clients in North Korea, this problem will be at least mitigated, if not eliminated. ” He said the truth of the matter is, “the record is pretty clear that the Chinese consider bad behavior from North Korea to be a strategic asset for them. ” “Far from constraining it, I think they’re enabling it — no question about that — but I think they actually find it very expedient to use against the United States, notably as just one example in the course of conversations with Donald Trump,” he observed. “Within days of ending a campaign in which he promised to brand them — as they are — a currency manipulator, in the interest of inducing the Chinese to behave as intermediaries and constrain North Korea, the president has said ‘oh, no, no, they’re not a currency manipulator.’ I think that’s the kind of evidence of bennies that flow to the North Koreans, and principally to the Chinese, that enable the North Koreans to keep on keeping on — in fact, to become more dangerous with Chinese help. ” Marlow turned the conversation to Tuesday’s shooting rampage in Fresno, where suspect Kori Ali Muhammad targeted white victims and reportedly shouted “Allahu akbar!” as the police took him down. The Associated Press has been criticized for refusing to print the phrase as Muhammad said it, instead rendering it in English as “God is great!” Gaffney further argued that this common translation of “Allahu akbar” is incorrect. “It means ‘Allah is greatest,’” he said. “Not God, some Abrahamic faith God, but Allah isn’t just great or even greater, he is greatest. This is the jihadist battle cry. It’s what you are supposed to say when you are killing infidels, to assure that if you’re killed in the process you’ll get credit for it as a shaheed, a martyr, a guy who is sacrificing himself for the greater glory of sharia. ” “It’s almost a parody these days that the reflexive response of law enforcement, if it isn’t ‘nothing to see here folks,’ it certainly is ‘nothing to see here in the way of sharia supremacism,’” he complained. “Now, this guy may have a lot of other issues. Apparently he’s homeless, he hated white people — I get that. But when he says those words, you cannot ignore the fact that probably somewhere, maybe because of what he’s been hearing on the news, or maybe because of something he’s been hearing in jail, where a lot of guys are getting converted to jihad, or Muslims going in come out jihadists. Whatever the provenance of it, you cannot ignore the fact that he probably had somewhere in his DNA this belief that it would enhance his standing with Allah, or at least advance Allah’s cause of imposing on everybody — Muslim and alike, by the way — this toxic ideology of sharia,” said Gaffney. “I’ve had it, frankly, with these guys in law enforcement who are willfully blind,” he exclaimed. “We respect people doing their duties, God knows, but when they incessantly repeat this like it’s some kind of incantation, it’s a disservice to the public, and it suggests malfeasance on their part in terms of protecting us from these kinds of threats. ” Marlow next asked Gaffney about reports that the first “DREAMer” — a young illegal alien protected under President Obama’s extension of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — has been deported under President Trump. Many view the deportation of people brought to the United States as children by their parents to be unfair, since the children had no say in the matter. Gaffney agreed with Marlow’s proposal that DACA provides an incentive for illegal aliens to bring their children across the border, so removing that incentive will help reduce the volume of illegal border crossings. “It is fundamentally about the rule of law,” Gaffney declared. “These happen to be particularly sympathetic characters. They didn’t, as you say, have a say in coming here — their parents brought them sometimes in utero, but nonetheless brought them here. As a result the Obama administration, and many Democrats, and a lot of Republicans for that matter, were kind of willing to look the other way as President Obama essentially waived the law and created new regulations that would enable them to stay here permanently. ” “I hope that this action isn’t one that will be countermanded by President Trump as he learns of it, probably from the news, having in the course of his campaign and I think subsequently said he would try to find a way to accommodate these people,” Gaffney continued. “It does come down to the magnet, and that’s what we’ve got to turn off. More people being attracted to come to this country — and I think to the extent that you can figure the kids at least will get a permanent place here, if you can get them across the border, is a magnet and should be turned off, along with the others. ” Marlow sought Gaffney’s take on the special referendum in Turkey that gave President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vastly increased powers, and secured him in office for over a decade to come. “What was shocking was that he very narrowly won, which suggests to me that he had to steal a lot of votes in order to get across the mark,” Gaffney said. He saw Erdogan as “dead set on, and now one very important step closer to achieving, the caliphate that he has had his eyes set on since he was a young mayor in Istanbul. ” To that end, Gaffney recalled, Erdogan established an Islamist political party with his old ally Fethullah Gulen, who now lives in in the United States, and is blamed as the mastermind of all Turkish unrest by Erdogan. “He’s trying to convert Turkey from a basically secular, democratic nation into one that is now increasingly just another dangerous Islamist republic,” he warned. “And that I think is going to be bad for the Turks, it’s for sure bad for Europe, and I think will be a real problem going forward, as it has been to an extent for a while now, for the NATO alliance. Because let’s recall they are a member of NATO. They are privy to its secrets. They have access to its technology. ” “The fact that Erdogan is this president, now dictator effectively, is I fear going to be increasingly moving his country into alliances with the Islamic State, with with the Muslim Brotherhood, with Russia, with China. It makes this a very serious problem for our security interests and those of the NATO alliance, he said. Gaffney said it was a mistake for President Trump to call Erdogan and “congratulate him on what is, in fact, a contested election. ” He was uncertain who recommended this course of action to Trump, but said “there are obviously lots of people in his administration who are inclined to think that if we just do more of what Obama did — which is try to romance, and accommodate, and even appease these sharia supremacists, and that’s what Erdogan is — that they’ll behave better. ” “I think that’s a mistake,” he judged. “I wish the president hadn’t made that call. But more to the point, I think we’re going to have to give some very serious thought, there is no institutional arrangement to decoupling a NATO ally from the alliance. We’re going to have to try to figure out how to do that because otherwise, I think we’ve got a potential enemy inside our huddle. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
On a private October conference call with House Republican members, House Speaker Paul Ryan told his members in the U. S. House of Representatives he was abandoning presidential nominee Donald Trump forever and would never defend him ever again. [In the Oct. 10, 2016 call, from right after the Access Hollywood tape of Trump was leaked in the weeks leading up to the election, Ryan does not specify that he will never defend Trump on just the Access Hollywood tape — he says clearly he is done with Trump altogether. “I am not going to defend Donald Trump — not now, not in the future,” Ryan says in the audio, obtained by Breitbart News and published here for the first time ever. Now, Ryan — still the Speaker — has pushed now President Donald Trump to believe his healthcare legislation the American Health Care Act would repeal and replace Obamacare when it does not repeal Obamacare. Ryan has also, according to Trump ally Sen. Rand Paul ( ) misled President Trump into believing that Ryan’s bill can pass Congress. Paul and others believe the bill is dead on arrival in the U. S. Senate since a number of GOP senators have come out against it, and there are serious questions about whether it can pass the House. This is the first major initiative that Trump has worked on with Ryan — and the fact it is going so poorly calls into question whether Speaker Ryan, the GOP’s failed 2012 vice presidential nominee who barely supported Trump at all in 2016, really understands how Trump won and how to win in general. The October conference call apparently was intended only for House Republican members. It’s unclear which or how many House Republicans took part in the call, whether the participants knew it was being recorded, who made the recording, or whether a recording exists of the entire call. The remarks on the portion provided to Breitbart News certainly sound like they were coming from Speaker Ryan, who seemed to be abandoning his party’s presidential nominee altogether just weeks before the election. He says not only will he not defend the Access Hollywood comments, but he will not campaign with Trump at all between this call on Oct. 10, 2016, and the general election for the presidency on Nov. 8 — and that Ryan would not defend Trump on anything generally. Ryan followed through on his promise to not campaign with Trump, abandoning the now president in the final crucial weeks leading up to the general election. But Trump won anyway, in a landslide in the electoral college crushing Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. This audio file means that Trump won all 306 of his electoral votes on his own, without Ryan, including the 10 he won in Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin. As soon as Trump won without Ryan’s help, Ryan aligned himself with then Trump and now President Trump — acting like he never abandoned him on the campaign trail and never disinvited the president from a rally in his district. Ryan’s comments on this Oct. 10 call came after a female voice — it’s unclear if the woman was a House member or not — opened up the call. He called Trump’s Access Hollywood comments indefensible and said they do not fit with the Republican Party’s “principles and values. ” Ryan also told House members on the call that he would not be campaigning with Trump, and that each member should make their own decision with regards to Trump over the next several weeks at that point: Abandon the GOP nominee for president like Ryan was doing or stand with him? A number of members joined Ryan in abandoning Trump. Both of those two sections of the call have been previously reported in media, although those media reports lacked audio of Ryan to back them up. But the more important line is the line where Ryan says — without specifying this was about the Access Hollywood leak — that he will never defend Donald Trump again. “His comments are not anywhere in keeping with our party’s principles and values,” Ryan said. “There are basically two things that I want to make really clear, as for myself as your Speaker. I am not going to defend Donald Trump — not now, not in the future. As you probably heard, I disinvited him from my first congressional district GOP event this weekend — a thing I do every year. And I’m not going to be campaigning with him over the next 30 days. ” “Look, you guys know I have real concerns with our nominee,” Ryan continued. “I hope you appreciate that I’m doing what I think is best for you, the members, not what’s best for me. So, I want to do what’s best for our members, and I think this is the right thing to do. I’m going to focus my time on campaigning for House Republicans. I talked to a bunch of you over the last 72 hours and here is basically my takeaway. To everyone on this call, this is going to be a turbulent month. Many of you on this call are facing tough reelections. Some of you are not. But with respect to Donald Trump, I would encourage you to do what you think is best and do what you feel you need to do. Personally, you need to decide what’s best for you. And you all know what’s best for you where you are. ” Later in the audio, Ryan does clarify that the “last thing” he wanted to do was help Clinton ascend to the presidency. “But the last thing I want to do is to help Hillary Clinton get the presidency, and get Congress,” Ryan said. “Look, she’s a failed progressive. She’s running an abysmal campaign. I mean, it’s just — it’s amazing how easily she could be beaten. She will take this country in the wrong direction. And the last thing we need is four more years of Obama policies or two years of a Clinton presidency with a Democrat Congress. Could you imagine what that would look like? So the last thing we want to be doing is giving Hillary Clinton a blank check in Congress. ” “That’s why I’m going to spend the rest of this month fighting for Congress, fighting for our majorities,” Ryan continued. “I’m going to spend the next 28 days working hard with all of our members to get because we need a check on Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump and Mike Pence don’t win the presidency. Greg Walden will get more into what that looks like and what polling looks like, but I want to basically close with this: His comments are indefensible, they’re not in keeping with our principles, so I’m not going to try to defend him. I’m going to focus on Congress, I’m going to focus on upholding our values. We have a great, great policy agenda — A Better Way — that we need to take to voters and show what our party actually stands for and what it’s stood for for generations. ” LISTEN TO AUDIO OF PAUL RYAN’S OCT. 10, 2016, CONFERENCE CALL WITH HOUSE GOP: In response to this audio surfacing, Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck told Breitbart News: “The world is well aware of this history. ” “And obviously a lot has happened since then. As everyone knows,” Buck added in a email. In a third email, Buck clarified about the comments from Ryan that “of course they were” specifically about the Access Hollywood tapes. “This was in response to that, but as everyone knows, they came together toward the end of the campaign and the speaker vocally supported him and even campaigned with Pence,” Buck said. But Ryan never campaigned with Trump. It’s worth noting that the person Ryan leaned on for political advice in abandoning Trump during this conference call was now House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Rep. Greg Walden ( ). Walden, at the time, was chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). This audio file obtained by Breitbart News does not include Walden’s comments, so it’s unclear exactly what he said. But Walden is now one of Ryan’s top lieutenants in the House of Representatives, leading the promotion of this healthcare legislation — and one of the two committee chairmen who kept his committee in session overnight to speed up the of the legislation last week. Ryan’s decision to abandon Trump on the campaign trail has become a focal point in healthcare negotiations. While meeting with conservative leaders last week at the White House, this exact topic came up — as Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin and Trump shared an exchange that was particularly awkward for White House chief of staff and Ryan ally Reince Priebus. “Inside the Oval Office last week, there was a telling exchange between conservative activist Jenny Beth Martin and the president,” Jonathan Swan of Axios reported on Sunday night, adding: During Trump’s Wednesday meeting with conservative leaders over the healthcare plan, Tea Party Patriots leader Martin subtly reminded Trump that her stood by him ‘through thick and thin’ during the campaign, unlike a certain politician from Wisconsin. According to two sources in the room, Martin didn’t mention Paul Ryan’s name. But everyone knew who she was talking about. She reminded Trump that in October — when the crude ‘Access Hollywood’ tape leaked and Ryan disinvited Trump from a Wisconsin event — Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund volunteers were working the phones on Trump’s behalf. Trump smiled and glanced over at his chief of staff Reince Priebus. Trump said that, yes, he had been disinvited. And he thanked Martin for standing by him. Ryan has been unwilling to negotiate on the specifics of his bill, which has earned multiple negative monikers like “Obamacare 2. 0,” “Obamacare Lite,” “RyanCare,” and “ ” from detractors. But President Trump and his true allies, despite what Ryan’s allies inside the White House say publicly, have been much more willing to negotiate, according to House and Senate conservatives who have had direct conversations with the president. “We have gotten a signal from the White House that the bill might be completely pulled and a more transparent and inclusive process could start as early as next week,” one senior Republican Senate aide told Breitbart News on Friday. “House leadership misled the White House on how popular this bill would be with conservatives. ” “That would be excellent news, and the best way to ensure we actually deliver on what we told the voters we would do,” another senior congressional aide told Breitbart News when asked about the possibility Ryan’s bill might be pulled altogether and a new renegotiated bill introduced afterwards. “The bill as is cannot pass and there is a growing chorus of Republican members in both houses growing impatient with the current unwillingness to make any changes to the current House bill. ” “They’ll start to fold soon if the conservative groups hold firm,” one senior House GOP aide in an office whose member is against the bill, will not vote for it in its current form or without significant changes under any circumstances and is not in the House Freedom Caucus, told Breitbart News. House GOP leadership offices — particularly Ryan’s and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s team — have not responded to requests for comment on the possibility the bill may be pulled altogether. But White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who is working internally as hard as he can to help Ryan on this front regardless of the impact on Trump along with a handful of other White House aides who came from the Republican National Committee and are not Trump loyalists, told Breitbart News that the idea the bill may be pulled is “false. ” But in conversations Breitbart News has had with no fewer than 15 other White House aides, including many on the press team, it is clear that the President and the senior Trump administration team are not happy with this bill’s lack of conservative support. The President and his team were assured by Ryan that conservatives would, in fact, be on board with it in the beginning, something that has turned out to not be accurate. Interestingly, much more so than Ryan and his House GOP leadership team, the White House is much more open to significant negotiation on the details in a healthcare bill — including the structure, vehicle, timeline and more. Several senior White House aides confirmed to Breitbart News that while the administration is publicly touting the bill as the party line, the President is much more willing to wheel and deal on this front than Ryan loyalists on his team would have anyone believe. “The President gave Ryan a chance,” one source close to the President said. “If he doesn’t get his act together soon, the President will have no choice but to step in and fix this on his own. He’s the best negotiator on the planet, and if this were his bill not Ryan’s it would not be this much of a mess. ” In fact, the president himself on Monday said he is working on negotiating on this healthcare bill. “We’re negotiating with everybody,” Trump said. “It’s a big fat beautiful negotiation and hopefully we’ll come up with something that’s going to be really terrific. ” What’s more, the bill has virtually zero chance of ever passing the Senate should it get there. Sens. Paul, Mike Lee ( ) Tom Cotton ( ) Lindsey Graham ( ) James Lankford ( ) Dean Heller ( ) Susan Collins ( ) Ted Cruz ( ) and Ben Sasse ( ) — among other GOP senators — have all raised concerns about it. Paul, Lee and Cotton have been particularly vocal, while Graham has raised concerns with the process. Cotton, particularly, warned his old House colleagues to not vote for Ryan’s bill. “The bill probably can be fixed, but it’s going to take a lot of carpentry on that framework,” Cotton said, adding the key warning: “Do not walk the plank and vote for a bill that cannot pass the Senate and then have to face the consequences of that vote,” “I’m not going to give into demands by members of Congress or the Senate if I don’t believe it’s in the interest of the American people and just walk away from the frigging table,” Graham said last week, according to Politico. Sasse, meanwhile, has privately raised concerns about the process and viability of the bill, according to a Senate GOP aide while a source close to Sasse has confirmed to Breitbart News he raised those concerns. Politico has reported on Heller’s serious concerns with Ryan’s bill, and Collins said she agrees with Paul — for different reasons — that the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. Lankford, in a Monday morning radio interview, confirmed he also has serious concerns with the House bill and that he is introducing his own Obamacare replacement legislation in the Senate on Tuesday. Cruz’s office confirmed to Breitbart News he has had several meetings with White House officials, House members and Senate leadership officials making the case for an improved House bill. Cruz has also argued that Republicans can get around the Senate’s parliamentarian on budget reconciliation because he says the Vice President — Mike Pence — “has the statutory and constitutional authority (as does the Senate majority) to rule to the contrary” of what the parliamentarian says. Given the fact there are only 52 Republicans in the U. S. Senate, only three Republicans are needed to stop a piece of legislation that has no support from any Democrats. This bill is expected to get no support from Democrats, so the nine Republicans that Breitbart News can confirm have serious issues with the House bill — while not all necessarily 100 percent against it — are more than enough to stop this bill dead in its tracks if it ever reaches them. That brings up the next question, which is whether Ryan’s legislation has enough support to pass the U. S. House of Representatives. At this time, since the House Freedom Caucus is united against it — more than 40 members comprise the House Freedom Caucus — it appears the answer is no. Ryan can only afford to lose around 20 Republican votes, depending on absences and vacancies, since he is aiming to pass the bill with zero support from any Democrats. And while Ryan is attempting to browbeat 20 or so of the House Freedom Caucus members into submission on this legislation using his affiliated outside groups to run ads against them in their districts — while not spending anything on targeting Democrats — House GOP sources in Caucus offices tell Breitbart News that there are as many as perhaps 70 House Republicans against this bill at this time, and that number is not getting any smaller as time goes by. So if Ryan is able to muscle it through the House in the next few weeks — sources close to the process expect a battle to come on the rule vote, which may happen next week or the week after — it will be on life support headed to a Senate that does not support it since conservatives are not warming up to it by any stretch. Now, on top of all of this, this new audio file raises questions as to how loyal Ryan is to Trump politically — and is asking the new president to use precious political capital to push through legislation that seems arithmetically destined for congressional failure. That could doom or at least dampen other key elements of the Trump agenda, like tax reform, immigration reform, national security efforts, budgetary reforms, building up of the U. S. military, trade renegotiation and more. As such, as Breitbart News has previously reported, there are now rumblings among House Republicans that they may want a replacement not just of Obamacare but a replacement of Paul Ryan as Speaker. A new Speaker, some argue, would make life much easier for President Trump as he moves forward with his agenda. So the argument goes, as some House GOP members have told Breitbart News, is that if healthcare is this rocky then tax reform, immigration, trade policy and other key Trump agenda items will be worse. | 1 |
Country artist Toby Keith will not back out of performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration this month, saying in a statement that he will not “apologize” for performing for the country and its military. [The “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” singer was announced as an inauguration performer on Friday, along with rock band 3 Doors Down and country singer Lee Greenwood. “I don’t apologize for performing for our country or military,” Keith said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “I performed at events for previous presidents [George W.] Bush and [Barack] Obama and over 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO. ” Keith’s statement comes as several artists, including Elton John and Garth Brooks, have publicly rejected invitations to perform at the inauguration. On Saturday, singer Jennifer Holliday — who had been announced as an inauguration performer on Friday along with Keith — scrapped her plans to sing at the event and apologized to her fans for what she called a “lapse of judgement. ” “I was honestly just thinking that I wanted my voice to be a healing and unifying force for hope through music to help our deeply polarized country,” Holliday wrote in an open letter provided to The Wrap. “Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. ” “I sincerely apologize for my lapse of judgment, for being uneducated on the issues that affect every American at this crucial time in history and for causing such dismay and heartbreak for my fans,” she added. Keith, 3 Doors Down and several other artists will perform January 19 at the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration. ” Actor and Trump supporter Jon Voight is expected to attend, and Trump himself will reportedly speak at the event. Performers for Inauguration Day include the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Radio City Rockettes and teenage classical singer Jackie Evancho. The Evancho is slated to sing the National Anthem at the event. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
Luis Severino sat in the Yankees’ clubhouse Sunday morning, inquisitively viewing several televisions that were broadcasting speculation about Alex Rodriguez’s future. Late Saturday night, the Yankees had announced a news conference with Rodriguez to be held before Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Indians. Severino, his teammates and Manager Joe Girardi had been given little indication of the purpose of the news conference before Rodriguez announced his plans to end his playing days after Friday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium. Severino, 22, is one of several players from the Yankees’ farm system who will be expected to usher in a new era. The announcement of Rodriguez’s retirement came two days after Mark Teixeira had announced his own plans to depart baseball after this season. Combined with a series of trades of veterans over the last week, the Yankees have all but officially closed the chapter on an era of exorbitant signings. “Clearly, there’s transition going on right now,” General Manager Brian Cashman said before the Yankees’ win over the Indians. “This roster has been getting younger the last few years. It’s by intent and is stated publicly and something that’s necessary. I think it’s an exciting time, because there is some young blood that is coming in here. They have big dreams, and they have big hopes. ” Over the past week, the Yankees have kept up a facade by declaring themselves still contenders, despite having dealt Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Carlos Beltran and Ivan Nova before the nonwaiver trading deadline. On Sunday, while addressing questions mainly relating to Rodriguez, Girardi also conceded that the club was undergoing a “transition. ” Catcher Brian McCann said the Yankees had contributed to the housecleaning by not winning more. “This game, you see kind of how teams are winning, when you can get prospects — that’s what they’re doing,” McCann said. “They’ve got a lot of good prospects in this organization that are impact players. ” He added, “Some guys were coming off the books, and it was a business decision that they had to make. ” Several players praised Rodriguez. C. C. Sabathia called him the best player of his generation. Outfielder Brett Gardner said: “The ultimate way to go out is on your own terms. Tex is getting the opportunity to do that, and it’s sad to see that Alex isn’t. ” The decision to part with Rodriguez was not a simple one. This summer, amid declining production, Rodriguez became a platoon player and was finally benched outright. His future hovered over the team like a dark cloud. “It’s been a tough week,” Girardi said Sunday. Then, alluding to Teixeira’s retirement, he added: “To lose guys like this, it’s hard. Alex has meant a ton to me. This has been a tough month. Obviously, it’s a hot topic every day, and it’s not an easy topic to talk about, so it’s taken its toll. ” After the Rodriguez saga reached its conclusion, Masahiro Tanaka threw his first pitch of the afternoon with nary a cloud in the sky above the field. Tanaka pounded the corners of the strike zone against the Indians, shutting them out for the first six innings as the Yankees took a lead. Gardner scored after leading off the bottom of the first with a triple, Didi Gregorius hit a solo home run, and Teixeira added a double. Tanaka struck out eight and was charged with one run over innings, improving to . “It was probably his best start of the year,” said Girardi, who bolstered his case by adding that Tanaka had pitched on only four days’ rest. Entering Sunday, Tanaka was with a 4. 95 E. R. A. with four days between starts and and 1. 87 with five days. On Tuesday, Severino will start against the Red Sox in Boston, his first start since May 13, after which he was injured and sent for rehabilitation in Class AAA . “It’s weird,” Severino said. “We were one of the teams that had more veterans, and now we only have, like, two or three. It’s different. ” | 1 |
The Huffington Post has refused to remove an article on its Arabic website that claims the Islamic prophet Muhammad was poisoned by a Jew. [The article was published on November 29, but has remained live on the website for nearly seven weeks. Once the article drew criticism, the editors changed the headline from “‘Arsenic’: The Poison Which a Jewish Woman Put in the Food of the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him” to “Did the Prophet Die From Being Poisoned With Arsenic?” but the content reportedly remains the same. In a statement, the League said: “It is troubling that an screed cleared The Huffington Post’s editorial review process and that our concerns so far have been ignored,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “We call on The Huffington Post to immediately remove this offensive entry and to ensure that the proper safeguards are in place so that the Arabic site is free of and incitement against Jews. ” The Jewish Telegraphic Agency adds that the Huffington Post’s Arabic website has also been hit with other recent accusations of bigotry: “The Huffington Post’s Arabic edition was also criticized late last month for calling attention to late pop singer George Michael’s ‘homosexual tendencies.’ A blog, Israellycool, points out that the argument in the article is based on widely accepted Islamic sources, and that the Huffington Post is having difficulty confronting the fact of widespread prejudice in the Muslim world: You can, if you wish, plough through rebuttals of whether the woman’s poison actually killed Mohammed, but the act of the poisoning remains pretty much undisputed. It is the efficacy and specific detail of which poison was used which the HuffPo blog post addresses and which the ADL has decided to get upset about. More important, however, than whether any of this happened as described is what do many Muslims teach their kids. And in this there is little doubt. The story of Mohammed being poisoned by a Jewess is commonly told and commonly believed. The ADL recently made, then backed away from, claims that Breitbart News is the “premier” site of the and that Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, now entering the Trump administration, is an antisemite. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
There will be nine confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees this week, according to Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer. [“The Trump cabinet nominees understand how to lead organizations to success and I think you can see this reflected in their approaches to hearings regarding this week. They’re listening, they’re learning, they’re preparing,” Spicer told reporters on Monday morning. The confirmation hearing schedule this week is as follows: “It’s obviously going to be a big week on Capitol Hill,” Spicer declared. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama claimed the presidency eight years ago in Chicago’s Grant Park, declaring “a new dawn” in American history and promising the enthusiastic crowd of a people that “we as a people will get there. ” “Because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America,” the new vowed. But as the nation prepares to choose President Obama’s successor on Tuesday, the bold agenda he described that morning remains incomplete. What Mr. Obama discovered — and what his successor will learn — is that every presidency lasts for only a brief moment in time. Mr. Obama’s health care bill gave insurance to millions, but he now faces calls for big changes to it. The economy is markedly better, but incomes and growth remain stubbornly low. The immigration overhaul he wanted is tied up in legal limbo, as are his tough new climate rules. Fewer Americans are fighting in overseas wars, but the Islamic State has emerged as a new threat. Partisanship and racial tensions have intensified. “There is a lot of unfinished business,” said Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate leader from South Dakota, a longtime supporter of Mr. Obama. “The satisfaction comes in knowing that he has changed the landscape in a very profound way. The frustration comes in knowing what might have been. ” Mr. Obama recognized the transient nature of his tenure when he spoke eight years ago to the ecstatic crowd in Grant Park. “Our climb will be steep,” Mr. Obama said. “We may not get there in one year or even one term. ” More recently, he has started acknowledging that his legacy will be an incremental one. In an article in The Economist, he described the presidency as “a relay race, requiring each of us to do our part to bring the country closer to its highest aspirations. ” Jen Psaki, the White House communications director, said that Mr. Obama had always understood he was part of a continuum. “He recognizes that who he passes the baton to will have a huge impact on whether you build on the progress he made,” she said. White House aides point to what they call the highlights of that progress: digging the country out of a deep economic recession, rescuing the auto industry, extending health insurance to 20 million people, pressing the world to confront climate change, reducing America’s combat role in two overseas wars. But for a president who won the highest office in the land by promising big, sweeping change, Tuesday’s election is a reminder that it will be up to someone else to complete the change he long envisioned. Health care may be the most important example. Passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 drastically reshaped the insurance markets in the country, improving access to medical care. But even Democrats agree that much more needs to be done to improve the cost and quality of that care. “If this was a football field, I’d put us on the line with 70 yards to go,” said Mr. Daschle, who was Mr. Obama’s first pick for secretary of health and human services but withdrew after questions about his taxes. Mr. Daschle said the unfinished nature of Mr. Obama’s health care program was partly the fault of Republican obstructionism and partly the result of delays that always occur when trying to overhaul such a large social program. The Affordable Care Act gave Mr. Obama’s administration great latitude to reshape the nation’s health care system, and the next president will inherit that same authority. “That latitude has worked for us,” Mr. Daschle said. “If it’s a Trump presidency, it could work against us. ” Climate change, too, remains a work in progress. Internationally, Mr. Obama successfully pressed world leaders to aggressively confront the threats from a warming planet. At home, he demanded tougher fuel standards for cars and imposed new regulations on power plants. But the international agreements Mr. Obama helped forge will play out over decades. It could be years before his environmental regulations are in place, if ever. It will be up to future presidents to navigate the politics of climate change, around the world and here at home. “Obama has set the stage for both effective domestic and global climate protection,” said Paul Bledsoe, a climate adviser in Bill Clinton’s administration. “But most of the heaviest lifting is going to be done by his successor, especially regarding domestic politics. ” Ms. Psaki said the fact that large, developing countries like India and China are addressing climate change is “a tremendous step forward” that Mr. Obama can claim credit for. “Around the world, a number of countries have cemented their goals. It’s not a flash in the pan. ” And yet, Mr. Obama will have long since left office by the time the United States reaches its deadline to significantly reduce carbon emissions in 2025. And much of the rest of the world has pledged to reach its climate goals by 2030, in the fourth presidential term from now. Mr. Obama concluded his remarks in Grant Park by talking about a woman, Ann Nixon Cooper, who had cast her ballot in Atlanta. He wondered aloud what changes his daughters would see in America if they lived to be the same age. It was, in a sense, a recognition that the consequences of his time in office would be shaped by others long after he left. “What change will they see? What progress will we have made?” Mr. Obama asked. “This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time. ” For Barack Obama, that time is just about over. | 1 |
Send your workplace conundrums to workologist@nytimes. com, including your name and contact information (even if you want it withheld for publication). The Workologist is a guy with opinions, not a professional career adviser. Letters may be edited. I was one of several people my boss bullied into resignation by collecting gossip, pressuring people to say vaguely critical things and overstating what they said — a witch hunt, basically. When I saw this happening to me, I consulted a lawyer, but ultimately concluded I had no interest in saying or doing anything to continue being associated with this vitriolic nut. I resigned and had a better job lined up five days later. I win. Nonetheless, I was angry and resentful, I think reasonably. I composed my detailed defense, pointing out that my boss knew she was lying, and that she is an evil, disgraceful woman. I felt much better — but I did not send the email, and moved on emotionally. Recently my separation from that employer became official (there was a delay to account for leave time I was owed). Feeling that this horrid woman could no longer hurt me, I reread my email draft and came very close to sending it — maybe with a blind copy to her boss. I believe sending it will make me feel more victorious, but maybe it risks opening cans of worms I cannot foresee. I can’t decide if not sending it will make me feel like the better person, or if I’ll be nagged by the sense that I allowed this boss to bully me. Shall I send or delete? ANONYMOUS I am a fan of the raw, unvarnished letter. Stating your case precisely as you see it, with absolutely no regard for diplomacy, nicety or consequences, can be a genuinely cathartic exercise. But I’m not a fan of actually sending such notes. (In fact, make sure you never do this as a draft in your official company email system this letter should exist only in a place your employers don’t have access to.) Sometimes it’s appropriate to submit a formal letter of resignation, but that is a separate exercise: Pour out your venom first, then start from scratch, composing yourself before you compose a statement you expect others to read. In this case, you may be right on the facts, but it’s hard to deny, based on the language you’re using, that you are still angry and resentful. This is rarely a productive frame of mind for convincing anyone else (your boss’s boss, let’s say) that you are offering a reasonable assessment. At best, you’ll communicate bitterness at worst, any mention of your lawyer might be interpreted as a veiled legal threat, which I doubt is your goal. And what is your goal? It’s not clear why you need to feel more “victorious” right after declaring victory for easily proving your own worth by finding new work elsewhere. Even if you see this boss as a liability to the company and think her supervisor should know, that would be a completely different letter — focused not on you but on the organization. But I generally see little point in trying to reform a company after you’ve quit. Maybe you’re having second thoughts about having resigned. That, too, is a different issue. You made a decision you felt was in your best interest, and there is no reason to get hung up on it. Focus on your future, not on continuing battles from your past. I supervise an employee who I know is considering moving on. I don’t begrudge him this because I can’t offer him the position he wants. But I anticipate that he may ask me for a professional reference, and I’m not sure how to respond. He’s done decent work over all. But he’s demonstrated some frustrating traits. For example, he doesn’t respond reliably to emails while working remotely, and he waits for others to solve problems for him. I have no desire to sabotage his prospects (he’s young and at the beginning of his professional life) by withholding a reference or blabbing unnecessarily about his flaws. But if asked directly about things he needs to improve, I would not lie. What should I do if he asks for a reference? S. S. SEATTLE You could respond with a version of what you’ve said here. It sounds like, in general, you would endorse his work, you wish him well and you would not go out of your way to criticize him. That said (you could tell him) there are a few matters you would be honest about if asked — the ones you’ve named. End on a positive note by reiterating that you also see his good qualities and don’t want to prevent him from finding the work you know he’s looking for. At that point, it’s really up to him. An alternative that has become popular is to adopt an “only the facts” policy: Tell him you’ll confirm dates of employment and the like, but that’s it. This is nothing personal, just company rules, or even your own personal rules. That may feel like a dodge — because it is — but it’s common practice at many organizations. (Obviously, if you do this you have to stick to it.) There’s one more option that might be more productive: a preventive strike. Have a conversation with this employee about the pros and cons of his performance before he announces he’s quitting. Start with the good points, note where he could do better, and circle back to the positive, perhaps noting his potential or some such. (Starting and ending on a high note is known as a “criticism sandwich. ”) It is honest and should help him whether he stays or goes — and might even benefit you. | 1 |
March 2, 2016: Zika PAYDAY! Obama wants to funnel $1.8 billion for vaccine research and more
I even published a mini-documentary revealing the published science that shows how DEET insecticide causes brain damage in humans. You can watch it at this link or view the video below:
If anyone from the Washington Post bothered to read Natural News and learn about real science, they would have learned that Zika has infected tens of millions of people throughout South America for decades , with absolutely no measurable increase in neurological deformations. (But facts be damned, the WashPost had a panic to push!) Nation after nation records tens of thousands of infections with ZERO birth defects…
Despite the factual reality of the situation, the state-controlled propagandists writing for rags like the Washington Post — a bogus newspaper that has lost all credibility in the minds of intelligent people — continued to pummel home their kooky science theories that claimed much of the U.S. South would be overrun by brain damaging mosquitoes, turning Southerners into shrunken-brained mutants while pregnant women fled northward to survive the airborne insect onslaught.
Instead, nothing happened . No explosion in shrunken-headed babies. No wave of birth defects across Florida, even as city officials desperately bombarded their own cities with brain-damaging insecticides. No national emergency declared by Obama to bring back DDT and eradicate baby-murdering mosquitoes by dousing our open streets with thick clouds of organophosphate neurotoxins.
Instead, the rate of neurological birth defects in most countries approached zero. Via the Washington Post’s own graphic: (partial list)
Venezuela: 60,791 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects Honduras: 31,933 Zika infections… ONE birth defect Guadalupe: 30,969 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects Puerto Rico: 29,084 Zika infections… TWO birth defects Mexico: 4,837 Zika infections… ZERO birth defects
From the WashPost article:
Brazilian officials were bracing for a flood of fetal deformities as Zika spread this year to other regions of the country, Marinho said. However, “we are not seeing a big increase.”
Gee, really?
The vast majority of the brain defects, it turns out, came from just one small region of Brazil. A total of 2,033 children are so far recorded with neurological defects there, even while most other countries throughout the region had ZERO birth defects (or near zero).
So what gives? Zika mosquitoes apparently carry geopolitical maps so they can solely target Brazil
You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the stupid science theories of the mainstream media are total hokum and bunk . If Zika really did cause brain defects, it would have spread all across South America by now. It would have spread into Florida, California, Mississippi and Louisiana. It would have devastated the American South, Cuba, Haiti, Curacao and all the other island nations across the Caribbean.
Yet the neurological defects were limited almost exclusively to Brazil.
Somehow, if we believe the illiterate Washington Post science writers — who may in fact be the only brain damage victims of Zika in North America — mosquitoes carry MAPS to make sure they only activate their brain damage voodoo in Brazil .
“…[A]lthough the outbreak has spread this year to more than 50 nations and territories across the Western Hemisphere, U.N. data shows just 142 cases of congenital birth defects linked to Zika so far outside Brazil,” says WashPost.
Yes, my friends: GPA-carrying Zika mosquitoes are very careful to limit their pandemic voodoo to just one region of Brazil. By sheer coincidence, that’s the same region where larvacide chemicals were dumped into the public water supply.
Apparently, there isn’t a single “official” scientist in the entire global government who has thought to test the water. Just freaking WOW… Let’s throw these morons out of power in every election, okay? They don’t deserve any positions of authority over anyone else. They’re all so incredibly stupid, they couldn’t survive at all unless they functioned as parasites on the taxpayers. They aren’t giving up hope just yet… science writers desperately hope for more brain damaged babies to prove them right
Enthusiasm for more brain damaged babies runs high at the Washington Post, which explains why they are all in for Hillary Clinton, the candidate of choice for brain damaged adults . Writing with a sense of real enthusiasm, the Washington Post can’t wait for more brain damaged babies to appear:
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are closely watching Puerto Rico, which has reported more than 26,800 cases of Zika. More than 7,000 pregnant women could be infected by the end of the year, according to the CDC. (Yippee?)
And now, the loony tunes quack science of the Zika “scientists” goes apoplectic, grasping for silly metaphors to try to obscure the fact that they are all stupid beyond belief . Via the WashPost:
“Now we’ve settled on Zika as the smoking gun, but we don’t know who pulled the trigger,” said Marques, speaking from Recife, where he is working with government researchers.
Huh? Wha? The metaphor doesn’t even make any sense.
Maybe the problem is too much fornicating. Seriously, this is now part of their idiotic theory:
“Sexual habits and hygiene may also play a role,” he said, explaining that researchers are looking at whether sexual transmission can infect the uterus and placenta with the virus, potentially exposing the fetus to elevated risk. “We suspect the villain has an accomplice, but we don’t know who it is,” Marques said.
Huh? Do they seriously think that people only have sex in Brazil but not other South American countries? Where does the Washington Post find these morons? I’m a real scientist saying all this
As you read all this, remember that I have rapidly become one of the world’s leading research scientists on the quantitation of cannabinoids in hemp extracts using mass spec instrumentation. I led the team that developed the most pioneering (and accurate) CBD mass spec analysis method in existence today. You can read about it at this link . I also routinely test water, food and environmental samples for heavy metals, pesticides and a multitude of chemical contaminants. When I say these Zika scientists are complete morons, that’s the educated opinion of an accomplished scientist correctly pointing out the lunacy of Zika scaremongering.
I could have solved this entire problem in the first few days by analyzing and detecting brain-damaging larvacide chemicals in the public water supply in Eastern Brazil. The entire project would have taken just a few days and cost almost nothing. Instead, Obama handed $1.8 billion to the vaccine companies in the midst of the Zika panic pushed by laughable rags like the Washington Post. It’s all a racket, of course, just like their coverage of elections and political candidates. Everything you read at the Washington Post is a deception of one kind or another . The paper exists solely to promote the propaganda of the state so that the population can be manipulated and controlled. The Washington Post exists to terrorize the citizens with fascist propaganda parading as science
As you’ve also learned by now, the corrupt leftist establishment of junk science, criminal politicians and idiotic journalists isn’t interested in legitimate scientific solutions . They all function as extensions of a fascist state that must routinely terrorize its citizens with pandemic boogeyman scare stories in order to demand absolute obedience to the vaccine mandates that actually do damage the brains of children.
Thus, SCIENCE be damned. They’ve got an agenda to push, and it doesn’t matter to them whether that agenda is based on a single shred of real science. Zika is dangerous because they told you so, in exactly the same way they told you Hillary Clinton is totally honest, Obamacare would make health care more affordable, there’s no such thing as voter fraud in America, and GMOs and vaccines are really, really good for you.
So you can put down the DEET and stop poisoning your skin like an obedient idiot. Yes, it was all a scam. Yes, the official “science” was totally rigged. Yes, the media lied to you yet again. Yes, the CDC is a criminal racket. Yes, all the health “officials” were completely full of s**t. And no, Zika is not going to cause your babies to be born with shrunken heads. VACCINES, on the other hand, will most definitely cause brain damage, as they still contain mercury, a potent neurotoxin the Washington Post ridiculously insists becomes magically neutralized when you inject it into the body of a child. | 0 |
BREAKING! NYPD Ready To Make Arrests In Weiner Case…Hillary Visited Pedophile Island At Least 6 Times…Money Laundering, Underage Sex, Pay-for-Play,Proof of Inappropriate Handling Classified Information Blackwater USA Founder, Retired Navy Seal Erik Prince
Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.
“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.
“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.
“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.
“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said.
“There’s five different parts of the FBI conducting investigations into these things, with constant downdrafts from the Obama Justice Department. So in the, I hope, unlikely and very unfortunate event that Hillary Clinton is elected president, we will have a constitutional crisis that we have not seen since, I believe, 1860,” Prince declared.
Marlow asked Prince to clarify these revelations.
“NYPD was the first one to look at that laptop,” Prince elaborated. “Weiner and Huma Abedin, his wife – the closest adviser of Hillary Clinton for 20 years – have both flipped. They are cooperating with the government. They both have – they see potential jail time of many years for their crimes, for Huma Abedin sending and receiving and even storing hundreds of thousands of messages from the State Department server and from Hillary Clinton’s own homebrew server, which contained classified information. Weiner faces all kinds of exposure for the inappropriate sexting that was going on and for other information that they found.”
“So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything, and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn’t,” Prince contended.
“There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they’ve seen of that 650,000, including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to SAP level Special Access Programs,” he stated.
“So the plot thickens. NYPD was pushing because, as an article quoted one of the chiefs – that’s the level just below commissioner – he said as a parent, as a father with daughters, he could not let that level of evil continue,” Prince said.
He noted that the FBI can investigate these matters, “but they can’t convene a grand jury. They can’t file charges.”
“The prosecutors, the Justice Department has to do that,” he explained. “Now, as I understand it, Preet Bharara, the Manhattan prosecutor, has gotten ahold of some of this. From what I hear, he’s a stand-up guy, and hopefully he does the right thing.”
Marlow agreed that Bharara’s “sterling reputation” as a determined prosecutor was “bad news for the Clintons.”
Prince agreed, but said, “If people are willing to bend or break the law and don’t really care about the Constitution or due process – if you’re willing to use Stalinist tactics against someone – who knows what level of pressure” could be brought to bear against even the most tenacious law enforcement officials?
Listen to interview here:
“The point being, fortunately, it’s not just the FBI; [there are] five different offices that are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well,” Prince said, citing the Wall Street Journal reporting that has “exposed downdraft, back pressure from the Justice Department” against both the FBI and NYPD, in an effort to “keep the sunlight and the disinfecting effects of the truth and transparency from shining on this great evil that has gone on, and is slowly being exposed.”
“The Justice Department is trying to run out the clock, to elect Hillary Clinton, to prevent any real justice from being done,” he warned.
As for the mayor of New York City, Prince said he has heard that “de Blasio wants to stay away from this.”
“The evidence is so bad, the email content is so bad, that I think even he wants to stay away from it, which is really telling,” he said.
For entire story: Breitbart News 14.7K shares | 0 |
posted by Eddie Most school kids watch the clock during the last few classes of the day, watching the time steadily tick until they can run home and play, hang out, or sleep, depending on the age. Watching the clock is not a sign of immaturity since we understand it can sometimes be difficult to sit in one place and concentrate on difficult tasks for an extended period of time. This habit often follows us through life as we settle into jobs and careers. It could be that we love our work, but around three and four o’clock, we begin to fidget. We start thinking about the things we will have to do when we get home, like shop, go to the gym, make dinner, or attend a special event. The last two hours tick away more slowly than the first two. This innovative Swedish company has found the solution to this problem. You will be so jealous! The 6 Hour Work Day for Sweden Filimundus is a Swedish mobile app developer where this idea was originated. The board of directors analyzed their employees and noted the difficulties in maintaining efficiency and concentration for eight hours. It was almost impossible for most of the workers. They had to take breaks to clear their heads and try to muster up more focus for the remainder of the day. This wasted a lot of potentially productive time.
The board of directors found the perfect solution, a six hour work day, with wages left unaffected. They tried it out and discovered that the employees could complete the same amount of work within six hours which they were originally doing within eight. This new practice increased their efficiency at their jobs and left more time and strength for their home life. Overall, the employees agreed that they felt happier and more successful with this new arrangement. The Ripple Effect
This newly improved schedule is being looked into by medical workers of some clinics . That is no surprise figuring how exhausting their job must be. According to The Independent , the six-hour working day will soon be implemented in the whole country. (1) 6 Hour Day for America?
For most employees who have the 9 to 5 shift, not all of that time is optimized for working. According to studies from The Atlantic , an estimated 1.5 to 3 hours per day is used for online shopping, checking social media and emails, personal phone calls, and chatting with colleagues. It seems that the average employee works a solid six hours anyway, but without the benefits of enjoying free time and rest. A shortened work day means less stress, and we all know how important that is for our health. (2) We would all appreciate a shorter work day, but most of us are not moving to Sweden, and no one should hold their breath for this new schedule to come to their office anytime soon. Sources: (1) Bright Side brightside.me Published: September 5, 2016. Accessed: October 27, 2016. (2) S. Kumar. What the U.S. could learn from Sweden’s 6-hour work day fortune.com Published: October 6, 2015. Accessed: October 27, 2016. From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8938 Posts )
Eddie L. is the founder and owner of www.WorldTruth.TV. and www.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 |
Writing in an encrypted chat room, Islamic State sympathizers and militants celebrated the deadly attacks on the parliament building in Iran and the tomb of the country’s Shiite revolutionary founder. [Breitbart Jerusalem obtained access to correspondence posted in a closed chat group that utilizes the encrypted Telegram messaging service. The group serves as an internal Twitter of sorts for IS jihadists and sympathizers, and has been used in the past to issue IS communications. IS claimed responsibility for the attacks on Iran, which took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and appeared orchestrated in a manner to cause maximum civilian casualties. Writing in the encrypted Telegram group, IS member Abou Obaida Alsameraii exclaimed, “We thank Allah, ask his forgiveness and thank him for facilitating our attack and our hits. We are counting on Allah as we strike Allah’s enemies. This is a land of heresy, a capital of impurity, prostitution and profanity called Tehran. Today we attacked them in the depths of their land. We won’t let them only attack us. We did this to defend our Sunni nation and we are punishing our enemies. Today we attacked their parliament, attacked their temple and their cemeteries and soon we’ll attack the snake’s head and destroy Iran with the help of Allah. ” Another Telegram member who goes by the name “Prince of the Jihad and Death as a Martyr” wrote, “May your jihad be blessed and may your fight be blessed, you lions of the Islamic State, princes of jihad and those who die as martyrs. Today our brothers, with their bodies, struck and attacked the heretic capital of Tehran. With their blood, they’ve written a chapter in history, a new history. What was before today’s attack will never be the same. This is a new era and a new stage in which we will witness more hits from our brothers against the countries of heresy. ” Abi Abdullah Aljazrawi wrote, “Allah is great, Allah is great, Allah is great. Thanks to Allah. We worship Allah to thank him for causing the infidels and criminals to taste the attacks of our brothers. We swear to Allah that we will break them yet, that there will be more of these. We say to them, there will yet be soldiers who shake their lands. We swear to Allah that they will see the strength of our brothers, the mujahedeen. They will see what their mercenaries in Iraq and Syria have not yet seen. We will shake their lands. ” Abi Dajana Alhomsi wrote, “Allah is great. We strike in Syria, Iraq and infidel countries in Europe and those who stand at the head of American terror and today we strike the heresy of Iran as we struck not so long ago in Saudi Arabia and against the supporters of the Gulf states of prostitution. We swear to Allah that the country of Caliphs will spread in spite of the opposition. This will be a Caliphate in the way of the prophet, a Caliphate that does not compromise with the enemy or give mercy to evil. We swear to Allah that we will show them the strength of our mujahedeen, they will see power that they have never realized. ” Abi Rahman Aljazrawi wrote, “They accused our country and our Caliphate of being agents of Saudi Arabia, America and Iran. Everyday we prove to everyone that we are walking the path of the prophet. We are the agents of Islam and all these bastards have no value according to our religion as long as they do not return to the righteous path and as long as the Christians do not pay, with submission, the poll tax. We swear to Allah that we go with justice and Allah is the one supporting us and will bring us victory. You would love for us to be your agents and supporters. We are soldiers of Allah on Earth and we will tear up your roots and return to Islam. ” | 1 |
On Saturday President Trump engaged in a series of phone calls with five world leaders to discuss diplomatic relations, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Japan’s Shinzo Abe. [The call with Russian president Vladimir Putin was closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, as Presidents Trump and Putin discussed such topics as stabilizing relations, restoring trade ties, the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, and situations in Ukraine and the Koreas, CNN reported. The call with Putin comes after both presidents recently expressed desires to strengthen relations after a series of sanctions were lowered on Russia during the Obama years. The Russian statement on Trump’s call did not mention if Obama’s sanctions were discussed. President Trump also spoke to Japanese leader Shinzo Abe about the U. S. pulling out of the Partnership, a trade deal that Abe supported. The president reportedly told Abe that he was more interested in bilateral trade deals that were easier to manage and alter as the situation demands, the Washington Times said. The pair arranged a meeting in Washington for next month. In his conversation with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the White House said Trump and Merkel agreed on the “fundamental importance” of NATO and made plans for an visit in the near future, voanews. com noted. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described his conversation with the U. S. leader as frank, constructive, and practical, Australia’s ABC reported. “We discussed the vital importance of the United States’ continued strong presence in our region,” Turnbull told his nation. “We agreed that presence has been an absolutely essential foundation of the peace and stability that has enabled the remarkable growth and prosperity — the remarkable economic growth we have seen over the last 40 years,” the Australian leader added. President Trump is also set to speak to French President Francois Hollande, a leader who has been sharply critical of the newly elected American leader. In past calls, the pair discussed ISIS, climate change, and the situation in Ukraine, according to Agence . But Hollande has made a series of critical statements about Trump since the early November call. For instance, at the end of January, Hollande insisted Europe must oppose Trump with a “firm” response, and only days ago Hollande said Trump would be a “challenge” for Europe’s leaders. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
By Watching The Hawks RT Tyrel Ventura is joined by independent journalist Derrick Broze to talk about his horrific experiences at the #DAPL protest. Subscribe | 0 |
News, information and analysis from the black left. Black Agenda Radio for Week of No 14, 2016 Submitted by Nellie Bailey a... on Mon, 11/14/2016 - 21:23 2016 elections Cornel West: Class Becoming “Much More Central”
“We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era,” said Dr. Cornel West , the nation’s most prominent Black public intellectual, assessing the import of last week’s election. West backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, then endorsed the Green Party’s presidential ticket. The election “did not go left-populist, following Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein,” he said. Instead, “it went rightwing-fascist. But the neoliberal era is coming to a close and the neoliberal establishment is being exposed. The issues of class now are becoming much more central.” Trump Supporters Mounted an “Insurrection”
Duboisian scholar Dr. Anthony Monteiro was among the few observers on the Left that thought Donald Trump would win at the polls. But, even he was startled at the scope of Trump’s sweep. “I felt that the insurgency would grow and deepen, but I never thought that it would become an insurrection,” said Monteiro. “In a certain sense, white working and poor people in these small, rust belt towns have a sense of achievement in having brought the Clintons down that Black people had in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected with a huge Black turnout,” he said. Monteiro is one of the organizers of a Conference on Political Science for Radical Times, set for December 9-10, in Philadelphia. TPP “On Its Death Bed”
With Donald Trump’s victory, President Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership corporate rights trade deal is “looking like it’s on its death bed,” said Kevin Zeese , of Popular Resistance. “We’ve worked for five years to make TPP stand for Toxic Political Poison, and that seems to have happened,” said Zeese. Trump won in “the rust belt that was destroyed by NAFTA” -- Bill Clinton’s jobs-exporting bill of a generation ago -- “and was going to be threatened again by TPP.” Zeese said Obama may make a last bid to pass TPP in the lame duck session of Congress that begins this week. Finally, a Practical Guide to Black Self-Determination
The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations adopted a 19-point Black Political Agenda for Self-Determination, at a conference in Washington. The document applies the principle of self-determination to the broadest range of issues, from Black Community Control of the Police, to Mass Black Incarceration, to Nationalization of the Banks. “Everybody wants self-determination,” said Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela , “but what does it mean, practically?” The 19 points give direction to the struggle. “This isn’t something you work on every four years,” said Yeshitela. “This is something you work on every day. This is our program.”
Margaret Kimberley , an editor and senior columnist for Black Agenda Report, told the conference: “When we meet together, today, we are showing the world what self-determination looks like.” Voting for “your enemies” is not self-determination, and “thinking that electoral politics is the only road to liberation is not self-determination,” said Kimberley. Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 11:00am ET on PRN. Length: one hour. | 0 |
By wmw_admin on November 2, 2016 Jared Taylor — The Unz Review Oct 28, 2016 From the start of Donald Trump’s campaign, the media have covered him dishonestly. They have consistently portrayed him as a closet “ white supremacist ” who deliberately appeals to “ racists .” They have tried to tie him to a wicked movement known as the “ Alt-Right .” They are now working on another dishonest angle: that Donald Trump is “mainstreaming hate” and bringing “racism” into public discourse. The media clearly want to stampede voters into Mrs. Clinton’s camp so as to spare us the agony of a “racist” in the White House. The demonization campaign has backfired. By trying to hang racial dissidents around Donald Trump’s neck , the media have given American Renaissance and other organizations far more publicity than ever before. At the same time, c onstant shouts of “racist” and “bigot” don’t seem to hurt Mr. Trump: instead they are wrecking what is left of media credibility. The biggest irony, though, is that Donald Trump is probably not one of us at all. But even small deviations from the cast-iron orthodoxy of race are enough to plunge our rulers into dark fantasies about Donald Trump as a secret David Duke fan. Media dishonesty started immediately. When Mr. Trump pointed out that some immigrants from Mexico were criminals , the press acted as if he had said all Mexican immigrants are criminals. Then, when alert news hounds discovered that those of us they love to call “haters” and “white supremacists” liked Mr. Trump, there was no end of articles with titles such as : “ Meet the Horde of Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Other Extremist Leaders Endorsing Donald Trump ,” “ Top Racists And Neo-Nazis Back Donald Trump ,” “ ‘Heil Donald Trump’: Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists Show Support ,” and “ The White Nationalists Who Support Donald Trump .” These articles had a simpleminded purpose: discredit Mr. Trump by parading before the reader any Nazi, Kluxer, or racially conscious white person who had anything nice to say about the candidate. The implication was that if “racists” were going to vote for Donald Trump he must be “racist,” too . This was deceitful and one-sided. When the chairman of the American Communist Party endorsed Hillary Clinton , no one suggested this meant she was a communist . It is true that Mr. Trump gave the media just enough of an excuse to pretend he really is a closet “bigot” because he did not repudiate “racists” with the snorts of indignation respectability requires. There was the famous exchange in February when a reporter pushed Mr. Trump to disavow an endorsement from David Duke. As The Hill reported it: “ ‘David Duke endorsed me? OK, alright. I disavow, OK?’ Trump said, seeking to quickly move on to another question.” That same month, there was another famous exchange with Jake Tapper of CNN : Tapper: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don’t want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election? Donald Trump: Well just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke, OK? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, did he endorse me, or what’s going on? Because, you know, I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists. The media leaped on these exchanges with shouts of joy . “Trump refuses to disavow white supremacists! That’s because he is one!” There are far better explanations. First, Donald Trump is a pugnacious man. He doesn’t like being pushed around by anyone, especially not by journalists who hate him . If Mr. Tapper had belligerently demanded that Mr. Trump agree that the sky is blue, Mr. Trump would have bridled at that. Second, Donald Trump probably doesn’t know anything about David Duke or white supremacy. I would be astonished if he has ever looked into the thinking of David Duke or any other alleged “white supremacist.” It is his feistiness and his ignorance of white advocacy that explain his answers, not some carefully concealed racial consciousness. The press has also pounced on Donald Trump’s retweets of “racist” material, which is supposed to be yet more proof that he is a secret supremacist. Business Insider, for example, published this shocking story: “ 5 times Donald Trump has engaged with alt-right racists on Twitter .” Not one of these tweets is obviously “racist,” and it would be surprising if Mr. Trump or his skeleton staff took the time to vet the sources of the thousands of tweets @realDonaldTrump has sent during the campaign. Now the press is working on another smear-Trump angle. Recently, I have been contacted by journalists from such places as Bloomberg News, Reuters, and the New York Times , who clearly want to write that Donald Trump is “ mainstreaming hate ,” that he is responsible for a huge surge in the Alt-Right. They want to know about all the people who have been flocking to AmRen.com because of what Donald Trump says. They want me to tell them about people who have been “emboldened” to “speak out against minorities” because Donald Trump has led the way. They would love to find someone who now thinks he is free to run down the street shouting “nigger!” because Mr. Trump wants to take a hard look at Muslim immigrants . I have explained to them as patiently as I can that they have it the wrong way around. No one comes looking for AmRen.com because Donald Trump wants to build a wall. They come looking for us because the media have written about us in their attempt to convince the world that Mr. Trump is a “racist.” They come looking for us because Mrs. Clinton kindly called attention to us by complaining about the Alt-Right and her “ basket of deplorables .” I also try to explain that if the media had not launched its malicious campaign of trying to hold Donald Trump responsible for the views of certain people who support him, few people would have heard of the Alt-Right. In their zeal to paint their enemy in the darkest colors, they are promoting the Alt-Right, not Donald Trump. Rioting in Ferguson after Michael Brown was shot dead. Click to enlarge I explain that racial dissent has been growing like never before, for reasons that have nothing to do with the campaign. It is Trayvon Martin , Michael Brown , Black Lives Matter , and black rioters who are sending hundreds of thousands of frustrated white people our way– not Donald Trump. This will not change whether Mr. Trump wins or loses. The top landing pages on AmRen.com are analyses of race and crime–something Mr. Trump never talks about. I also explain to reporters that it is idiotic to think Mr. Trump has mainstreamed “hate,” by which they mean sensible observations about race. I ask them to name a single person who has been “emboldened” to say something “racist” just because Donald Trump is the GOP nominee. Of course, they can’t. If anything, it is the opposite. Mr. Trump has been called every name under the sun for the mildest, most common-sense observations about Muslims and immigration. Anyone tempted to come out of the closet is likely to hesitate more than ever. Things could change if Mr. Trump becomes president, but the candidate himself has done very little to spread our ideas. What Donald Trump has done is spark an unprecedented interest in politics among disaffected young people who recognize that Mitt Romney and John McCain are no different from Barack Obama when it comes to preserving whites, their society, and their culture. I know a number of millennials who never bothered to vote before but who certainly will in November. I know some who have made their first political contribution or who have spent weekends volunteering for the Trump campaign. I point out to reporters that this is what elections are supposed to be all about: giving the voters real choices. I note that the Trump/Clinton contest will almost certainly produce a record voter turnout for a modern election. Haven’t our rulers been wringing their hands over a lack of political engagement, especially among the young? Well, now they have engagement, alright, but they don’t like it. They don’t like it because so many people are stumping for the candidate they love to call a “ threat to democracy .” Liberals are such transparent hypocrites. They claim to love democracy, but suddenly start worrying about its health if the people refuse vote the way they tell them to. The whole Trump-is-a-racist fracas shows just how painfully fragile orthodoxy has become. I may be wrong, but I have no reason to think Donald Trump thinks at all as we do. He has never said or done anything to suggest he is anything more than an ordinary American with normal instincts: He doesn’t want criminals sneaking across the border, he thinks sanctuary cities for illegals are crazy, he doesn’t see why we need more Muslims, and he is angry when immigrants go on welfare. Millions of ordinary Americans clearly agree with him, and not because they are racially aware. It is because they are decent, fair-minded people who also have a nagging sense that the country is changing in unwelcome ways. I am convinced that Mr. Trump does not have a sophisticated understanding of race. So far as I can tell, he doesn’t have a sophisticated understanding of much of anything. He has stumbled by instinct onto a few sensible policies that white advocates have been promoting for a long time, but not because he is one of us. Maybe–just maybe–he will move in our direction. It’s not impossible to imagine a President Trump asking, in an offhand way, “What’s wrong with white people wanting to remain a majority in the United States?” Or he might casually note that you can’t expect as many blacks as Asians in AP classes because they don’t have the same levels of intelligence . But I can imagine the opposite, too: President Trump so bogged down in Beltway baloney that he never even builds the wall. There is one thing that Donald Trump has changed. He has proven that Republican bromides about taxes and small government don’t excite people. He has proven that there is tremendous anger against political insiders of both parties. He has proven that Americans do want their country to come first. They don’t want it to try to save the world or to be a dumping ground for people who have wrecked their own countries. And even if he has not “mainstreamed racism,” he has shown that if you have a backbone you can withstand what is surely the most intense and concentrated program of hate ever directed at an American. On October 11, Roger Cohen wrote in the New York Times that Donald Trump is a “phony, liar, blowhard, cheat, bully, misogynist, demagogue, predator, bigot, bore, egomaniac, racist, sexist, sociopath,” and a “dictator-in-waiting with a brat’s temper and a prig’s scowl.” [ Trumpism After Trump ] This must be one of the most unhinged, hysterical outbursts in the history of American political journalism. And it is unusual only for its wordiness, not its tone. Don’t the editors of the Times realize that this kind of frothing explains why more Americans believe in Bigfoot (29 percent) than trust newspapers (20 percent)? Virtually the entire industry is so consumed with rage at Donald Trump and contempt for his supporters that it cannot control itself. Open, petulant bias is driving more and more Americans to social media and to sites like AmRen.com for their news. Despite the concerted shrieking of virtually the entire American ruling class, Donald Trump is going to get close to half of the vote on November 8. Some 60 million people are going to vote for a man for whom Roger Cohen [] has emptied his dictionary trying to insult. Only one major newspaper has endorsed Donald Trump. Only one . And this is a man whom the American people might choose as their president. What better proof could we have of the stark difference between printed opinion and public opinion, between what Americans think and what our rulers want us to think? Donald Trump has ripped away whatever was left of the pretense of media objectivity. Whether he wins or not, whether he is one of us or not, Donald Trump has laid bare the collusion between big media and a political system in which both parties collaborate to run the country in their interests and those of their big donors. Voters–finally–have a chance to vote against the entire corrupt system. On November 8th they could bring it crashing down, but even if it still stands, it is visibly weakened, badly discredited. These are the perfect conditions in which our ideas will flourish as never before. Jared Taylor [ Email him ] is editor of American Renaissance and the author of Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America . (For Peter Brimelow’s review, click here .) His most recent book is White Identity . | 0 |
Leah H. Somerville, a Harvard neuroscientist, sometimes finds herself in front of an audience of judges. They come to hear her speak about how the brain develops. It’s a subject on which many legal questions depend. How old does someone have to be to be sentenced to death? When should someone get to vote? Can an give informed consent? Scientists like Dr. Somerville have learned a great deal in recent years. But the complex picture that’s emerging lacks the bright lines that policy makers would like. “Oftentimes, the very first question I get at the end of a presentation is, ‘O. K. that’s all very nice, but when is the brain finished? When is it done developing? ’” Dr. Somerville said. “And I give a very nonsatisfying answer. ” Dr. Somerville laid out the conundrum in detail in a commentary published on Wednesday in the journal Neuron. The human brain reaches its adult volume by age 10, but the neurons that make it up continue to change for years after that. The connections between neighboring neurons get pruned back, as new links emerge between more widely separated areas of the brain. Eventually this reshaping slows, a sign that the brain is maturing. But it happens at different rates in different parts of the brain. The pruning in the occipital lobe, at the back of the brain, tapers off by age 20. In the frontal lobe, in the front of the brain, new links are still forming at age 30, if not beyond. “It challenges the notion of what ‘done’ really means,” Dr. Somerville said. As the anatomy of the brain changes, its activity changes as well. In a child’s brain, neighboring regions tend to work together. By adulthood, distant regions start acting in concert. Neuroscientists have speculated that this harmony lets the adult brain work more efficiently and process more information. But the development of these networks is still mysterious, and it’s not yet clear how they influence behavior. Some children, researchers have found, have neural networks that look as if they belong to an adult. But they’re still just children. Dr. Somerville’s own research focuses on how the changes in the maturing brain affect how people think. Adolescents do about as well as adults on cognition tests, for instance. But if they’re feeling strong emotions, those scores can plummet. The problem seems to be that teenagers have not yet developed a strong brain system that keeps emotions under control. That system may take a surprisingly long time to mature, according to a study published this year in Psychological Science. The authors asked a group of to to lie in an fMRI scanner and look at a monitor. They were instructed to press a button each time they were shown faces with a certain expression on them — happy in some trials, scared or neutral in others. And in some cases, the participants knew that they might hear a loud, jarring noise at the end of the trial. In the trials without the noise, the subjects did just as well as people in their . But when they were expecting the noise, they did worse on the test. Brain scans revealed that the regions of their brains in which emotion is processed were unusually active, while areas dedicated to keeping those emotions under control were weak. “The young adults looked like teenagers,” said Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University and an author of the study. Dr. Steinberg agreed with Dr. Somerville that the maturing of the brain was proving to be a long, complicated process without obvious milestones. Nevertheless, he thinks recent studies hold some important lessons for policy makers. He has proposed, for example, that the voting age be lowered to 16. “ are just as good at logical reasoning as older people are,” Dr. Steinberg said. Courts, too, may need to take into account the powerful influence of emotions, even on people in their early 20s. “Most crime situations that young people are involved in are emotionally arousing situations — they’re scared, or they’re angry, intoxicated or whatever,” Dr. Steinberg said. Dr. Somerville, on the other hand, said she was reluctant to offer specific policy suggestions based on her brain research. “I’m still in the learning stage, so I’d hesitate to call out any particular thing,” she said. But she does think it is important for the scientists to get a fuller picture of how the brain matures. Researchers need to do studies to track its development from year to year, she said, well into the 20s or beyond. It’s not enough to compare people using simple categories, such as labeling people below age 18 as children and those older as adults. “Nothing magical occurs at that age,” Dr. Somerville said. | 1 |
In a major blow to ear specialists across the country, the nation’s noise voice resigned from Times Now, as per several sources. How did celebrities and the general public react? Our correspondent Mark Zuckerpandian brings you some reactions: (Arnab Goswami plays a major role in our hilarious book “Unreal Aliens”. Get it NOW! ) Tweet About UnReal Mama
Ek chatur naar badee hoshiyaar, apane hee jaal me phasat jaat ham hasat jaat are ho ho ho ho ho! | 0 |
After November 8, America may need legalized pot By Frank Scott Posted on November 7, 2016 by Frank Scott
“If we cast a vote for establishment politicians we are legitimizing establishment control of politics. It’s that simple.”—Michael K. Smith
As millions prepare to do just what Smith warns against, including hundreds of thousands who think themselves dedicated to ending such control, it’s time we understand American mind management’s great success at reducing voters to herds of human cattle whether from a conservative right, a liberal left, or trapped in the middle of the political desert called the two party system under one class control.
Reducing otherwise thoughtful Americans to sinking intellectually lower than those they are taught to disrespect as uneducated and worse, we find an allegedly liberal population that might make Germans during the Nazi era seem civil libertarians by comparison. The all consuming state of the mind managed and consciousness controlled—the greater the conflict, the tighter the control—finds supposedly educated groups reacting with all the critical thoughtfulness of a dog leaving its droppings on the pavement. And a likeness to excrement might be raising the level of debate, given the atrocities of persuasion used to reduce America’s political arena to a giant national toilet. Consider only a few of the glaring contradictions hardly given a thought by innocents who exercise more choice while shopping for clothes, pet food, weapons or drugs than in the political marketplace where they, instead of the products, are branded. And let’s remember the origin of this ugly overused term which originally meant burning into the flesh of an animal or human slave the “brand” of its owner. Whose “brand” are you?
People taught that freedom of speech and thought are cherished ideals are programmed into vilifying those who dare to speak or think differently than they. While the all too easy examples of religious fundamentalists suppressing the freedom of one or another minority or the right to openly speak about beliefs that contradict the accepted code are cited by a purportedly secular liberal sector as narrow minded bigotry, it is as guilty, often proudly so, of the same behavior.
For example, when a rich, silicon valley techmeister dared to contradict the hypothetically free thinking libertarian mindset of the market fundamentalist community who make up the majority of the rich IT class, the reaction was swift and as tolerant as any Nazi embargo on thought. Previously lauded by a gay liberal publication for being rich and homosexual as well, he became a villain and un-gay for being a supporter of Donald Trump. And liberals too young to remember or too ignorant to know about the anti-Soviet frenzy of the Cold War are aroused to react to Putin and Russia the way the people they treat with utter contempt might react to an abortion being performed at the altar during their church service. A supposed community of gay rights advocates doesn’t accept gays who don’t toe the party line of such supporters, while alleged anti-war oriented people operate in a controlled mental state lusting for war as the country moves closer to a military confrontation with Russia, provoked by sources of propaganda they formerly opposed moving them to think—if at all—from their lower anatomy, in the fashion of the candidate they are programmed to hate.
A rapidly diminishing economic system that still rewards a substantial minority with comfort and privilege while giving the class above them that brands their professions measures of wealth beyond belief, is made to feel superior to the majority who carry the burden of social costs to finance their personal benefits. This results in great numbers of people looking down on those below them in the economic stratification of 21 st century capitalism, approaching that of its centuries old origins in comfort for some and squalor for most. Thus, those able to afford education, a shrinking minority and ”diverse” in the divide and conquer modes of identitarian affirmation, are taught to disrespect those with less ability to pay the educational premiums or qualify for the massive debt required. The majority of Americans, without college degrees and forced to accept even more limited work than those who make it through the paper mills and become lawyers, teachers or as often, baristas, are seen as less able to think or perform in the capitalist marketplace and become subjects of blame for all the worst aspects of the game.
Inequality, racism, sexism, problems of immigration, gentrification and many other aspects of what passes for normal political economics are seen as the fault or responsibility of “others.” And the majority group, carefully splintered into as many ethnic, religious and ugliest and most ignorant of all, racial minorities—thus with less chance to perform as the majority we truly are—are driven to reactionary minority political organization which seems the only answer to other reactionary minority opposition given that action of a majority is treated as a work of fiction or desire of folly. Meanwhile, imperial warfare, Wall Street, Corporate America, the richest 1%, its well paid servants and Israeli interests continue to take up the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth as alleged market competition becomes the anti-social reality of the most while a perverted form of wealthy socialism exists with benefits for only the least.
With established billionaires, through their banks and lobbies like NRAIPAC, maintaining control whichever of the deadly duo is elected by well meaning lesser evilites, the need for a radical politics of truly revolutionary and not simply social democratic change will become more pressing. The identity group of those with enough money to matter no matter what their skin tone, religion or ethnicity, needs to join with masses whose lives matter much less because they haven’t enough money to matter, no matter what their skin tone, ethnicity or religion. The most democratic, humane and efficient system will not happen until it’s created by people who understand that with all the horrid treatment of people of different caste and color, the primary division and barrier among all of humanity is that of economic class. With all the nonsense about an alleged problem of growing population, no one goes without food, shelter, education or healthcare because there isn’t enough of those things, but only because they haven’t enough money to pay for them and return a profit to the marketeers who sell them.
We now have capital’s representatives from all supposed minorities in Congress, on Wall street, in the military, as CEOs of major corporations and just about everything else. Whether the private profits accrue to heterosexuals, homosexuals, people of light skin tone, dark skin tone, or with accents that identify them as from Mexico, Brooklyn or Serbo-Croatia, they come at public expense. Instead of seeking other mind management created minorities to blame or see as enemies, we need to direct our focus at the rigged system of human inequality which allows some to thrive only at others’ failure. The only minority to deal with on a confrontational basis is the billionaire gang formerly confronted by some dedicated followers of the Bernie Sanders campaign, before they became sheep led to a voting booth to make sure that billionaire minority retains its domination. If only 5% of them vote for Jill Stein, the Greens will receive millions of public dollars to continue building a real alternative of hope for the future. When slavish obedience to mind managed lesser evil ends, we will begin building a better nation and world, but not until then. On the eighth, vote, inhale deeply and try to relax, if you can. And on the ninth, begin working for that change, if you haven’t already.
Frank Scott‘s political commentary and satire is online at legalienate.blogspot.com . Email: | 0 |
CANNON BALL, N. D. — The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe won a major victory on Sunday in its battle to block an oil pipeline being built near its reservation when the Department of the Army announced that it would not allow the pipeline to be drilled under a dammed section of the Missouri River. The Army said it would look for alternative routes for the $3. 7 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Construction of the route a from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation has become a global flash point for environmental and indigenous activism, drawing thousands of people out here to a sprawling prairie camp of tents, tepees and yurts. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing,” Darcy, the Army’s assistant secretary for civil works, said in a statement. The move could presage a lengthy environmental review that has the potential to block the pipeline’s construction for months or years. But it was unclear how durable the government’s decision would be. Sunday’s announcement came in the dwindling days of the Obama administration, which revealed in November that the Army Corps of Engineers was considering an alternative route. The Corps of Engineers is part of the Department of the Army. Donald J. Trump, however, has taken a different view of the project and said as recently as last week that he supported finishing the pipeline, which crosses four states and is almost complete. Though the Army’s decision calls for an environmental study of alternative routes, the Trump administration could ultimately decide to allow the original, contested route. Representatives for Mr. Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Trump owns stock in the company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, but he has said that his support has nothing to do with his investment. There was no immediate response from Energy Transfer Partners, but its chief executive, Kelcy Warren, has said that the company was unwilling to reroute the pipeline, which is intended to transport as much as 550, 000 barrels of oil a day from the oil fields of western North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois. Reaction was swift on both sides, with environmental groups like Greenpeace praising the decision. “The water protectors have done it,” a Greenpeace spokeswoman, Lilian Molina, said. “This is a monumental victory in the fight to protect indigenous rights and sovereignty. ” But Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the MAIN Coalition, a group, condemned the move as “a purely political decision that flies in the face of common sense and the rule of law. ” “Unfortunately, it’s not surprising that the president would, again, use executive fiat in an attempt to enhance his legacy among the extreme left,” Mr. Stevens said in a statement. “With Trump set to take office in 47 days, we are hopeful that this is not the final word on the Dakota Access Pipeline. ” Representative Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota and a Trump supporter, called Sunday’s decision a “chilling signal to others who want to build infrastructure in this country. ” “I can’t wait for the adults to be in charge on Jan. 20,” Mr. Cramer said, referring to Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Still, the announcement set off whoops of joy inside the Oceti Sakowin camp. Tribal members paraded through the camp on horseback, jubilantly beating drums and gathering around a fire at the center of the camp. Tribal elders celebrated what they said was the validation of months of prayer and protest. “It’s wonderful,” Dave Archambault II, the Standing Rock tribal chairman, told cheering supporters who stood in the melting snow on a mild North Dakota afternoon. “You all did that. Your presence has brought the attention of the world. ” The decision, he said, meant that people no longer had to stay at the camp during North Dakota’s brutal winter. The Corps of Engineers, which manages the land, had ordered it to be closed, but the thousands of protesters had built yurts, tepees and bunkhouses and vowed to hunker down. “It’s time now that we move forward,” Mr. Archambault said. “We don’t have to stand and endure this hard winter. We can spend the winter with our families. ” Law enforcement officials and ranchers in this conservative, heavily white part of North Dakota would like little more than to see the thousands of protesters return home. The sheriff has called the demonstrations an unlawful protest, and officials have characterized the demonstrators as rioters who have intimidated ranchers and threatened and attacked law enforcement — charges that protest leaders deny. But on Sunday, several campers said they were not going anywhere. They said that there were too many uncertainties surrounding the Army’s decision, and that they had dedicated too much time and emotion to this fight to leave now. Federal and state regulators had issued the pipeline the necessary permits to proceed, but the Corps of Engineers had not yet granted it a final easement to drill under a stretch of the Missouri River called Lake Oahe. The Standing Rock Sioux had objected to the pipeline’s path so close to the source of their drinking water, and said any spill could poison water supplies for them and other reservations and cities downstream. They also said the pipeline’s route through what are now privately owned ranches bordering the river crossed through sacred ancestral lands. News of the government’s denial came after the size of the camp had swelled with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Native and veterans who had arrived to support the tribe. As word spread, people who had camped out here for months, sometimes in bitterly cold temperatures, and who had clashed violently with local law enforcement, linked arms and cheered and cried. They screamed, “Mni wiconi!” — the movement’s rallying cry — which means “Water is life. ” Jon Eagle Sr. a member of the Standing Rock Tribe, said the announcement was a vindication for the thousands who had traveled here, and for the multitudes who had rallied to the tribe’s fight on social media or donated. Millions of dollars in donations and goods have flowed into the camps for months as the tribe’s fight and the scenes of protesters being and sprayed with freezing water stirred outrage on social media. (Law enforcement officials have insisted the entire time that they have acted responsibly and with restraint.) “I don’t know quite how to put into words how proud I am of our people,” Mr. Eagle said. “And I mean our people. I don’t just mean the indigenous people of this continent. I mean all the people who came to stand with us. And it’s a beautiful day. It’s a powerful day. ” Ken Many Wounds, who has served as a tribal liaison to express concerns and questions to law enforcement, said he had been standing by the camp’s main fire — one that is tended constantly — when he heard the news from the tribal chairman’s wife. He said he did not believe it at first. “I hugged her, I cried,” he said. “Our prayers have been answered. A lot of people didn’t believe that prayer was going to be the answer. But our people stayed together. In our hearts, we knew. ” | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good morning. We’re providing unlimited access to all New York Times digital platforms through Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know: • It’s Election Day! Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump made their closing arguments in states that both view as to be victorious today. Now it’s up to the voters. Despite the ugliness of the campaign, there are signs that Americans are expressing themselves at the ballot box in large numbers. Turnout in states that allow early voting was high, and many voters told The Times that they were eager for the election to end. Here’s what time polls close across the country (and when we might know who won). The first big wave is at 8 p. m. Eastern. And last, our 360 video series takes a peek inside a voting booth. • What to watch for today and tonight. Hispanic turnout is set to vastly exceed the turnout from four years ago, and early voting data indicates that Mrs. Clinton will benefit from the increase. But it’s too soon to know if it will be decisive for her, our writer observes. He says the surge could be enough to overcome Mr. Trump’s strength among white, voters in Florida and Nevada. “If it does, it will almost certainly win her the election. ” We’ll be tracking the results live after the polls close. Here are two basic paths for what might happen. • Other story lines. We look at how the F. B. I. in the span of a week, reviewed thousands of emails and again concluded that Mrs. Clinton should not face charges related to her handling of classified information. And how might the election affect stocks? Swings over the course of the campaign suggest that the markets prefer one candidate to the other, our analysis shows. The news media is under intense pressure to avoid any mistakes in projections tonight. “If you don’t get a good grade, 300 million people are going to know,” one executive said. • International roundup. Heavy smog continues to choke New Delhi, where emergency measures are in place to improve air quality. The damage from sustained exposure to high pollution is equivalent to smoking more than two packs of cigarettes a day, experts say. Hong Kong is bracing for more street protests and tough questions about the independence of its courts after China barred two politicians from taking their seats in the territory’s legislature. And Australia won’t be legalizing marriage anytime soon. Parliament rejected a bill calling for a nonbinding public vote on the issue, despite polls showing around 70 percent of Australians want marriage equality. • North Dakota oil pipeline. Environmental groups protesting the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation are targeting a new group: banks that have helped finance the project. • Rolling Stone and one of its writers were ordered by a federal jury to pay $3 million in damages to a University of Virginia administrator over a discredited article about a supposed gang rape at the university. • China’s new cybersecurity law will give the authorities far greater control over the internet beginning next summer, raising concerns about freedom of speech and barriers to foreign business. • The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, Gannett publications and others have announced plans to reorganize, reduce staff, eliminate sections or all of the above. “It couldn’t be happening at a worse moment in American public life,” our media columnist writes, citing the threat of fake news proliferating on social media. • U. S. stocks surged on Monday. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Interview with a chess superstar. Sergey Karjakin of Russia became the world’s youngest chess grandmaster at age 12. Now 26, he is about to challenge the reigning world champion, who is 25, in New York. “I don’t play chess for fun, it’s my job,” Mr. Karjakin said. “And I happen to love my job very much. ” • New to read. Zadie Smith’s latest work, “Swing Time,” explores the effects of cultural heritage and politics on identity. Our critic described the book this way: “A novel that showcases its author’s formidable talents in only half its pages, while bogging down the rest of the time in formulaic and predictable storytelling. ” • Tick, tock. If you have a few moments, take our quiz on time. Do you know what the scientific definition of a second is? Hint: It isn’t the time it takes to say “one Mississippi. ” • Recipe of the day. If you’re looking for comfort food this election night, try this lasagna. And since we’re on the subject of cheese, read about a New York City sandwich that has set off a discussion about the cultural appropriation of food. Britons have been saying a lot of goodbyes in the past few months. They voted to leave the European Union. The prime minister resigned. The leading figures of the Brexit campaign left the government. And through all this, the news media outside Britain found one expression that worked in multiple languages: “English leave. ” It’s a play on “taking French leave,” which the British use to mean departing abruptly — supposedly a reference to the French manner of leaving a social function without saying goodbye. Such nationalist expressions abounded around the 19th century, when rival nations in a disunited Europe settled scores in wars, revolutions and slights. But the Germans also pick on the Poles for evaporating from parties, which the British call an “Irish goodbye. ” (The German weekly “Die Zeit” even graphed the zingers and .) Of course, the slaps don’t end with departures. Germans can mention, though rarely, “English shopping” — that is, theft, as in the colonial past. And references to historic battles get drawn into the mix, too. So the French could say, depending on how Brexit works out, “c’est un vrai coup de Trafalgar,” a true Trafalgar blow, reminiscent of their decisive defeat by the English in 1805. Palko Karasz contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Accessing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern and updated on the web all morning. What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes. com. You can sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox. | 1 |
On Thursday, the U. S. military published a report on the death of 33 Afghan civilians, and wounding of 27 others, during a joint U. S. and Afghan special forces raid against the Taliban in November. [“The investigation concluded that U. S. forces acted in in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict, and in accordance with all applicable regulations and policy,” the military said in a statement quoted by Reuters. “It has been determined that no further action will be taken because U. S. forces acted in and followed all applicable law and policy,” the statement said. The operation was intended to drive Taliban forces from the area around Kunduz, which they had overrun in October 2015, and partially occupied the year before that. Specifically, two senior Taliban commanders were targeted in village of . (They were indeed killed during the raid, along with an estimated 26 Taliban fighters.) The Wall Street Journal reports U. S. and Afghan forces were “led into a trap by the Taliban and ambushed on a street. ” The Taliban opened fire from within civilian structures, inflicting several casualties and forcing the American and Afghan troops to call for air support. Two U. S. soldiers were killed and four wounded during the battle, while the Afghans lost three commandos and had 11 wounded. According to the investigation, the responding aircraft appropriately used “the minimum amount of force required to neutralize the various threats from the civilian buildings. ” The report said no civilians were identified by U. S. special forces during the firefight, the dead and wounded civilians were effectively serving as human shields for the Taliban, and some of the casualties resulted from a Taliban ammo dump exploding. The Associated Press notes that after the battle was over, local residents “carried over a dozen corpses of the dead, including children and family members of the Taliban fighters, toward a local governor’s office in a show of rage. ” “Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives. On this occasion the Taliban chose to hide amongst civilians and then attacked Afghan and U. S. forces,” said General John Nicholson, commander of U. S. forces in Afghanistan. “I wish to assure President Ghani and the people of Afghanistan that we will take all possible measures to protect Afghan civilians. We will continue to assist the Afghan security forces in their efforts to defend their country. ” The Associated Press notes that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani criticized the Taliban for using civilians as shields shortly after the raid in November. The Wall Street Journal offers some contextual information that doesn’t square easily with departing President Barack Obama’s rhetoric about pulling U. S. troops out of Afghanistan: Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased in 2016, with more than 5, 000 deaths recorded in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations. Data for the remainder of the year hasn’t been released. The U. S. Air Force dramatically increased the number of airstrikes it carried out in Afghanistan in 2016, data released by the military shows, a further sign of growing U. S. involvement in the country’s war following the withdrawal of most coalition troops two years ago. Just about every media report on the outcome of this military investigation mentions the controversial U. S. airstrike in the Kunduz region from October 2015, which killed 42 at a Doctors Without Borders hospital, and led to disciplinary actions against a U. S. general and 15 other military personnel. | 1 |
On Tuesday afternoon, President Barack Obama’s former National Security Advisor Susan Rice appeared on MSNBC with host Andrea Mitchell to answer questions about allegations that had emerged earlier in the week to suggest that she requested the “unmasking” of the names of Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams in intelligence reports, which allegedly had nothing to do with national security, and that she had compiled spreadsheets of those names. [Here are the highlights of Mitchell’s interview with Rice, which took up the first of Mitchell’s show. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
President Donald Trump reacted to questions about his claims that the Obama administration had “wiretapped” Trump Tower. [After a German reporter asked if Trump regretted his tweets, he replied, “Very seldom. ” “As far as wiretapping, I guess, by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps,” Trump said as some of the media and the president’s staff laughed. Merkel looked at the president and then shuffled her note cards while looking at her podium. Merkel’s reaction when Trump suggested they were both victims of Obama wiretapping > pic. twitter. — Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) March 17, 2017, Trump was referring to the reports that President Obama allowed tapping of Merkel’s phone in 2010, as part of an ongoing NSA surveillance operation. Arrival of Vice President Mike Pence and White House senior staff, A post shared by Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) on Mar 17, 2017 at 12:30pm PDT, | 1 |
.@IngrahamAngle: The ’ ’ parts of Obamacare reform are not in this new bill from the House GOP pic. twitter. During Tuesday’s “Fox Friends,” conservative talker Laura Ingraham discussed President Donald Trump’s proposed Obamacare reform, saying the new bill is missing the elements that Trump said it would have. “The of the health care reform, the parts of it were transparency and pricing, competition across state lines, and even on the edges, repealing the McCarran — Ferguson Act … where is that?” Ingraham said. “I don’t see any transparency and control of skyrocketing prices of health care. I certainly don’t see competition across state lines. And the drug companies, no provisions about that as far as I can see. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Woman 'eaten alive' by daughter's dogs 2 German shepherds reportedly responsible for mauling death Published: 1 min ago
(FOX5NY) — NEW YORK (INSIDE EDITION) – A 68-year-old woman was found dead in the basement of her New York home by her devastated daughter, who told authorities her dogs may have eaten her mother, a police source told Inside Edition.
Officers responding to a 911 call for an unconscious and unresponsive woman found the body of Daisie Bradshaw in her Staten Island home at about 9:40 a.m. Tuesday, the NYPD said.
The victim, who was found beaten and bruised, was pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. | 0 |
Modern humans evolved in Africa roughly 200, 000 years ago. But how did our species go on to populate the rest of the globe? The question, one of the biggest in studies of human evolution, has intrigued scientists for decades. In a series of extraordinary genetic analyses published on Wednesday, researchers believe they have found an answer. In the journal Nature, three separate teams of geneticists survey DNA collected from cultures around the globe, many for the first time, and conclude that all today trace their ancestry to a single population emerging from Africa between 50, 000 and 80, 000 years ago. “I think all three studies are basically saying the same thing,” said Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington, who wrote a commentary accompanying the new work. “We know there were multiple dispersals out of Africa, but we can trace our ancestry back to a single one. ” The three teams sequenced the genomes of 787 people, obtaining highly detailed scans of each. The genomes were drawn from people in hundreds of indigenous populations: Basques, African pygmies, Mayans, Bedouins, Sherpas and Cree Indians, to name just a few. The DNA of indigenous populations is essential to understanding human history, many geneticists believe. Yet until now scientists have sequenced entire genomes from very few people outside population centers like Europe and China. The new data already are altering scientific understanding of what human DNA looks like, experts said, adding rich variations to our map of the genome. Each team of researchers tackled different questions about our origins, such as how people spread across Africa and how others populated Australia. But all aimed to settle the controversial question of human expansion from Africa. In the 1980s, a group of paleoanthropologists and geneticists began championing a hypothesis that modern humans emerged only once from Africa, roughly 50, 000 years ago. Skeletons and tools discovered at archaeological sites clearly indicated that modern humans lived after that time in Europe, Asia and Australia. Early studies of bits of DNA also supported this idea. All are closely related to one another, geneticists found, and they all branch from a family tree rooted in Africa. Yet there are also clues that at least some modern humans may have departed Africa well before 50, 000 years ago, perhaps part of an earlier wave of migration. In Israel, for example, researchers found a few distinctively modern human skeletons that are between 120, 000 and 90, 000 years old. In Saudi Arabia and India, sophisticated tools date back as far as 100, 000 years. Last October, Chinese scientists reported finding teeth belonging to Homo sapiens that are at least 80, 000 years old and perhaps as old as 120, 000 years. In 2011, Eske Willerslev, a renowned geneticist at the University of Copenhagen, and his colleagues came across some puzzling clues to the expansion out of Africa by sequencing the genome of an Aboriginal Australian for the first time. Dr. Willerslev and his colleagues reconstructed the genome from a lock of hair kept in a museum. The DNA held a number of peculiar variants not found in Europeans or Asians, raising knotty questions about the origins of the people who first came to Australia and when they arrived. Intrigued, Dr. Willerslev decided to contact living Aboriginals to see if they would participate in a new genetic study. He joined David W. Lambert, a geneticist at Griffith University in Australia, who was already meeting with Aboriginal communities about participating in this kind of research. In collaboration with scientists at the University of Oxford, the researchers also obtained DNA from people in Papua New Guinea. All told, the team was able to sequence 83 genomes from Aboriginal Australians and 25 from people in Papua New Guinea, all with far greater accuracy than in Dr. Willerslev’s 2011 study. Meanwhile, Mait Metspalu of the Estonian Biocentre was leading a team of 98 scientists on another project. They picked out 148 populations to sample, mostly in Europe and Asia, with a few genomes from Africa and Australia. They, too, sequenced 483 genomes at high resolution. David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues assembled a third database of genomes from all six inhabited continents. The Simons Genome Diversity Project, sponsored by the Simons Foundation and the National Science Foundation, contains 300 genomes from 142 populations. Examining their data separately, all three groups came to the same conclusion: All descend from a single migration of early humans from Africa. The estimates from the studies point to an exodus somewhere between 80, 000 and 50, 000 years. Despite earlier research, the teams led by Dr. Willerslev and Dr. Reich found no genetic evidence that there was an earlier migration giving rise to people in Australia and Papua New Guinea. “The vast majority of their ancestry — if not all of it — is coming from the same wave as Europeans and Asians,” said Dr. Willerslev. But on that question, Dr. Metspalu and his colleagues ended up with a somewhat different result. In Papua New Guinea, Dr. Metspalu and his colleagues found, 98 percent of each person’s DNA can be traced to that single migration from Africa. But the other 2 percent seemed to be much older. Dr. Metspalu concluded that all people in Papua New Guinea carry a trace of DNA from an earlier wave of Africans who left the continent as long as 140, 000 years ago, and then vanished. If they did exist, these early human pioneers were able to survive for tens of thousands of years, said Luca Pagani, a of Dr. Metspalu at the University of Cambridge and the Estonian Biocentre. But when the last wave came out of Africa, descendants of the first wave disappeared. “They may have not been technologically advanced, living in small groups,” Dr. Pagani said. “Maybe it was easy for a major later wave that was more successful to wipe them out. ” The new research also suggests that the splintering of the human tree began earlier than experts had suspected. Dr. Reich and his colleagues probed their data for the oldest evidence of human groups genetically separating from one another. They found that the ancestors of the KhoiSan, living today in southern Africa, began to split off from other living humans about 200, 000 years ago and were fully isolated by 100, 000 years ago. That finding hints that our ancestors already had evolved behaviors seen in living humans, such as language, 200, 000 years ago. Why leave Africa at all? Scientists have found some clues to that mystery, too. In a fourth paper in Nature, researchers described a computer model of Earth’s recent climatic and ecological history. It shows that changing rainfall patterns periodically opened up corridors from Africa into Eurasia that humans may have followed in search of food. | 1 |
Reports that Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer Seth Rich was a source for WikiLeaks before his murder leaves us with even more unanswered questions surrounding the case. [1. If Rich was murdered in a robbery gone wrong, why was his wallet, watch, and phone left behind? Following Rich’s July 2016 death in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington D. C. police officers claimed that it was likely the DNC staffer was shot during a robbery gone wrong. This doesn’t explain, however, why Rich was found to still be in possession of all of his personal items, including wallet, watch, and mobile phone, which are often the primary targets during a street robbery. “There had been a struggle. His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything,” said Rich’s girlfriend to NBC News. “They didn’t finish robbing him, they just took his life. ” 2. Why haven’t the DNC offered a reward for information related to his murder? Numerous groups, organizations, and individuals offered a reward for information related to Rich’s murder, including WikiLeaks, GOP lobbyist Jack Burkman, crowdfunding bounty site WeSearchr, and author Mike Cernovich. The DNC and other Democratic Party organizations, however, have not. Rich’s death was memorialized by the DNC with a bike rack and plaque. 3. Why are the and mainstream media ignoring the case? The murder of Seth Rich has been a hot topic among conservative, libertarian, and alternative news outlets since the incident took place last year, however the and mainstream media has largely ignored the case, only mentioning the staffer’s name during conspiracy articles about Russian hacking. A quick Google search of “Seth Rich” will return dozens of news articles on the subject from sources such as Fox News, The Washington Examiner, and Heat Street, but few from outlets such as CNN or MSNBC. The Washington Post did publish a story related to Rich Wednesday afternoon but focused on Rich’s parents’ claim that reports of him contacting WikiLeaks were without evidence. Those articles which do appear on sites all feature headlines which immediately brand questions surrounding his death as “conspiracy theories” and seek to deter investigations. The Washington Post published an article in August 2016 titled “Trump allies, WikiLeaks and Russia are pushing a nonsensical conspiracy theory about the DNC hacks,” while The Huffington Post‘s coverage of Rich’s murder last year consisted of stories such as “Donald Trump Has A History Of Linking His Political Opponents To People’s Deaths,” and “Conspiracy Theorists Won’t Stop Accusing The Clintons Of Murder. ” CNN published one single story on Seth Rich’s death last year — a straight news article on the murder with a quote from former DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The majority of sites have also completely ignored the recent reports that Rich was the source of “thousands of internal emails” leaked to WikiLeaks before his death, despite the fact that they worked consistently to refute these claims beforehand. 4. Will the Democrats still push that Russia hacked the DNC? Despite the increasing amount of evidence proving the opposite, a frequent talking point is to claim that it was “Russia who hacked the DNC” and leaked information to WikiLeaks. This argument, however, ignores the fact that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stated on numerous occasions that Russia was not a source of the leaks, implying instead that it was Rich. DNC hacker Guccifer 2. 0 also allegedly claimed in messages to an actress that Rich was one of his whistleblowers, while a private detective claimed this week that Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks before his death. Most of the claims that Russia “hacked the election” are based on reports from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm which has been reported to have ties with Google and the Obama administration, while the FBI did not examine the DNC’s server themselves. CrowdStrike’s report was heavily refuted by DNC hacker Guccifer 2. 0 in a report of his own. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
The BBC has run a series of online and radio segments claiming the “great meme war has travelled to France” implying Internet jokes could swing the French election for the Front National as the broadcaster alleges they did for Trump and Brexit in the UK and U. S.[“A group of anonymous keyboard warriors who claim they helped Donald Trump win his presidency have moved their fight to Europe and are trying to help elect a leader for France,” the radio programme’s description reads. “In 2016 politically and racially charged memes and symbols started spreading from U. S. and UK accounts,” opens the accompanying video on BBC Trending’s Facebook page. “Far right activists claim the results of the U. S. presidential elections demonstrated their influence,” the film says. Front National denies any role in ‘Great Meme War’ A glass of half full milk is code for white supremacy … and other shocking racially charged memes, Posted by BBC Trending on Monday, 10 April 2017, The BBC presenter says meme “activities” miraculously “stopped” in November 2016, after the election of President Donald J. Trump, with the “same accounts” becoming active again in January 2017, “this time targeting France”. According to the BBC, the “operation” has generated 50, 000 tweets so far, with right wing activists organising in online gaming chat rooms “like their U. S. counterparts”. The prospect that memes are merely the result of unorganised and unlinked individuals amusing themselves online is not seriously considered. “The ‘Great Meme War’ symbols and memes have travelled to France. But their influence cannot yet be quantified,” concludes the film. The BBC does little to explain how such memes could influence elections, other than implying right wing politicians use them to “connect” with young voters. The example of Florian Philippot is given, a of the Front National and advisor to Marine Le Pen, who used a meme on his YouTube channel. He flashed the ‘Risitas’ or ‘Spanish laughing guy’ meme at the end of a video, which has been used by both left and right wing activists. Mr. Philippot’s spokesman responded to the BBC’s insinuation that using the meme might be racist. “El Risitas is not a symbol with a racist connotation that echoes the ideology of the far right. It is just funny,” he said. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — In President Trump’s world, boring is disruptive. After weeks of gleefully setting the Washington establishment ablaze and declaring a new war with virtually every public utterance, Mr. Trump took the radical step on Tuesday night of delivering a soothing comfort food of an address to a jittery Congress and skeptical public. For the first time since his in January, Mr. Trump seemed to accept the fetters of formality and tradition that define and dignify the presidency. And while he touched on all of the elements of the economic nationalist agenda that has impelled his executive orders and calls for “revolution,” Mr. Trump brandished a blunter rhetorical ax and, for once, delivered on his promise to speak the Reagan Republican dialect of optimism and reconciliation. Why the sudden shift? Numbers. Mr. Trump’s approval rating is the worst for any new president in recorded history — between 38 and 50 percent at a time when many presidents are in the 60s. Slamming the news media or demonstrators energizes his base, but it’s hard to move much higher in the polls without making a less partisan pitch. The other key statistic spurring his adjustment: $54 billion, the amount of federal funding he hopes to siphon from other departments to increase spending at the Pentagon — a budget proposal that is already on arrival, judging from its lukewarm reception on Capitol Hill this week. Presidents, even those commanding comfortable majorities in both houses, need to get Congress in line, and the only way to do that is to declare peace. Here are five takeaways from the most presidential speech Mr. Trump has ever given — delivered at precisely the moment he needed to project sobriety, seriousness of purpose and . The between Tuesday’s temperate Mr. Trump and the everyday Mr. Trump was striking, to put it mildly. “The time for trivial fights is over,” said Mr. Trump, a man who spent the first 48 hours of his presidency bickering about the size of the inauguration crowd. While that statement was meant as a challenge to his establishment critics, it also seemed as if he were coaching himself. All of the previous speeches delivered by Mr. Trump, from his nomination address in Cleveland last summer to his inaugural speech, had a gloomy, quality. His aides promised a Ronald invocation of America’s future in the days leading up to his . What he delivered, thanks to his speechwriting team of Stephen Miller and Stephen K. Bannon, was an invocation of “American carnage. ” Since his Mr. Trump roved the airwaves and Twitter, lashing out at anyone who opposed him, and many people who didn’t. In just the past couple of weeks, the president has reiterated his description of some news outlets as “enemies of the American people,” while taking his shots at Paris, Sweden, Hill Democrats, the F. B. I. government leakers, President Barack Obama and his own communications staff, among other targets. But on Tuesday, the president rolled the dice, and went for nice. In style, if not substance, Mr. Trump delivered an address that nearly any of his Republican primary opponents — whom he once savaged as establishment stooges — might have delivered had they been standing at the rostrum. “That torch is now in our hands,” Mr. Trump said within the first few minutes of his speech, echoing, if not entirely approaching, the wispy mountaintop oratory of more polished predecessors like Mr. Obama and Mr. Reagan. “And we will use it to light up the world. I am here tonight to deliver a message of unity and strength, and it is a message deeply delivered from my heart. ” Mr. Trump has made immense progress sticking to a script, but Wednesday is a new day, and the presidential Twitter finger gets itchy in the middle of the week. The big question is whether his unifying tone represents the mythical, pivot point — or was just part of a speech efficiently delivered by a gifted politician learning his new trade. Mr. Trump has been criticized for his sluggish response to violence and vandalism against Jews, blacks and Muslims during his presidency. But the opening words of his speech were dedicated to tolerance and inclusion. “Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City,” he said, “remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms. ” Again, it’s hard to say if his statement reflected a genuine change of approach. Mr. Trump and some allies have suggested that recent episodes might be attempts by his opponents to embarrass him. But his words were welcomed in the House chamber, greeted by some of the most sustained applause of the evening. The polls have not been especially kind to Mr. Trump lately, but there is one distinct bright spot: 56 percent of voters in a Consult poll released on Tuesday said that Mr. Trump was following through on his campaign promises. This is no small matter for a president eager to prove he’s no mere talker. For all its messaging, personnel and operational struggles, Mr. Trump’s team has relentlessly executed a branding strategy aimed at projecting the image of a man of action fighting against gridlocked and corrupt Washington elites. Every day, Mr. Trump appears before the cameras where he is shown doing stuff like signing executive orders or convening panels of business, labor or political leaders. “It’s been a little over a month since my inauguration, and I want to take this moment to update the nation on the progress I’ve made in keeping those promises,” he said, taking an extended bow for saving jobs at several factories across the country, renegotiating defense contracts, scrapping the Partnership, greenlighting two new fuel pipelines and cracking down on illegal immigration and criminal foreigners. Never mind that Mr. Obama, the man Mr. Trump says left him “a mess” to clean up, had accomplished much more at this point in his term — including the stimulus package and a gender law. For all his newfound civility and message discipline, Mr. Trump cares most about this takeaway — proving he is an effective president at a time when his administration is being portrayed in the media as adrift and . The president’s speech had admirable length (it clocked in at just over 60 minutes) the requisite number of ovations, about 90, and a succession of punchy pronouncements. What it didn’t have was very much of an explanation on how Mr. Trump plans to govern. There were hardly any details about his proposals on the items that will most likely define his first term. That included his Obamacare pledge, his plan to overhaul the tax code, the big infrastructure package he’s vowed to ram through, or even his plan to shovel $54 billion into the Defense Department. Cracking down on illegal immigration is the central pillar of Mr. Trump’s popularity with white voters, so much so that it was the subject of his most decisive action thus far as president: the bungled rollout of his executive order barring migrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations. But Mr. Trump and his team sent out some seriously mixed messages in the hours leading up to the address. “We will soon begin the construction of a great, great wall along our southern border,” Mr. Trump declared, to the delight of many Republicans in the hall, who gave him a hearty standing ovation. But earlier, in a with some of the country’s leading news anchors, the president seemed to soften his stance considerably, as he has done previously in private, suggesting that legal status be granted to millions of undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes. Immigration led by his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have long considered such a stance “amnesty. ” Mr. Trump never brought up the topic again — and didn’t touch on his prior reference to legalizing undocumented immigrants — raising questions about what position he’ll stake out in negotiations with Congress. | 1 |
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