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An teacher stands accused of using his knowledge of science to launch an illegal methamphetamine manufacturing business, echoing the popular TV show, “Breaking Bad. ”[Las Cruces police arrested John W. Gose, 56, who once taught school in Las Cruces and El Paso, New Mexico, and charged him after a traffic stop with manufacturing the illegal drug . Gose was found with lab equipment thought to be part of his operations. Testing later revealed traces of meth. At his home, investigators later discovered traces of meth and other supplies and chemicals to produce the drug. The former teacher pleaded guilty before District Judge Fernando R. Macias in 3rd Judicial District Court in Las Cruces, according to the Doña Ana District Attorney’s Office. Gose spent almost nine years reaching in the El Paso Independent School District, resigning in 2008 to become a vocational teacher at Oñate High School in Las Cruces. After spending only one semester at Oñate High School, Gose took a job teaching science at Camino Real Middle School where he worked until February of 2016. “That the defendant, in this case, chose to plead guilty to all of the charges is a testament to the strength of the investigation,” District Attorney Mark D’Antonio said in statement according to the Las Cruces . “Thanks to the hard work of the Las Cruces Police Department, the New Mexico State Police and the prosecutors in this office, we are able to close the books on this case of life imitating art while saving the taxpayers of New Mexico the cost of a jury trial. ” The teacher’s story mirrors the plot of the AMC series “Breaking Bad,” the story of Walter White who turns to illegal drug production to make enough money for his family after he dies of cancer. While Mr. Gose doesn’t have cancer, his actions are otherwise similar to the series. Gose Pleaded guilty to four counts and will undergo a evaluation period before sentencing. He could face a maximum of 20 and years in prison. Parents at Camino Real Middle School were shocked by the court’s revelations. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. I mean, you don’t expect a teacher to have that kind of stuff in his car,” parent Misty Ward told Fox 14. “It’s just conflicting what us parents are trying to teach our children,” parent Eileen Lujan added. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Home | World | Another Day Another U.S. Election Another Day Another U.S. Election By Baffo Meat 08/11/2016 07:54:41
WASHINGTON D.C. – USA – The nightmare is nearly over, the 2016 U.S. election will finally be laid to rest today when American voters vote in the first female president of the USA.
Gladly we don’t live in the goldfish bowl of America where the constant news reportage has been beating down on the heads of Americans every second of the day with propaganda and ridiculous campaign advertising. One only has to look at the crowds of brainwashed citizens in stadiums waving their flags to see they are not all there, their eyes exhibit the same hypnotised ten thousand yard stare, their shrieks of support for whichever candidate a call to arms for other fellow lemmings to join their crusade.
The decision for Hillary Clinton was set over a year ago, and the Daily Squib accurately predicted the final result.
Again, we will be proven correct, and again, there will be no fanfare or acknowledgement for our accuracy, but that’s part of the game of being a maverick, separate from all the others, they’re doing the same old thing over and over again, we do not follow you, we are separate and unique.
Dixville Notch, an eight vote for Clinton is the first as always, and so it shall go on, further results seeping in today and tomorrow.
Let us all hope Trump crawls back under his rock after this and is never seen again.
Remember folks, whoever wins a U.S. election does not matter — the same people operate behind the scenes irrespective of president, party or political doctrine. Share on : | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Floodwaters have begun to recede in Louisiana, where at least 13 people are dead, tens of thousands more have been displaced and 40, 000 homes are damaged. These photos and maps show the scale of the disaster. Emergency officials and ordinary citizens are going to offer help, 1, 000 Red Cross workers joined aid efforts and shelters were packed. “The sheltering effort is actually greater than what we saw for Hurricane Katrina,” a local official near Baton Rouge said. _____ 2. Donald Trump shook up his campaign with moves that suggest he intends to stick with his aggressive style. He brought in a combative media executive as campaign manager: Stephen Bannon, from the conservative website Breitbart News. Paul Manafort, whose efforts to shift Mr. Trump to a more presidential tone were hobbled by concerns over his own business dealings in Ukraine, retains the title of campaign chairman. Mr. Trump also received his first classified briefing, at the F. B. I. ’s Manhattan field office and held his own national security roundtable, above, at Trump Tower. _____ 3. Hillary Clinton flew to Cleveland to offer a granular critique of Mr. Trump’s tax policies and promised to shift more of the tax burden upward. “We’re going to tax the wealthy who have made all of the income gains in the last 15 years,” she said. “The corporations, Wall Street, they’re going to have to invest in education, in skills training, in infrastructure. ” Our election model currently gauges Mrs. Clinton’s likelihood of winning at 88 percent to Mr. Trump’s 12 percent. _____ 4. U. S. intelligence agencies are scrambling to determine if the National Security Agency was hacked, after code used to break into foreign systems showed up on websites this week. Edward Snowden tweeted from exile in Moscow that Russia was a likely suspect, and that the disclosures might be intended to “influence the calculus of wondering how sharply to respond to the DNC hacks. ” Here’s what we know about the cyberattacks on Democratic officials. _____ 5. At the Rio Olympics, the host country, Brazil, goes for a fourth gold tonight (11 p. m. Eastern, NBC) with the beach volleyball team above, pictured after beating the U. S. in the semifinal. The U. S. women’s water polo team advanced to the final after beating Hungary. Check out our interactive on just how brutal the sport can be. The Brazilian authorities found evidence contradicting parts of Ryan Lochte’s account of a gunpoint robbery and pulled two U. S. swimmers, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, off their flights home. Mr. Lochte had already left the country. And several boxing referees and judges were barred from Olympic service a day after an Irish bantamweight, Michael Conlan, raged over losing a fight that he, and the crowd, thought he had won. _____ 6. France’s battle over the burkini swept in a top government official. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the swimsuit worn by Muslim women reflected the “enslavement of women. ” But Muslim women, reacting to bans by several mayors, have complained to community groups that they are being singled out, and their choice of swimwear is now a dividing line in France’s increasingly fraught relationship with its Muslim population, Europe’s largest. France, with its determinedly secular government, already bans veils in public and headscarves in schools. _____ 7. A team of researchers at the University of Chicago cast light on one of the big puzzles in evolution. They found a surprising biological link between the fin and the human hand, in the form of genes that tell a clump of embryonic cells to end up at the far end of an appendage. “Honestly, you could have knocked me over with a feather,” one scientist said. _____ 8. A wildfire near San Bernardino, Calif. “hit hard, it hit fast, it hit with an intensity that we haven’t seen before,” the county fire chief said. High winds, high temperatures and low humidity in the state’s fifth year of drought drove the flames to flare from five acres to 30, 000 in less than 24 hours. Officials ordered the evacuation of about 82, 000 residents in an estimated 34, 500 homes. Experts say wildfires are getting bigger and more destructive. _____ 9. The latest headlines about “The Birth of a Nation,” the slavery revolt film due in 1, 500 theaters on Oct. 7, are not about its chances to prevent another #OscarsSoWhite debacle. Instead, the attention is on details of a rape case involving Nate Parker, the film’s writer, director and star. Vitriol has poured out on social media, and in Los Angeles, promotional posters of Mr. Parker as Nat Turner were altered to read, “Rapist?” _____ 10. Michelangelo’s David is having joint trouble. More specifically, his ankles have become riddled with cracks, leaving the masterpiece at risk of collapse in the eventuality of a serious earthquake — a real possibility in Florence. In one of our most popular stories today, our magazine writer, mulling over his long obsession with the statue and the concept of perfection, notes that Italy has stalled on the known solution: an antiseismic base. _____ 11. Finally, Americans, especially those avoiding gluten, are increasingly turning to ancient grains like quinoa, amaranth and millet. Now there’s a surge of interest in teff, a staple for Ethiopia’s legendary distance runners. It is high in protein and iron, has more calcium and vitamin C than almost any other grain and is rich in a beneficial form of starch. Try it in pancakes or as polenta. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — Long before Donald J. Trump took aim at immigrants, there was Representative Steve King of Iowa. Since Mr. King’s election to the House in 2002, and before that in the State Legislature, where he first tried out his trademark talking point, Mr. King, a Republican, has injected himself into the immigration debate with inflammatory and at times boorish statements. Against the backdrop of an emboldened white nationalist movement in the United States, his Twitter post over the weekend — “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies” — suggested that Mr. King was sliding from his typical messages to something far darker. It was praised by both the white supremacist David Duke and The Daily Stormer, a website. But it was also quickly criticized by many Republicans, including Speaker Paul D. Ryan, whose office said he “clearly disagrees” with Mr. King, and Representative Carlos Curbelo, Republican of Florida, who is of Cuban descent. Mr. Curbelo responded on Twitter: “What exactly do you mean? Do I qualify as ‘somebody else’s baby? ’” The tweet, written to show support for Geert Wilders, a Dutch parliamentarian who has called for shutting down mosques in the Netherlands, put Mr. King in a familiar position, as the subject of condemnation in his own party. “Now we’re in the Trump era, where anything goes,” said David Kochel, a Republican strategist from Iowa who helped lead Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. “He’s always been consistent with these extreme views, but this articulation of white nationalism is a few clicks past ‘cantaloupe calves,’ which was reprehensible to begin with. I don’t believe these views represent anything but the most extreme elements of the fringe. ” While Mr. King has also left room for rape victims, light bulbs, the District of Columbia and other topics in his incendiary outbursts on Twitter, television and the House floor, his most memorable droplets of disdain have been for unauthorized immigrants, most notably Mexicans who he once proclaimed had “calves the size of cantaloupes” from hauling drugs across the border. But except for the 2013 fruit analogy — which led John A. Boehner, the speaker at the time, to publicly chastise Mr. King and privately make a decidedly less nice analogy about him to aides — Republicans have largely written off Mr. King as a fringe player in legitimate policy debates. “Remarks of this nature are always deplorable no matter the political climate in our country,” Mr. Curbelo said in an email. “One of the president’s recurring themes and messages is that all Americans bleed the same red blood despite our great diversity. Mr. King’s sentiment directly contradicts this idea. ” A spokeswoman for Mr. Ryan, who has been loath to dip into controversies stirred by Mr. Trump, said, “The speaker clearly disagrees and believes America’s long history of inclusiveness is one of its great strengths. ” In Iowa, the state’s Republican chairman, Jeff Kaufmann, said: “I do not agree with Congressman King’s statement. We are a nation of immigrants, and diversity is the strength of any nation and any community. ” Mr. Trump’s spokesman, Sean Spicer, claimed ignorance of the Twitter post on Monday Mr. King’s spokeswoman said he was too busy to be interviewed. Mr. King, 67, represents the most conservative corner of Iowa, and has long held policy positions rooted in deeply conservative beliefs, especially concerning immigration, which he once deemed a “ Holocaust. ” He has often said he was made aware of illegal immigration as a small child by his father, the onetime mayor of a small Iowa town who taught him to take a hard line. Mr. King dropped out of Northwest Missouri State University to run a construction contracting business, and ran for the State Senate in 1996 when he first cottoned to the idea of an America, something he would push for legislatively throughout his career. “Our language is getting subdivided by some forces of the federal government,” Mr. King once said. “It is time to speak with a common voice. The argument that diversity is our strength has really never been backed up by logic. ” He has argued vociferously — long before Mr. Trump ran for office pushing strict measures — including against protections for young adults brought over as children who have been successful in America, a group many Republicans support. In 2006, he suggested a complex plan for building an electrified wall at the border, noting that this was a practice used to control livestock. In 2012, he compared immigrants to dogs. He also accused former President Barack Obama of advancing immigration policies based on race. “The president has demonstrated that he has a default mechanism in him that breaks down the side of race, on the side that favors the black person,” he said in a radio interview in 2010. Some of his other pet issues have also had a racial tone. For instance, he once railed against a funding measure for settlements for farmers and American Indians on the House floor. “We have a very, very urban senator,” he said, referring to a measure that Mr. Obama supported when he was a senator. Mr. King has also long targeted the Affordable Care Act he skipped his middle son’s wedding in 2009 to cast a vote against it. While many politicians, including Mr. Trump, often try to back away from statements that offend, Mr. King amiably doubles down. On Monday, confronted about his tweet, he told CNN, “I meant exactly what I said,” adding that he would “like to see an America that’s just so homogeneous that we look a lot the same, from that. ” These sorts of remarks make Iowans of both parties cringe, even though many Republicans do so anonymously. “He’s a grandstander who says things that embarrass the whole state,” said Michael L. Fitzgerald, a Democrat, who has been Iowa’s treasurer since 1983. “Democrats think he’s an ass, and sometimes Republicans do too. ” Mr. King faced his first primary challenge in a decade last year in a safe Republican district, but he has succeeded in many respects because people in the district find him personally affable and helpful. Both parties note that Mr. King does not try to run for statewide office, mindful of the limits of his popularity. The test going forward will be of Mr. King’s limited national sway over Republicans, which he has sought to expand by trying to attract Republican presidential hopefuls to his annual pheasant hunting outing near his home. In 2016, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, campaigned vigorously with Mr. King, retelling a joke over and over about how Chuck Norris wore Steve King pajamas, to demonstrate the congressman’s super toughness. Mr. King’s weekend tweet “is proof that it’s hard to get attention in our current politics,” Mr. Kochel said. “For Congressman King, it’s always been tough to stay out in front of this sad pack. ” | 1 |
Trust busting used to be a national sport and now total corporate monopoly is upon us. We need a dream team - Trey Gowdy with Johnny Cochran and Barry Scheck as back up maybe... | 0 |
U. S. District Judge William Orrick has ordered any video links and references to the identities of members of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) to be taken down from the Internet. [The order, according to the Associated Press, comes following the release of new video footage by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) on Thursday in which NAF abortionists are heard sharing graphic details about the dismemberment of unborn babies. YouTube removed the video from its site, though it can still be seen at LiveLeak. com. Orrick said Thursday he would consider holding CMP leader and video journalist David Daleiden in contempt of his preliminary injunction that blocked the release of videos of NAF meetings and the identities of NAF members. The NAF claimed the videos would endanger the lives of the abortionists. In the latest video, which is a compilation of excerpts from video filmed at NAF trade shows, abortionists are heard discussing the difficulties they face in their jobs, such as “the head that gets stuck that we can’t get out,” and “an eyeball just fell down into my lap, and that is gross!” In March, a federal appeals court upheld Orrick’s ruling blocking the release of NAF meetings and members’ identities. Daleiden contends the injunction is an assault on his First Amendment rights. The filmmaker and his colleague, Sandra Merritt, have been charged with 15 felony counts under California’s law protecting “confidential” conversations. Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley Associates (SCA) are defending Daleiden, the same journalist who released the series of videos in 2015 that shocked the nation as they brought attention to allegations of criminal activity in the fetal tissue procurement industry and the alleged related participation of Planned Parenthood. Daleiden’s attorneys say the California attorney general’s interest in his case is “entirely political, meant to manipulate the law to do the bidding of their benefactors at Planned Parenthood. ” SCA recently launched a new media resource page that features all the filings in the case against Daleiden and all the videos mentioned by the California AG in its complaint, including those that have never been seen before. UPDATE: LiveLeak has also removed the video, but it can be seen courtesy of LifesiteNews: | 1 |
On the Friday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of the first 100 days of the Trump administration. [Breitbart London Raheem Kassam will join Marlow to discuss the latest terror attack in Paris, which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for. Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, will discuss the president’s “Hire American” executive order and Trump’s call for an investigation of foreign steel imports. Mark Krikorian, the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, will discuss the deportation of a convicted illegal immigrant DREAMer. We’ll also hear from veteran pollster Pat Caddell. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 1 |
Attacks Ramp Up Ahead of Russia's New Ceasefire by Jason Ditz, November 03, 2016 Share This
A coalition of Syrian rebels led by the Nusra Front have been attacking government-held Western Aleppo since Friday, and escalated the strikes ahead of Russia’s new ceasefire. Reports out of the city suggest heavy firing against government-held neighborhoods.
While details are still emerging, 12 civilians were reported slain in the firing, and around 200 others were wounded . This toll is independent of the toll from fighting on the ground between rebels and military forces, for which no official figures have yet been released.
The Russian ceasefire is intended to offer a 10-hour window during which the rebels can leave the city freely through two corridors, taking their weapons and anything else with them, though the rebels have already denounced both the offer and the ceasefire, insisting they will never surrender the city.
Both sides have been trading fire for months, often shelling one another’s neighborhoods, attacks which tend to kill a lot more civilian bystanders than combatants. They also trade offensives and counteroffensives, aiming to take control of the entire city.
So far, neither side has been able to get serious gains in the fighting over the city. Some smaller gains by the Syrian military last month appear to be getting reversed with this new offensive by the rebels from outside the city. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
Nuclear weapons In fact, Russia is not about to go to war with America. Much of its language is no more than bluster. But it does pose a threat to stability and order. And the first step to answering that threat is to understand that Russian belligerence is not a sign of resurgence, but of a chronic, debilitating weakness. Vlad the invader As our special report this week sets out, Russia confronts grave problems in its economy, politics and society. Its population is ageing and is expected to shrink by 10% by 2050. An attempt to use the windfall from the commodity boom to modernise the state and its economy fell flat. Instead Mr Putin has presided over a huge increase in government: between 2005 and 2015, the share of Russian GDP that comes from public spending and state-controlled firms rose from 35% to 70%. Having grown by 7% a year at the start of Mr Putin’s reign, the economy is now shrinking. Sanctions are partly to blame, but corruption and a fall in the price of oil matter more. The Kremlin decides who gets rich and stays that way. Vladimir Yevtushenkov, a Russian tycoon, was detained for three months in 2014. When he emerged, he had surrendered his oil company. Mr Putin has sought to offset vulnerability at home with aggression abroad. With their mass protests after election-rigging in 2011-12, Russia’s sophisticated urban middle classes showed that they yearn for a modern state. When the oil price was high, Mr Putin could resist them by buying support. Now he shores up his power by waging foreign wars and using his propaganda tools to whip up nationalism. He is wary of giving any ground to Western ideas because Russia’s political system, though adept at repression, is brittle. Institutions that would underpin a prosperous Russia, such as the rule of law, free media, democracy and open competition, pose an existential threat to Mr Putin’s rotten state. For much of his time in office Mr Obama has assumed that, because Russia is a declining power, he need not pay it much heed. Yet a weak, insecure, unpredictable country with nuclear weapons is dangerous—more so, in some ways, even than the Soviet Union was. Unlike Soviet leaders after Stalin, Mr Putin rules alone, unchecked by a Politburo or by having witnessed the second world war’s devastation. He could remain in charge for years to come. Age is unlikely to mellow him. Mr Obama increasingly says the right things about Putinism—he sounded reasonably tough during a press conference this week—but Mr Putin has learned that he can defy America and come out on top. Mild Western sanctions make ordinary Russians worse off, but they also give the people an enemy to unite against, and Mr Putin something to blame for the economic damage caused by his own policies. Ivan the bearable What should the West do? Time is on its side. A declining power needs containing until it is eventually overrun by its own contradictions—even as the urge to lash out remains. Because the danger is of miscalculation and unchecked escalation, America must continue to engage in direct talks with Mr Putin even, as today, when the experience is dispiriting. Success is not measured by breakthroughs and ceasefires—welcome as those would be in a country as benighted as Syria—but by lowering the chances of a Russian blunder. Nuclear miscalculation would be the worst kind of all. Hence the talks need to include nuclear-arms control as well as improved military-to-military relations, in the hope that nuclear weapons can be kept separate from other issues, as they were in Soviet times. That will be hard because, as Russia declines, it will see its nuclear arsenal as an enduring advantage. Another area of dispute will be Russia’s near abroad. Ukraine shows how Mr Putin seeks to destabilise countries as a way to stop them drifting out of Russia’s orbit (see article ). America’s next president must declare that, contrary to what Mr Trump has said, if Russia uses such tactics against a NATO member, such as Latvia or Estonia, the alliance will treat it as an attack on them all. Separately the West needs to make it clear that, if Russia engages in large-scale aggression against non-NATO allies, such as Georgia and Ukraine, it reserves the right to arm them. Above all the West needs to keep its head. Russian interference in America’s presidential election merits measured retaliation. But the West can withstand such “active measures”. Russia does not pretend to offer the world an attractive ideology or vision. Instead its propaganda aims to discredit and erode universal liberal values by nurturing the idea that the West is just as corrupt as Russia, and that its political system is just as rigged. It wants to create a divided West that has lost faith in its ability to shape the world. In response, the West should be united and firm. This article appeared in the Print Edition with the headline: Putinism
Crosslinked at the Moscow-Beijing Express: http://thesaker.is/putin-and-xi-in-western-propaganda-why-does-xjp-get-off-so-lightly/ Podcast is available on SoundCloud or at the bottom of this webpage: https://soundcloud.com/44-days/putin-and-xi-in-western-propaganda-why-does-xjp-get-off-so-lightly-161029
A recent cover and main article in the Economist , pictured above, reminds me of just how hyperbolic and ideological is the West’s propaganda against Russian President Vladimir Putin. While maybe good polemical fodder as a cartoon on the editorial page, the fact that this demonic caricature merits front cover status, indicates just how programmed and institutionalized Western mainstream media is. Westerners love to insult the Anti-West press for being “party organs” and “government mouthpieces”. But, why travel so far? They only need to stay home with their national New York Times, Radio France and BBC , to really appreciate Bernaysian psyops being passed off as serious journalism (as in Edward Bernays). I don’t call it living behind the Great Western Firewall for nothing.
I have a friend whose email signature is “Blame it on Putin”. For a while, he changed it to “Blame it on China”. But that didn’t last long and he recently changed it back. As we have seen with the most depressing predictability, President Putin, specifically, and Russia in general are the voodoo pin dolls of Western racism and demonization of another people (Slavs) and other religions (Orthodox Christianity, as well as widespread Islam and Buddhism in Siberia). http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2015/10/01/slavs-and-the-yellow-peril-are-niggers-brutes-and-beasts-in-the-eyes-of-western-empire-the-saker-44-days-radio-sinoland-2015-10-1/
What is so remarkable is how unhinged and psychopathic the West’s racist propaganda is against Putin & Co., compared to the attacks on China’s President Xi Jinping (XJP) and the Chinese people. It transgresses irrational fear, to the point of being sick, black humor. Yet, about the most polemical front cover against XJP was Time magazine in April, 2016, seen below. Making China’s leader look like a Mao Zedong- Blade Runner replicant is tame and almost quaint, compared to the Orwellian “Emmanuel Goldstein” tsunami being launched nonstop against Putin.
Pretty tame stuff, this, compared to the racist feeding frenzy that Western propaganda is ginning up against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Slavic countrymen.
True, Russia has the longest border with what in now considered “Europe”, and there is tremendous historical Western precedence to keep Germany from forming any kind of economic or geopolitical alliance with Russia. As well, the West’s Ukrainian color revolution turned out to be a total genocidal failure, with Russia reintegrating Crimea and Donbass biding its time for a hopeful remarriage in the years to come. Needless to say, the revenge factor, and if there is anything that Western tyranny loves more, it’s to avenge its long list of failed chaos and extermination around the world.
But, Russia is officially a capitalist country. Its current constitution was largely written by American fifth columnists. The Russian Central Bank is widely presumed to be under the thumb of the West’s oil banking families. In spite of widespread ignorance around the world, on these two counts, China can definitely list itself in the opposing column. http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/10/18/so-called-communist-china-an-exclusive-article-for-the-all-china-review-16-10-17/ . Given America’s post-1917, deranged, hysterical fear of, and untold billions spent to crush any communist expression at home and around the world, you would think that red China and Xi would be Public Enemy Number One. But no, it’s Putin and the Russians.
One factor might be Western perceptions of Russia’s and China’s military strength. Russians have shown off their powerful, well-run army, navy and air force in Syria and the Black Sea. The West is probably in a bit of an historic rut, when looking at China’s rapidly modernizing People’s Liberation Army (PLA), like back to the Korean War, when the just liberated New China had no air force, no navy and no nuclear missiles, yet still kicked the pants off Uncle Sam, using mostly World War I vintage arms. But then again, nobody in the West will ever admit that they lost the Korean War in the first place. http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/09/04/from-may-9th-in-moscow-to-september-3rd-in-beijing-the-anti-west-order-comes-full-circle-reprint/ . I can tell you that here in China, just like 1950-1953, XJP and the PLA do not fear American military power, not one iota. Respect it, yes. Fear it, never. President Xi has put the PLA on combat ready war footing and he means it. http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/966932.shtml
But there is a new gadfly in America’s imperial ointment, one who may push President Xi and the Chinese people up the racist hate-o-meter, to Slavic levels, and that menace is the Philippines’ new president, Rodrigo Duterte. http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/09/17/puppet-japan-saves-uncle-sams-face-in-south-china-sea-after-philippines-principled-stand-vs-imperialism-jeff-j-brown-on-press-tv/ . This plainspoken, no bullshit world leader is Uncle Sam’s worst nightmare. He is calling American empire what it is: genocidal, dictatorial and rapacious. Not once, but day after day, meeting after meeting, press conference after press conference.
At September 8-9, 2016’s ASEAN summit in Laos, Duterte showed a colonial era photo and talked about the genocide that the US committed, as it brutally conquered the Philippines, 1899-1913, killing an estimated 1.25 million people, about 25% of the nation’s population. Western media censored it like the plague (they have been anyway, for over a century) and even semi-friendly outlets like the South China Morning Post were aghast that he actually associated the West with genocide. Heaven forbid! This, in spite of the fact the easily 80-90% of history’s genocides and exterminations were and are being perpetrated by Eurangloland, including of course Israel. Behind the Great Western Firewall, genocide is exclusively reserved for powerless, dark skinned people and unrepentant socialists, like Serbia’s framed and destroyed Slobodan Milosevic. President Rodrigo Duterte shows images of the Bud Dajo massacre during his speech at the 2016 Metrobank Foundation’s Outstanding Filipinos awarding ceremony in Malacañan’s Rizal Hall on September 12. REY BANIQUET/PPD
Speaking truth to imperial power, Duterte gives a blunt lesson on Western genocide, during the recent ASEAN summit in Laos. How dare you tell it like it is! (Image by Baidu.com)
Duterte is a semi-official socialist-populist. His cabinet is inclusive and consultative, with former imprisoned and exiled political opposition leaders, including communists and Muslims. He clearly can’t stand America’s grotesque, imperial arrogance and tyranny, in a country that has been a pliant doormat for US mayhem and exploitation in Asia, going back to the turn of the 19 th -20 th century. When Duterte’s hometown of Davao was hit with a very suspicious, false flag smelling public market bombing, on September 2, 2016, he suggested that the automatic-to-blame Abu Sayyef Group, a Muslim independence outfit on his island of Mindanao, is controlled by US Special Forces based there, which is of course true. But, world leaders aren’t supposed to speak truth to power, especially “little brown brothers”, as Filipino Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay has described America’s attitude to his long suffering and abused nation. http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/09/17/1624575/dfa-chief-philippines-no-little-brown-brother-us
After signing with XJP more than three times as many development deals ($15 billion), as the US has totally invested to date in the Philippines ($4.7 billion), Duterte declared to the world that the “US has lost” and that his country was realigning with Baba Beijing. His official government/trade delegation had an unprecedented 300 members and another 150 business people paid their own way to join the Asian lovefest. The two sides set up bilateral committees to discuss and negotiate their South China Sea claims, which is anathema to Uncle Sam, who always insists on being the rabid Rottweiler in the middle. Next stop was US prostitute Japan, where he further declared that the Philippines would be free of all foreign military (meaning US marines and special forces), something that has not happened since 1521, when Spain began colonizing and raping the archipelago.
This is all very powerful, history changing geopolitics. Almost every other world leader who has talked and acted like this, has either been overthrown and/or murdered by the West, sooner than later. Clearly, from the perspective of the West, Duterte’s visionary, regional reset is closely tied to President Xi and China. It is for this reason that XJP may be getting the Slavic-Putin treatment on an accelerated schedule, in a desperate attempt to trash China’s deep, historical leadership and trust role in Asia.
The old story about people being able to see that the emperor is not wearing any clothes, is very apropos to Duterte. He is shouting out to the world that Western empire is a colossal failure and humiliation for his impoverished, exploited citizens, and by extension, equally so for every other member of humanity outside Eurangloland. http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/07/16/communist-china-vs-capitalist-philippines-vs-imperial-france-china-rising-radio-sinoland-160716/ . Once one person pierces the veil, it emboldens others to finally have the courage to pile on.
For Uncle Sam, it’s already happening. Malaysian Prime Minster Najib Razak is visiting XJP and Co. in Beijing, October 31-November 6, 2016, an unusually long state visit by a world leader. Najib has declared that Malaysia is committed to strengthening friendship with China and pushing ties to “new highs”. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-china-idUSKCN12R0ZU . As more and more countries embrace China’s history founding One Belt One Road plan, in which the whole world is and will benefit into the 22 nd century, including Eurangloland, expect ever more desperate, racist demonization and dehumanization of Xi Jinping and the Chinese people, along the lines of Putin and the Russians. Maybe the CIA-MI6 can dig up that old 19 th century chestnut, “The Yellow Peril”, and give it a modern day makeover. Stay tuned to the New York Times, Radio France and the BBC , as the propaganda psyops campaign takes shape.
As more and more world leaders are emboldened to speak out against Western tyranny, thanks to Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s courage to make a public stand, President Xi Jinping can expect his face to morph into Putin’s, who is diabolically pictured above on a January, 2014 Newsweek cover.
ABOUT JEFF BROWN Jeff J. Brown—TGP’s Beijing correspondent— is the author of 44 Days (2013), Reflections in Sinoland – Musings and Anecdotes from the Belly of the New Century Beast (summer 2015), and Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is currently writing an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping , due out in 2016. In addition, a new anthology on China, China Rising, Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations , is also scheduled for publication this summer. Jeff is commissioned to write monthly articles for The Saker and The Greanville Post , touching on all things China, and the international political & cultural scene In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx , the Bookworm Literary Festival, the Capital M Literary Festival, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774 , with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at international schools in Beijing and Tianjin. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whet his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He currently lives in Beijing with his wife, where he writes, while being a school teacher in an international school. Jeff is a dual national French-American.
China Rising Radio Sinoland Outlets CHINA RISING ON RADIO. CLICK HERE FOR INFO | 0 |
A guide to the topical fireworks of 2016 | 0 |
SEE ALSO: Why Hillary Clinton is Responsible for US Failures in Libya and Syria
According to FOX News , FBI sources have said that ‘indictments are likely’ for the Clinton Foundation investigation. One only wonders how this latest Assange revelation will factor into the wider investigation – as it goes right to the heart of the national security and foreign policy – two things which Clinton trades heavily on in her campaigning.
Assange went on to explain the deep ramifications of this latest criminal allegation against Clinton and her family foundation:
“All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”
During their 25-minute interview filmed at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange and Pilger discussed the obvious conflict of interest between Clinton as Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation and Gulf monarchies who financed them. The following is an excerpt from the interview transcript:
John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from the US doubled in dollar value.
JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
JA: Yes.
Watch a brief preview of the interview here :
Courtesy Peter Myers | 0 |
WASHINGTON — In an extraordinarily swift return to politicking after a tumultuous first month in office, the White House on Wednesday said President Trump will hold the first campaign rally of his administration on Saturday. The rally, to be held in an airplane hangar in Melbourne, Fla. is an indication that Mr. Trump, who has sometimes felt isolated in the White House, is eager to get outside of Washington and relive the rapturous reception that greeted him during the presidential campaign. Mr. Trump exulted in large crowds assembled at cavernous venues throughout his 2016 bid, and spent the first days of his presidency quibbling over how many Americans attended his inauguration. On Wednesday, during a joint news conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Mr. Trump answered a question about whether his administration was flirting with xenophobia and racism in part by noting the support he received in the election. “I just want to say that we are very honored by the victory that we had — 306 Electoral College votes,” Mr. Trump said. “There’s tremendous enthusiasm out there. ” Not long after, in a posting on Twitter, Mr. Trump invited his nearly 25 million followers to attend the Saturday evening event, which will take place just up the coast from his retreat in Palm Beach where he plans to spend the weekend. It will be his third weekend in a row on Florida’s Gold Coast. “We are going to put America back to work,” a message accompanying the posting said. “We are going to put people before government. ” The White House would not provide any additional information about the rally. Officials referred questions to a member of Mr. Trump’s political organization, who also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “It’s being run by the campaign,” Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday, without elaborating. He would not say why the president would be holding a campaign rally so soon after taking office. The rally will be only the second public appearance by Mr. Trump outside of Washington since he took office. On Friday, he is scheduled to visit a Boeing plant in North Charleston, S. C. for the unveiling of the aerospace manufacturer’s new Dreamliner aircraft. Mr. Trump filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for his 2020 campaign on Jan. 20, the day he was sworn in. That allowed him to continue to accept contributions — including proceeds from the sales of his popular red “Make America Great Again” hats — without running afoul of the law. Mr. Trump ended the 2016 campaign flush with funds, in part because of substantial sales of the hats. At the end of 2016, he had $7, 611, 702. 92 cash on hand and no debt. The rally comes at a precarious time for Mr. Trump, as his White House is reeling from personnel turmoil and has yet to score any legislative victories. On Tuesday, he accepted the resignation of his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, who had become embroiled in allegations that he had improper contacts with Russian officials before Mr. Trump took office. That was followed on Wednesday by the abrupt withdrawal of Andrew F. Puzder, the president’s nominee to be secretary of labor, amid allegations that he had abused his and employed an illegal immigrant. Mr. Trump had vowed to move quickly to put his policy agenda in place once in the White House. But his effort to use executive power to crack down on immigration has faltered in the face of legal challenges, and his administration has yet to issue a proposal either for repealing the health care law he railed against during the campaign or enacting the tax overhaul he has promised. Larry M. Noble, the general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan group, said he was not aware of any president having held a campaign rally this early in his tenure. “Usually, they are too busy trying to get their administration in place,” Mr. Noble said. “More importantly, normally the president wants to delay candidate status so that he can travel as president making speeches, announcing new policies and actions, promoting his agenda and attacking his opponents in Congress without having to use campaign funds. ” Barack Obama did not file his statement of candidacy for until April 2011, more than two years after he took office, while George W. Bush waited until May of 2003 and Bill Clinton until April of 1995. Mr. Trump may be moving now, Mr. Noble said, to ensure he can address a friendly crowd devoid of protesters. “My guess is that he intends to control who is invited to the rally and press access by calling the rally a candidate event and paying for it out of campaign funds,” Mr. Noble said. “If it was an official White House event, he would have less control over it. ” Mr. Trump is likely to travel to the event on Air Force One and will have a sizable contingent of Secret Service and staff aides with him, as presidents always do when they travel. Campaign finance laws dictate that the cost of such a flight be shared between the campaign organizing the rally and the White House. It is not abnormal for a sitting president to hold a political rally in the months before an election, and Mr. Trump has said he plans to campaign actively for Republicans who support him and against Democrats who seek to stymie his agenda. But Mr. Trump’s return to the campaign trail on Saturday is unusually early. Even the midterm congressional elections for members of Congress are still 21 months away. | 1 |
Chart Of The Day: The Bond Vigilantes Are Back! UST Yield Up 65bps Since Election By David Stockman. Posted On Friday, November 18th, 2016
David Stockman's Contra Corner is the only place where mainstream delusions and cant about the Warfare State, the Bailout State, Bubble Finance and Beltway Banditry are ripped, refuted and rebuked. Subscribe now to receive David Stockman’s latest posts by email each day as well as his model portfolio, Lee Adler’s Daily Data Dive and David’s personally curated insights and analysis from leading contrarian thinkers. | 0 |
The Islamic State is back with another video that is even more depraved than the last “Cubs of the Caliphate” release. This time around, the terror state gives us a small child blowing a chained prisoner’s head off in an abandoned amusement park. [Heavy. com reports that the new video appeared on ISIS social media channels on Sunday, under the title “Sometimes With His Own Blood,” but it has also been posted under the name “He Revived Me by His Blood. ” The footage was shot in Deir Syria. The prisoners executed in the video are said to be Kurdish fighters. Most of the children, dressed in military fatigues and stalking through an abandoned amusement park, executing prisoners tied to the inert rides, look to be around 10 years old. One of them performs a gruesome knife beheading on a captive. The UK Sun has a clip from this sequence, with the shocking violence and bloody aftermath edited out. According to a report at PJ Media, it ends with the victim’s decapitated head sitting in the middle of the ride while it slowly spins. The most horrifying sequence in the new video shows a much younger boy — ARA News says he is 4 years old — approaching a prisoner chained to the wall of a dusty old ball pit. The little boy is handed a gun, and he proceeds to pump five rounds into the victim while shrieking, “Allahu akbar!” The last child killer in the video cuts his victim’s throat next to a kiddie train track and then leaves his knife planted in the victim’s back. The video includes coerced confessions from the prisoners. According to ARA News, they confess to working as spies for Kurdish forces. Warning: Graphic Video Content below, | 1 |
Good Samaritan wearing Indian headdress disarms gunman 'Just trying to go get some weed ... and saw someone who could use help' Published: 39 mins ago
(Portland Mercury) The city’s TV news crews were abuzz last night with news that a young man in a Native American headdress had disarmed a gunman at the MAX stop near East Burnside and 102nd.
According to cops, a teen suspect was on the train when he was confronted by an adult man he knew. An argument ensued, and the teen wound up firing two shots on the train. KGW reports the headdress-donning stranger waiting at the MAX stop, who goes by Rambo Richardson, “overpowered the gunman, took his weapon and held him down.”
Richardson, on Facebook, adds to that account. In a string of posts and replies, Richardson—who says he’s a member of the Haliwa-Saponi tribe and hails originally from North Carolina—says he was “just trying to go get some weed from Oregon’s Best Meds and saw someone who could use help, so i did what I would want someone to do for me…” | 0 |
ATLANTA — The powerful cyclone Hermine lurked off the Eastern Seaboard on Sunday, and its evolving path made the storm more likely to be a bother than a threat. Yet even as the storm churned hundreds of miles from the shoreline and positioned itself farther east than anticipated, officials, fearful of floodwaters and skeptical of shifting forecasts, often kept beaches closed, roads shut down and Labor Day weekend concerts canceled. “It’s gone east, it could wobble back west or wobble further east,” said Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who on Saturday declared emergencies for three counties. “All those things will decide what impact it has, especially in our coastal areas. ” By Sunday evening, the National Hurricane Center said the storm, which made landfall on Friday in Florida as a Category 1 hurricane, was about 335 miles east of Ocean City, Md. A “slow motion” was predicted through Monday, and the hurricane center said Hermine’s center would “meander slowly offshore of the coast for the next couple of days. ” Tropical storm warnings were in effect between the Fenwick Island, Del. area and Cape Cod, Mass. and the hurricane center described a storm system with tropical winds — between 39 and 73 miles per hour — extending more than 200 miles from its center. Hermine had maximum sustained winds on Sunday of 70 m. p. h. and the hurricane center said the storm was “expected to be at or near hurricane strength” before beginning to weaken on Monday night. But to the federal and state authorities, wind speed was only part of the riddle of Hermine, which seemed ready a little over a week ago to disintegrate without becoming a named storm. Flooding always loomed as a threat, and some forecasters predicted events. On Sunday, after extensive preparations, those fears mostly eased with every passing hour. “This is certainly not Sandy, nowhere near that,” Mr. Christie said, referring to the catastrophic 2012 storm. “And it’s not even Jonas. ” On Long Beach Island, to the north of Atlantic City, Christian Gagliardi, who has a rental on the island, said he was not worried about the storm. “Even if it stalls at this point, unless you live on the ocean, it’s not going to be a problem,” Mr. Gagliardi, 43, said while standing on a dune that was built to protect the island after Sandy. Drivers approaching the island on Route 72 from the west were greeted with electronic signs warning “Severe Coastal Storm — Be Prepared,” and a convenience store near the causeway connecting the island to the mainland had placed a small pile of sandbags near its door. The governors of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia also declared emergencies for at least parts of their states, and in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s office said the National Guard was on alert. New York City banned swimming, bathing and surfing on its beaches through Labor Day, and the city said the restrictions could extend into Tuesday. The city also warned that it could limit access to bridges, and that Staten Island Ferry runs could be delayed or canceled. The storm’s shift to a slow churn off the coast followed its destructive and deadly march through Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Although officials in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina reported mostly limited damage, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said on Sunday that electrical service issues remained a problem in Leon County, which includes Tallahassee, the state capital. Mr. Scott’s office said more than 40, 000 customers were still without power there, and in a pointed statement on Sunday, Mr. Scott mentioned issues that he called “still unresolved by city and county government. ” “There are still too many people without power in the City of Tallahassee and Leon County and, as you would expect, I will not be satisfied until it is fully restored,” Mr. Scott said. Local officials have defended their response amid what Mayor Andrew Gillum of Tallahassee described over the weekend as an “unfortunate and irritating situation. ” “Our No. 1 priority is to get power back to our residents and businesses as quickly as possible,” he wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook. “Once we’ve successfully done that, we’ll worry about cleanup and getting Tallahassee back to the beautiful community that we have all grown to love. ” Also on Sunday, officials in Pasco County, north of Tampa, oversaw a blend of mandatory and voluntary evacuations in response to the rise of the Anclote River. Deputies helped people to evacuate, and prisoners were assigned to fill sandbags. Officials have attributed two deaths — one in Florida and another in North Carolina — to the storm. | 1 |
The split screen told the story at the first 2016 presidential debate, and it was not kind to Donald J. Trump. At the right was his opponent, Hillary Clinton, a practiced debater, who held long, studied gazes on her opponent, delivered calibrated attacks and turned to the audience to smile incredulously at his responses. At the left was Mr. Trump, the volatile presence who a season of Republican debates. Now he grimaced, squinted, nodded, pursed his lips, sniffed, huffed and interrupted, becoming, over the night, an agitated man in a box. This seemed to be by Mrs. Clinton’s design. She had reportedly prepared to face two different versions of her opponent. There might be a reserved Mr. Trump, ready to reassure voters about his . Or there might be the raging, ranting Mr. Trump of the primaries. Turns out they both showed up. The quiet Mr. Trump took the first shift, presenting a version of his forceful campaign persona minus the bluster, insults and defenses of his anatomy. He pushed his case firmly, hitting his campaign’s focal points on the economy and trade. But it didn’t take long for Mrs. Clinton to find the other Mr. Trump under that thin second skin. Her needling began immediately. She referred to her opponent as “Donald,” where he pointedly called her “Secretary Clinton. ” (“Yes, is that O. K.?” he asked at his first reference to her.) She referred to his starting a business with a “$14 million” loan from his father, which Mr. Trump preferred to call a “very small loan. ” The digs targeted Mr. Trump’s status and founding mythos, triggering his reflex. He became combative and rattled, letting his opponent lead him down rhetorical detours (at one point he revived an old feud with Rosie O’Donnell) knowing that he would follow his ingrained ABCs: always be counterpunching. It was Tony Soprano vs. Dr. Melfi, TV’s biggest antihero blustering against the woman who had gotten inside his head. The campaign mind games had begun before the actual contest, like fisticuffs at a . After Mark Cuban, the billionaire bugbear of Mr. Trump, announced on Twitter that he would attend the debate, Mr. Trump threatened to invite Gennifer Flowers, whose reported affair with Bill Clinton endangered Mr. Clinton’s presidential run in 1992. But there were no big stunts on air, and little in the candidates’ styles we hadn’t seen before. Mr. Trump spoke in direct, punchy sentences and fragments: “Typical politician. All talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn’t work. ” And he used his hands as an emoji keyboard, punctuating his words with slashes, stabbing fingers and pinched O. K. gestures. Mrs. Clinton was steady and poised. At times her lines sounded rehearsed. (Stop trying to make “ ” happen. It’s not going to happen.) But one of her most effective lines, which she seemed to be waiting for a chance to use, was about preparation itself. “I think Donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate,” she said. “Yes, I did. And you know what else I prepared for? I prepared to be president. ” The two candidates’ stage styles served as campaign arguments in themselves. Mrs. Clinton’s spotlighting her debate practice was a shorthand defense of the experience that her opponents have cast as insiderism. Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has used his improvisatory style to suggest that he would govern the country by quick instinct and golden gut. (Thus his tendency to announce “called it” after tragic news events.) It’s entirely possible that their demeanors each came across as winning to their respective bases — one more way in which two Americas have viewed the election through different frames. But Monday night, it was Mrs. Clinton who seemed to be having the debate she wanted. Her body language was controlled, and she more often directed her attention outward toward the camera and audience. Mr. Trump, the pro, showed less camera awareness, glaring at his opponent and directing answers downstage (presumably toward the moderator, Lester Holt, who was little seen on camera). By the end of the debate his declaration, “I also have a much better temperament than she has” drew spontaneous laughter. Some of the audience laughter and applause seemed more tactical than spontaneous, though the crowd had been warned to keep quiet. But it was nothing like the arena roar of the primary debates, which Mr. Trump in particular had thrived on. By the anarchic standards of the earlier debates, Mr. Holt kept reasonable control over the proceedings. He let exchanges run at length but was willing to step in his questions were few but . The major focus, indeed obsession, of the to the debate was whether Mr. Holt would be willing to lies and inaccuracies. He did, though sparingly, for instance knocking down Mr. Trump’s claim that he had opposed the Iraq war before it began. But loomed over the debate even when Mr. Holt wasn’t doing it. Media outlets and individual viewers were policing statements in real time online, and Bloomberg TV network did so live onscreen. Both candidates seemed aware of the magnifying glass. “Please, get to work,” Mrs. Clinton said, after Mr. Trump told her, “You’ve been fighting ISIS your entire adult life. ” (Mrs. Clinton is 68. It was rather an overstatement.) Even Mr. Trump, whose whoppers have continually rung the bell on campaign watchdogs’ seemed briefly conscious of the scrutiny, following up a charge about the Obama administration’s debt record with the disclaimer, “to be . ” Mr. Trump was also and coming off and closing on a note of . After Mrs. Clinton blasted him for his treatment of a beauty pageant contestant, he insinuated a dark personal attack while taking credit for not directly making it. “I was going to say something extremely rough to Hillary, to her family,” he said, “and I said to myself, ‘I can’t do it. ’” But later, talking to reporters in the spin room, Mr. Trump said that the remark had to do with Mr. Clinton’s “indiscretions. ” Asked for details, he told CNN, “I’ll tell you maybe at the next debate. ” It all depends on which Donald Trump shows up, or how many of him. | 1 |
All but one of the nation’s largest banks earned an unconditional passing grade from federal regulators on their annual stress tests, which measure their preparedness to weather a financial crisis. The one institution that did not pass unconditionally was Morgan Stanley, a Wall Street bank that has been struggling to regain its footing after the financial crisis of 2008. Regulators raised concerns over the company’s internal controls and processes. The Federal Reserve gave failing grades to the American subsidiaries of two European banks, Deutsche Bank and Santander, which both failed in previous years. The banking stress tests — which measure whether banks have enough capital and liquidity, management controls and other necessary safeguards to survive various situations — have been required of banks with more than $50 billion in assets since the passage of the Act, which took effect in 2010. The passing grades mean that all of the big banks — even Morgan Stanley — will be able to pay dividends and buy back stock from shareholders. The results, announced by the Fed on Wednesday afternoon, are the second part of the annual stress tests, which compel each institution to run a simulation of how it would bear up under various catastrophic conditions, like an abrupt rise in interest rates or unemployment, or a big crash in equity markets. Last week, the Fed said that all the big banks would be able to make it through a recession and still maintain adequate financial buffers. On Wednesday, a Fed official said that even with the concerns raised, the stress test results suggest that banks would be able to withstand an event like Britain’s exit from the European Union, which has rocked bank stocks over the last week. Since the financial crisis, banks have been required to create large capital barriers to cushion against losses from a recession or market shock. While the financial system has not encountered any problems close to the mortgage losses of 2008, banks have been able to withstand more recent challenges like the steep drop in oil prices and the turmoil in Europe. While tougher capital requirements may be helping to stabilize the banks, they are hampering profitability. The stock prices of many large banks have languished as investors question whether these companies can increase their profits substantially in such a stringent new regulatory environment. The stress test results announced Wednesday are no doubt a welcome relief, in particular, to Bank of America and Citigroup, which have had difficulty passing the test unconditionally in past years. Both banks have spent tens of millions of dollars and assigned some of their top executives to the task of ensuring that they gain the Fed’s approval. Shortly after the results were made public, Citigroup announced that it would more than triple its dividend, to 16 cents from 5 cents, and buy back as much as $8. 6 billion of stock. Bank of America said it would increase its dividend to 7. 5 cents from 5 cents and purchase $5 billion in shares. Even Morgan Stanley came forward to say that it planned to raise its dividend to 20 cents from 15 cents and increase its share buyback program to $3. 5 billion for the four quarters beginning July 1, from $2. 5 billion in the previous period. The three banks that were called out by the Fed on Wednesday all had big enough financial buffers, the regulators said. Rather, the criticism was with more qualitative aspects of the way the three banks operate internally. At Morgan Stanley, the Fed said, the problems “include shortcomings in the firm’s scenario design practices, which do not adequately reflect risks and vulnerabilities specific to the firm, weaknesses in some aspects of the firm’s modeling practices, and weaknesses in governance and controls around both scenario design and modeling practices. ” Morgan Stanley will be able to return money to shareholders, as planned, but it will need to improve its internal processes by the end of the year. If the bank does not make those improvements, the Fed could halt the bank’s payouts. The results are an unhappy hiccup for Morgan Stanley, which has been struggling to raise its profits to the level of its competitors’ and is in the middle of a significant campaign. In a statement, the chief executive of Morgan Stanley, James P. Gorman, said, “We are committed to addressing the Fed’s concerns about our capital planning process and fully expect to meet their requirements within the established time frame. ” For Deutsche Bank and Santander, the failing grades raise bigger concerns about their ability to satisfy American regulators. The Deutsche Bank unit in the United States has failed twice in a row, and Santander three times. In this and previous years, the Fed has applied its tests only to parts of Santander and Deutsche Bank. These two banks, as well as other foreign banks, like Barclays, UBS and Credit Suisse, have large operations in the United States that have not undergone stress tests. But that will soon change. The large foreign banks now have to organize their American operations into a single “intermediate holding company. ” Next year, the Fed will do a trial test of these entities and keep the results private. But in 2018, these large holding companies will be subjected to tests, and the results will be made public. Failing those stress tests would be much more of a blow to Deutsche Bank and Santander than the hit they took on Wednesday. A Fed official said on Wednesday that all the big banks had been making progress but that Deutsche Bank and Santander still needed to make significant improvements. In a statement, Scott Powell, the chief executive of Santander Holdings USA, said, “We are financially sound. These results do not affect our ability to serve our customers. ” Deutsche Bank also emphasized that even though its American unit had failed the test, it still had adequate capital. “We appreciate the Federal Reserve’s recognition of our progress, and we will implement the lessons learned this year in order to strengthen our capital planning process,” Bill Woodley, deputy chief executive of Deutsche Bank Americas said in a statement. | 1 |
Liberal Tom “Rhymes With Liar” Steyer has been ranting on Twitter about Donald Trump and the Russians. [Here’s his latest smear job: Is there anyone in this Administration who did not have contact with the Russians? #Trumprussia, — Tom Steyer (@TomSteyer) March 2, 2017, In the late 1990s and early 2000s Farallon was involved in illicit attempts to capitalize on the economic liberalization of the former Soviet Union country. The U. S. Agency of International Development (USAID) formed an agreement with Harvard University’s Institute of International Development (HIID) in the to guide the former Soviet Union country towards a market economy. Harvard economist Andrei Shleifer and Jonathan Hay, a top HIID advisor, were the two officials charged with spearheading the project. Shleifer and Hay advised the Russian government on the privatization of more than 200, 000 corporations, the issuance of government debt, and the construction of financial institutions to integrate the nation into the global economy. The two HIID officials were privy to vast inside knowledge of the restructuring of the Russian economy. The U. S. government would later charge them both with using that knowledge to enrich themselves, in violation of USAID agreements. Harvard would eventually shutter the HIID following the scandal. Farallon provided the investment vehicle for a number of those schemes and was also the target of legal action by the U. S. government for its role. Steyer’s subsequent embrace of all things environmental is widely seen by those familiar with his modus operandi as a way of cynically greenwashing his murky fossil fuel past, while simultaneously leaping aboard the lucrative “clean energy” gravy train. It also happens to align with the interests of his Russian pals. Russia is a petro economy highly reliant on its oil and gas revenues. As we learned from Wikileak documents of secret meetings held by Hillary Clinton, businesses have reportedly funneled millions to organisations in the US in order to protect its business interests. A U. S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee report in 2014 exposed the Sea Change Foundation for its major funding from Klein Ltd, a shell corporation run by executives with strong ties to longtime Putin friend Leonid Reiman, Russia’s oil giant Rosneft and Russian energy investment groups including Firebird New Russia Fund and Vimpelcom Ltd. Klein Ltd. has reportedly funneled $23 million to Sea Change. In the period 1997 to 2015, Sea Change donated more than $64. 8 million to the Energy Foundation, a “ ” financing organization to which Steyer’s Tomkat Charitable Trust donated $4, 150, 000. Th Energy Foundation has disbursed to other groups, including the Blue Green Alliance Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, the Rockefeller Family Fund and many others. If Tom Steyer really now feels so very strongly about the evils of the Russians, maybe he should consider giving away the $1. 5 billion fortune he made from sucking up to them. This post has been updated since publication. CORRECTION: A previous version of the article incorrectly stated “Klein Ltd. in 2011 funneled more than $43 million to groups. ” | 1 |
It is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States, led by giants like Mahler, Toscanini and Bernstein, but the New York Philharmonic’s recent struggles have sent shudders through audiences, donors and power brokers across the classical music world. It has run deficits for most of this century. It is sometimes treated as an afterthought amid the rich cultural offerings of New York. And during the past two months, it reached a crisis point: An exodus of top executives threatened the Philharmonic’s ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the renovation of its drab Lincoln Center home, and left a vacuum just as the orchestra needs to plan the introduction of its next music director, Jaap van Zweden, in 2018. So it was nothing short of a coup for the troubled Philharmonic to announce on Wednesday that it had poached one of the most successful arts administrators in the nation to become its next president and chief executive officer: Deborah Borda, who helped make the Los Angeles Philharmonic the envy of the orchestra world during her 17 years at its helm. It will be a homecoming of sorts for Ms. Borda, 67, who ran the New York Philharmonic in the 1990s. “You know, the New York Philharmonic is a critical institution in this country, and when things aren’t going smoothly at the New York Philharmonic everybody notices,” Ms. Borda said in an interview. “Any challenge is really an opportunity. And there are big challenges — I don’t deny those — but those are great opportunities. ” Ms. Borda’s achievements in Los Angeles read like a list for New York. She ushered the orchestra into its new home, the popular Frank Walt Disney Concert Hall. She bolstered the orchestra’s shaky finances and proved herself a prodigious more than quintupling the endowment to $276 million this year. She signed Gustavo Dudamel as its music director when he was still in his 20s, and helped make him an international star. And she deepened the orchestra’s ties to its city while helping it earn a reputation for artistic . Oscar S. Schafer, chairman of the New York Philharmonic’s board, said there was universal agreement that she would be ideal for the post after Matthew VanBesien, the orchestra’s president, announced in January that he was leaving. But few thought she could be lured back to the orchestra she left almost two decades ago. The turning point, Mr. Schafer said, came after New York’s incoming music director, Mr. van Zweden, proposed flying to Los Angeles with him last month to woo her in person. The three met in a booth at the Polo Lounge in Beverly Hills. “Halfway through the dinner, Jaap reached out, took her hand, and said, ‘What will it take to get you? ’” Mr. Schafer recalled. Mr. van Zweden said in a telephone interview that “if there is anybody in the world who knows how to manage an orchestra, it is her — and more important, how to reach the public, how to make a connection with the city. ” Orchestra management has become increasingly difficult. Its challenges include selling tickets as the old model of marketing subscriptions to a season’s worth of concerts is dying out raising the donations that make up an ever larger share of orchestra budgets dealing with rising labor costs and musicians protected by powerful unions and forging connections with audiences as classical music is marginalized. The New York Philharmonic’s difficulties are particularly acute. It has run deficits every year since its season. Its endowment is worth less than it was when Ms. Borda ran the orchestra in the 1990s, partly because the Philharmonic has dipped into it in recent years for budget needs. The fund was valued at $183 million at the start of the season, down from $210 million in 1999. Even the renovation of David Geffen Hall poses danger: The Philharmonic will need to perform away from its home for two seasons during construction, risking the loss of even more subscribers. Joseph W. Polisi, president of the Juilliard School, said he had grown “very concerned” about the Philharmonic’s ability to navigate its challenges without strong administrative leadership. The hiring of Ms. Borda reassured him. “This certainly made me take a turn,” he said. Mr. Schafer — who had also bonded with Ms. Borda over lunch at Le Bernardin and on the dance floor at a mutual friend’s party — said that it was only fitting that she come back to New York. “It was bashert,” he said, using a Yiddish word that means “destiny,” or “meant to be. ” It will be a return to a familiar world stage for Ms. Borda, a native New Yorker. When she ran the Philharmonic the first time around, she developed a reputation for bold leadership, starting innovative programs, including short concerts, to appeal to changing audience habits. But she also clashed with the orchestra’s music director at the time, Kurt Masur, and her tenure included tensions with some players as well. When The New York Times asked Mr. Masur in 1996 about their disagreements, he said that he had “learned to live with the Stasi,” referring to the secret police in East Germany. Coming home will allow her to live in the same city as her partner, Coralie Toevs, the assistant general manager for development at the Metropolitan Opera. Asked if they would find themselves fishing in the same pond for donations from music lovers, Ms. Borda contended that there was relatively little overlap between fans of the symphony and of the opera. “I think we can sort it out,” she said. Many orchestras have dealt with recent fiscal pressures by trying to cut expenses, often leading to labor strife. But Ms. Borda suggested that she would seek a different path. “When an institution is in trouble, you cannot cut your way to health,” she said, adding that she would develop a plan to balance the budget in two or three years. She has balanced the budget in Los Angeles every year since 2004, she said. Since her arrival, the annual budget in Los Angeles has risen to $120 million, the biggest in the nation, from $46 million the base pay of its musicians has grown to $154, 000 a year, among the highest in the nation and its endowment is valued at $276 million, up from $50 million before she arrived. She also became one of the arts administrators in the nation: The orchestra’s 2015 tax filings show that she made $1. 7 million in total compensation and benefits that year, more than twice what Mr. VanBesien made in New York. She declined to say how much she will be paid in New York. Her departure comes as Los Angeles prepares for its centennial season, but several board members there said planning was already underway. David C. Bohnett, a board member who donated $20 million to the orchestra in 2014 — half to endow the president’s position — said Ms. Borda would be missed. “I think we all knew this day would come,” he said. “I think we were hoping it wouldn’t come now. ” Ms. Borda has already negotiated a notable change in the management structure in New York. She will assume the new post of president and chief executive officer in September and has a contract with an evergreen clause allowing it to be renewed. And she is tapping Bill Thomas, the orchestra’s chief operating officer, to serve as its executive director. She said that he would oversee internal operations for the orchestra while she focuses on broader issues. She seemed to relish her da capo return to New York. “There will be challenges,” she said. “It’s uphill — but it’s doable. ” | 1 |
114 Views Share: In 2006, a remarkable article—and admission—appeared in the Israeli news source Ynet News. Titled “ Stalin’s Jews ” and written by Jewish columnist Sever Plocker, this piece confirmed that terrible crimes which Jewish Communists had committed under Stalin. “We must not forget that some of greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish,” Plocker started out by saying. He went on to make a number of startling confessions: “Here’s a particularly forlorn historical date: Almost 90 years ago, between the 19th and 20th of December 1917, in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution and civil war, Lenin signed a decree calling for the establishment of The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, also known as Cheka. “Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB. “We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags. “Whole population strata were eliminated: Independent farmers, ethnic minorities, members of the bourgeoisie, senior officers, intellectuals, artists, labor movement activists, “opposition members” who were defined completely randomly, and countless members of the Communist party itself. “In his new, highly praised book The War of the World, Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution. In his book on the Stalinist purges, Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Igal Halfin writes that Stalinist violence was unique in that it was directed internally. “Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined ‘terror officials,’ cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges, perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with a kosher certificate. “And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name Genrikh Yagoda, the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU’s deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. “Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin’s collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. “His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the “bloodthirsty dwarf.” The Jew Genrikh Yagoda, director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s Stalin-era security and intelligence agency. “Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his book Stalin: Court of the Red Star, Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women. “Stalin’s close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the “first Stalinist” and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind, did not move Kaganovich. “Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We’ll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD’s special department and the organization’s chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist. Yagoda (center) inspecting the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal, built by slave labor from the Gulags. “In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of ‘our hangmen,’ who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its esta blishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.” The Gulags: Jewish-Run Concentration Camps As mentioned above, the infamous Soviet Gulags were under the direct control of the Jew Yagoda. He was not the only such Jew involved in the running of these camps, in which millions were interned and nearly 1.4 million died. The most famous revelation about the Jewish nature of the Gulags was that of famous dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Speaking from personal experience as a Gulag prisoner, Solzhenitsyn gave a candid account of Jews in charge of the Soviet prison camps in his book, Two Hundred Years Together. According to his observations, Jews made up a clear preponderance in the Gulag administration and in the early Bolshevist government, saying that of the 22 ministers in the first Soviet government three were Russian, one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 were Jews. In addition, he points out, from personal experience once again, that “two thirds of the Kiev Cheka” (secret police) were Jews. In 1937, another book appeared in Germany called Jewish-Run Concentration Camps in the Soviet Union, which revealed that Communist Jews were the commandants of 11 out of the 12 main Gulags. | 0 |
31 Views November 07, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
As investors await the outcome of tomorrow’s election, a former associate of George Soros just warned King World News about what is going “to send the world into total chaos .”
Victor Sperandeo manages over $3 billion, has been in the business 45 years, and has worked with famous individuals such as Leon Cooperman and George Soros. Below is what Sperandeo had to say .
Victor Sperandeo: “The days of low interest rates are over. This is very important for people to understand, Eric. There will be no more lowering of interest rates and QEs… IMPORTANT: To find out which company the richest man in China has invested in, one that Rick Rule and Sprott Asset Management are pounding the table on that is quickly being recognized as one of the greatest investment opportunities in the world – CLICK HERE OR BELOW: Sponsored
Victor Sperandeo continues: “There is still some leftover QE. England and the EU still have some but once that is over, that’s it. That game is finished. It didn’t work. So they are now going to fiscal policy and infrastructure spending because they believe this will keep them in power.
With that said, last week Larry Summers said the Fed has to give up their independence. He said the Treasury has to effectively sell to the Fed and the Fed will print the money and return it to the Treasury. And so he backed up what Rosenberg was saying about the multi-trillion dollar scheme. Eric, this is pure printing of money, but t he theory is that because people don’t directly get that money, it won’t create hyperinflation. But when this begins, this will be the beginning of when serious inflation will come back.
The Beginning Of The End Of The U.S. Dollar I don’t believe this will work in the United States if Trump wins. If Hillary wins it is 100 percent guaranteed that it is going to be implemented. If this does happen you will get a huge amount of government spending that is going to juice the economy. But it will be the prelude to hyperinflation. So that is going to be the coming world event that will be the beginning of the end for the U.S. dollar.
And if you remember, gold was the hedge against serious inflation in the 1970s (see remarkable chart below).
In fact, from 1970 to 1980 gold compounded at a staggering 31.5 percent a year! I have never seen anything compound over a 10-year period at that rate. That’s astronomical. Just to put that in perspective, if gold went to $10,000 today it would only have compounded 22 percent over that same time frame.
A World In Total Chaos And yet when you look at what is happening today, we have a global depression with the banking system blowing up. Look at Deutsche Bank, it has $46 trillion in derivatives and the bank is only valued at $18 billion. That is insane (laughter). Regardless, gold will act as a hedge and the price of gold will skyrocket because paper will be printed to the point where it’s worthless. And as the hyperinflation unfolds, it will send the world into total chaos and people need to be prepared for that.”
Look At What Is Unfolding In China And Other Key Regions Right Now | 0 |
Damon Winter is a staff photographer for The New York Times. He won a Pulitzer Prize in feature photography for his coverage of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The challenge for any photojournalist covering a modern presidential race is how to capture the essence of a candidate in such a tightly managed environment, when the campaign is trying to retain control over his or her public image. But no matter how restrictive the campaign, there are usually some opportunities to capture the small and revealing moments that occur in back rooms at rallies and during the grueling, trips as the candidates court voters. These, traditionally, have been vital elements of campaign coverage, allowing us to produce a richer, more nuanced account. In the Trump campaign, there have been almost none. Until recently, the only vantage point from which we could photograph him was the “press pen,” an enclosure in the back of the room at his events, which offers only a view. Mr. Trump doesn’t like to be photographed from behind, from the side or from below and, as a result, we have had little access to the areas closest to the stage. Photographers covering his campaign went weeks without seeing Mr. Trump interact with supporters on the rope line after his rallies. In the final weeks of the campaign, we have often been ushered out before he has finished his speech. In September, Mr. Trump left the traveling press corps behind as he made his way to a rally in New Hampshire, and gloated about it as he took the stage without us there. Despite the restrictions, I try my best to convey the tone and tenor of the campaign and capture a sense of Mr. Trump’s events, which can at times feel dark, both visually and in tone. At rallies, the press is routinely harassed by supporters and insulted by the candidate himself. I often hear racist and violent comments and see young children chanting, “Lock her up! Lock her up!” — referring to Hillary Clinton — alongside their parents. Near Milwaukee, a man leaned over the metal barricade separating us and whispered to me that if Mrs. Clinton were there, they would “rip her to pieces. ” Mr. Trump is a fascinating visual subject. He is instantly recognizable from almost any angle and any distance. His signature hair reflects more light than anything around him, making him stand out in any scene. This gives me latitude to be creative in how I cover him. He is also very expressive when he speaks, which can present a challenge: He makes grand gestures so often that they begin to lose any meaning or significance. For this reason, I often find myself drawn to his quieter moments. The first time Mr. Trump used a teleprompter, I photographed him staring directly through the words reflected in the transparent glass, straight into my lens. After months of criticizing his opponent for using one and getting himself into trouble with his speeches, the candidate looked chagrined to rely on it. For all of the limits to our access on the trail, Mr. Trump agreed to sit for portraits with me on three occasions over the course of the campaign. During those sessions he was always cordial and mostly agreeable, but he had very firm ideas about how he wanted to be shown. My biggest challenge was getting past his standard repertoire of poses and the that he seems to favor the most. At a shoot in his campaign headquarters, his staff members lent a hand and cheered him on as we tossed pounds of red and blue confetti over him. In one of the final frames, as the cheering stopped and he walked off the set through the last trickle of confetti, I saw Mr. Trump at a moment that captured a glimpse of what it feels like when the spotlight is gone and the party is over. I have found that the most telling portraits don’t always have to show a person’s face. A photo I took in Greensboro, N. C. showing Mr. Trump in front of a dimly lit American flag, with only a pointed finger and his iconic golden hair visible, is one of the most revealing portraits I have made of him — not just because of what is shown, but because of what is obscured. I was initially reluctant to cover another election, but I quickly realized that this year it was more important than ever to be out there with a vigilant, thoughtful and critical eye. As the restrictions on the press tightened, I felt it was my duty at every possible moment to subvert them, to find photographs that were honest and telling. Every situation, no matter how controlled, contrived or mundane, was an opportunity to make something real. I know that I can never explain the day’s news the way our writers do, but what I can do is help the reader feel what it is like to be there and to make pictures that have meaning beyond the objects in the frame. My role is not to make the candidate look good or make the crowds look impressive. My job is to tell the story. | 1 |
Well, that didn’t take long.
Just two days after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, his purported fear-mongering rhetoric is already starting to pay dividends.
Trump ran on a platform of better trade deals and bringing jobs back to America and world leaders, despite their many outcries, were paying attention.
As Joe Joseph reports, both Mexico and Canada have agreed to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement ( NAFTA ) signed under President Clinton.
You have the Canadian Prime Minister and his Mexican counterpart that are now saying, “hey buddies… hey United States… we want to renegotiate NAFTA.”
…Maybe, just maybe, we might actually have a little bit of justice… he hasn’t even taken the oath of office yet .
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Despite protests from progressive student activists, Cal Poly State University President Jeffrey Armstrong issued a memo defending Breitbart Senior Editor MILO’s right to speak on campus next week. [On Wednesday afternoon, Armstrong issued the following memo to the entire campus community: Many of you have raised concerns about Milo Yiannopoulos, a guest speaker invited by the Cal Poly College Republicans club to present at Cal Poly on January 31, 2017. Several individuals who find Mr. Yiannopoulos’ comments offensive have contacted the university and demanded that he not be permitted to speak. To be clear, it is not the role of a public institution such as ours to endorse any position or decide who should or should not be allowed to appear on campus. Indeed, numerous guest speakers considered by many to be controversial or offensive have presented at our university throughout its history. Armstrong’s statement is true. In 2012, he also quietly dismissed those who were protesting conservative commentator Ann Coulter’s right to speak on campus. Challenging the “safe space” rhetoric of his counterparts, Armstrong continued to emphasize that “Public universities such as Cal Poly represent communities where the free exchange of opposing ideas is both encouraged and necessary. ” “It is, in fact, the university’s responsibility to support the rights of all people to express their opinions and ideas — regardless of how unpopular they may be — while also encouraging students to think critically and independently,” he explained. “It is only in this environment that students hone the ability to consider a spectrum of information and reach informed and intelligent conclusions. ” “The real danger is not the expression of controversial voices — it is censorship and the restriction of free speech,” continued Armstrong. “Freedom of speech is a foundational tenet of higher education and a functional democracy. It does not allow for the suppression of viewpoints based upon popularity or individual perspectives. Rather, open expression of a diversity of ideas and opinions — including those we may not agree with — ensures rich discussion, debate and critical thought. ” “Protecting freedom of speech is not an option,” Armstrong concluded. “[I]t is a critical responsibility that the university, and all of us as members of a democratic society, must defend. ” | 1 |
An absolutely shocking Ministry of Defense report circulating in the Kremlin today says that the Obama regime, yesterday, announced that it was preparing to jail one of the United States top military leaders, General James Cartwright, for up to 5 years.
Via AlternativeNews
President Obama is interviewed by NPR’s Steve Inskeep at the White House on Monday.
While at the exact same time, President Obama personally ordered thousands of Islamic State ISIS terrorists freed, including their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, from the Levant War Zone city of Mosul, Iraq. [ Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
Please Scroll Down For Video Below! According to this report, General Cartwright, a four-star American Marine general and formerly the second-ranking officer in the entire US military, was forced by the Obama regime to plead guilty in a US Federal Court, on 17 October, for the crime of speaking to the internationally respected foreign policy reporter David Sanger.
General Cartwright’s talks with this reporter, this report explains, involved the Obama regimes secret, and deadly, deployment of the most dangerous computer virus ever created named Stuxnet—and that Sanger detailed in his book Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power that painted an unsettling picture of a White House perplexed by Afghanistan, confused by the dilemma of humanitarian intervention, and thrown off balance by the Arab Spring.
US Marine 4-Star General James Cartwright
After the 2012 publication of Sanger’s book revealing for the first time the many war crimes committed by the Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama, this report continues, the Obama regime retroactively classified everything General Cartwright had told to Sanger (and that affected Hillary Clinton too, but who wasn’t charged), and then promptly filed charges against him for lying to US federal investigators—and that with his guilty plea now puts him at risk of serving 5 years in prison and having to pay a $250,000 fine.
At the exact same time General Cartwright was standing in a US Federal Court watching the Obama regime destroy his life and reputation yesterday, this report astonishingly details, President Obama ordered US military forces to allow an estimated 9,000 Islamic State terrorists to escape from Mosul that was authorized by a “ deal/agreement ” he had made with Saudi Arabia—and that just hours ago Foreign Minister Lavrov responded against by warning the Americans that if these fighters are allowed to leave Mosul and go to Syria, Russia would make “ the appropriate military and political decisions ”.
And of these 9,000 Islamic State terrorists President Obama is allowing to escape from Mosul, this report grimly states, is their terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—who just minutes prior to the US-led attack on Mosul beginning yesterday, was “ magically whisked ” to safety.
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (left) and President Obama (right)
MoD experts writing in this report note that President Obama’s “ fantasy strategy ” of defeating these Islamic State terrorists by allowing them and their leader to escape the battlefield makes no logical military sense at all—unless, of course, the Obama regime, and its Saudi Arabian and Qatar allies (who Hillary Clinton secretly admitted were funding these barbarians), never planned on defeating them in the first place.
Being called by the American military as Operation Inherent Resolve , this report continues, the Obama regimes “ make-believe/pretend ” battle to defeat ISIS terrorists in Mosul began yesterday (17 October) and is being led by over 6,000 US troops [the Pentagon still refuses to admit exactly how many thousands of US troops are really in Iraq and Syria] backed by Australian troops rushed to the war zone (9.45 a.m. IST bulletin)—but whose true “ aim/goal ”, some experts claim, is a “ secret terror deal ” between the US and Saudi Arabia to allow these barbarians [who have already killed over 33,000 people worldwide ] to go to Syria so that they can kill Russian soldiers.
Standing ready to defeat this Obama-Saudi Arabian “master plan” to unleash these Islamic State terrorists on Russian troops in Syria, however, this report notes, are the 100,000 estimated Iranian-backed Shiite forces who are making ready to destroy these barbarians during their “planned and protected” US escape.
To the consequences of the failure of President Obama’s and Saudi Arabia’s “master plan” for their ISIS terrorists, this report continues, Israeli intelligence officials are now warning that these Shiite militias loyal to Iran will not take part in the fighting to liberate Mosul, but will be stationed to the west, where they will block ISIS attempts to flee to their Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, and from there, these militia fighters will be able to move ahead Tehran’s secret project of forging a path to the Mediterranean through Iraq and Syria—and that, interestingly, US president candidate Donald Trump’s top military advisor, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, concurred with yesterday by his, likewise, warning that Iran will be the real winner when the Iraqi city of Mosul is taken back from the Islamic State.
To the American people being allowed to know the “ horrid truth ” of the Obama-Clinton-Saudi Arabia-Qatar “ cabal of evil ” destroying the Middle East, this report says, continues to be nearly non-existent as the mainstream American reporters who are supposed to be telling these people truthful facts, are, instead, showering Hillary Clinton with money, while at the same suppressing from the public their knowledge of her many crimes proven by Wikileaks—and that, astonishingly, CNN reporter Chris Cuomo proved by blatantly lying to the American people this week falsely telling them it was illegal for them to read Hillary Clinton’s secret Wikileaks emails—with him further lying and saying that journalists, like him, were allowed to read them, so people should listen to him, not what they can see (and prove) for themselves.
With General Cartwright now facing years in prison for a “ made-up/pretend ” Obama regime crime, while the leader of ISIS is allowed to go free, this report concludes, one can only “ wonder in fear ” what the next Obama-Clinton outrage will be—but with President Putin’s patience “ fast running out ”, his previous warning to these Americans of World War III may be the only thing to stop this madness before the whole world is destroyed by these insane madmen, and woman.
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in: Conspiracy Corner , Government , Government Corruption , Multimedia , Sleuth Journal , Society , Special Interests I n ancient Greece, the proclaimed origin of “Democracy”, they had an incredible way of selecting public officials to serve in the government, and it was not by popular election. As admitted recently in a “tell-all” book written by a United States congressman, the vast majority of his time, an estimated 75% or more , is spent on raising money and votes for re -election. Subsequently, this only leaves a few scraps of time leftover for actually doing the job he was hired to do . Additionally, and even more importantly than wasting precious limited work time, in the process of campaigning and fundraising for his prized position, political favors and promises are made which compromise the integrity of his pledge to represent the “people”, rather than the rich and highly influential corporations, the latter of whom are the only ones with enough wealth capable of helping a congressman, senator, or president, get elected in the first place, and to whom they are now indebted to favor above the people when it comes to “ serving ” them, through enacting laws which end up favoring the rich few , rather than the meager majority , thusly turning this alleged “democracy” into an undeniable “oligarchy”, the exact opposite thereof. How did our “Democracy” get turned Upside-down? The wise old Greeks had a very simple solution to make sure that “public officials” had no political favors to return for getting into their prized positions. Can you guess what it was . . . ? There were no elections ! You might ask then, how were their representatives chosen ? By Lottery. The same way a jury is still selected to this very day. Surely, if it is fair for twelve citizens, chosen at random , to have power of life or death over a fellow countryman, and this is the very same methodology which the founders of “Democracy” used in selecting their “representatives” to best assure that there was no corruption , then this exact same technique can be used Today to assure that the governmental system is clean and free of “favor-returning” for attaining these highly coveted government positions. A few simple rules could be set in place for eligibility for the lottery, such as an age minimum of twenty-five years, the necessity of being born in the territory of the United States, and no felony convictions in the last seven years. All citizens who meet these modest requirements would be automatically put into the lottery for congress, and if they are chosen, have the right to decline. From among the group of four hundred thirty-five representatives chosen at random, just as a jury is today, to represent the citizens of our nation, these lottery selectees would then nominate from among themselves, by popular vote within this group, three persons for the office of President. Once these three candidates were chosen, and after a public debate process, there would be a national general election by the citizens of America, choosing the President from among these three candidates by the majority of popular national vote, with the Vice Presidency going to the second place winner. Each candidate would be given equal funds from the public treasury with which to campaign, such as fifty million dollars, and television stations, plus newspapers, would be required to freely give each candidate equal time and space in the election process with which to express their positions. A federal law could then be enacted to require that all positions of government, federal, state, county, and city, mayoral and governorship, be required to select themselves, by this same tried and true, and very fair method, of lottery . There could plainly be no purer or simpler way to assure that the “people” were actually being represented by the people than to choose such persons by lottery from among the People . There could also be a federal law enacted to set a term limit of ONE (five year) TERM , for any and all public offices. Thusly, a person could be sheriff once, major once, president once, with no need to repay favors for their election or re-election, as they were chosen at random, just like a jury, and would now be free to follow their conscious , rather than reimbursing favors to the influential rich minority who got them elected, in a system that is supposed to represent the common majority instead. Voila! Problem solved. I will discuss all this, and much more, in this week’s episode of Conspiracy Corner News . Just click on the Youtube Link Below to watch . . . – B rother B art- Donate Shop on Amazon by Clicking on the Button Below Bart Sibrel is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com When you want to Shop on Amazon, please come back to this page and Click on the Large Button above to visit the Amazon Homepage, or Copy and Paste the following url into your Browser’s Bookmarks as “Amazon” to Save for Future Shopping Use ( http://amzn.to/2bvcs9I ). Thank you! | 0 |
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 18:08 UTC © Peter Nicholls / Reuters Downing Street insists that the government will "make a success" of Brexit, despite a leaked audio recording of UK Prime Minister Theresa May predicting companies could abandon Britain if it leaves the EU. Speaking to a group of Goldman Sachs bankers on May 26 before the EU referendum, then-Home Secretary May said the economic arguments for remaining in the bloc were " clear. " In a leaked audio recording of the talk, published by the Guardian, May also claims membership in the EU makes Britain "more safe." "Being part of a 500-million trading bloc is significant for us. I think, as I was saying to you a little earlier, that one of the issues is that a lot of people will invest here in the UK because it is the UK in Europe. "If we were not in Europe, I think there would be firms and companies who would be looking to say, do they need to develop a mainland Europe presence rather than a UK presence? So I think there are definite benefits for us in economic terms." May went on to say Britain was more secure inside the EU. "There are definitely things we can do as members of the European Union that I think keep us more safe," she said. A Downing Street spokesman did not comment directly on the recording, but insisted Brexit is in the UK's best interests. "Britain made a clear choice to vote to leave the EU and this Government is determined to make a success of the fresh opportunities it presents," he said. "David Davis made very clear in the House of Commons last week the importance the Government places on financial services across the UK in the negotiation to come, as has the Chancellor in recent weeks. "We want a smooth and orderly exit from the European Union, which would be in the interests of both Britain and the EU." Labour politicians accused May of deceiving the British public over the impact of leaving the EU's single market and called on her to be "honest." Shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer tweeted: Andrew Gwynne, shadow minister without portfolio, said: "As if we needed it, this recording is cast-iron evidence of how Theresa May and other senior Tories have been saying one thing in private about the economic impact of Brexit and another in the comfort of Tory conference halls. "It's plain that she recognises what a disaster it would be for Britain to lose access to the single market, so why doesn't she be honest with the British people and say how she plans to retain it?" Comment: When it comes to leaks in the UK, where the press is very tightly controlled, it's a sure bet that the govt wanted the public to hear this. The 'long goodbye' continues. | 0 |
There may be no such thing as an ideal neighborhood for single people, but even in this age of dating apps and websites, neighborhood continues to play a huge role in how, and whom, people choose to date. Whether one is striking up a conversation at a coffee shop or tallying up proximity points with a potential love interest, geography matters in large ways and small. Not fretting about an hourlong postdate commute allows drinks to turn into dinner, for instance. A bar filled with friends may bestow the confidence to initiate a conversation with a stranger, which in turn may lead to the confidence to approach some other stranger, at some other bar, on some other night. In a city as diverse as New York, a neighborhood where dating happens naturally can be difficult to find. And statistics may, like a pickup line, mislead. Dorothy Castillo found the prospect of moving to Manhattan enticing for any number of reasons. Not least of all because she assumed the city’s dating scene would be far superior to that of suburban Rockland County, N. Y. where she’d spent most of her life. “I thought, ‘This is going to be my golden ticket! I’m going to date all the time!’ ” recalled Ms. Castillo, 27, a teacher who bought a studio apartment in Washington Heights two and a half years ago. “I was truly and honestly — I don’t know if this is naïve — but I was hoping to meet someone at the grocery store or walking down the street,” she said. Instead, meeting people in person was “near impossible,” she added. “And I consider myself a social person. ” Though not opposed to online dating, she felt out of place in Washington Heights and found her forays to Midtown and Lower East Side bars disappointing, the men standoffish. Then one day, a friend texted her to come to happy hour at Rambling House, an Irish pub in the Woodlawn neighborhood of the Bronx. “The vibe was great — everyone was ready to have a good time and tell you their story,” she recalled. “I texted my mom and said, ‘I want to move to Woodlawn.’ Within a few weeks I was in a Realtor’s office. ” Last May, she did indeed move there, to a she bought. And Woodlawn, a neighborhood filled with and houses as well as some brick apartment buildings, has proved unexpectedly welcoming to Ms. Castillo. “I love it here,” Ms. Castillo said. “There are a lot of young people here because it’s a fun place to live. I’d like to meet someone not in a bar, but I’m just enjoying my 20s, going on some crazy dates. ” In a similarly surprising corollary, a neighborhood with a high percentage of single people doesn’t necessarily translate into a good singles neighborhood. Between 2010 and 2014, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, had a 36 percent increase in the number of single men (single being defined as a person aged 20 to 34 who has never been married) to 15, 121 from 11, 127, and a 31 percent increase in single women, to 12, 272 from 9, 361 — one of the largest increases in the city, according to the census bureau’s American Community Survey. Based on that data, the New York City Economic Development Corporation declared the neighborhood “an attractive spot for all young singles” in 2014. Not everyone agrees. The area “is not such a good spot for single people,” said Mirsad Kadribasic, 41, an owner of La Bohème Lounge on Stillwell Avenue in Bensonhurst, which on a recent Friday night was with couples smoking hookahs at velvet banquettes. “I’m a single person myself and I can’t meet anyone here. “It’s a neighborhood. People go to work, go home, go to sleep. When people want to go out, they go elsewhere. It’s not like Park Slope, where people are hanging out all the time. ” Though it may be the envy of Bensonhurst, the Park Slope dating scene did not impress Robert DiBiase when he moved there from Washington, D. C. several years ago. The neighborhood had plenty of bars, conceded Mr. DiBiase, 42, an associate broker at Halstead Property, “but they were small and filled with locals, not people coming from Manhattan to hang out. ” The local bars were places where neighbors went to grab a beer and catch up, he said, not places to meet a potential mate. When his aging bulldog compelled him to trade his for an elevator building, he seized on the opportunity and rented a on the Lower East Side, a quick walk to local favorites like Stanton Social or Mr. Purple, the rooftop bar at the Hotel Indigo. Now he won’t date anyone who lives in Brooklyn. Or Queens. Or the Upper East Side, for that matter. He prefers to stay within blocks of home. “That’s what apps are for,” he said. “I’m so used to convenience living in New York. I don’t want an obstacle just to grab a coffee. I don’t want to end up coming back at midnight on some train that stalls in the station because of an investigation. ” Nancy Slotnick, a dating coach, said that proximity was crucial for many single New Yorkers. “The first date is going to happen so much more easily if you’re in the same neighborhood,” she said. And for those hoping to meet in what her clients often refer to as “the natural way,” neighborhood can make all the difference, she said. Certainly, it did for her. One evening, she saw an attractive man at an event on the Upper West Side, where she lived, but she was too shy to approach. Afterward, she was standing on the sidewalk and he walked by again. Loath to let another opportunity pass, she caught his eye, smiled and struck up a conversation. She later found out that he had come into the cafe where she was an owner just the day before. He is now her husband. “Fate gave us another chance!” she said. “I know this sounds hokey, but you get a chance to cross paths with people and you often miss it,” she said. “When you’re in the same neighborhood you get that chance over and over again. ” But Michael J. Rosenfeld, a Stanford University sociology professor who researches how couples meet, said that meeting in the neighborhood, along with meeting through family, friends, school and church, had declined since the 1990s, largely because of the rise of online dating. “Neighborhood still matters in lots of ways, at least for people who have a choice of where they live, which is not everybody,” he said. “But the ability to find single people to date in the neighborhood matters less than it used to. ” Natasha Zamor, 28, a paralegal who lives in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, said that her neighborhood played almost no role in her dating life. While she enjoys going out with friends to bars by the Barclays Center — 333 Lounge on Flatbush Avenue is a favorite — there’s nothing to tell you if the person you meet at a bar is someone “you want to invest your time in. ” Ms. Zamor’s mother, a nurse, and father, a psychiatrist, emphasized the importance of marrying a man whose education and aspirations were similar to her own. She likes that on dating apps like SoulSwipe, Tinder and Plenty of Fish you can easily find out where someone went to school, what he does for work, and where he lives — which she views as important indicators of compatibility. She says she dates “throughout the metro area. ” “I want someone I can communicate with and bring into my circle of friends. Someone who can be equal or better,” Ms. Zamor said, adding that, “unfortunately, this seems to create a standard that can never ever be met. ” Tara Atwood, 33, lived in Manhattan for 10 years after college, first on the Upper East Side, then in Midtown East. She worked in finance and dated “meatheads who wore baggy jeans ripped at the bottom and didn’t want to do anything but drink beer and watch football. ” After ending a relationship with one such meathead, she left her job to go to business school and moved to 1 North Fourth, a luxury rental on the waterfront in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which suits her perfectly. “It’s full of people who are : creative, educated, curious,” she said. “I would say 75 percent of the people are people you’d swipe right on. Living here has literally been like a live dating app. ” She and friends from the building have traveled to Tulum, Mexico, participated in a coed fantasy football league, gone on daylong bike trips and sweated through SoulCycle classes together. In Manhattan, she said, the men she met through apps would boast about being a top person at a place like Oracle, the company. “Now I’m into the kind of guy with facial hair who wears a leather bracelet and goes salsa dancing,” she said. While finding one’s tribe may be the underpinning of dating success, certain factors make it more likely to happen in some places than others. Neighborhoods popular with singles tend to have comparatively affordable housing, convenience to transportation and a good assortment of bars and restaurants — think Astoria in Queens and Murray Hill and the East Village in Manhattan. Charles Conroy, a salesman for Citi Habitats, said that for his clients who want to walk out the door into night life, he usually recommends the East Village. He recently found an apartment on Second Avenue and 10th Street for three men in their early 20s, one of whom broke up with his girlfriend so he could move in with his friends and “extend the college experience before moving in with girlfriends down the road. ” “His dating life has skyrocketed,” Mr. Conroy said. “He sends me texts all the time. ” Elie Seidman, the chief executive of OkCupid, an online dating site, said that while he believes that moving to New York might improve a person’s romantic odds, he didn’t believe there was “a magic neighborhood cure. ” Census data shows that neighborhoods with high concentrations of single women don’t often match up with those that have a lot of single men. The New York neighborhoods with the highest ratio of single women to single men, ages 20 to 34, are the Upper East Side (0. 6 men to every woman) Murray Hill (0. 68) the Upper West Side (0. 79) and Brownsville, Brooklyn (0. 8) according to 2014 data from the American Community Survey compiled by the city’s Economic Development Corporation. Neighborhoods with the highest percentages of single men tend to be immigrant communities, according to a researcher at the development corporation — Corona, Queens has the best odds for women in the city, with 1. 57 men to every woman Jackson Corona is a close second at 1. 54 men to every woman. Not all of those men are looking for women — Jackson Heights has grown increasingly popular with gay men. The Upper West Side, some say, is the place to be if you’re a single Modern Orthodox Jew. “Really the only other place in the world as good for dating is Jerusalem,” said Curtis Goldstein, a salesman at Halstead. Newcomers quickly find themselves overwhelmed with invitations for Friday night Shabbat dinners, and synagogues vie to be the center of the scene, luring singles with snacks like kosher sushi and meatballs. “I’m a social butterfly, so I love it,” said Jessica Schechter, 29, an actress, director, producer and teacher who moved to the neighborhood in 2011. When she’s not dating someone, she said, she attends at least one neighborhood singles event a week. The dating scene is so frenetic, some people weary of it, including those who fail to meet someone despite what would appear to be every conceivable opportunity. “It can be hard, it can be draining. My roommate jokes about JOMO — the joy of missing out,” Ms. Schechter said. But the ceaseless courtship ritual has provided fodder for “Soon by You,” a web series she produces and acts in about dating in the community. For those who tire of the West Side, she added, there’s the smaller dating scene on the East Side. For some singles, less may be more. Dr. Carlos J. Huerta, 40, a dentist, moved to Hell’s Kitchen recently after nine years in the East Village. He left an apartment share to be closer to his his friends and the practice he had just started. When he and his boyfriend broke up a short time later, he found himself single in the center of one of the city’s most vibrant gay dating scenes. “I loved the East Village. It felt serendipitous, like you could meet people from different walks of life,” Dr. Huerta said. “Hell’s Kitchen is so concentrated with eligible men,” he said. “How do you pick and choose?” He said he was glad that his rental building, Gotham West, is on 11th Avenue, because it affords some distance from the scene. Even so, he’s thinking about moving back downtown. “It’d just be nice to have to think about it a little less, to live in less of a concentrated dating pool,” he said. “To meet someone in more of a chance encounter. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, on Tuesday recommended no criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information while she was secretary of state, lifting an enormous legal cloud from her presidential campaign less than two hours before she boarded Air Force One for her first joint campaign appearance with President Obama. But on a day of political high drama in Washington, Mr. Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton as being “extremely careless” in using a private email address and server. He raised questions about her judgment, contradicted statements she has made about her email practices, said it was possible that hostile foreign governments had gained access to her account, and declared that a person still employed by the government — Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in 2013 — could have faced disciplinary action for doing what she did. To warrant a criminal charge, Mr. Comey said, there had to be evidence that Mrs. Clinton intentionally transmitted or willfully mishandled classified information. The F. B. I. found neither, and as a result, he said, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. ” The Justice Department is highly likely to accept the F. B. I. ’s guidance, which a law enforcement official said also cleared three top aides of Mrs. Clinton who were implicated in the case: Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin and Cheryl D. Mills. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that she would accept the recommendation of the F. B. I. and career prosecutors in the case after a storm of criticism about an impromptu meeting between her and former President Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Phoenix. Mr. Comey’s announcement, delivered with no advance warning only three days after his investigators interviewed Mrs. Clinton in the case, riveted official Washington and is likely to reverberate for the rest of the campaign. In offices across the capital, all eyes turned to television screens to hear the outcome of a yearlong investigation that could have thrown the 2016 presidential election into disarray and changed history. As Mr. Comey strode to the lectern at the F. B. I. headquarters at 11 a. m. Mrs. Clinton was waiting backstage a few blocks away to address the National Education Association. Her aides said she did not know what Mr. Comey was going to say. Five minutes into Mr. Comey’s remarks, and before he announced that the F. B. I. would not seek charges, a smiling Mrs. Clinton began her speech. By 2:45 p. m. she and Mr. Obama were descending the stairs of Air Force One for a campaign rally in Charlotte, N. C. while back in Washington the State Department spokesman, John Kirby, was fending off questions from reporters about what Mr. Comey described as the department’s lax security in handling classified information. White House officials said Mr. Obama also did not know about Mr. Comey’s plans ahead of time. The F. B. I. director said he did not coordinate the statement with the Justice Department or any other agency. “They do not know what I am about to say,” he declared. A Republican former federal prosecutor, Mr. Comey seemed at first to be laying the groundwork for some kind of legal charge. Speaking sternly, and in far more detail than he usually does, he listed several previously undisclosed findings from the F. B. I. ’s investigation: ■ Of 30, 000 emails Mrs. Clinton handed over to the State Department, 110 contained information that was classified at the time she sent or received them. Of those, Mr. Comey said, “a very small number” bore markings that identified them as classified. This finding is at odds with Mrs. Clinton’s repeated assertions that none of the emails were classified at the time she sent or received them. The F. B. I. did not disclose the topics of the classified emails, but a number of the 110 are believed to have involved drone strikes. ■ The F. B. I. discovered “several thousand” emails that were not in the original trove of 30, 000 turned over by Mrs. Clinton to the State Department. Three of those contained information that agencies have concluded was classified, though Mr. Comey said he did not believe Mrs. Clinton deliberately deleted or withheld them from investigators. ■ In saying that it was “possible” that hostile foreign governments had gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, Mr. Comey noted that she used her mobile device extensively while traveling outside the United States, including trips “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. ” ■ Mrs. Clinton used multiple private servers for her personal and government business, not just a single server at her home in New York that has been the focus of media reporting for more than a year. Her use of these servers — some of which were taken out of service and stored — made the F. B. I. ’s job enormously complicated as it struggled to put together, in Mr. Comey’s words, a jigsaw puzzle with “millions of email fragments” in it. Despite all that, Mr. Comey said the F. B. I. did not find that Mrs. Clinton’s conduct revealed “intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the United States or efforts to obstruct justice. ” But a person in her position, he said, “should have known that an unclassified system was no place” for the emails she was sending. And he said it raised troubling questions about how the State Department handled classified information. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, declined to comment, except to say it was clear from Mr. Comey’s remarks that “they’ve looked at this in excruciating detail. ” Mr. Obama, he said, remained “enthusiastic” about Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. The Clinton campaign clearly hoped that the announcement would bring to a close a saga that has haunted Mrs. Clinton since March 2015, when the existence of her personal email account surfaced. “We are pleased that the career officials handling this case have determined that no further action by the department is appropriate,” said the campaign’s spokesman, Brian Fallon. “As the secretary has long said, it was a mistake to use her personal email and she would not do it again. We are glad that this matter is now resolved. ” Republicans seized on Mr. Comey’s sharp criticism, saying it raised doubts about Mrs. Clinton’s fitness for high office. Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, asserted in a post on Twitter that David H. Petraeus, the former C. I. A. director, had been charged for doing far less than Mrs. Clinton, and the lack of charges showed that the system was “rigged. ” In fact, F. B. I. officials have long said that what Mr. Petraeus did — knowingly handing a diary with classified information to his biographer and lover, then lying about it to investigators — was worse than what Mrs. Clinton did. In the Petraeus case, the F. B. I. recommended a felony indictment, but the Justice Department allowed him to plead to a misdemeanor. The deal that Mr. Petraeus received shadowed Mrs. Clinton’s case from the start because it appeared to set a higher bar for bringing charges against her. “In looking back at our investigations into the mishandling or removal of classified information,” Mr. Comey said, “we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. ” Congressional Republicans swiftly called for the F. B. I. to release more details about its findings. “If it wants to avoid giving the impression that the F. B. I. was pulling punches,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, “the agency must now be more transparent than ever in releasing information. ” Speaker Paul D. Ryan was equally critical. “While I respect the professionals at the F. B. I. this announcement defies explanation,” he said in a Twitter post. “No one should be above the law. ” For an agency that seemed to be in no rush, the F. B. I. ’s investigation wrapped up quickly. By the time the investigators interviewed Mrs. Clinton in three and a half hours of questioning on Saturday, they had compiled months of findings. Mrs. Clinton appeared to say nothing to contradict what they had already discovered about how the private server was used, a law enforcement official said. The investigators then worked with Mr. Comey through the holiday weekend to review her testimony and determine whether there was any new information that might warrant criminal charges, law enforcement officials said. They found none. For weeks, F. B. I. agents expected the investigation would not yield charges. They shared Mr. Comey’s conclusion that Mrs. Clinton had showed poor judgment but that she had not committed a crime. In the spring, Mr. Comey declared that the campaign calendar would not dictate the pace of the investigation. But the Democratic National Convention begins on July 25 in Philadelphia, and F. B. I. officials did not want to be seen as influencing the outcome of the election after the nomination. Mr. Comey’s announcement was believed to be the first time that the F. B. I. had ever publicly disclosed its recommendations to the Justice Department about whether to charge someone in any case, let alone a presidential candidate. His decision to announce the results of the investigation was made before the uproar over Ms. Lynch’s meeting with Mr. Clinton, according to a law enforcement official. He decided to make his findings public, the official said, because he wanted to make the F. B. I. ’s position clear before referring the case to the Justice Department. While the F. B. I. ’s recommendation spares Mrs. Clinton and her aides criminal charges, it does not remove the possibility that they could be denied security clearances if Mrs. Clinton is elected and she appoints them to jobs that require such clearance. The State Department plans to conduct its own administrative review after the Justice Department acts. “We don’t share the broad assessment made of our institution that there’s a lax culture here when it comes to protecting classified information,” said Mr. Kirby, the State Department spokesman. “We take it very, very seriously. ” | 1 |
TEL AVIV — Israeli defense officials here have noted a sharp increase in Palestinian attacks since the United Nations Security Council passed an resolution on December 23, 2016 calling the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem “occupied Palestinian territories. ”[Avi Issacharoff at the Times of Israel notes: In September 346 attacks were recorded, in October 375, in November 420, and in December 344. Most of the December attacks occurred in the final week of the month. In the first week of January there were 169 recorded attacks, a pace that, if maintained, would lead to almost 700 attacks by the end of the month. Issacharoff writes that the increase in rock attacks could be linked to exam season in Palestinian high schools, although a similar increase was not recorded in previous years. There are several other factors that could be at play, he writes: The rock attacks were also linked to a series of anniversaries taking place around now, including that of Fatah’s founding and first terrorist attack on January 1, 1965, and of the assassination of Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’s chief bomb maker, on January 5, 1996. However, one cannot ignore the possible linkage to the UN Security Council resolution last month and Secretary of State John Kerry’s Mideast speech two weeks ago criticizing Israeli construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. The uptick in attacks also comes one week before the Palestinians are scheduled to attend a farcical Paris “peace” conference at which the international community, minus Israel, is slated to get together to set the future parameters of a Palestinian state. Some of the holiest sites in Judaism are located in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank, including the Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City the Cave of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron, which was home to the oldest continuous Jewish community in the world until the Jews of Hebron were massacred and expelled the Tomb of Rachel in Bethlehem and Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus — biblical Shechem. I raised questions about the possible motivation for the deadly terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Monday. The attack, which killed four and wounded 17, was carried out in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv, also known as East Talpiot, just after the UN and Kerry singled out Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem. The Palestinians have a long and sordid history of responding to peace talks or international pressure on Israel with a terror campaign targeting Israelis. Arch terrorist Yasser Arafat personified that tactic when he responded to generous Israeli statehood offers in September 2000 by launching the deadly Second Intifada instead of accepting a Palestinian state or even making a . That intifada was kicked off with attacks before it morphed into a terrorist onslaught of shootings and suicide bombings. Within less than 48 hours of last month’s UN resolution, there was an immediate surge in Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting Jews in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. While it is still too early to evaluate, the spike in rock throwing attacks and other Palestinian terrorist incidents may be indicative of an alarming trend that could lead to the one word Israeli defense officials try to avoid using in their predictions: intifada. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. | 1 |
(AP) VATICAN CITY — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned Saturday that peace could suffer if the incoming Trump administration goes ahead with plans to move the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. [Abbas made the comments as he inaugurated the Palestinian embassy to the Holy See following an audience with Pope Francis. Speaking through an Italian translator, Abbas said he had only heard of the proposal by US Donald Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem, and couldn’t comment officially unless and until it happens. But he added: “If this is the decision, to transfer the embassy to Jerusalem, it will not help peace and we hope it doesn’t happen. ” The Palestinians strongly oppose the move, saying it would kill any hopes for negotiating an peace agreement and rile the region by undercutting Muslim and Christian claims to the holy city. Trump hasn’t yet laid out a clear Mideast policy, but has signaled he will be more sympathetic to Israel’s right than previous administrations. He has also vowed to move the US embassy. Abbas has written to Trump warning of the risks of such a move and asked him to reconsider, while also flagging the concern to Arab and other world leaders, said the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad Malki. The Vatican has long sought an internationally guaranteed status for Jerusalem that safeguards its sacred character. It was unclear if the Vatican would want to wade into the issue by mentioning Jerusalem in its communique. During the meeting, Abbas presented Francis with gifts recalling Christianity’s birthplace in the Holy Land, including a stone from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and documentation about the ongoing restoration of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. After the papal meeting, Abbas formally inaugurated the new Palestinian embassy across the street from one of the main gates of Vatican City: He pulled back a curtain revealing a plaque and extended the Palestinian flag from a flagpole outside a window. The embassy, located in the same building as the embassies of Peru, Ecuador and Burkina Faso, is a fruit of recent accords in which the Vatican formally recognized the “State of Palestine. ” In his comments to reporters, Abbas said he hoped other countries would follow the Vatican’s example and recognize the Palestinian state. | 1 |
Posted by Tim Brown
On Monday, a man who voted for Donald Trump was arrested for wearing a T-shirt that referenced Hillary Clinton ‘s comments about Trump supporters being “ deplorables ” to the polls.
Brett Mauthe, 55, was arrested after he went to the polls wearing a pro-Trump hat and a shirt that read, “ basket of deplorables .”
According to KSAT 12, Mauthe removed his hat at the request of those who were overseeing the polls. However, since the t-shirt did not violate the election code, he refused to turn it inside out nor remove it.
Subsequently, he was arrested and charged with electioneering.
KSAT 12 reports :
Bulverde police Chief Gary Haecker confirmed the arrest but declined to release details. Instead, he deferred to Comal County’s election coordinator, Cynthia Jaqua.
Jaqua said the offense of electioneering isn’t limited to people who stand outside polling places holding signs. Violations can be committed by voters as well.
“It can mean a T-shirt, a button, a hat, you know?” she said. “Anything related to the voting, the party, the candidate.”
Jaqua declined to release specific details about Mauthe’s arrest.
Jaqua is quoted by My San Antonio :
It’s in the election code. Electioneering is prohibited within a 100-foot marker. You cannot express views for or against a candidate or political party by wearing buttons, T-shirts, hats, whatever else or carrying signs,” she said.
Most people who make the mistake manage to avoid going to jail, she added.
“Every election we have to advise people. Even if it’s a school bond issue. They wear candidates’ shirts and we just have to remind them. ‘Please go into the restroom and turn it inside out.’ This is the first time I recall someone getting arrested,” she said, during two decades working at the county election office.
“A gentleman did walk in a little while ago with a slogan for Trump, and when I asked him to please take it off, he was real nice, and took it off,” she added, while working a polling site Thursday afternoon in New Braunfels.
So, according to this nonsense, a perfectly legal shirt could be worn to the polls one day, but if a politician makes reference to the phrase on that shirt it becomes illegal to wear it to the polls the next day? This is utterly ridiculous.
My question on all of that is, what happened to free speech? Is that recognized as a God-given right in the First Amendment? I mean, I realize that the Constitution is to restrict the federal government, but honestly, shouldn’t the states recognize the right of free speech, even in a polling place? Seems to me those kinds of laws stifle the very thing you are electing representatives to ensure are protected.
Other voters agree with me.
“I don’t feel like you should be preaching to anybody, but I do feel like you should be able to wear a shirt if you want and if it has the candidate,” Georgina Pereida said after casting her vote. “I’m kind of shocked, because I think that’s part of the freedoms that we’re voting for.”
Jose Tovar claims that you should know the rules and regulations if you are 18 and vote. Again, I ask, why are there laws and regulations restricting this freedom of speech? It’s not inflammatory. It isn’t a lie. It isn’t slander. What’s illegal about it?
I’ll tell you, politicians want to control people, and this is one of many means they use to do that. This is what happens when you don’t hold your elected officials accountable for the stupid regulations they impose.
Mauthe decided to not comment anymore after his story began to be altered in the media.
“The reason I’m not going to talk any more to the media is that the story gets twisted around, and I don’t want to give you any comment,” he said .
The charged of electioneering is a class C misdemeanor.
Courtesy of Freedom Outpost
Tim Brown is an author and Editor at FreedomOutpost.com , SonsOfLibertyMedia.com , GunsInTheNews.com and TheWashingtonStandard.com . He is husband to his “more precious than rubies” wife, father of 10 “mighty arrows”, jack of all trades, Christian and lover of liberty. He resides in the U.S. occupied Great State of South Carolina. Tim is also an affiliate for the Joshua Mark 5 AR/AK hybrid semi-automatic rifle . Follow Tim on Twitter . | 0 |
BALTIMORE — They are Louisiana horsemen, Keith and Kent Desormeaux, who, as soon as they were able to walk, were strapped atop quarter horses and inexpensive thoroughbreds to race at bush tracks named Cajun Downs and Quarter Pole. Their father, uncles and neighbors placed bets on them while their mamas and aunts fingered rosary beads, praying they would not get hurt. They mostly came home safe, and when it was time to continue their racetrack education, they worked their way through their home tracks, Evangeline and Jefferson Downs, and bounced around other minor league outposts until they landed here in Maryland — Keith as an aspiring trainer, and Kent hoping to be a jockey. So it felt right here Saturday when Keith gave Kent a leg up on a colt by the name of Exaggerator that has run his heart out with enough regularity to have won four of his 10 starts, but lately had been chasing the back end and the legend of a horse named Nyquist. In four previous races, Kent and Exaggerator had failed to get by Nyquist. That was nothing to be ashamed of — Nyquist was the reigning champion, and he rolled into the 141st running of the Preakness Stakes undefeated in eight races. Not this time. Exaggerator outran Cherry Wine, who finished second, and Nyquist, who was third, to win the Preakness on a track and end Nyquist’s bid for a Triple Crown. The Desormeaux brothers knew that this time, things were going to be different. It was a miserable day at Pimlico Race Course, as a cold mist descended on an already drenched oval, transforming the racetrack into a soupy gumbo that was every bit as haunting as the swamps that they grew up near in southwest Louisiana. They loved it because in three previous races, Exaggerator had taken to a muddy track like … well … a duck to water. He had won two stakes on wet tracks. So when Kent Desormeaux, a Hall of Famer, edged his colt into the No. 5 gate, glanced inside and saw Mario Gutierrez aboard Nyquist, he knew that muddy track or not, his brother Keith had Exaggerator geared up and ready to go. This was only the second leg of the Triple Crown, but Nyquist had been so dominant in a brief but gaudy career that his camp, especially the trainer Doug O’Neill, was confident that they were pulling into New York three weeks from now intent on cracking into the history books alongside American Pharoah, last year’s Triple Crown champion. The Desormeaux brothers, however, were not the only ones determined to make Nyquist earn his honors — from the Fernando Perez aboard Uncle Lino and Jevian Toledo aboard Awesome Speed harassed Gutierrez into pushing Nyquist to go faster than the colt wanted. “They had him surrounded,” said Kent Desormeaux, who had Exaggerator skipping over the puddles like a water scooter while Nyquist was fighting off his challengers through a wicked of 46. 56 seconds and a taxing of a mile in 1 minute 11. 97 seconds. Then something remarkable happened: Desormeaux saw a sliver of space along the rail turn into a highway. The riders ahead of him were moving their horses outside. So Desormeaux squirted Exaggerator inside, and the colt shimmied up the backstretch like a seal, utterly enjoying it. In the clubhouse, Keith Desormeaux felt his heart drop. No, he felt worse than that. After decades of sharp words and bloodied knuckles, familial diplomacy had long been retired. “I wanted to strangle him,” he said of his brother. “All day, everyone was riding outside, and he’s taking my horse right into the quagmire. ” But Kent had done his homework in and had determined not only that the rail offered the shortest distance between two points, but that the footing was firm and fast. When his rider asked Exaggerator to go, the colt looked as if he had grown a motor as he whipped around the far turn. A calming breath returned to Keith. “He is a Hall of Famer,” Keith conceded. As the contenders turned for home, Gutierrez felt Nyquist’s legs go out from underneath him. “I could feel Exaggerator coming,” he said. He asked for more, but the colt was wobbling. “There was nothing I could do,” Gutierrez said. So Kent Desormeaux vaulted his colt to the outside and rushed past Nyquist as if he were on a conveyor belt. The sight of another horse passing Nyquist roused the colt, and he fought back, mounting one last push. O’Neill locked in on his colt and prepared for a stretch battle. For an instant, he thought Nyquist might come back. There was no chance. Desormeaux crossed his reins, chirped in Exaggerator’s ear and held on as his colt took off. It was over. Not only was Nyquist not catching Exaggerator, he was unable to hold off the Cherry Wine for second place. “I didn’t think we could get beat,” O’Neill said. The Desormeaux brothers, on the other hand, knew they could not lose. The record will show Exaggerator completed the race in 1:58. 31 and earned a $900, 000 check for his owners, Big Chief Racing L. L. C. and raised his career earnings to nearly $3 million. Those who believed in the colt collected $7. 20 for a $2 bet. But that was nothing to the charge that the result put into two brothers who had blossomed from the bush tracks of Louisiana to the old racetrack that had given them their first taste of the big time. It was hardly old hat for Kent — even if this was his third Preakness victory — but it was the first Triple Crown win for his brother. Neither Kent nor Keith is an affectionate sort, and by their own admission, they bicker and fight more than they share kind words and warm embraces. “I got a fist pump,” Keith said of their postrace celebration. “When you know the type of love we have in our family,” he added, “you really don’t have to show it. ” | 1 |
By Chris “Kikila” Perrin Bella Bella, British Columbia — When is environmental damage too much? When is it acceptable? In what is being called “a relatively tiny”marine oil spill, for... | 0 |
in: Multimedia , Preparedness\Survival , Science & Technology If you are a gun owner, especially one who carries a firearm on a daily basis, you’ve probably wondered how you would fare if you had to use your weapon in a life-and-death situation. Could you hit a moving target? Would you freeze under pressure? Would you accidentally harm innocent bystanders in your attempt to take down a threat? With virtual simulation training, you can find out the answers to these questions. There are some awesome stories out there in Internetland about armed citizens stopping crimes and protecting lives. In a life or death situation like a mass shooting , each second counts and a firearm can level the playing field and give you a much better chance at surviving than the standard liberal wisdom of hiding and praying. As well, a growing number of homes have guns now – 44% at most recent tally . Unfortunately, it seems like these life and death situations are happening more frequently, as acts of terrorism, civil unrest, and mindless violence continue to plague our country. The qualifications for a concealed carry permit vary from state to state, but generally speaking, you have to take a course that ranges anywhere from 4 hours to 16 hours. Some states require range qualification and others do not. The course that you take is very informative. It explains the laws in regard to using your firearm for protection in your particular state. But, does that really mean that you will be ready to use your firearm in an emergency situation? I am a CCW permit holder in the state of California . I am a single mom and I fully intend to be able to protect my family without being powerless until the police arrive. I practice shooting regularly and take classes with an NRA instructor. I’ve read many books on the topic of carrying my firearm. ( I highly recommend this one .) I have had occasion to be very glad that I was armed , but I’ve never had reason to actually use my gun against someone. And that is something which is little understood by anti-gun people: Most gun owners have our guns if we need them, but we sincerely hope to never need them. Of course, this makes you wonder: do you really have what it takes to use your firearm to protect yourself or someone else? Is the training you’ve been doing enough? And how do you find out before the rubber meets the road? The pros have been using virtual simulation training for quite a while. Training simulations are one way to learn a skill that is too dangerous to perform for real. Both the police and the military use virtual reality simulations for training. The US Army website says : “This system gives the power of simulation to the squad in order to close the gap of individual Soldier training and collective training,” said John Matthews, project director, Assistant Project Manager for Close Combat Tactical Trainers. “This system enhances training; it does not replace it.” The ability to train with this system allows the “reset” time to be cut down, which allows the ability to get more repetitions in a shorter amount of time and the ability to review each mission on a television screen to enhance the after action review process upon completion of each mission… …With a wide variety of environments, and the ability to insert specific entities into the scenarios, the options for training opportunities are virtually limitless; rehearsals for missions or live-fire exercises are just a couple of examples. Currently, the programmed training environments include mountainous, wooded, and desert. These are intended to simulate places like Afghanistan and Iraq but are not limited to only these specific scenarios. Virtual reality training allows soldiers and police officers to face situations in a multitude of environments with as many different scenarios as you could possibly imagine. And it isn’t all training with guns, either. Users can deploy non-lethal virtual weapons like tasers and OC, making this a good way to test out alternatives to lethal force without putting lives at risk. Virtual simulation training is now available for civilians My firearms instructor is incredibly innovative. (If you are anywhere near Sacramento, you can find her here. ) When she discovered a virtual simulation facility within an hour of us, she invited me along to try it out. We headed to Virtual Safe Shot in Fair Oaks, California . Unsurprisingly, the training for civilians is quite different. A strong emphasis of this training is on shoot/don’t shoot scenarios. Not all situations require that your firearm be discharged and because the instructors mix up the situations, you don’t know whether to expect a kid to pop around the corner of your basement stairs or a wild-eyed drug addict. And really, isn’t that how it is in real life? Some scenarios that were addressed in the training I took read like a person’s worst nightmare: A convenience store robbery A mass shooter at a school A carjacking Surprising a burglar in your home A knife-wielding ex who is intent on killing your neighbor Anyone can imagine being caught up in one of these scenes because they’re taken directly from the headlines. Even though you know the situation isn’t real and that your life is not in danger, you get a surge of adrenaline – you know something is going down, but you don’t know what to expect. Everything that happens, happens fast. The guns at the facility are real Glock 17s that have been modified to shoot only harmless lasers. The recoil is CO2 driven so you get the feel of shooting a gun with real ammo – this means that you must quickly reacquire your target if a second shot is needed. Beginners work with stationary targets and replica pistols, while advanced shooters practice simulations in which they must draw their weapons, move, verbally interact, take cover, and shoot from a covered position. The accuracy of this technology is 4 pixels – that means if you show a hit on the screen, it would have been a hit in real life. Here’s what a virtual simulation is like. The instructors at this facility are retired police officers, which means that they brought something very different to the table: understanding how an investigation will work. Any time you discharge your firearm, even to defend your life or someone else’s, you have to be able to defend your action legally . In this anti-gun day and age, the liberal media is all too ready to crucify a person using a firearm, even if they are using that firearm to defend themselves or others. The instructors discussed each scenario with us after it was finished. They explained what we would likely be asked when the police arrived on the scene and also, what might make officers believe that a self-defense shooting was actually a homicide. (Hint: You were in fear for your life and you want a lawyer. Then, shut up until your attorney arrives.) Here’s what I learned. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I’m pretty accurate under pressure. (Of course, there’s always room for improvement but for my first time firing at a moving target, I did well hitting what I aimed at.) Unfortunately, I was a little bit trigger happy, something I don’t like to admit. Early on, there were a couple of scenarios in which I would have been better off to wait before firing. And in one very unfortunate situation, I accidentally hit a bystander as well as the criminal. But this was a good learning experience. By the end of my session, my shoot/don’t shoot discretion had greatly improved. I became far more aware of bystanders instead of hyper-focusing on the threat. I would hazard a guess that unless a person has a military or law enforcement background, then like me, they haven’t had much experience making these types of judgment calls. The most important part of this training is the replay. First, you see a readout of how many shots you fired, how many of them were non-lethal hits, how many were lethal, and how many hit someone they shouldn’t have. Even when you know this is only a simulation, it’s very sobering when you see that you shot someone that should not have been shot. Virtual reality gives you a cold hard smack of actual reality and it isn’t pleasant because you immediately realize that in a true emergency, the same thing could have easily happened. Then, the instructor discusses the scenario. You learn what you did wrong and what you did right. They give you tips on improving your strategy and/or accuracy if needed. You discuss how this shooting would look from a legal standpoint, and if necessary, you get the chance to repeat the scenario and do it better. This breakdown of the scenario is an invaluable tool, because in VR, you get a do-over. Not so in real life. I left feeling a little conflicted. I was more confident because of my accuracy, but more aware of the pitfalls of firing a weapon. Those pitfalls should be obvious – we discuss them in CCW classes, read about them online, and watch them on the news. But until you see that the shot you fired missed the bad guy and lethally hit the person behind him, it doesn’t make quite the same impression. If you carry, you need some advanced training. I strongly recommend this type of training. I learned a lot and plan to replace 2 of my range sessions each month with virtual simulation training. I believe that if the day ever comes when I must draw my gun to use it, I’ll be far better prepared than I was before I discovered Virtual Safe Shot and the informative, encouraging instructors there. You can play scenarios over in your mind as much as you want, but this is as close to the real thing as you can get. And trust me – you, too, will probably discover that you aren’t as ready as you think you are. This is not a substitute for shooting your real firearm, but it’s an incredible complimentary type of training. This is the level of tactical training that professionals get, and if you can find it in your area, you’ll be far better prepared to use your firearm – or not – should the situation warrant that you do so. Article first appeared at DaisyLuther.com Submit your review | 0 |
ONLY two of the reporters who covered the presidential campaign for The New York Times were black. None were Latino or Asian. That’s less diversity than you’ll find in Donald Trump’s cabinet thus far. Of The Times’s newly named White House team, all six are white, as is most everyone in the Washington bureau. Traveling to other departments, Metro has only three Latinos among its 42 reporters, in a city with the second largest Hispanic population in the country. Sports has one Asian man, two Hispanics and no among its 21 reporters, yet blacks are plentiful among the teams they cover and the audience they serve. In the Styles section, every writer is white, while American culture is anything but. The executive editor, Dean Baquet, is . The other editors on his masthead are white. The staff with the most diversity? The news assistants, who mostly do administrative jobs and get paid the least. The Times can be relentless in questioning the diversity at other institutions it has written about the white ranks of the technology sector, public schools, police departments, Oscar nominees, law firms, legislatures, the major leagues and the Ivy League. Fixing its own problems comes less easily. The newsroom’s blinding whiteness hit me when I walked in the door six months ago. It’s hardly a new problem here, but it’s one that persists even as the country grows more diverse and The Times grows more global. The head of that global expansion, Lydia Polgreen, was one of The Times’s editors until she left last week to lead The Huffington Post. Her departure hit the whole newsroom hard, but it was especially a blow to many minority journalists here. In the past three months, I have interviewed people across the newsroom about the issue of race (and to some degree gender, which I’ll address in a future column). I’ve spoken with journalists of all racial and ethnic identities, in jobs high and low: white men and black women, editors and reporters, department heads and news assistants. It left me believing there is a level of frustration bordering on anger that would be institutionally reckless not to address. Many journalists hoped a new era was beginning two and a half years ago, when Baquet became the first to oversee the newsroom. But whatever progress has been made is only beginning to show up on a scorecard. Overall, newsroom diversity is at 22 percent, up slightly but below newsrooms in most big metropolitan areas. And of those who head departments here, only three are people of color. I asked Baquet what he believes minorities in the newsroom would say about his senior team’s dedication to diversity. “I think they’d say we have a problem,” he said. “We’re not diverse enough. But I think they’d say I have a commitment to it and that it’s gotten better in the past year. ” He added, “My effort to diversify has been intense and persistent. ” By that, Baquet particularly means the handful of prominent black journalists he’s helped attract or promote, stars like Nikole Wesley Morris and Jenna Wortham, all coveted by The Times’s competitors. Their writing styles offer a refreshing break from The Times’s rather institutional voice, which — as one black editor put it to me — is older, white, male, Ivy League and authoritative. “That’s who The Times is at a dinner party,” she said. Many of those I spoke with, including Latinos and Asians, said the arrival of a few stars can take the focus away from the real issue of bringing in and retaining diversity across the room. In other words, while big names are rightfully celebrated, they can give the appearance of more diversity than there really is. What’s more, just because an is at the helm, it doesn’t mean all is well in the newsroom he runs. “We can’t look to Dean as proof that everything is O. K. and we also can’t look solely to him for solutions,” said Nikita Stewart, a Metro staff reporter. When you ask managers about the issue individually, everyone genuinely seems to care. Collectively, however, not much changes. They begin by saying this is an industrywide problem, not just a New York Times problem. That is true, unquestionably. On the other hand, it’s also true that data from the American Society of News Editors shows that The Times is less diverse than large papers like The Washington Post (31 percent) The Los Angeles Times (34 percent) and The Miami Herald (41 percent). The Times is more diverse than The Boston Globe (17 percent) and The Philadelphia Inquirer (14 percent). Given The Times’s ambitions across global cultures and languages, it would seem that instead of being a lagger, it would insist on being a leader — and make that an explicit goal. I see no sign that this is happening. Nor do I get the impression from many journalists of color I spoke with that they believe progress is on the horizon. “There’s always a reason for such little diversity in newsrooms. Over the course of time, the reasons always change, but the underrepresentation never does,” said who writes for the Times Magazine, one of the few notably diverse staffs in the building. Ernesto Londoño, who sits on The Times’s editorial board — and on an Opinion staff lacking both gender and racial diversity — believes the problem lies in a failure of editors to step outside their circles. “It takes a concerted effort to break out of that habit and tap talent pools that are more diverse,” Londoño said. Which means that unless the pattern breaks, the whiter the newsroom is, the whiter it will stay. Mark Thompson, The Times chief executive officer, told a group of top leaders across the corporate and news sides last spring that managers could face dismissal if they failed to diversify their staffs. Baquet, who was at the meeting, didn’t sound that militant in our conversation, saying that his editors feel the most pressure through a stringent expectation to bring forth a diverse applicant pool for every job opening. No one has been punished, he says. I can tell diversity isn’t a priority here by looking at what is. Think digital transition or global expansion or subscriber growth or visual innovation. Those are mandates that really power up the engines. Diversity is not at that level, at least yet. This issue has challenged most every newsroom manager, myself included. The newsroom I came from, The Washington Post, is quite diverse, but its leadership is heavily white and male. At The Times, on the other hand, people of color seem shut out of all sorts of coveted jobs: the top digital strategists, the top managers, the precious ranks of cultural critics, the White House press corps, the opinion columnists, the national politics jobs — all are overwhelmingly white. It is possible to change this. But The Times will need more humility, introspection and openness than has been its habit in the past. Note: This column explores The Times’s diversity crisis, primarily through race. Future columns will address the struggles to fix this issue, news coverage, the widening gender gap, and the limited geographic, religious and ideological diversity. Stay tuned. | 1 |
Iran, Finland sign 4 MoUs in Tehran Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:15PM Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meeting with the President of Finland Sauli Niinisto at the presidential palace in Tehran. © AFP
Yusef Jalali Press TV, Tehran
Finland’s president has paid an official visit to Iran to boost mutual ties. During the visit, the 2 countries signed documents on cooperation in such areas as energy, ICT and environment. Loading ... | 0 |
Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney discussed the Trump administration’s opening moves with SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily. [Gaffney began with a story about one of his colleagues delivering copies of the Center for Security Policy’s book CAIR Is Hamas on Capitol Hill and discovering he couldn’t deliver a copy to noted opponent Sen. Pat Leahy ( ) without a government ID. LISTEN: “This individual could vote without that ID, of course, but he can’t give Senator Leahy a book about an internal threat to our country from Hamas. It’s just ridiculous,” Gaffney said. He pronounced himself pleased with President Trump’s first week, saluting “the signaling, and the executive orders, and the statements that the President has made thus far, and the statements for that matter that even people like Rex Tillerson and his confirmation hearing made about the nature of the challenges we’re facing internationally and the necessity of rebuilding our military to contend with them. ” Among those necessary measures he included constructing a missile defense system and eradicating radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth, as Trump has promised. “These are very encouraging signs,” Gaffney said. “It’s not so much an aggressive national security policy, Alex, with respect. It’s a policy that’s rooted in the principle that Ronald Reagan, my old boss, espoused and practiced called ‘Peace Through Strength.’ I think it’s very welcome, and long overdue, frankly. ” He noted that, with the exception of the invasion of Grenada, Reagan didn’t “actually have to use our military power,” but he rebuilt it and “created, as part of a larger strategy, conditions that brought down our principal enemy — without firing, as they say, a shot — the Soviet Union. ” “I think Donald Trump gets this. If you want to prevent wars, prepare to fight them,” he advised. “There are a lot of people around the world who witnessed Barack Obama take the opposite approach, weaken us, hollow out our military, signal a desire for appeasement at any price. And they became much more dangerous. ” “The prospect of a conflict with Communist China today, Alex, as you know, is vastly higher than it was a decade ago,” he pointed out. “And that’s partly because the Chinese have been rapidly building the military with which to attack us, and to dominate the South China Sea, and so on. But partly it’s also because they have perceived the opportunity for either getting what they want without conflict, their strategy of strength to obtain their objectives — or they think if they do have to have a conflict with us, they’ll prevail in it. ” “So this is a very dangerous approach. It’s been proven to fail time and time again, whereas I believe peace through strength has been proven to work rather consistently throughout the course of human history,” Gaffney asserted. Marlow asked Gaffney about the significance of President Trump’s plan to move the U. S. embassy for Israel to Jerusalem. Gaffney described the state of affairs as “bizarre,” noting that Israel is the only country he knows of where the U. S. embassy isn’t located in the national capital. “The signals that Donald Trump has sent, in terms of his commitment to restore the kind of strong partnership and strategic alliance that we have historically had with Israel, is a signal, a statement, of his break with his predecessor,” he said. “It’s important not just because it matters to our security whether Israel is secure, but it’s also important because it restores the sense that it’s also better to be a friend of the United States than an enemy. ” “Obama had that completely backwards, and as a result we had more enemies, and I think fewer friends,” he observed ruefully. Gaffney said moving the U. S. embassy was “important in a number of respects,” beginning with Jerusalem being “the rightful place for us to be represented. ” “Second of all, it sends a signal of our commitment to Israel, and the status of Jerusalem as the undivided eternal capital of the Jewish state,” he continued. “People talk a lot about, well, there will be violence, there will be the Palestinians and holy war and all the rest. I seriously doubt it, because I think the Arabs at this moment more generally, beyond the Palestinians — for whom, by the way, they don’t have a whole lot of use — have a view that this is a time to cultivate a relationship with Donald Trump, not precipitate conflict with him. I don’t think they’re going to have much truck with the Arab street blowing up. ” “Here’s the larger point: if Donald Trump, having made this commitment to Israel, backs away from it, that will be seen by the very radical Islamic terrorists that he has promised to eradicate from the face of the earth, as evidence that they can in fact extort him to submission. That’s exactly the wrong message to send,” Gaffney warned. “I think it’s time. I think that he can do it quite easily, actually. I believe the first order of business ought to be simply to change out the plaque in front of the consulate in Jerusalem. Call it an ‘embassy.’ It’s a done deal on Day One,” he advised. “I think there may be histrionics, but I think they’re eminently manageable. The symbolism is very important, both to Israel, and I think to potential adversaries. ” Marlow referred to the criticism Trump has taken for his “America first” policy, suggesting critics have willfully misinterpreted it to mean “America only,” and wondered if Trump would have difficulty sticking to such a dramatic change in U. S. policy outlook, or keeping his bold promise to “eradicate radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth. ” Gaffney said frankly that it would depend, in part, on “whether he remains committed to the sorts of principles and guiding philosophy that he’s laid out, not just in this particular context or in his inaugural address, but throughout the campaign. ” He pointed to the decisions Trump was scheduled to announce today about “restricting entry into this country against people who do not share our values, and who specifically may be trying to bring in this totalitarian sharia doctrine” as a demonstration of the President’s determination to stand by his campaign promises. “I think if he hews to all of those principles, he’s going to be fine. If he staffs his administration — this is the kicker — if he staffs his administration, not just at the Cabinet level, with people who hew to that line as well, he will be fine,” Gaffney predicted. “There is a concern, I have to tell you, among some of us that at lower levels, people who don’t seem to share that are being considered, or actually given, appointments, and people who do share those principles are not,” he added. “So this is very much a work in progress. I believe Donald Trump is very on this. I think that a number of the people around him — our mutual friend Steve Bannon among them, Michael Flynn of course, the National Security adviser, General Mattis at the Defense Department, Rex Tillerson in his statements before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — they seem to get it,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that they’ve got people below them who support and will faithfully execute the President’s policy of protecting us against whatever you want to call it: radical Islamic terrorism, sharia supremacism, you pick your term. That’s the mortal threat of our time. And by the way, it is present here in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood. I hope one of the early actions — a defining action of this President — will be that he designates the Muslim Brotherhood as what it is, a terrorist organization,” said Gaffney. Marlow concluded by asking for Gaffney’s take on the Syria peace talks currently being held in Kazakhstan under the auspices of Russia, Turkey, and Iran, but pointedly excluding the U. S. and its coalition partners from a major role. “Well, we’ve seen this movie before,” Gaffney replied. “I’ll be very surprised if the has any duration to it at all. I think the truth of the matter is, what’s happening on the ground, Alex, is that the people who have been fighting this civil war to this point, primarily, against the government of Syria — the Sunni Arabs — are being displaced. They’re being replaced by Shiites from Iraq, in many cases, and elsewhere. ” “You’re going to see a population transfer that I think ultimately will cause this Syrian conflict to peter out — with the government of Assad still in power, the Russians in a stronger position, the Iranians of course in a much stronger position, having created what’s been called a ‘Shiite Crescent’ from their own country all the way to the Mediterranean,” he predicted. “They’re very important, and frankly very dangerous, strategic developments, but I think that’s where this is headed. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. Listen to the audio of the full interview above. | 1 |
You dash into the supermarket for a few necessities. You figure it will be 10 minutes — tops — before you are done and on your way home. Then you get to the checkout lanes and they are brimming with shoppers. Your plan for a quick exit begins to evaporate. But all is not lost. For anyone who has ever had to stand in line (or if you are a New Yorker, you stand on line) at a supermarket, retailer, bank or anywhere else, here are some tips from experts for picking the line that will move the fastest. That may seem counterintuitive, but data tell a different story, said Dan Meyer, a former high school math teacher who is the chief academic officer at Desmos, where he explores the future of math, technology and learning. “Every person requires a fixed amount of time to say hello, pay, say goodbye and clear out of the lane,” he said in an email. His research found all of that takes an average of 41 seconds per person and items to be rung up take about three seconds each. That means getting in line with numerous people who have fewer things can be a poor choice. Think of it this way: One person with 100 items to be rung up will take an average of almost six minutes to process. If you get in a line with four people who each have 20 items, it will take an average of nearly seven minutes. Those minutes add up. Richard Larson, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who is considered the foremost expert on queues, estimated that Americans spend 37 billion hours a year waiting in lines. Robert Samuel, founder of Same Ole Line Dudes, a New service that will stand in line for you, said in an email that most people are and tend to veer to the right. “This may seem sexist, but I prefer female cashiers,” Mr. Samuel wrote. “In my experience they seem to be the most expedient at register transactions and processing. ” A. J. Marsden, an assistant professor of human services and psychology at Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla. suggested checking to see if a cashier was talkative and commenting on every item being scanned. If so, avoid this line “unless there is no one in that line, in which case, just deal with the chatty cashier,” she said in an email. It is not just the number of people ahead of you, but their age and what they are buying that can make a difference, Professor Marsden said. Older people will take a bit longer because they can have difficulties that delay the checkout process, such as not understanding how a debit card works, she said. Also consider the number of different items they are buying, Professor Larson said. Six bottles of the same soda will go faster than six totally different items, some of which cannot be scanned, such as vegetables, he said. If you have no irregular items, such as produce, use a checkout, Mr. Meyer said. “You’ll lose the human contact but gain time,” he said. Not all lines are structured this way, but research has largely shown that this approach, known as a serpentine line, is the fastest. The person at the head of the line goes to the first available window in a system often seen at airports or banks. Getting into a single line also provides a sense of psychological relief because it eliminates the choice of where to go and about the best line to choose, said Julie Niederhoff, an assistant professor of supply chain management at Syracuse University. Still, most people prefer to take their chances with parallel lines — individual lines dedicated to a single cashier — even though most of the time they end up picking a slower line, Professor Marsden said. Douglas E. Norton, a professor of mathematics and statistics at Villanova University, said studies had typically shown that with three tellers, each serving his or her own line of customers, the wait time was three times longer on average than a single line leading to an array of tellers. So why is the less efficient parallel line model used at grocery stores? “Essentially, nobody wants a huge line of folks with full grocery carts winding (like a serpent) around their store,” he said in an email. If you find yourself in a line that snakes around a corner or where the cashier’s view of the number of customers is obstructed by a wall or a shelf, be prepared for a longer wait, one study found. The study, by Professors Niederhoff and Masha Shunko of the University of Washington and Yaroslav Rosokha of Purdue University, released in June, noted that obstructions hinder the feedback cashiers get from seeing how their work thins the line. Mr. Samuel recommended: • Always face bar codes toward the cashier. • When buying clothes, remove the hangers and pull the tags out for easy scanning. • Use the buddy system at the express lanes. Split the items so you each stay within the maximum number allowed and then get out the door quicker. To some degree, waiting is all in your head. Research has found that, on average, people overestimated how long they waited in a line by 36 percent. Customers are more concerned with how long a line is than how fast it moves, according to research by Prof. Ziv Carmon of the business school Insead and Prof. Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University. Given a choice between a short line and a long one, people will often opt for the short line, even if the waits are identical. The psychology of queuing has also found that waits seem shorter when you are distracted. Professor Norton recommended talking to the person next to you or reading the magazines in the store’s racks. “And try to lose the idea that you are cursed,” he said. “If you remembered the times when it actually went smoothly, you would probably realize that it evens out in the long run. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The day before the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to Congress announcing that new evidence had been discovered that might be related to the completed Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Justice Department strongly discouraged the step and told him that he would be breaking with longstanding policy, three law enforcement officials said on Saturday. Senior Justice Department officials did not move to stop him from sending the letter, officials said, but they did everything short of it, pointing to policies against talking about current criminal investigations or being seen as meddling in elections. That Mr. Comey moved ahead despite those protestations underscores the unusual nature of Friday’s revelations, which added a dramatic twist to the final days of the presidential campaign. His action reignited a firestorm that Mrs. Clinton believed she had put behind her when the F. B. I. decided in July not to charge anyone in the investigation into the handling of classified information on her private email server. Mr. Comey’s letter did not reopen that inquiry, even as he promised to review the new information, which was discovered in an unrelated investigation into the disgraced former congressman Anthony D. Weiner. Senior Justice Department officials, career prosecutors and even some at the F. B. I. were at a loss on Saturday as to what would happen next. Would Mr. Comey provide a accounting of the F. B. I. ’s steps until Election Day? Did he plan further announcements? Or did he intend, after shaking up the election with his letter, to remain silent about the facts until the presidential votes had been tallied? The F. B. I. offered no comment, and Justice Department officials said they had no idea what Mr. Comey saw as his next move. Justice Department officials were particularly puzzled about why Mr. Comey had alerted Congress — and by extension, the public — before agents even began reading the newly discovered emails to determine whether they contained classified information or added new facts to the case. Law enforcement officials have begun the process to get court authority to read the emails, officials said. How soon they will get that is unclear, but there is no chance that the review will be completed before Election Day, several law enforcement officials said. Many of the emails are most likely copies of messages that the F. B. I. has already read, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. Despite the Justice Department’s concerns, Mr. Comey felt obligated to send the letter. But it opened him up to fierce criticism not only from Democrats but also from current and former officials at the F. B. I. and the Justice Department, including Republicans. “There’s a longstanding policy of not doing anything that could influence an election,” said George J. Terwilliger III, a deputy attorney general under President George Bush. “Those guidelines exist for a reason. Sometimes, that makes for hard decisions. But bypassing them has consequences. ” He added, “There’s a difference between being independent and flying solo. ” After reports surfaced late last month that Mr. Weiner had sent illicit text messages to a girl in North Carolina, top prosecutors in Charlotte and Manhattan jockeyed for the case. Senior officials in the Justice Department decided that if there were a prosecution, it would take place in New York under the supervision of the United States attorney there, Preet Bharara. Almost immediately, it became clear to investigators that the Weiner case might reignite the Clinton inquiry. Mr. Weiner’s estranged wife, Huma Abedin, is a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, and F. B. I. agents in the earlier investigation had interviewed her and reviewed her emails looking for classified information. On Oct. 3, F. B. I. agents seized several electronic devices from Mr. Weiner: a laptop, his iPhone and an iPad that was in large measure used by his son to watch cartoons, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Days later, F. B. I. agents also confiscated a router that could identify any other devices that had been used, the person said. While searching the laptop, the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials. It is not clear if Ms. Abedin downloaded the emails to the laptop or if they were automatically backed up there. The emails dated back years, the officials said. Ms. Abedin has testified that she did not routinely delete her emails. Because of the age of the emails, many could be outside the scope of the Clinton inquiry, investigators said. And while many are probably duplicative, some would be worth reading, the F. B. I. concluded. In conversations this month, senior Justice Department and F. B. I. officials agreed that the matter was worth pursuing. By law, though, agents and prosecutors in the Clinton investigation could not immediately read the new emails without court authority. The authorities decided only recently to seek that approval. They do not know whether the emails contain classified information or, if they do, whether that would change their determination that nobody should be charged with mishandling it. So Justice Department officials were surprised on Thursday afternoon to receive notice of Mr. Comey’s intention to send the letter to Congress. The letter, issued as early voting was underway in some states, guaranteed a new round of questions for Mrs. Clinton just before Election Day. The Justice Department and the F. B. I. have a longstanding policy against discussing current criminal investigations. Another Justice Department policy, restated each election cycle, declares that politics should play no role in investigative decisions. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have interpreted that policy broadly to cover any steps that might give even an impression of partisanship. “We must be particularly sensitive to safeguarding the department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality and nonpartisanship,” said a 2012 memo from the attorney general’s office that restated the policy. But although Mr. Comey told Congress this summer that the Clinton investigation was complete, he believed that if word of the new emails leaked out — and it was sure to leak out, he concluded — he risked being accused of misleading Congress and the public ahead of an election, colleagues said. Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch did not directly speak with Mr. Comey about the matter, officials said, but senior Justice Department officials sent word of her concerns. Though Ms. Lynch is technically Mr. Comey’s boss, she, too, faced a dilemma. If she ordered Mr. Comey not to send the letter, it could appear that she was trying to withhold information from Congress. After hearing the Justice Department’s argument, Mr. Comey concluded that the ramifications of not telling Congress far outweighed concerns about the department guidelines, one senior law enforcement official said. On Friday, Mr. Comey sent Congress the letter, which said emails had surfaced in a case unrelated to the Clinton case. Mr. Comey said that the F. B. I. would review the emails to determine if they improperly contained classified information, adding that the emails “appear to be pertinent. ” It was the latest example of a sometimes strained relationship between the Justice Department and Mr. Comey, who — on issues of race, encryption, policing and, most notably, the Clinton investigation — has branded himself as someone who operates outside Washington’s typical chain of command. The letter rankled Mrs. Clinton’s supporters in part because Mr. Comey has been circumspect in his remarks about another federal investigation, this one involving allegations of Russian meddling in the election. American officials believe that Russian intelligence agents are behind the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails, which have embarrassed the Clinton campaign. Senior Democrats have called on the F. B. I. to investigate whether any of Donald J. Trump’s aides are colluding with Russia. Some of his aides have ties to Russian interests, but they have denied any wrongdoing. While Mr. Comey told Congress last month that he would not confirm the existence of any investigation into people associated with Mr. Trump, he said he felt compelled to discuss details of the Clinton investigation because it involved “exceptional circumstances where the public needed information. ” Matthew Miller, a Democrat and former Justice Department spokesman who has criticized Mr. Comey’s handling of the email investigation, said the F. B. I. director should not pick and choose when to follow the guidelines. “You can’t apply the usual standard to one candidate and an entirely different set of rules for the other,” he said. | 1 |
A federal judge sentenced the first American ever to be convicted of attempting to engage in jihad on behalf of the Islamic State ( ) to 35 years in prison. [“Today, Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, a U. S. citizen and former member of the U. S. Air Force, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a designated foreign terrorist organization, and obstruction of justice,” announced the Department of Justice (DOJ) noting that News Jersey resident was convicted in March 2016. U. S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced the wannabe jihadist on Wednesday. “I am a black man, I am a military man, I am a Muslim man,” Pugh told the judge on the day of his sentencing before dissolving into tears, reports the New York Post. “I protected this country and the Constitution,” added the military veteran. “And my service was repaid by stripping me of my career, shaming my wife, shaming my parents, shaming my children. ” Judge Garaufis did not express any sympathy towards Pugh. “This isn’t about whether you’re Muslim or Christian or Jewish,” the judge told the defendant before handing down his decision. “This is about whether you’re going to stand up for your country, which has done so much for you, or betray your country. ” “You made your choice,” proclaimed the judge. “I have no sympathy. ” In January 2015, Pugh traveled to Turkey from Egypt to cross the border into Syria and engage in jihad on behalf of ISIS. Turkish authorities denied the American Air Force veteran entry and returned him to Egypt. Pugh attempted to destroy evidence in Istanbul. “Foreign government officials quickly deported the defendant to the U. S. where the FBI closely monitored him, relying in part on a covert undercover employee who encountered the defendant at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City,” notes the DOJ. Authorities arrested Pugh on January 16, 2015, in New Jersey. In a letter drafted before he left Egypt for Turkey, the defendant proclaimed: I am a Mujahid. I am a sword against the oppressor and a shield for the oppressed. I will use the talents and skills given to me by Allah to establish and defend the Islamic State. There is only 2 possible outcomes for me. Victory or Martyr. “Defense attorney Susan Kellman likened her client’s interest in the Islamic State to a kind of ‘voyeurism’ but noted that there had been no evidence of any form of communication between Pugh and the group,” points out the New York Post. | 1 |
Why Witches, Occultists And Satanists Celebrate Halloween, And Why You Should Not Posted on Tweet Home » Headlines » World News » Why Witches, Occultists And Satanists Celebrate Halloween, And Why You Should Not
Halloween night is one of the biggest nights of the year for witches, occultists and Satanists. All over America, those that are deep into the dark arts will be contacting the dead, casting spells and conducting blood sacrifices. On October 31st, most people will simply ignore the dark side of Halloween. We can assure you however, that the Creator does NOT…
From Michael Snyder, End of the American Dream :
The vast majority of the population will dress up in costumes, go to parties and eat candy without ever even considering where the holiday came from or what certain people are doing behind closed doors. But the truth is that Halloween night is one of the biggest nights of the year for witches, occultists and Satanists. All over America, those that are deep into the dark arts will be contacting the dead, casting spells and conducting blood sacrifices. As you will see below, there is a reason why animal shelters across the country ban the adoption of black cats this time of the year. But even our “innocent” Halloween traditions such as dressing up in costumes, “trick or treating” and carving jack-o’-lanterns all have their roots in ancient pagan practices. And every year the costumes for our young girls become even more sexually suggestive, the horror movies become even more demonic, and the public’s fascination with the occult just continues to grow. It truly is a festival of death, but most people don’t seem to care. In fact, experts are telling us that Halloween has now become America’s second biggest holiday.
According to the National Retail Federation, nearly 70 percent of all Americans plan to celebrate Halloween this year, and spending is expected to shatter the all-time record…
According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics, total spending for Halloween is expected to reach $8.4 billion, an all-time high in the survey’s 11-year history.
U.S. consumers are expected to spend an average of $82.93, up from last year’s $74.34, with more than 171 million Americans planning to partake in Halloween festivities this year.
To give you some context, total Halloween spending for 2009 came in at just 4.7 billion dollars. So to say that the celebration of Halloween is growing would be a tremendous understatement.
Sadly, most people have no idea where this holiday originally came from. The truth is that a long time ago Catholicism attempted to “Christianize” an ancient pagan holiday known as Samhain…
The origins of Halloween are Celtic in tradition and have to do with observing the end of summer sacrifices to gods in Druidic tradition. In what is now Britain and France, it was the beginning of the Celtic year, and they believed Samhain, the lord of death, sent evil spirits abroad to attack humans, who could escape only by assuming disguises and looking like evil spirits themselves. The waning of the sun and the approach of dark winter made the evil spirits rejoice and play nasty tricks. Believe it or not, most of our Halloween practices can be traced back to these old pagan rites and superstitions .
On the Wiccan calendar, Samhain is one of the most important points on “the wheel of the year”. Wiccans believe that it is the day when “the god dies”, and subsequently they celebrate his rebirth at Yule.
It is also a time when they believe that the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest, and so it is an opportune time for them to contact the dead. The following is much more on what Wiccans believe about Samhain from wicca.com…
Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, or SAM-hayne) means “End of Summer”, and is the third and final Harvest. The dark winter half of the year commences on this Sabbat.
It is generally celebrated on October 31st, but some traditions prefer November 1st. It is one of the two “spirit-nights” each year, the other being Beltane. It is a magical interval when the mundane laws of time and space are temporarily suspended, and the Thin Veil between the worlds is lifted. Communicating with ancestors and departed loved ones is easy at this time, for they journey through this world on their way to the Summerlands. It is a time to study the Dark Mysteries and honor the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, symbolized by the Crone and her aged Consort.
Originally the “Feast of the Dead” was celebrated in Celtic countries by leaving food offerings on altars and doorsteps for the “wandering dead”. Today a lot of practitioners still carry out that tradition. Single candles were lit and left in a window to help guide the spirits of ancestors and loved ones home. Extra chairs were set to the table and around the hearth for the unseen guest. Apples were buried along roadsides and paths for spirits who were lost or had no descendants to provide for them. Turnips were hollowed out and carved to look like protective spirits, for this was a night of magic and chaos. The Wee Folke became very active, pulling pranks on unsuspecting humans. Traveling after dark was was not advised. People dressed in white (like ghosts), wore disguises made of straw, or dressed as the opposite gender in order to fool the Nature spirits.
The ancient practices described in those paragraphs sound very similar to what we do today in many ways, but without a doubt some of the traditions have evolved. For example, instead of carving turnips, those that celebrate Halloween carve pumpkins today.
You may not realize this, but Wicca is actually one of the fastest growing religions in America. And on October 31st, Wiccans all over the nation will get together to conduct rituals and cast spells. Here is a blurb from Wikipedia about the Wiccan belief in “magic”…
During ritual practices, which are often staged in a sacred circle, Wiccans cast spells or “workings” intended to bring about real changes in the physical world. Common Wiccan spells include those used for healing, for protection, fertility, or to banish negative influences. [63] Many early Wiccans, such asAlex Sanders, Sybil Leek and Alex Winfield, referred to their own magic as “white magic“, which contrasted with “black magic“, which they associated with evil and Satanism. Sanders also used the similar terminology of “left hand path” to describe malevolent magic, and “right hand path” to describe magic performed with good intentions; [64] terminology that had originated with the occultist Helena Blavatsky in the 19th century. Some modern Wiccans however have stopped using the white-black magic and left-right hand path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil. [65]
If you are not familiar with these things, you may scoff at such practices. But the cold, hard reality of the matter is that they are very real. The dark side has power too, and those that have come out of witchcraft can tell you some stories that will stand your hair on end.
Wiccans think of themselves as “good”, and so they tend to reject blood sacrifices and things of that nature.
But for those that are deeper into the occult, blood sacrifice is an essential part of Halloween. As I mentioned above, many animal shelters all over the nation ban the adoption of black cats this time of the year… It’s the week of Halloween, and maybe you don’t know this, but if you suddenly wanted to adopt a black cat, you would probably have a hard time. That’s because thanks to their association with witchcraft, accepted wisdom holds that Halloween is a time when people ritualistically mutilate black cats.
To test if this really was still accepted wisdom, I contacted some animal shelters near to our Los Angeles office, and they all told me they wouldn’t let me adopt a black cat. One, The Lange Foundation—the type of animal rescue that takes in cats from city shelters before they can be euthanized—was willing to talk to me on the phone and explain: If someone were to call and ask specifically for a black cat, that would trigger the policy. “I would say ‘not today!’” said one of the foundation’s board members, Diana Nelson.
You may not want to believe it, but animals will be killed and little children will be abused on Halloween night. The following is what one ex-witch has sharedregarding her experiences…
My parents told me before we went around the neighborhood we were going to go by the church (Mormon Church) to get some candy there. The church was very close to my grandmother’s house, and I knew so from going often.
We went to the church and what happened next made my blood curdle. I was given candy, but that was just a preclude to the sexual abuse that would happen in a satanic ritual. On Halloween Satanists use young children, such as myself, as sexual idols to worship. Other children receive a far worse fate. Death. I know for some this is more than you can even think to believe, but it is true. I can barely write these words because the pain of the truth is almost more than I can bear. If it wasn’t for the grace and love of Jesus Christ, I would not even be here writing this at all.
You may say “it doesn’t mean that to me”, but you are just fooling yourself.
Could you take a Satanic Black Mass and turn it into a celebration of Jesus?
Of course not.
And yet so many Christians fully embrace Halloween and pretend that there is nothing wrong with it.
For the record, Satanists absolutely love Halloween. The following comes from the official Church of Satan website…
Satanists embrace what this holiday has become, and do not feel the need to be tied to ancient practices. This night, we smile at the amateur explorers of their own inner darkness, for we know that they enjoy their brief dip into the pool of the “shadow world.” We encourage their tenebrous fantasies, the candied indulgence, and the wide-ranging evocation of our aesthetics (while tolerating some of the chintzy versions), even if it is but once a year. For the rest of the time, when those not of our meta-tribe shake their heads in wonder at us, we can point out that they may find some understanding by examining their own All Hallows Eve doings, but we generally find it simpler to just say: “Think of the Addams Family and you’ll begin to see what we’re about.”
Satanists consider Halloween to be one of the most important “holidays” of the year. On page 96 of the Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey wrote the following…
“After one’s own birthday, the two major Satanic holidays are Walpurgisnacht (May 1st) and Halloween.”
Isn’t that lovely?
Despite all of this, most Christians in America will happily celebrate Halloween on October 31st. In fact, one recent survey found that just 8 percent of all Christian pastors want their congregations to skip the holiday altogether. Instead, most of them want their members to invite people to a “Christian version of Halloween” at their churches. The following comes from Charisma…
Two-thirds (67 percent) encourage church members to invite friends and neighbors to a fall festival, trunk-or-treat or judgment house. Pastors at bigger churches (those with 250 or more in attendance) are most likely to ask church members to invite their neighbors (86 percent) to an event at the church. Those from small churches (50 or less in attendance) are least likely (48 percent).
If the gospel is preached, I am all for people going to church on October 31st. But all too often these “alternative celebrations” are nothing more than repackaged versions of the same Satanic holiday that the world is celebrating. I like how Pastor Jamie Morgan described what our approach to this day should be…
Setting aside a day to celebrate evil, darkness, witchcraft, fear, death and the demonic brings disdain to God. Period. A Christian celebrating Halloween would be like a Satan worshiper putting up a nativity scene at Christmas while singing, “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” The two just don’t go together. Jesus has nothing in common with Satan (2 Cor. 6:14), and neither should we.
And the truth is that God has wanted us to have nothing to do with occult practices from the very beginning. The following is what Deuteronomy 18:9-13 says in the Modern English version…
9 When you enter into the land which the Lord your God gives you, you must not learn to practice the abominations of those nations . 10 There must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination , or uses witchcraft , or an interpreter of omens, or a sorcerer , 11 or one who casts spells , or a spiritualist , or an occultist , or a necromancer . 12 For all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord , and because of these abominations the Lord your God will drive them out from before you. 13 You must be blameless before the Lord your God.
There will be many people that will read this article and will continue to celebrate Halloween just as they normally do. If that is you, then you need to understand that engaging in dark practices can open up doors to spiritual darkness for yourself and your entire family.
If you do that, then that is your choice, but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. | 0 |
Financial Times Fumbles Trump’s Central Banking Criticism
Populists stick to tradition of central bank-bashing … If anyone still doubts the affinity between support for Trump in the US and for Brexit in the UK, they should look no further than the two movements’ attitude to monetary policy. –Financial Times
The “populism vs. globalism” meme is increasingly evident in the mainstream media just as we predicted, and analyzing it can generate considerable insight into elite plans and societal positioning.
This Financial Times article provides us further information in a short editorial. Interestingly, it is not by any means persuasive propaganda. It would have been far more effective in the 20 th century than today when so many more people are beginning to be educated about free-market economics.
More:
Donald Trump has accused the Federal Reserve of keeping interest rates too low for what is healthy for the economy in order to make the Obama administration, and by extension Hillary Clinton, look good. Theresa May, more elegantly but no more justifiably, used her party Conservative party conference speech to attack the Bank of England’s policy of quantitative easing.
In both cases, the technocrats at central banks are accused of making policy that helps rich elites and hurts the more deserving common people, be they small savers or hardworking families.
So far so good. But toward the end of the article we are – unfortunately for the argument – provided with more specifics. This is where the article’s logic weakens and then disintegrates.
A cursory search of “populism” or “populism vs. globalism” will reveal a tremendous amount of commentary in a short period of time. In fact, this particular dominant social theme seems to be a foundational feature of upcoming arguments in favor of globalism.
But it is fatally flawed – as this article offers in a few sentences that are meant to be damning but instead reveal the basic bankruptcy of this rhetorical approach:
Traditionally, populists have berated central banks for their obsession with “sound money”: tight monetary policy, high interest rates and the gold standard. ¨
In about 25 words, the article seems to sabotage its entire argument and by extension the larger meme.
Is this the best that can be done? Probably so. It provides terrible testimony as to the state of elite memes generally.
For one thing, central bank criticism in the past few decades has not focused on central bank “obsession with sound money.”
On the contrary, most modern criticism regarding central banking focuses on the endless debasement of the fiat currency monetary facilities spew relentlessly.
Additionally, critics of central banking in the past decade or more have been sounding the alarm regularly about too-low interest rates. Rates so low, in fact, that they have now gone into negative territory.
Finally, in addition to mischaracterizing modern central bank criticism, the article doesn’t even attempt to grapple with cogent criticisms of central banking that are common on the Internet today.
These criticisms are rooted in the free-market economics of the Austrian School, which is in many ways the basis of all modern economics.
Marginal utility shows us clearly that markets create valid prices. Yet central banks “fix” the value and volume of money via interest rates and in other ways.
This cognitive dissonance is at the heart of the disaster of modern central banking.
Ask a central banker if he believes in price fixing, and you should receive a credible, necessary response: Price fixing destroys prosperity by substituting dictates for market competition. And yet … price-fixing is central banking’s significant – sole – methodology.
In the Internet era, memes have to be convincing and logical to have an impact with the intelligentsia that elites have traditionally sought to propagandize – as they are thought leaders. But here we have one of the most important dominant social themes – populism vs. globalism – being presented in a major financial newspaper in a most unpersuasive way.
This is probably why the fallback position when it comes to reasserting a necessary matrix of elite propaganda increasingly focuses on censorship.
The kind of comprehensive effort necessary to reestablish the once-commonly accepted disinformation of the 20 th century is probably beyond the scope of even the most authoritarian propagandizing short of genocide.
Conclusion: Bur wait, is that a potential world war staining the horizon? … | 0 |
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies joined Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Friday to discuss DREAMers, or those covered under the ‘Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ DACA program. [Breitbart News recently reported on the issue here. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is defending the deportation of a convicted illegal immigrant DREAMer who applied for protection under the ‘Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals’ DACA program. Calling it one of Trump’s biggest “” said Krikorian today, “During the campaign, now President Trump had said he was going to end that (DACA) on day one because it’s an unconstitutional action by the president. And of course he’s right, it’s illegal. And they’ve done nothing to it. They’ve done absolutely nothing. ” He continued, “And what’s remarkable is not that they didn’t fully follow through on that promise because politically I can see how immediately pulling work permits from hundreds of thousands of young people, each one of whom will get his own news story, could be something you want to avoid politically. But they haven’t even stopped issuing DACA work permits to new people who didn’t have them before. ” Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. | 1 |
President Donald Trump’s new bipartisan commission on voting security can use federal data to help resolve the bitter partisan dispute about the reality of fraudulent voting, Commission Kris Kobach told Breitbart News. [“The issue of voting fraud often gets politicized, and people are making statements with few foundations [of fact, so] this commission will provide a firm foundation [of] information and facts that are verifiable about the issues surrounding voter fraud,” said Kobach, who is the Kansas Secretary of State and is a opponent of voters fraud and illegal immigration. “The states are in the drivers’ seat, but this commission can offer recommendations and evidence” for state legislators to debate, he added, adding that many state elections are decided by fewer than 50 votes. Koch is of the panel, which is run by Vice President Mike Pence. The panel is expected to include Democrats, but progressive pressure groups are calling for a Democratic boycott. The commission is vital because it can use federal data about peoples’ citizenship to help states check the eligibility of people on their voting rolls, Kobach said. “The federal government has a database of all known residing in or visiting the United States … never before has that database been used to run [checks] against the databases of voter rolls in each state,” he said. Some states have asked for federal data to check their but “we’ve always been turned down” by the federal government, said Kobach. Election watchers in several states, including Texas and Virginia, have concerns about ineligible voters on their rolls, he said. In part, vote fraud is important because “close races happen all the time,” he said, adding that Kansas has had more than 20 elections for federal or state seats over the last 20 years which were decided by fewer than 50 votes. “That’s true all across the country,” he said, adding that the panel won’t be looking back at prior elections. Voter fraud is a moral issue, said Kobach. “There’s a broader principle — every time there is a fraudulent vote, it effectively cancels out a legitimately cast vote by the U. S. citizen. ” But the new bipartisan commission is already being scorched by the Democrats’ coalition, including the ACLU, which is pressuring Democrats to boycott the bipartisan panel. “As President Trump’s own lawyers have said, ‘All available evidence suggests that the 2016 general election was not tainted by fraud or mistake,’” said a statement from Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s voting rights office. He continued: This commission, to be by King of Voter Suppression Kris Kobach, is a sham. We call on professional elections administrators, serious academics, and elected officials to refuse to participate in what will be a pretext for disenfranchising Americans. Ho also urged voting rules be loosened to encourage higher election turnout, saying “the United States has one of the lowest turnout rates in the developed world, and we should be doing everything we can to encourage more people, not fewer, to participate in our democracy. ” Kobach’s measures in Kansas have prompted angry criticism and lawsuits from progressive groups. For example, the ACLU is suing Kobach’s office to detail his measures, including a requirement that people prove their citizenship when registering to vote, and show identification when voting. Those measures have improperly pushed 30, 000 people off the voting rolls, and have halted registration by an additional 35, 000 people, claims the ACLU. Chris Carson, the national president of the League of Women Voters, told the Kansas City Star that the commission is “part of a wider effort to suppress the vote, keep certain politicians in power, and undermine our elections by spreading falsehoods. ” The Democrats’ hostility to Kobach is offset by praise from other lawyers. “I’ve had the pleasure to debate him on voting issues and have found that he is a knowledgeable and engaging advocate,” said Mark Johnson, a Kanas City attorney who is leading a lawsuit to overturn Kobach’s rules. “Kobach is an honorable public servant and as such, I hope he will put aside any personal beliefs and participate in the investigation with an open mind. ” The commission’s “job is to look at the problem, collect data, and see where the facts are and make some recommendations,” said Kobach. Only legislators in the states have the power to change or preserve their voting systems, he said, because “elections are under the control of the states [according to] the constitution. ” | 1 |
The maroon passport currently held by British citizens will revert back to its original dark blue colour as Britain prepares to leave the European Union, the Home Office has confirmed. [The classic dark blue design, which was replaced by passports in 1988 to comply with EU policy of a single European passport, could be as soon as 2019, with a range of contractors currently bidding for its production. In 2007, the European Union sought to further dilute the passport’s individuality by insisting that the words “Her Britannic Majesty,” were removed from the first page. Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, who is chairman of the Parliamentary Flags and Heraldry Committee said: “It’s a matter of identity. Having the pink European passports has been a source of humiliation. It merged us into one European identity, which isn’t what we are. ” “The old dark blue design was a distinct, clear and bold statement of what it means to be British, which is just what our citizens need as they travel abroad after Brexit,” he continued. The current contract with passport manufacturers De La Rue expires with the British government in 2019, with the Home Office now accepting proposals from companies to manage £490 million redesign project. Other priorities for the government’s new design will include incorporating new mechanisms to combat identity fraud. Responding to the news, a Home Office spokesperson said: “We are launching the procurement process now to ensure there is sufficient time to produce and design UK passports from 2019 when the current contract ends. ” The issue of the British passport was one frequently mentioned by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who pointed out that as well as having the words ‘European Union’ on the front, it also guarantees British citizenship rights for all 500 million EU citizens. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com | 1 |
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Life can be tough, but students at Willow Creek Elementary School in Duluth, Minnesota, have done something this year that will make you cry tears of joy: When they noticed that a fellow student wasn’t eating lunch at school, they brought him so many lunches that he clogged the door and school got canceled.
Compassion for the win!
When caring students saw that 9-year-old Bryce Oswald was showing up to school every day without a lunch, they knew they had to do something. They started giving Bryce fruit snacks and pats of butter from their lunches, and even pooled their allowances to buy Bryce hoagies and rotisserie chickens in an effort to make sure that he wouldn’t go hungry and would instead get massive enough to clog the door to the school and get school canceled.
“Bryce didn’t have anything to eat, so we knew we had to help him out,” said Willow Creek student Kali Summers. “We gave him our lunches every day, even if we got really hungry. We knew if he kept eating he would get fat enough to clog up the door and we wouldn’t have to go to school.”
The plan worked perfectly. In a matter of months, Bryce went from having no lunch at all to having so many lunches that he packed on 115 pounds, got stuck in the door, and school got canceled. The students were so successful in plumping Bryce up that it took four firefighters with a jackhammer to finally be able to pry him out.
Mission accomplished!
Due to these kids’ selfless dedication, not only did Bryce not go hungry, but all of the kids and teachers were able to stay home from school to play, watch TV, and relax instead of going to school for a full two days. They aren’t stopping there, either: Even though Bryce is now bigger than any other student in the district, the kids are going to continue to give him lunches in hopes that he can get stuck in the door so tightly that school gets canceled for a full week.
Beautiful! Adults could learn a thing or two about kindness and commitment to your dreams from these remarkable kids. | 0 |
BERLIN — Anis Amri, a Tunisian man who turned 24 on Thursday, is the chief suspect in a investigation into Germany’s worst terrorist attack in decades. His fingerprints and identity document were found inside a that plowed into a Christmas market in Berlin on Monday, killing 12 people and injuring about 50 more. Here is a timeline of events in Mr. Amri’s life, drawn from government statements, interviews with officials and relatives, and news media accounts. Dec. 22, 1992: Mr. Amri is born in Oueslatia, a town in the midwest region of Tunisia, the youngest in a family of five sisters and four brothers. He drops out of secondary school at 14, and gains a reputation for drinking, partying and playing music. March 2011: Mr. Amri leaves with three friends by boat for Italy a few months after the start of the political uprising that overthrows Tunisia’s longtime president. He is later convicted in absentia by a Tunisian court for stealing a car, and sentenced to five years in prison. October 2015: Mr. Amri is arrested in Belpasso, Italy — a small town on the east coast of Sicily — and is sentenced to four years in prison for causing a fire, damaging property and making threats, according to the Italian Justice Ministry. Local news outlets report that three Tunisian asylum seekers, including a with the initials A. A. were arrested for setting fire to the center where they were staying, to protest poor living conditions and delays in the processing of their asylum claims. Italian prison records show he spent nearly four years in a total of six prisons. July 2015: Mr. Amri enters Germany. According to Ralf Jäger, the interior minister of North Germany’s most populous state, Mr. Amri is “highly mobile” over the next few months, passing through Freiburg, a city in the southwest, Berlin, and North . February 2016: Mr. Amri settles in Berlin, according to Mr. Jäger. His sisters said he finds work in construction and as a cook. March 14, 2016: Authorities in Berlin open a file on Mr. Amri because, according to the Berlin state prosecutor, of “indications from the federal security authorities” that he was a potential threat. Mr. Amri had evidently planned a robbery to get money to buy automatic weapons, “possibly in order to carry out an attack,” the prosecutor said. Undercover surveillance, including electronic monitoring of Mr. Amri’s movements, begins. The surveillance leads the authorities to believe that Mr. Amri is involved in drug dealing in the city’s notorious Görlitzer Park. Prosecutors said that, at one point, he got into a fight in a bar after a quarrel with another dealer. April 2016: Mr. Amri reportedly makes a formal application for asylum in Germany. June 2016: Mr. Amri is ordered deported. But, according to Mr. Jäger, he cannot be sent back to Tunisia because the country does not acknowledge that he is a citizen and he does not have a valid passport. July 30, 2016: Police in a town on the border with Switzerland detain Mr. Amri after checking the documents of passengers on a bus heading for Zurich. Given the deportation order, and the fact that it is a Saturday, a court orders Mr. Amri held for 48 hours in a jail in the town of Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance. Aug. 1, 2016: Mr. Amri is released early, according to the director of the jail, Thomas Mönig, on the order of the office responsible for dealing with foreigners in Kleve — in the far northwest of Germany — because it has no way to carry out the deportation. He gives his address as being in Karlsruhe, about 125 miles from Friedrichshafen. September 2016: The monitoring of Mr. Amri ends, for reasons that are not clear. Nov. 8, 2016: German authorities detain Abu Walaa, a Salafist preacher known as the “man without a face” because he never faces the camera when delivering video sermons, and a identified as Boban S. German media reports say Mr. Amri was a guest several times at Boban S. ’s home. Dec. 19, 2016: Shortly after 8 p. m. a truck apparently hijacked by Mr. Amri careens into the Christmas market in Breitscheidplatz, a main public square in Berlin. Among the 12 people killed in the market are the Polish driver of the truck, whose body is found inside the cab an Israeli visitor and an Italian working in Berlin. Dec. 21, 2016: In the Dutch city of Nijmegen — it is not yet clear how he got there — Mr. Amri gets a free cellphone SIM card from a company that is handing them out at shopping malls. In Germany that evening, a warrant is issued for his arrest a reward of 100, 000 euros, or about $104, 000, is offered for information leading to his capture. Meanwhile, the Tunisian passport for Mr. Amri that the German authorities said was necessary for him to be deported finally arrives, months after it was requested. Dec. 22, 2016: The authorities conduct raids at several homes associated with Mr. Amri, as well as a Muslim cultural center and prayer room. They also search a bus in Heilbronn, a city in southwestern Germany. The federal prosecutor’s office announces that Mr. Amri’s fingerprints were found on the driver’s door of the truck and on the one of the upright structural supports on the side of the cab. Dec. 23, 2016: Mr. Amri shoots and wounds an Italian police officer in Sesto San Giovanni, a suburb north of Milan, after he is asked to show identification papers. In the gunfight, he is shot and killed. He had traveled there by train from Lyon, in central France, passing through Chambéry, France Turin, in northwestern Italy and the Central Station in Milan, where he arrived around 1 a. m. before making his way to Sesto San Giovanni. | 1 |
On Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will consider Donald J. Trump’s choice of Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general since 2011, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Mr. Pruitt spent much of his time in office fighting the Obama administration over the E. P. A. ’s actions to regulate air and water pollution and to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The committee is led by Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, an outspoken contrarian on climate change, and includes several Republicans openly hostile to federal action to address it. The Democratic members of the committee include some of the Senate’s strongest supporters of the E. P. A. and most forceful voices for decisive action on climate change. We asked readers what questions they would ask if they could question Mr. Pruitt. More than 2, 000 replied, and their answers largely fell into a few categories. Here is what some of them would like to know. Many readers seemed familiar with Mr. Pruitt’s statement that the science of climate change is “far from settled. ” Most pointed out that an overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that climate change is happening and is caused by human activity, specifically by the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, and asked for Mr. Pruitt’s sources for his position. Seth Rudman, 28, a scientific researcher at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, asked, “Can you describe the shortcomings of the scientific evidence for climate change and the type of data that would be needed to convince you that climate change is happening?” While being a scientist is not a requirement for the job, readers worried about what having a climate denialist at the top might mean for the agency. “During the Bush administration, climate scientists, including Dr. James Hansen, claimed that their voices were suppressed and their reports changed to minimize the role of humans in accelerating climate change and its impact,” wrote Donald Chartier, 60, the founder and chief executive of an internet company in Chicago. “Can you assure us that E. P. A. scientists will be allowed to present scientific evidence and data freely to the American people, without retaliation?” Others focused on the risk Mr. Pruitt was taking by denying the risks of climate change. “If the scientific consensus on climate change proves correct and the changes in the Earth’s weather cause widespread devastation, loss of life and property and great economic damage, who should be held responsible for staying the actions that might have prevented or ameliorated these outcomes?” asked Joseph Griffin, 72, a retiree from Bellefonte, Pa. During his time as attorney general of Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt has been seen by some to be cozy with the fossil fuel industry. He filed 14 suits against the E. P. A. challenging the agency’s environmental regulations, looking to soften the blow of federal policies against oil, gas, agriculture and other interests. In 13 of those cases, companies that had contributed money to Mr. Pruitt or to political campaign committees also signed on. Readers were concerned that Mr. Pruitt might continue to advance the interests of industry, possibly to the detriment of public health and safety. “How do you intend to serve the public need to protect the environment when you have demonstrated a preference for the rights of corporate shareholders?” asked Alison ten Cate, 50, an energy efficiency consultant from Belmont, Calif. Others wrote that Mr. Pruitt should be asked if he would be willing to disclose the companies and lobbyists that have given money to his campaigns, and agree to recuse himself from decisions involving them. Mr. Pruitt has argued that states are in a better position to regulate their environment and industries than the federal government, which he has accused of overreach. Many readers argued that air and water do not respect state borders, so it is the federal government’s responsibility to regulate these interstate issues. “You have worked against the E. P. A. in favor of managing interstate and global issues at the state level. Why?” asked Charles Haddox, 59, a marketing manager in Denver. “What success stories can you relate in detail showing states are more successful at protecting resources in the absence of federal regulation?” They also wondered where the limits of Mr. Pruitt’s federalism might lie. “Does your belief in federalism mean you will not interfere with the efforts of California and other states to address climate change?” wrote Michael McCabe, 19, a student at Sarah Lawrence College. “Or will you serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry and interfere with states’ efforts?” Some asked practical questions, like Mavis 65, a teacher and naturalist in Memphis, who wanted to know how Mr. Pruitt could continue to push for state and local jurisdiction of clean air and water “in light of the Flint, Mich. water scandal. ” High levels of lead were found in the city’s water supply, largely a result of state and local regulatory failures, and the federal government had to intervene (some argue too late). Several readers seemed puzzled at why Mr. Pruitt would want to run a federal regulatory agency if he saw federal regulations as a problem, and wondered if he had other ideas for how to regulate pollutants. Some also would like to hear examples of success on environmental issues from his time in office in Oklahoma. Mark Baker, 48, an American who works for Diageo, an international beverage company, in Brussels, asked, “Can you provide an example of a policy that originated at the state or local level under your watch in Oklahoma and that resulted in cleaner water or air for Oklahoma’s citizens?” “Do you believe in protecting water, air and land from pollution?” wrote Sabina Gasper, 55, who works for the pharmaceutical industry in Bismarck, N. D. “Do you believe that regulations are the way to do this? If not, how should these resources be protected?” Some struck a more hopeful tone, like Lilian Howard, “nearing 80 years of age,” a retired travel consultant and writer from Virginia Beach, who wrote, “Would you briefly discuss a few actions by the E. P. A. which you believe were successful in protecting the American people and their natural surroundings from harm and how you might hope we can improve upon these during the new administration?” | 1 |
My Dear Fellow Americans,[The other day, while checking various websites and news outlets for what’s brewing in the political world, I came upon an article in the Los Angeles Times about conservatives in Hollywood. Needless to say, I had my own atypical response to this article, for a variety of reasons … The first reaction I had was one of passionate disappointment. You see, every few years an article like this is written, and it doesn’t change the prevailing narrative namely, that conservatives in Hollywood are fearful of being blacklisted and unable to find work due to their political beliefs. But something more important is revealed this time, and that is this: Conservatives in Hollywood simply lack balls. I want to say I have deep respect and affection for all, but conservatives must no longer walk around like the character Ted Levine played in Silence of the Lambs, with his manhood hidden between his legs (of course, I am not referring to female conservatives, so no sexism here). Political differences have always occurred amongst the Hollywood set. Back in the 30s, 40s and 50s, Communist socialists were prevalent in Hollywood, and many had to hold their love of Joseph Stalin and his philosophy in the dark for fear of being blacklisted. The difference is that was an imported Socialistic Marxist ideology that was anathema to America and her principles. The studio heads at that time were a different breed they had came to America with a love for its opportunity, and under the motto “America First. ” Those who were open to this Marxist Communist ideology had to meet in secret, and their numbers grew they were the True Believers, revolutionaries, many of the elite in Hollywood. They met in the shadows … and when the light shone upon them, some were punished, and some had careers ruined. But instead of being snuffed out, they went underground, morphed, and were able to continue to affect media, culture, religion, politics and education. Needless to say, because of this development, Hollywood and the rest of the nation have become indoctrinated to such a degree that we are now a nation entirely at odds with each other. This still goes on today, with major filmmakers using their talents to pick projects that forward their worldview as citizens of the world. Look, I feel a connectedness to all nationalities and cultures. We are all interconnected. But I maintain a strong American identity. The LA Times article linked to above relates that in the 1990s, there was not as much divisiveness in Hollywood. Well, think about it. We had eight years of Reagan in the 80s, and then four years of Bush I. That’s 12 years of Conservatives in power. Then we had eight years of Clinton, who was something of a moderate, who passed NAFTA. Of course, there seemed to be more unity at the time. But underneath it all, work was being done to change the thinking of the voting populace in America. Then, after eight years of Bush II and eight years of Obama, Progressive Socialists had finally deconstructed “E pluribus Unum” into special interest groups and wove a new flag, one which did not represent “One Nation Under God ” but which appears to represent “No Nation, No Borders, Burn The Flag. ” My dear friends: satirical, biting political humor has long been a fixture of Hollywood. But I do not ever remember this degree of fear and hatred. The LA Times article, while bemoaning the fate of certain conservatives in the entertainment industry, is also a hit piece on President Trump. The headline alone suggests it, and those great souls in the article who make it known they are reluctant or not Trump supporters provide the tell. The left in Hollywood are quick to flaunt their political allegiances this provides them the ability to both grow in number and maintain their level of influence. Meanwhile, the right in Hollywood, for the most part, hide in the shadows and cower. When they do make their views known, conservatives are minimized and their careers are attacked as irrelevant, or as “not enough. ” I have been subject to these lines of attack and others, most recently by Billy Maher and some websites that deliberately misconstrued my statements and attempted to poke fun at me. I get it, fair game! But, my dear friends, this does not make me cower or hide in the closet. On the contrary, like the great character Cyrano De Bergerac, I find it stimulating. You see, sunlight is needed for life. I understand the current blacklist I’ve had my fair share of the insidious tactic. But unless Conservatives can voice their political opinions without fear of personal or professional reprisal, there will never be an equalizing, or even a discussion, with those who disagree. Look at the courage it took for those brave souls in the LGBT community to come out for their beliefs. If they had remained silent, no change would have occurred. Hollywood conservatives do a disservice to their ideology and the country by not respectfully letting their views be known. This lets the left piss all over you. If Conservatives came out in force, with ideas and respect and instead of looking at the left as an enemy to hide from … How about convening a conference of Left and Right. Not a “Politicon,” but a meeting for those on the left and we on the right to come together as AMERICANS, and not as each other’s enemy. I ask a couple of Hollywood’s Elder Statesmen, Norman Lear and Jeffrey Katzenberg, to meet with me to put this idea in motion, and at the same time, on the Conservative side, for Jerry Bruckheimer and Clint Eastwood, to meet with me and discuss how we can find a way forward. When I was a boy, while watching the funeral procession of the Great Martin Luther King Jr. on NBC, I observed a rickety wooden cart being pulled by two mules and behind the cart, a sea of people. In the cart lay the body of MLK at that moment, he represented the totality of the human struggle. I remember feeling then, while watching the procession on TV, that we, as a country, were either going to pull together or else come apart. The country is as divided as it has ever been, and it not because of President Donald Trump. To blame him is a lie and a excuse. We in Hollywood can help pull this country together instead of breaking it apart any further. We owe that responsibility to our youth. Hollywood helps frame a cultural message, and we must step up at this time. The Democrats’ battle cry should not be “RESIST. ” This is a danger to the fabric of our society. The blacklist was broken in the 50s it is time for those in the liberal bastion of power to break it today, and to not punish conservatives for their difference in beliefs. Is this not the American Way? My dear fellow Hollywood conservatives: do we not as a minority deserve a place at the table? And my dear liberal progressive Hollywood elites: are we not all Americans? Unemployed, but with big balls, God bless, Robert Davi | 1 |
Feds warn NYC officials about possible al Qaeda attack 11/04/2016
NEW YORK POST
New York City law enforcement authorities are on high alert after receiving a warning by the feds about a possible attack by al Qaeda on the eve of Election Day, sources said.
US intelligence officials alerted joint terrorism task forces of the threat, which also included Texas and Virginia — though specific sites targeted for Monday in the three states were not mentioned, a federal source told The Post.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday he had learned of the threat several days ago during classified briefings.
“We are still very much assessing the credibility. It is not at all clear how credible this is,” de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on his weekly radio show. “We’re certainly in a vigilant position.”
Hizzoner said the NYPD is planning an “extraordinary” police presence for Tuesday, when Americans go to the polls.
“For the first time in memory there will be two presidential campaigns having their victory celebrations in New York City on Tuesday night,” he said, quickly correcting himself that only one candidate will be celebrating.
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, will be at the New York Hilton Midtown on Sixth Avenue, while Hillary Clinton, his Democratic counterpart, will be at the Javits Convention Center across town on 11th Avenue.
Police also will be heavily deployed for the New York City Marathon on Sunday, de Blasio said.
Meanwhile, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declined to confirm the threat Friday but also noted the high state of alert for Election Day.
“We have more state police, more National Guard, more soldiers on duty than ever before,” he said. “So the bad news is New York is often a threat. The good news is we’ve been dealing with this now for over a decade and we have prepared for it.”
The NYPD and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said they had been alerted to the possible attacks.
“We are aware of the information. We have been working with the FBI through the Joint Terrorism Task Force and our Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureaus,” the NYPD said in a statement.
“We continue to encourage anyone with any information that could be relevant to the safety of our city to contact law enforcement,” the department said.
The Port Authority — which operates airports, tunnels and bridges in and around the Big Apple — said it too was prepared.
“We are continuing the high level of security we have had in place at all of our facilities for many months,” spokesman Steve Coleman told The Post.
The FBI did not comment specifically about the threat against the three states, but said counterterrorism and Homeland Security authorities “remain vigilant and well-postured” to handle attacks.
“The FBI, working with our federal, state and local counterparts, shares and assesses intelligence on a daily basis and will continue to work closely with law enforcement and intelligence community partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to public safety,” an FBI official said.
Friday’s threat followed a report by NBC News that the US government believes hackers from Russia or other countries may try to unleash cyberattacks to wreak havoc ahead of Election Day.
An effort coordinated by the White House and the Department of Homeland Security — and including the CIA, the National Security Agency and other elements of the Department of Defense — is being conducted to avert attacks, NBC News reported. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. The second day of the Republican National Convention was shadowed by the first, thanks not only to the tough oratory, but also to Melania Trump’s speech, which contained passages that were virtually identical to some in Michelle Obama’s convention speech in 2008. Mr. Trump’s campaign and senior Republicans offered conflicting explanations for similarities in the speeches. Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, denying plagiarism, accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of trying to draw attention to the issue. _____ 2. It’s official. Delegates in Cleveland formally nominated Mr. Trump. Tonight’s speakers, who are to focus on jobs and the economy, included two top Republicans who have kept Mr. Trump at a distance: the House speaker, Paul Ryan, and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell. Ben Carson Chris Christie, who was passed over as running mate, and two Trump children, Donald Jr. above, and Tiffany, also spoke tonight. Our live coverage is here. _____ 3. The Republicans’ convention, and the Democrats’ next week, is drawing out two familiar satirists: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s unctuous commentator “Stephen Colbert. ” “The Late Show,” with Mr. Colbert as host and Mr. Stewart as executive producer, plans live broadcasts after each night of both conventions. So far, the idea has been good for ratings. Monday night’s program was the No. 1 broadcast show for the first time in five months. _____ 4. Hillary Clinton is weighing a shortlist of possible running mates that includes Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Our experts have created an elections model that puts Mrs. Clinton’s chances of winning at 76 percent and Mr. Trump’s at 24 percent. _____ 5. Roger Ailes, the subject of a lawsuit accusing him of sexual harassment, is in talks with 21st Century Fox on his departure as chairman of Fox News, according a person briefed on the discussions. A consulting role at Fox News appeared a possibility. His exit or demotion would be a stunning fall. Mr. Ailes, pictured above as he started Fox News 20 years ago, turned it into a cable news program and the leading media platform for conservatives. _____ 6. NASA scientists were so stunned by global temperatures that they pushed up their annual announcement by months. Every month so far this year has hit a global heat record. _____ 7. Wildlife experts have an idea on how to reduce the Northeast’s booming population of deer, which pose an increasing hazard to drivers. Bring back the cougar, they argue in a new paper. The eastern cougar could prey on enough deer in its historic range to prevent 155 human deaths and 21, 400 human injuries, and save $2. 3 billion, over the course of 30 years. But it seems unlikely that people would accept the cost: an estimated one human death a year from wild cougars. _____ 8. Lawsuits filed by three states say Volkswagen’s emission deception went all the way to the top. The suits say the company’s current chief executive, Matthias Müller, was aware 10 years ago, when he headed VW’s luxury division, that Audis were not being outfitted with equipment needed to meet U. S. standards. “The idea that this level of fraud could take place and involve so many people at such high levels of a major international corporation is appalling,” said Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general. _____ 9. The nation’s racial tensions are playing out in the entertainment world. Leslie Jones, a star of the “Ghostbusters” reboot, left Twitter after trolls pelted her with slurs, threats and pornography. “I mean on my worst day I can’t think of this type of hate to put out,” she posted in disbelief. Twitter said that it was trying to rein in abusers, but acknowledged that it was not “where it should be on how we handle these issues. ” _____ 10. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for another attack in Europe: a Afghan immigrant who used an ax on four passengers on a Bavarian train, got out and then seriously injured a woman who was walking her dog. The random nature of ISIS attacks grew more clear, as a regional Islamic group in Nice, France, said that more than a third of 84 people killed by a rampaging truck were Muslims. _____ 11. Finally, good news and bad news. The bad: A huge construction crane collapsed on the Tappan Zee Bridge, north of New York City, shutting down traffic on major highways. The good: No one was killed. “It’s a miracle that the boom fell across six lanes of traffic, cars that are doing 60 to 70 miles an hour, and not one car was hit by the boom,” said an official with the crane operators’ union. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
BRİCS ülkeleri ABD’nin mali savaşıyla baş etmek zorunda yazan Ariel Noyola Rodríguez ABD’nin başlattığı mali savaşla baş edebilmek için, BRİCS ülkelerinin ekonomi ve finans alanlarındaki işbirliği bağlarını acilen güçlendirmeleri gerekiyor. BRİCS ülkelerinin yeni kalkınma bankasının kredi hacmini ve aynı şekilde döviz rezervi derinliğini arttırması gerekiyor. Bunun dışında BRİCS ülkelerinin mümkün olan en kısa zamanda kendi kredi derecelendirme kuruluşunu oluşturmaları gerekir. Ekonomik bütünleşmeyi yoğunlaştırmak için bir serbest bölgenin oluşturulması gümrük engellerini ortadan kaldıracak ve böylece kendi aralarındaki ticaretin etkili bir şekilde artmasını sağlayacaktır. Kısacası, eğer kısa zamanda uygun önlemler alınmazsa, BRİCS ülkeleri yaklaşan mali tayfun sırasında batma riski taşıyorlar.
Voltaire İletişim Ağı | Meksiko (Meksika) | 5 Kasım 2016 français русский italiano Español Deutsch 15 ve 16 Ekim tarihlerinde, Hindistan’ın Goa Eyaletinde, BRİCS’in (Brezilya, Rusya, Hindistan, Çin ve Güney Afrika) sekizinci zirvesi yapıldı. Toplantının, küresel ekonominin çok kritik durumu bağlamında gerçekleştirildiğini kabul etmeliyiz. Bu arada, BRİCS ülkeleri, kötü bir dönemi stratejik bakış açısından hareketle aralarındaki bağları derinleştirmek için bir fırsata dönüştürme konusundaki olağanüstü yeteneklerini bir kez daha ortaya koydular.
BRİCS ekonomileri altın çağlarını yaşadıktan sonra, son yıllarda, büyüme oranları sert bir şekilde yavaşladı. Bu zor durum karşısında, BRİCS ülkelerinin, bundan birkaç yıl önce Fortaleza’da (Brezilya) yaptıkları altıncı zirce sırasında kuruluşunu dünyaya duyurdukları mali kurumlardan yararlanmaya şimdi her zamankinden daha çok ihtiyaçları vardır [ 1 ].
Geçtiğimiz Nisan ayında, yeni Kalkınma Bankası 800 milyon doların üstünde bir tutarda ilk kredisini verdi [ 2 ] ve 2017 yılında verilen toplam kredi tutarının 2 500 milyon doları bulması bekleniyor [ 3 ]. Bunun dışında, bu yılın Temmuz ayında, aynı mali kurum, 450 milyon dolara yakın bir tutarda Yuan cinsinden « green bonds » -yeşil tahvil- itfasını tarihi bir gerçekleşme ile başarıyla yürüttü [ 4 ]. Bu mali enstrümanlar, dünya ölçeğinde Çin para biriminin etkisini arttırırken, büyük yatırım projelerinin finansmanını sağlıyorlar.
Bu arada, 100 milyar dolar değerindeki döviz rezervi fonu (İngilizce kısaltmasıyla CRA), Hindistan Maliye Bakanı Arun Jaitley’in duyurduğu gibi, BRİCS ülkelerinin ödemeler dengesine istikrar kazandırmak üzere ilk kredilerini vermeye hazırdır [ 5 ]. ABD Federal Rezervi (FED), alışageldiği üzere, küresel çapta yeni bir mali krize yol açacak şekilde federal faiz oranlarının artışı tehdidini her savurduğunda, BRİCS ülkelerinin istikrar fonlarının parasal kaynaklarını olabildiğince hızlı bir şekilde arttırmaları önem kazanıyor. Aksi taktirde, büyük yatırım bankalarının spekülatif bahisleri nedeniyle ciddi hasar alma riski taşımaktadırlar.
Aynı zamanda BRİCS ülkelerinin, sadece yaptıkları ticarette yerel para birimlerini kullanarak değil ama aynı zamanda örneğin kendi merkez bankalarında Yuan cinsinden rezervleri arttırarak uluslararası mali sistem içerisindeki ABD ve dolar hegemonyasına açık bir şekilde meydan okumak üzere yeni cepheler açmaya ihtiyacı vardır [ 6 ]. Üstelik halkın para birimi –Çince Renminbi- geçen 1 Ekim tarihinde, 1960 yılında Uluslararası Para Fonu’nun (İMF) tarafından oluşturulan özel çekim hakkını destekleyen elit para birimleri sepetine resmi olarak kabul edildi [ 7 ].
Bunun dışında BRİCS ülkelerinin, Latin Amerika, Asya, Afrika ve Ortadoğu ile aralarındaki güçlü jeopolitik bağlar sayesinde mali bir ittifakı harekete geçirme yeteneği de vardır. İster Asya Altyapı Yatırım Bankası (İngilizce kısaltmasıyla AIIB), ister ALBA Bankası (Bizim Amerikamız için Bolivarcı İttifak) ve hatta nihayet bu yılın sonundan önce faaliyete geçecek olan Güney Bankası olsun, temel olarak çevre ülkeleri tarafından biçimlendirilen Bölgesel Kalkınma Bankaları bu amaca hizmet edebilir.
Fitch, Moody’s ve Standard & Poor’s aracılığıyla ABD’nin elinde olan ezici hakimiyetten kurtulmaları için, kendilerine ait bir kredi derecelendirme kuruluşunun oluşturulması da, BRİCS ülkeleri için acil bir ihtiyaç haline geldi [ 8 ]. Bu üç kredi derecelendirme kurumu, teknik kriterlerden hareketle değerlendirmeler yapmak yerine, özellikle uzaktan kumandalı politik içerikli eğilimlerle hareket ediyorlar. Bu çalışma tarzı söz konusu kuruluşları, devlet tahvillerinin notlarını indirerek ve böylece Yunanistan, Rusya ya da Venezüella gibi ülkelerin kredi maliyetlerini çarpıcı bir şekilde artırarak özgün bir savaş aygıtı haline getiriyor.
Ekonomik bütünleşme, son yıllarda, özellikle de 2001 ve 2015 arasında BRİCS ülkeleri arasındaki ticaretin toplam ticaretlerine oranı % 6’dan % 12’ye çıkarak [ 9 ] ikiye katlanmasıyla büyük şekilde gelişmesine rağmen, bir başka büyük meydan okumadır. Çin, uzaktan bakıldığında diğer BRİCS ülkeleriyle en çok entegre olan ekonomidir. Buna karşın, Hindistan ve Güney Afrika gibi ülkelerin arasındaki bağlar marjinaldir. Aynı durum Brezilya ve Rusya için de geçerlidir. Bu da BRİCS ülkeleri arasında bir serbest ticaret bölgesinin oluşturulmasının yerindeliğini ortaya koyuyor [ 10 ]. Öte yandan, kendi aralarındaki ticari engelleri ortadan kaldırmanın ötesinde, BRİCS ülkeleri kendi aralarında, en elverişsiz ülkelerin sanayileşmesini teşvik etmek için üretim sistemlerinin entegrasyonu yoluyla, birlikte değer zincirlerinin inşasını desteklemelidir.
Sonuç olarak, gelişmekte olan beş gücün karşısında ufukta birçok meydan okuma vardır. Bunun devamında BRİCS ülkelerinin başarısı yeniden icat etme yeteneklerine, uzun vadeli hedeflerine ulaşmak için yeni işbirliği boyutlarının ifadesi yolundaki yaratıcılıklarına bağlı olacaktır. Amerika’nın hazırlığını yaptığı yeni mali savaş karşısında, BRİCS ülkelerinin yeniden saldırıya geçmesinin zamanı gelmiştir…
Ariel Noyola Rodríguez Çeviri
Osman Soysal
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Russia Today (Russie) | 0 |
United Airlines barred two teenage girls from boarding a flight on Sunday morning and required a child to change into a dress after a gate agent decided the leggings they were wearing were inappropriate. That set off waves of anger on social media, with users criticizing what they called an intrusive, sexist policy, but the airline maintained its support for the gate agent’s decision. The girls, who were about to board a flight to Minneapolis, were turned away at the gate at Denver International Airport, the company said on Sunday. United doubled down on that decision, defending it in a series of tweets on Sunday. The incident was first reported on Twitter by Shannon Watts, a passenger at the airport who was waiting to board a flight to Mexico. In a telephone interview from Mexico on Sunday afternoon, Ms. Watts said she noticed two visibly upset teenage girls leaving the gate next to hers. Both were wearing leggings. Ms. Watts went over to the neighboring gate and saw a “frantic” family with two young girls, one of whom was also wearing leggings, engaged in a tense exchange with a gate agent who told them, “I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. ” Ms. Watts said the girl’s mother told her the two teenagers had just been turned away because the gate agent said their pants were not appropriate travel attire. The woman had a dress in her bag that the child was able to pull on over her pants, and the family boarded the flight. “The girl pulled a dress on,” Ms. Watts said. “But please keep in mind that the dad had on shorts that did not hit his knee — they stopped maybe two or three inches above his knee — and there was no issue with that. ” Ms. Watts judged that the two girls who were barred from boarding were in their “young teens” and the girl who changed into a dress was 10 or 11. Ms. Watts described the situation in a series of tweets before her flight to Mexico took off. By the time she landed her tweets had been shared widely, often accompanied by sharp criticism directed at the airline. Jonathan Guerin, a spokesman for United, confirmed that two teenage girls were told they could not board a flight from Denver to Minneapolis because their leggings violated the company’s dress code policy for “pass travelers,” a company benefit that allows United employees and their dependents to travel for free on a standby basis. Mr. Guerin said pass travelers are “representing” the company and as such are not allowed to wear Lycra and spandex leggings, tattered or ripped jeans, midriff shirts, or any article of clothing that shows their undergarments. “It’s not that we want our standby travelers to come in wearing a suit and tie or that sort of thing,” he said. “We want people to be comfortable when they travel as long as it’s neat and in good taste for that environment. ” He said both teenage girls stayed behind in Denver, “made an adjustment” to their outfits and waited for the next flight to Minneapolis. Mr. Guerin did not know if they had successfully boarded or not, and also had no information about the girl Ms. Watts said she saw change into a dress at the gate. The company largely confirmed Ms. Watts’s account earlier in the day in a response to her on Twitter that did little to mollify the concerns of its critics. In a series of dozens of tweets, the company said the incident was not simply the result of an overzealous gate agent. Instead, it said United Airlines reserved the right to deny service to anyone its employees deemed to be inappropriately dressed. It also referred to the dress code applied to pass travelers. “In our Contract of Carriage, Rule 21, we do have the right to refuse transport for passengers who are barefoot or not properly clothed,” the company tweeted. It added, “There is a dress code for pass travelers as they are representing UA when they fly. ” Few critics appeared to be satisfied by that explanation, which also did little to a perilous public relations situation for the company. United was the target of scores of angry and mocking tweets on Sunday, including from social celebrities like the model Chrissy Teigen and the actor LeVar Burton. By Sunday afternoon, the company’s Twitter account was engaged in a tense back and forth with the Academy actress Patricia Arquette, who posted dozens of angry tweets about the situation. Employees running United’s Twitter account spent the day walking a public relations tightrope: explaining to angry social media users why the company was not wrong to bar the young women from boarding, while reassuring potential customers that they would not also be barred if they showed up in leggings. People like to be comfortable when they fly, Ms. Watts said, and leggings and yoga pants have become standard casual attire for women. “I’m pretty sure yoga pants are a thing,” Ms. Watts said. “They’re part of modern America. They’re a staple, a clothing item. ” Mr. Guerin said the company was aware of the criticism leveled at its social media team, but said they were “working as hard as they can. ” “We could have stopped to immediately ask the right questions,” he said. “We are always engaging with our customers as quickly as possible. Now we are going back. All day we’ve been going back since that earlier tweet. Now we’re going back and telling people what is actually going on. ” | 1 |
A young British woman was stabbed to death on Jerusalem’s tram network on Good Friday, with her killer identified by local police as a Palestinian male “terrorist”. [The unidentified woman, who was in her early 20s and a student from Britain in Jerusalem on a tourist visa, was killed by “multiple stab wounds to her upper body” by a “mentally ill man” identified by The Jerusalem Post as Jamil Tamimi. The suspect has been arrested. Update to stabbing attack: Women in 20s dies In hospital few minutes ago. Arab Terrorist arrested who carried out attack is from Rasel Amud. — Micky Rosenfeld (@MickyRosenfeld) April 14, 2017, The stabbing, which is the second time in weeks that a Palestinian individual has launched an attack in the city, comes as Jewish and Christian pilgrims congregate in the city for Holy Week, Good Friday, and Passover. According to reports, the attack took place on Jerusalem’s light rail tram system, and that the man pulled a kitchen knife from his bag and started stabbing other passengers as the train approached Kikar Tzahal, the ‘IDF Square’ near the old city. In addition to the young British citizen who was killed in the attack, a man and a pregnant woman were also injured, and are receiving treatment in hospital — the pregnant woman having been stabbed in the belly. Britain’s Sky News reports the comments of a spokesman of the Israeli security services Shin Bet agency, who said: “This is one of many instances where a Palestinian suffering personal strife … chooses to carry out an attack in order to find release for his problem. ” Terrorist who carried out knife attack is from Rasal amud in his 50s. Arrested by police at the scene. Woman in 20s in critical condition. pic. twitter. — Micky Rosenfeld (@MickyRosenfeld) April 14, 2017, Police photo of weapon, Police commander Yoram Halevi said of the attacker that he had a history of sexual and domestic violence and was “very mentally unstable”. It is reported he had attempted to take his own life in the past, and that he is now being interrogated by police to establish his motives and to discover whether he has any accomplices. | 1 |
In the spring of 1862, cloaked in the predawn darkness of Charleston Harbor, Robert Smalls stood aboard the C. S. S. Planter, a Confederate transfer and gunboat, and plotted his escape. In his day, Smalls was a rarity, a black enslaved harbor pilot. He was also clever: That morning, with his three commanding white officers carousing ashore, Smalls began executing his plan. With eight fellow slave crewmen in tow, Smalls, wearing a captain’s uniform, cranked up the vessel’s engines, and in the moonlit waters, headed toward the promise of freedom. Guiding the ship past Confederate forts and issuing checkpoint signals, Smalls steamed up the Cooper River, stopping at a wharf to pick up his wife, child and his crew’s families. In dawn’s light, the Planter, flying a white sheet as a surrender flag, made it to his cherished destination: a Union Navy fleet whose officers eyed him, dumbfounded, as Smalls saluted them. “I am delivering this war material including these cannons and I think Uncle Abraham Lincoln can put them to good use,” he said. Freedom, for Smalls and his crew, had arrived. On a recent sunny afternoon, more than a century and a half later, Michael B. Moore was standing on Gadsden’s Wharf reflecting on his ’s remarkable journey — and other triumphs and tragedies born on that spot. It took some imagining: The wharf, now a city park populated by children, young professionals and commercial cruise ships, has morphed numerous times since its heyday as the busiest port for the nation’s slave trade capital. Between 1783 and 1808, some 100, 000 slaves, arriving from across West Africa, were transported through Gadsden’s Wharf and other South Carolina ports, and sold to the 13 colonies. “This place personalizes for me what my ancestors lived through,” said Mr. Moore, chief executive of Charleston’s International African American Museum, scheduled to open in 2019. “I just can’t imagine what they felt here on this space. This is where they took their first steps on this land. ” Mr. Moore walked inland a couple hundred yards, where incoming slaves, after being quarantined off the coast at Sullivan’s Island, were warehoused — sometimes for months at a time. In what’s been called facetiously “the Ellis Island for African Americans,” thousands of slaves waiting to be auctioned off as domestics and laborers throughout the South died in those warehouses. In a few months, construction crews will break ground to build the museum on the wharf. “Right there,” Mr. Moore said, pointing directly ahead, “in what’s now a parking lot, is where 700 black people froze to death. I can only wonder what we’ll find when we start digging up this place. ” Charleston, almost paradoxically, is an easy place for tourists to love. Visitors delight in the city’s cobblestone streets, its churches, Greek Revival storefronts, its array of trendy restaurants and hotels. As Travel Leisure magazine, which earlier this year ranked Charleston first of its 15 world’s best cities, gushed: “Charleston is much more than the sum of its cobblestone streets, clopping horse carriages and classical architecture. Much of the port city’s allure lies in constant reinvention and little surprises (like guinea hens clucking up and down Legare Street, flying by on skateboards heading into work, or Citadel cadets honking their bagpipes on sidewalks in summertime). ” Yet for all its appeal, Charleston also evokes a brutal chapter of American life, a city built on and sustained by slave labor for nearly two centuries. Beneath the stately facade of this prosperous city is a savage narrative of Jim Crow and Ku Klux Klan violence, right through the civil rights movement. One doesn’t have to reach that far back to understand what makes Charleston a haunting place to explore (an estimated 40 to 60 percent of can trace their roots here). Only in 2015 did the Confederate flag come down from the state capitol in Columbia, prompted by a young Dylann S. Roof, who brandished a handgun and massacred nine people during a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s oldest black churches and hallowed ground of the civil rights movement. That one of the casualties, Cynthia Hurd, was the sister of a close colleague only hardened my sense that the Holy City, nicknamed as such after its abundance of churches, was holding fast to its legacy of racial hatred. Even as this article went to press, Charleston was bracing itself for two racially loaded trials on Broad Street, at the United States District Court, Mr. Roof faces 33 federal charges — including hate crimes and religious rights violations — in the massacre at Emanuel A. M. E. A block away, at the Charleston County Judicial Center, the former North Charleston police officer Michael T. Slager faces charges in the murder of Walter L. Scott, an unarmed black man gunned down as he fled a traffic stop. And yet, amid a national climate of rising racial tension, the compulsion to engage this history was for me visceral, akin to the urge to revisit a crime scene. I can only suspect that a similar urge to peel back the layers of pain and survival of blacks in America, at least partly, is driving some of the rise in attendance at the nation’s black history sites, including the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, where advance timed tickets are reportedly no longer available through March 2017. I hoped that, on some level, engaging the painful history of human atrocity and heroism in Charleston might illuminate the racial chasms dividing Americans. “There are stories of resilience and courage here that will lift everyone,” said Joseph P. Riley Jr. who retired from office this year after 40 years as Charleston’s mayor. For a white Southern politician, his politics were decidedly progressive: His decision back in 1975, upon being elected, to appoint a black police chief, for example, earned him the moniker of “L’il Black Joe” among white racists. Still, it wasn’t until he read Edward Ball’s “Slaves in the Family” in 1998 that he came to fully appreciate — and lament — the gravity of the city’s past. “Slaves in the Family,” which won the National Book Award, chronicles the Ball family’s life as prosperous slave owners and traders in Charleston, an enterprise that started in 1698 and swelled to more than 20 rice plantations along the Cooper River. Through interviews, as well as through plantation records and photographs, the author traced the offspring of slave women and Ball men, personally contacting some of an estimated 75, 000 to 100, 000 of these living children, and documenting stories of his family’s cruelty and abuse as owners and traders off the coast of Sierra Leone. “I really started to understand that we had an important role in the international slave trade, Emancipation and Jim Crow,” Mr. Riley said. Around then, Mr. Riley began brainstorming ways to illuminate Charleston’s tale of two cities, which he says most historians and tour guides have shortchanged. Before the early 20th century, historical accounts of slavery generally downplayed the “peculiar institution” as paternalistic and something less than the organized, profitable industry it was. The oversight is egregious: By the there were some four million slaves in the United States, with nearly 10 percent of them, or 400, 000, living in South Carolina. Fortunately, this changed during the first part of the century as publications appeared, like “Slave Trading in the Old South” by the historian Frederic Bancroft, whose research shed light on the lucrative business of domestic slave trading. Bancroft listed names of slave brokers, commission merchants and auctioneers, and detailed how slave auctions were advertised and carried out. As Bancroft wrote: “Negroes were displayed individually and in groups at the front of the building as auctioneers, planters, traders and curious onlookers watched. ” The United States banned international slave trading in 1808, but the practice continued domestically, and Charleston became a major port for interstate trade. Even in the when the city prohibited public slave trading, traders moved into the brick enclosed yards downtown around the Old Exchange Provost Dungeon, at East Bay and Broad Streets. The building is a popular tourist attraction these days, highlighting its various uses throughout history, including holding prisoners of war during the American Revolution. The primary catalyst behind South Carolina’s booming slave trade was rice production. The appeal of West Africans to plantation owners was simple: The moist climate of their homeland bore striking similarities to South Carolina’s swampy Lowcountry. English planters proved to be poor rice producers as the process of planting, cultivating, harvesting and preparing the crop for market was intricate and physically arduous. Plantation owners divided the tedious process between their expert men and women, West African slaves, with men doing the dangerous work of clearing swamp lands, and women sowing the rice. The process was messy, physically draining and relentless it included scattering rice seedlings onto soil, working them into the earth with bare feet, and then threshing after harvest, which required tediously removing rice from hulls, pounding the rice repeatedly and then separating the hulls from the rice in handmade winnowing baskets. South Carolina’s dependence on slave labor was staggering. In the late 1600s some of the state’s population was white by the mid 1700s, slaves accounted for more than 70 percent of its population. Vestiges of prosperity built on slave labor abound. For example, there’s Drayton Hall, an architectural masterpiece completed in 1742 for John Drayton slave labor was used on the plantation that grew indigo and rice. Among Charleston’s biggest slaveholders was the Middleton family, which from 1738 to 1865 owned some 3, 000 slaves on its numerous plantations. These days, led by a family descendant, Charles Duell, the Middleton Place Plantation, a designated National Historic Landmark, creates exhibits around the genealogy and contributions of its enslaved workers. “Whether it was knitting or weaving or corn grinding, or tending the rice fields — all these activities were performed by ” said Mr. Duell, who has hosted three reunions that bring together the property’s European American and descendants. “They created the wealth that made all this possible. ” Magnolia Plantation, founded by the Drayton family in 1676, has similarly launched a preservation project. It celebrates the importance of Gullah culture, which enslaved West Africans brought to the Lowcountry, but also demonstrates how life was led in slave dwellings that date to 1850, several of which are being preserved. Walking along the streets of downtown Charleston, the painter Jonathan Green describes a city that has been so enthralled with its plantation aristocracy that it has mostly neglected to celebrate its black heritage, or Gullah culture. That culture includes its Creole language, traditions in food and dance, and critical expertise in agriculture. Mr. Green himself was born and raised in a nearby Gullah community in Beaufort, and his bright, bold paintings of his ancestors — in church pews, on grassy landscapes and against ocean sunsets — offer a romantic antidote to the erasure of much of that Gullah past. But walking the bustling city streets, Mr. Green proves equally adept at recalling black figures whose rich tales are integral to this city’s story. Along these streets, Mr. Green’s reminiscing easily comes alive as we move past the Old Slave Mart, among the few remaining relics of the city’s interstate slave trade. Not to be confused with the nearby outdoor Charleston City Market, the Old Slave Mart is a museum these days, housing arts and crafts. I had walked through it on an earlier occasion but standing now in its shadow, beside Mr. Green, I recalled its eerie cavernous brick rooms — the “barracoon” or slave jail in Portuguese, the morgue. “It would have been almost impossible to run away,” Mr. Green said. “From Jacksonville, Florida, all the way up to Cape Fear, North Carolina, was nothing but a human prison camp. ” Such oppression sparked many revolts, but few such insurrections proved more ambitious — or so scrupulously studied — as Denmark Vesey’s. Vesey’s birthplace has never been confirmed, but historians say he was likely born on a St. Thomas sugar plantation before being sold, around age 14, to the slave trader Joseph Vesey, whose name he took, as was customary. In the late 1700s, Denmark Vesey’s owner relocated to Charleston, and some years later, Vesey purchased his freedom from his master for $600 from a lucky $1, 500 lottery ticket windfall. A few years later, in 1822, he attempted what historians agree would have been the nation’s most elaborate and largest slave revolt — planned, in part, to gain Vesey’s own wife and children’s freedom. It’s estimated that some 3, 000 slaves got word of Vesey’s planned June 16 insurgency, and were prepared to follow his directive to kill every white person in sight, steal their weapons and cash from banks, and ultimately escape by boat to Haiti. But some slaves, fearing retribution, leaked the plan to authorities. Vesey was hanged, with, according to various sources, as many as 35 others. Today, towering amid the oak groves and ponds of Hampton Park, is a bronze statue of Demark Vesey, which the city unveiled in February 2014. But Vesey’s most enduring contribution to Charleston is arguably his cofounding of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which, at 200 years old, is the oldest A. M. E. church in the South. Vesey’s botched slave revolt resulted in angry white mobs burning down the original structure, but the congregation continued worship services underground and rebuilt Mother Emanuel, as it is known, following the Civil War (this structure, designed by Vesey’s son, the architect Robert Vesey, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1886). The Mother Emanuel I visited has been sitting grandly on Calhoun Street since 1892, its current facade prominent from blocks away. Inside the church, the pews, altar, Communion rail and light fixtures from the original edifice have been preserved, but it’s the church’s role in the fight for racial freedom, and the pantheon of leaders who have spoken from its pulpit — from Booker T. Washington to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — that make this site hallowed ground. Charleston has recently begun trying to heal racial wounds by celebrating its black history. Last April, for example, in the heated aftermath of the Walter Scott shooting, a racially mixed group of nearly 100 local movers and shakers dined together in a of Nat Fuller’s racial reconciliation feast 150 years before. Fuller was a former slave and classically trained chef who, in the 1800s, rose to become an elite caterer his restaurant, the Bachelor’s Retreat (Fuller’s master permitted his ownership, and took a portion of the profit) was a favorite within Charleston high society, according to the University of South Carolina professor David Shields. In the spring of 1865, in the aftermath of Charleston’s surrendering to Union forces, Fuller invited a racially integrated group of local whites and blacks — some who had purchased their freedom and others newly freed — to celebrate the end of the Civil War. Despite a scarcity of food supplies caused by the war, the Fuller called for an abundant meal. As one white socialite had scoffed in a letter: “Nat Fuller, a Negro caterer, provided munificently for a miscegenation dinner, at which blacks and whites sat on equality and gave toasts and sang songs for Lincoln and freedom. ” Charleston’s recent commemorative feast — which, according to Charleston City Paper, included “poached bass, a ramekin of shrimp pie bursting with fragrant herbs. Capon chasseur, venison with currant squab with truffle sauce” — proved successful as well. Among the guests at the feast was the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator, who two months later would be among the dead at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Riley, the former mayor, said the church massacre inspired him to accelerate his efforts to make real a vision he’s nurtured for years: building the International African American Museum of Charleston, which today he calls “the most important work of my life. ” He envisions the museum as an elevated space on Gadsden’s Wharf that features permanent and rotating exhibitions and a genealogy center. And similar to Civil War sites in Vicksburg and Gettysburg, he plans for the museum to develop a school curriculum that teaches students about the American slave trade. “The tragedy at Emanuel made me even more determined to bring this to fruition,” Mr. Riley said. “That hateful bigot clearly didn’t know his history,” he added, referring to Mr. Roof. Earlier this year, Mr. Riley tapped Michael Boulware Moore to lead the museum, projected to cost $75 million. Mr. Riley said he liked Mr. Moore’s background as a successful senior marketing executive with such major brands as and Kraft. Of course, Mr. Moore’s background as a direct descendant of Robert Smalls, whose escape on the C. S. S. Planter led to his rise as a South Carolina congressman during the Reconstruction era, was a plus, too. “His lineage couldn’t be better, but he’s also a very talented person,” Mr. Riley said. Mr. Moore himself said the opportunity to build a museum on the same site in which his ancestors arrived as slaves is humbling — and carries with it an almost overwhelming sense of obligation to deliver. “I’ve heard from some people who are concerned there’s going to be Disneyfication of our history,” Mr. Moore said, standing on the wharf. “That’s not going to happen. I feel a tangible obligation to our ancestors to do this right. ” At that moment, as if on cue, a white schooner with two masts appeared off the harbor. Mr. Moore gazed out into the distance “Wow,” he said, “That looks almost like a slave ship. Had we been standing here back then, a couple hundred years ago, that’s exactly what we would have seen. Yeah, it’s kind of freaky, isn’t it?” | 1 |
George Michael, the English songwriter who sold tens of millions of albums as a member of the duo Wham! and on his own, was found dead on Sunday at his home in Goring in Oxfordshire, England. He was 53. A police statement said: “Thames Valley Police were called to a property in shortly before 2 p. m. Christmas Day. Sadly, a man was confirmed deceased at the scene. At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained but not suspicious. ” Mr. Michael’s manager, Michael Lippman, told The Hollywood Reporter that Mr. Michael had died of heart failure “in bed, lying peacefully. ” “It is with great sadness that we can confirm our beloved son, brother and friend George passed away peacefully at home over the Christmas period,” his publicist Connie Filippello said in a statement. “The family would ask that their privacy be respected at this difficult and emotional time. There will be no further comment at this stage. ” Information on survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Michael was one of pop’s reigning stars in the 1980s and ’90s — first as a handsome, smiling idol making lighthearted singles like “Wake Me Up Before You ” with Wham! then arriving as a pop sex symbol with his 1987 album “Faith. ” But Mr. Michael grew increasingly uncomfortable with the superficiality and relentless promotion of pop stardom. He turned away from video clips and live shows he set out to make more mature statements in his songs, though he never completely abandoned singing about love and desire. [ Why George Michael mattered | Watch him perform live ] Mr. Michael wrote supple ballads, like “Careless Whisper” and “Father Figure,” as well as buoyant dance tracks like “Freedom ’90” and “I Want Your Sex. ” For much of his career, including his albums “Faith” and “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” he was also his own producer and studio backup band. Much of his music drew on RB, old and new, but his melodic gift extended across genres. He won a Grammy Award in 1988 for “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me),” a duet with Aretha Franklin, and “Faith” won the Grammy for album of the year. In Britain, he was showered with awards, and in 2004, Britain’s Radio Academy said he had been the performer on British radio from 1984 to 2004. In 1998, Mr. Michael came out as gay after being arrested on charges of lewd conduct in a men’s room in Beverly Hills, Calif. He had long lent his name and music to support AIDS prevention and gay rights. During interviews in later years, he described himself as bisexual, and said that hiding his sexuality had made him feel “fraudulent. ” He also described long struggles with depression. During the 2000s, Mr. Michael’s output slowed his last studio album of new songs was “Patience” in 2004. In later years he put out individual songs as free downloads, encouraging listeners to contribute to charity. But in 2006, 25 years into his career, he could still headline stadiums worldwide. George Michael was born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou in East Finchley, London, on June 25, 1963, the son of a Greek Cypriot restaurateur and an English dancer. In 1979, he and a schoolmate, Andrew Ridgeley, played together for the first time in a ska band called the Executive. That didn’t last, but they continued to make music together — nearly all of it composed and sung by Mr. Michael — and began releasing singles as Wham! cultivating the image of carefree teenage rebels in songs like “Young Guns (Go for It! ). ” Their 1983 debut album, “Fantastic,” reached No. 1 in Britain in the United States, their 1984 single “Wake Me Up Before You ” became ubiquitous on MTV and reached No. 1. In 1985, the duo became the first major Western pop group to perform in China as part of its world tour, and Mr. Michael appeared at the Live Aid charity concert, telecast worldwide, joining Elton John to sing Mr. John’s song “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me. ” The worldwide 1984 hit “Careless Whisper,” credited in Britain to George Michael solo and to Wham! featuring George Michael in the United States, signaled a turn away from perky teenage fare. Mr. Michael’s status as a top British pop star was confirmed by his appearance on Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas? ,” the 1984 benefit single for Ethiopian famine relief. In 1986, Wham! dissolved, with a farewell show at Wembley Stadium. Mr. Michael had a No. 1 hit with “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)” before releasing the album “Faith” in 1987. Its first single, “I Want Your Sex,” reached No. 2 in the United States, though it was seen as too risqué by some radio stations Mr. Michael made an introduction to its video clip stating, “This song is not about casual sex. ” “Faith,” which hinted at both gospel and rockabilly, reached No. 1, and the album included three more No. 1 hits: “Father Figure,” “Monkey” and “One More Try. ” It has sold more than 10 million copies in the United States. But for his next album, “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” released in 1990, Mr. Michael set out to jettison his pop persona. “I’m not stupid enough to think I can deal with another 10 or 15 years of major exposure,” he told an interviewer at the time. “I think that’s the ultimate tragedy of fame, people who are simply out of control, who are lost. I’ve seen so many of them, and I don’t want to be another cliché. ” The autobiographical “Freedom ’90” declared his independence from the pop machine he wasn’t in its video clip, which had supermodels the lyrics. The album also included a No. 1 single, the ballad “Praying for Time,” and has sold two million copies in the United States, but after the blockbuster of “Faith” it was considered a commercial letdown. Mr. Michael entered a protracted legal battle with Sony Music over his contract, and was unable to release another album until 1996. Its title, “Older,” was an unmistakable signal that he was no longer directly courting the youth market he was 32 years old. The album was an instant hit in England and Europe — it had six hit singles in England — though it was less popular in the United States. After his 1998 arrest, Mr. Michael released a album with two new songs one, “Outside,” set its video clip in a men’s restroom. He made a 1999 album of cover songs, “Songs of the Last Century. ” In the early 2000s, Mr. Michael released songs protesting the invasion of Iraq, including the 2002 “Shoot the Dog. ” His last full studio album, “Patience,” was released in 2004, full of introspective ballads. Mr. Michael returned to performing he joined Paul McCartney onstage during the 2005 Live 8 benefit concert. In 2006, he performed a world tour, paired with another collection of hits, “Twenty Five,” which included new duets with Mr. McCartney and Mary J. Blige. He continued to release individual songs sporadically, and in 2014, he released “Symphonica,” a collection of standards and his own songs recorded with an orchestra on a tour. During that tour, he collapsed with nearly fatal pneumonia and was hospitalized for five weeks he wrote a single, “White Light,” about the experience. Mr. Michael had been planning an expanded reissue, due in 2017, of “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1,” paired with a documentary, “Freedom,” exploring his musical, personal and legal struggles. “I never minded being thought of as a pop star,” Mr. Michael told GQ in 2004. “People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn’t, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music. ” | 1 |
On perhaps the defining issue of the 2016 Republican primary, Senator Ted Cruz falls well to the right of Ronald Reagan, who supported granting legal status to millions of undocumented immigrants. He opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and has called for a federal amendment that would allow states to avoid performing or recognizing marriages. He wants to return to the gold standard, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and create a tax structure simple enough for Americans to file on postcards. He has criticized Donald J. Trump on deportation policy. From the right. Throughout his Senate career, Republican opponents have cast Mr. Cruz as a master of the — a “wacko bird,” as Senator John McCain of Arizona once called him — whose seemingly reckless pursuits were thought to place him well outside the mainstream. Yet a close reading of Mr. Cruz’s policy prescriptions, influences and writings over two decades, combined with interviews with conservative intellectual leaders and Cruz allies, suggest two powerful truths about the man who might yet assume the mantle of modern conservatism. He would be the most conservative presidential nominee in at least a perhaps to the right of Barry Goldwater, testing the electoral limits of a personal ideology he has forged meticulously since adolescence. And he has, more effectively than almost any politician of his generation, anticipated the rightward tilt of the Republican Party of today, grasping its conservatism even as colleagues dismissed him as a fringe figure. Now, even Mr. Cruz’s staunchest Republican enemies tend to criticize him most forcefully on tactics — lamenting his leading role in the 2013 government shutdown, for instance — but not on substance, where they have generally arrived at equivalent positions. “Nobody has been more assiduous than Cruz at staying on the same page as the conservative base of the Republican Party,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative author and senior editor of National Review, who first met Mr. Cruz when they were students at Princeton University. “That said, it was also the man meeting the moment. He was always a constitutionalist conservative, and then constitutionalism became cool among conservatives. ” There have at times been perceptible shifts from Mr. Cruz during the campaign, in both tone and substance, coaxed by the resonance of Mr. Trump’s populist anger and positions on trade and immigration. But at its core, Mr. Cruz’s brand of conservatism is the product of decades of careful study and manifest intellectual firepower, fusing a host of historical strands into what he has called “opportunity conservatism. ” As a teenager, growing up in Houston, he earned money delivering speeches on Friedrich A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, expounding on principles at Rotary and Kiwanis clubs. The epigraph for his senior thesis at Princeton, which focused on states’ rights and the Ninth and 10th Amendments, quoted James Madison: “You must first enable the government to control the governed and in the next place oblige it to control itself. ” When he captured the Republican nomination in his 2012 Senate race, Mr. Cruz said he was “walking in Uncle Milton’s footsteps,” to honor the 100th birthday of the economist Milton Friedman. He is fond of invoking Mr. Reagan’s Cold War dictum (“We win, they lose”) Margaret Thatcher’s dismissal of socialism (“The problem with socialism is, eventually you run out of other people’s money”) and even, at times, President John F. Kennedy. “I intend to have in the office of president what J. F. K. used to refer to as ‘vigaaaahhh’ in defending the Constitution,” Mr. Cruz, now 45, told voters in Iowa in January. Some citations are more familiar to conservative audiences than others. On economic policy, he has at moments turned to Ayn Rand, the libertarian heroine lionized by the right, and John Rawls, the liberal political philosopher who argued for a compact protecting the “least advantaged. ” References to Mr. Rawls have dwindled since Mr. Cruz began his presidential candidacy last year. “I don’t think Rawls in Iowa,” Mr. Ponnuru joked. It is clear that Mr. Cruz, whose campaign did not make him available for an interview, is most animated by constitutional fights over what he views as overreach by the federal government, particularly on matters of religion. He speaks often of his triumphs as solicitor general of Texas, which included the successful defense of the state’s right to display a Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol. He is a creature of the Supreme Court, counting Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as a former boss and Justice Antonin Scalia as a friend whose strict constructionist views helped shape his own. And arguing last year against a federal ban on marijuana — despite his personal opposition to marijuana legalization at the state level — Mr. Cruz recited Justice Louis D. Brandeis’s belief in the states’ role as “laboratories of democracy. ” Indeed, conservative thinkers have sensed in Mr. Cruz an array of less likely forebears: the morality of Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush President Obama’s disdain for Beltway consensus the fictional exploits of Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart. “There’s a little bit of ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,’” said Peter D. Feaver, a national security strategist under Mr. Bush and a professor at Duke University. “The, ‘I’m going to pursue this even if everyone else is mad at me because this is right. ’” Mr. Cruz seems to take uncommon pride in communicating uncomfortable policy positions to potentially hostile audiences. Mr. Ponnuru likened Mr. Cruz’s opposition to ethanol subsidies in Iowa — once considered heretical in a presidential primary — to Mr. Goldwater’s unpopular suggestion in 1964, while campaigning in Tennessee, that the Tennessee Valley Authority should be sold. On matters of foreign policy, Mr. Cruz is viewed much more warily by mainstream Republicans. His career dealt little with international affairs, many say, and his first term has contained some notable shifts. Mr. Cruz entered the Senate in 2013 as part of the Tea Party wave, brandishing a libertarian streak that became more pronounced after revelations of government surveillance tactics, courtesy of Edward J. Snowden. But in the years since, as the national dialogue has grown more consumed by security threats like the Islamic State, Mr. Cruz has recalibrated considerably, leaving an impression among some conservative thinkers that he is merely groping for the median position of the base. Most notable during the campaign has been his pledge to “ ISIS into oblivion,” which has earned a rebuke from military leaders who define the term specifically as the blanket bombing of even civilian areas. Mr. Cruz has argued his iteration can be more targeted. “He means an overwhelming air campaign,” his longtime national security adviser, Victoria Coates, clarified in an interview. Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who served under Mr. Reagan and Presidents George Bush and George W. Bush, said Mr. Cruz had been “a little hard to find on the spectrum” of conservative foreign policy. “The latest incarnation for him is a sort of realist school of overwhelming military force, but he’s constantly criticizing ” Mr. Wehner said. “I have a feeling he’s more of an amateur in that area. ” The introduction of a national security team last month failed to inspire universal confidence: While the list included some members of the Reagan and Bush administrations, it also had Frank Gaffney Jr. viewed by many as a fringe conspiracy theorist who has suggested that President Obama is Muslim. “Being critical of Frank is a cottage industry,” said Ms. Coates, whose own résumé — she is better known as an art historian — has been questioned. “The fact of the matter is, he has been one of the few fearless voices speaking out against the problems of radical Islam. ” Other concerns are more semantic. Mr. Cruz has been criticized for appearing to use “ ” as a pejorative, and for characterizing his foreign policy views as falling “somewhere in between” two polar extremes: the libertarianism of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky and the hawkishness of Mr. McCain or Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He speaks often of “peace through strength,” reminding crowds that the largest country Mr. Reagan invaded was Grenada. But some conservative foreign policy experts see a crucial difference, implicit in a February speech outlining his military plans in South Carolina. “Cruz’s defense speech was couched as being Reaganite, with plans to increase military spending substantially,” said Gary J. Schmitt, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “But the caveat was getting the economy fixed first. Reagan increased defense spending even while deficits soared. ” Mr. Wehner worried generally that Mr. Cruz had displayed an “intellectual rigidity” that afforded him little latitude to adapt. Mr. Cruz has long trumpeted his “consistent conservative” credentials as a strength, proudly recalling his teenage days as part of a team of students who toured event spaces in Texas and wrote out the Constitution on easels. Robert P. George, his mentor and thesis adviser at Princeton, said that he was most struck by “the consistency from the time when he was a student to now. ” Many conservatives cite Madison and Tocqueville, he said, but “Ted has actually read them. ” Mr. George’s most memorable lesson was in humility. In his book, Mr. Cruz writes of receiving a graded paper from Mr. George, seeing a “C+” on a folded corner of the first page and panicking. “With white knuckles, I folded the corner over,” he wrote, “and on the front was written, ‘Just kidding! A. ’” Mr. George’s goal was simple. “I thought he should at least have a few moments’ experience,” he said, “of not being the smartest guy in the class. ” | 1 |
Does The Russian Government Have A Reality Disconnect? — Paul Craig Roberts (10/25/2016) Dear friends and readers,
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Americans Are So Disconnected From Reality That “Insouciant” Has Become An Euphemism
While the idiot presstitutes and their brainwashed victims hyper-ventilate about Trump’s lewd talk about women, one consequence of the ignored nuclear arms race restarted by the neoconservatives, who have been in charge of US foreign policy in the 21st century, is the Russian Satan 2, which is reported to be capable of destroying the entirety of a land mass the size of Texas or France with one hit.
The neoconservative foreign policy that has produced this result is obviously a total failure and endangers all life on earth. Hillary Clinton is a representative of this disastrous foreign policy. If Americans and Europeans cannot put into office people who can get along with Russia, there is no future for anyone. Trump is the only one who says he sees no point in conflict with Russia. This is what is important, not lewd talk about women.
Hillary’s lewd talk about Putin –“the new Hitler”–will get us all killed.
http://newatlas.com/rs28-sarmat-satan-2-russian-icbm/46127/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=013c2812c9-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-013c2812c9-92498229 Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West , How America Was Lost , and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . Newsletter Notifications Signup Form | 0 |
Waking Times
Vladimir Putin in particular, and Russia in general, have been the focus of an intensive high-drama propaganda campaign of late. Are you buying it? For the time being, Russophobia has replaced Islamophobia as the driving force behind the lies. Various US officials have been frantically warning Americans that the Russians are behind everything: hacking the DNC, controlling Trump, influencing the election and breaking the Syrian ceasefire agreement. They might as well add making your girlfriend break up with you, making your toast get burnt and making your car run out of fuel for all the evidence they have presented. Many of these totally unfounded allegations stem from (naturally) the Clinton campaign, home to career criminals Bill and Hillary Clinton , who are desperately seeking to find something to gain some sort of shred of popularity or advantage over Trump, who fills up arenas with 1000s of people more easily than Clinton can fill a high school gym with 50. Many US officials and war hawks are trying to get in on the action; CIA man Mike Morell indicated it would be a good idea to covertly kill Russians to make them “pay a price” ; Hillary Clinton called Vladimir Putin the “grand godfather of extreme nationalism” and blamed him for the rising popularity of right-wing leaders; and even standing VP Joe Biden came out and said that, “We’re sending a message to Putin … it will be at the time of our choosing and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact” . It seems there is no depth to which some US leaders won’t stoop in order to gain some political advantage, even it means lying, demonizing and destroying geopolitical partnerships in order to garner a few brownie points. Vladimir Putin: It’s All About Distraction During Election Season
You would think Russian President Vladimir President would be agitated by all of this mud-slinging. At times he has been, for instance when he issued a warning a few months ago about an impending WW3 due to NATO’s constant aggression and advancement towards Russian borders. However, judging by his own words and mostly calm demeanor, he has seen through the agenda and understands what is going on. Putin spells out how it’s all inflamed rhetoric before an election season, an old trick used by politicians to distract when they have no meaningful solutions for internal and domestic problems.
Here is Vladimir Putin in his own words :
“You can expect anything from our American friends … the only novelty is that for the first time, on the highest level, the United States has admitted involvement in these activities, and to some extent threatened [us] – which of course does not meet the standards of international communication. As if we didn’t know that US Government bodies snoop on and wiretap anyone? Everyone knows this …
Apparently, they are nervous. The question is why. I think there is a reason. You know, in an election campaign, the current government carefully crafts a pre-election strategy, and any government, especially when seeking re-election, always has unresolved issues. They need to show, to explain to the voters why they remain unresolved. In the US, there are many such problems … for example, the massive public debt is a time bomb for the US economy and global financial system … more examples can be cited in foreign policy … in these conditions, many choose to resort to the usual tactics of distracting voters from their problems … try to create an enemy and rally the nation against that enemy …
Iran and the Iranian threat did not work well for that. Russia is a more interesting story.”
And that’s exactly what this whole thing is: a giant story. However, as Voltaire once said, if you can make someone believe absurdities, you can make them commit atrocities. Let’s see what else Vladimir Putin has to say on other topics of interest. Russian Hacking: A Laughable Claim so the Clintons and DNC Can Try to Avoid Culpability
Let’s face it: the whole Russophobia affair is about avoiding blame, dodging responsibility and evading liability. Thanks to WikiLeaks, Project Veritas and many other sources, we know the entire Hillary Clinton campaign has been rigged beyond belief. Fake primaries, fake speeches, fake images, fake videos, fake crowds, fake supporters and fake debates. There is seemingly no depth of criminality to which that woman won’t sink. She’s selling out the presidency before she even gets there, such as the stunt of trying to promise future presidential executive orders to mega donors. There is not a shred of evidence that Russia is affiliated with WikiLeaks or behind any of the DNC hacks. As this Zero Hedge article NSA Whistleblower: US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia states:
“On “Judge Napolitano Chambers,” the Judge said that while the DNC, government officials, and the Clinton campaign all accuse the Russians of hacking into the DNC servers, “the Russians had nothing to do with it.” Napolitano then mentioned Binney, arguing the NSA veteran and whistleblower who “developed the software that the NSA now uses, which allows it to capture not just metadata but content of every telephone call, text message, email in the United States of every person in [the country]” knew the NSA had hacked the DNC — not the Russians.
If Judge Napolitano and Binney are right and the NSA did hack the DNC, what was the motive?
According to the Judge, “members of the intelligence community simply do not want [Clinton] to be president of the United States.”
“She doesn’t know how to handle state secrets,” Napolitano continued. And since “some of the state secrets that she revealed used the proper true names of American intelligence agents operating undercover in the Middle East,” some of these agents were allegedly captured and killed, prompting NSA agents to feel compelled to act. Whether NSA agents hacked the DNC or not, one thing is clear: there’s no real evidence linking the DNC and Arizona and Illinois voting system hacks to the Russian government.” The Mythical “Russian Threat”
Vladimir Putin directly addressed another mythical story, that of the so-called Russian threat and Russian aggression , at the recent Valdai forum in Sochi from October 24-27, 2016:
“There is another mechanism to ensure the transatlantic security, European security, the OC security and their attempt at turning this organization (NATO) into an instrument of someone’s political interests. So what the OC is doing is simply void. Mythical threats are devised like the so-called Russian military threat. Certainly this can be (used to) gain some advantage, get new budgets, make your allies comply with your demands, make NATO deploy the equipment and troops closer to our border … Russia is not trying to attack anyone. That would be ridiculous … The population of Europe is 300 million … and the population of the US is 300 million, while the population of Russia is 140 million, yet such menaces are served as a pretext. Hysteria has been fueled in the US with regard to Russia’s alleged influence with the current presidential election.
Is there anyone who seriously thinks that Russia can influence the choice of the American people? Is the US a banana republic? The US is a great power. If I’m wrong please correct me.”
Here’s what he had to say about who the real aggressor is when it comes to the US (around and Russia:
“Is it known to you that Russia, in the 90s, completely halted (as did the USSR) any strategic aviation in the further afield regions of patrol, i.e. not in the closer abroad. We halted such activity completely. US geostrategic aviation however, with nuclear weapons on board. They continued to encircle us! What for? Who are you concerned about? Or why are you threatening us? We continued with the non-patrol year after year. It is only since about 3 years ago that we restarted aviation patrol further abroad.
Which party is the provocateur here? Is it us?
We have only 2 military bases abroad. They are known areas of terrorism dangers … US bases on the other hand are all over the world. And you are telling me that I am the aggressor? Have you any common sense?
What are US forces doing in Europe, including nuclear weaponry? What business have they got there? Listen to me. Our military budget, while increased slightly from last year, in the dollar equivalent, is about US$50 billion. The military budget of the Pentagon is almost 10 times that amount. $575 billion, I think Congress singed off on. And you’re telling me I’m the aggressor here? Have you no common sense at all? Is it us putting our forces on the border of the US? Or other states? Is it NATo, or who, that is moving their bases closer to us? Military infrastructure! It’s not us. Does anyone even listen to us? Or try to have some kind of dialogue with us? The repeated answer we get is ‘mind your own business’ and ‘each country can choose its own security measures’. Very well, so will we …
And finally, on the antiballistic missile defense system, who was it that exited from the treaty which was vital to the entire system of international security? Was it us? No. It was the States. In a one-sided way, they simply withdrew from the treaty. Now they are threatening us, turning their missiles towards us, not only from Alaska, but also from Europe too …
We want to develop normal relations in the sphere of security, in the fight against terrorism, in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We want to work together with you … so long as you want that too.” US Repeatedly Broke Its Promises to Russia and Destroyed Trust
The Western MSM is so one-sided in its coverage of geopolitical events like Ukraine and Syria. Anyone not toeing the line with US-UK-NATO interests is painted in a bad light. In point of fact, it has actually been the US who has been breaking agreements with Russia since the end of the Cold War. US leaders lied to Russian leaders at the time, by promising that NATO would not extend any further eastward, and possibly even hinting that Russia could join NATO. As Eric Zuesse explains in his article America Trashes NATO Founding Act; Rushes Weapons to Russia’s Borders :
“The NATO Founding Act was agreed to between the US and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn’t invade his country. When his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, the representatives of US President GHW Bush told him that NATO wouldn’t move «one inch to the east» (toward Russia), but as soon as Gorbachev committed himself to end the Cold War, Bush told his agents, regarding what they had all promised to Gorbachev (Bush’s promise which had been conveyed through them), «To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn’t». In other words: Bush’s prior instructions to them were merely his lies to Gorbachev, his lies to say that the US wouldn’t try to conquer Russia (move its forces eastward to Russia’s borders); but, now, since Gorbachev was committed and had already agreed that East Germany was to be reunited with and an extension of West Germany (and the process for doing that had begun), Bush pulled that rug of lies out from under the end of the Cold War …”
Bill Clinton carried on the great American legacy of exceptionalism (that is, excepting themselves from obeying international law) spearheaded by Daddy Bush of surrounding and dominating Russia by allowing NATO into the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Russia got shafted by trusting the US numerous times after the fall of the Soviet Union. Here’s Vladimir Putin once again on America’s broken promises (in April 2016):
“In the early 2000s, we agreed with the Americans to destroy weapons-grade plutonium, on both sides. We were talking about the excessive amounts that were manufactured by both the US and Russia. This is the enriched uranium from which nuclear weapons are made. 34000 tonnes, from both sides. We signed an agreement, and decided that this material would be destroyed in a specific manner. It would be destroyed in an industrial way – for which special plants needed to be built. We fulfilled our obligations – we built the necessary plant. Our American partners did not. Moreover, recently they announced that rather than destroy the enriched material in the manner that we agreed, and signed an international agreement on, that they would dilute it and store it in a holding capacity. This means they retain the potential to bring it back …
Surely our American partners must understand that, jokes are one thing, such as creating smear campaigns against Russia, but questions of nuclear security are another thing entirely … they must learn to fulfill their promises.
They once said they would close down Guantanamo. And? Is it closed? No.”
Incidentally, this is the exact same plutonium agreement which made the news last month, when as reported on October 3rd, 216, Russia suspended their deal with the US on disposal of plutonium from decommissioned nuclear warheads. A decree signed by Vladimir Putin lists “ the radical change in the environment, a threat to strategic stability posed by the hostile actions of the US against Russia, and the inability of the US to deliver on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons plutonium under international treaties, as well as the need to take swift action to defend Russian security” as the reasons for why Russia chose to suspend the deal. Conclusion: Wake up and Smell the Russophobia
Expect Vladimir Putin and Russia to keep being demonized by the Clintons – and more importantly the NWO manipulators who so desperately want them in power. Although the Clintons are a powerful modern American mafia family, replete with a long body count behind them, it’s important to remember they are lackeys for far greater and more pervasive powers (check out some of Hillary’s lovey-dovey letters to Lynn Forester de Rothschild here ). There’s a lot at stake here. Right now, Vladimir Putin and Russia are being used with the sole purpose of getting Clinton elected. Although Putin is not perfect and has his own dark side, he deserves respect for standing his ground and refusing to become another US puppet. If we are to believe his own words, he has no qualm with Americans or even America itself, but rather the selfish, imperialistic and murderous agenda of the NWO agents running the USA:
“We have a great deal of respect and love for the United States, and especially for the American people … [however] the expansion of jurisdiction by one nation beyond the territory of its borders, to the rest of the world, is unacceptable and destructive for international relations.”
It’s up to the American public to switch off CNN (Clinton News Network) and all the other duplicitous MSM channels and get truly informed. Vladimir Putin is reaching out his hand to America, in the hope that enough Americans can reclaim their country and work together with other nations in peace. On the issue of Vladimir Putin and Russia, the MSM is not just one-sided, it’s outright lying. About the Author
Makia Freeman is the editor of The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com ( FaceBook here), writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how human ity can create a new system of peace and abundance
**Sources embedded throughout article. | 0 |
Americans ripped from fantasy world ‘like babies from a womb’: By hatesec , on November 14th, 2016
ROANOKE, Va. — FBI agents claim two stoned American white men were “ripped like babies from a womb” following Tuesday’s election results.
Investigators who have been working on the case since Wednesday said the men appeared paranoid and terrified, as if they had seen some horrible aspect.
“It was like they were just seeing the world for the first time,” the agent said. He called it “the 9/11 of their time”– a point of reference in their timeline of social consciousness beyond which no innocence can be returned.
One of the guys was passed out in police custody, because he’s a pot-smoking CRIMINAL, but the other one was cool because he didn’t have weed on him, so he told Internet Chronicle how his world view changed:
I thought we’d come farther than this, man. I actually really thought we had come so far, we could get a career criminal elected into office over Archie Bunker. Turns out, I was wrong about a lot of things. Next time, I’m voting with my heart: I’m going Gary Johnson. Now he has a plan !
“They’ll never forget how they remembered America’s paranoid, racist history extending as far back as the 1970s, when white nerds killed disco, for which we have already apologized profusely .” federal agent Smith said. “Nor will they forget how flimsy a candidate can be, who deletes subpoenaed emails on command for her corporate power-lords.”
Internet Chronicle linguistics analyst and hate philosopher Dr. Angstrom H. Troubadour believes in front loading attribution, and that blatant misuse of language itself led to the seemingly eternal crisis of political misunderstanding between the so-called Left and so-called Right.
“The words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ don’t even have denotations anymore. They mean what people want them to mean,” Troubadour said. “These words are to be avoided at all cost.”
makin money, makin money, makin money, makin money, makin money, makin money’s for the words.
[Editor’s note: Remember Trump’s CRAZY response when the 60 Minutes lady asked him how many more tax dollars would be spent drone striking weddings?] Share this article | 0 |
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Country singers Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley are set to return as the hosts of this year's Country Music Awards on November 2nd for the ninth time. Image Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
What makes this extra special is that the CMAs are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
Despite the award show being so close to the 2016 presidential election, Underwood recently expressed that she doesn't want to talk about politics as one of the night's hosts.
The singer tells The Boot she wants the 50th anniversary of the CMAS to stay focused on what they're there to celebrate— the music:
“I prefer to stay away from politics. This is country music, and we have 50 years to cover. So I feel like we’ll have lots to talk about, but I think it will be more geared to just us and what we do and all these legends that we have and people that have incredible talent that we have in our genre.”
While we don't know if Paisley got Underwood's memo, we do know that he's already up to the duo's usual shenanigans . A few days ago, the singer encouraged everyone to vote for their favorite candidate.
The singer made his choice clear with his shirt... A video posted by Brad Paisley (@bradpaisley) on Oct 21, 2016 at 1:56pm PDT
Paisley's caption reads:
“This November, be sure to vote for your favorite nominee... whoever that is...”
The shirt is actually inspired by the Netflix series, “House of Cards.” The main character is named Frank Underwood, which also works nicely for joking around with Carrie Underwood.
You can get one like it at Kohl's: Image Credit: Screenshot/ Kohl's | 0 |
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News leaked from Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s camp that her transition team wants to persuade or even draft Joe Biden to continue serving America as our nation’s top diplomat after his term as Vice President expires in January. Biden chose not to run to succeed President Obama after the tragic loss of his son Beau Biden; instead he’s thrown himself fully into campaigning for Clinton’s election as only one of America’s most beloved public figures can do. Politico reports :
Joe Biden is at the top of the internal short list Hillary Clinton’s transition team is preparing for her pick to be secretary of state, a source familiar with the planning tells POLITICO. “He’d be great, and they are spending a lot of time figuring out the best way to try to persuade him to do it if she wins,” said the source familiar with the transition planning.
The vice president, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before joining the administration, is one of the most experienced and respected Democrats on the world stage. He’s also coming to what would be the close of a 44-year career in Washington, first with six terms in the Senate and then two terms as President Barack Obama’s closest adviser — and the keeper of the portfolio on some of the most difficult international issues, including Iraq and Ukraine.
Hillary hasn’t even told Biden about her idea yet, but it is a logical choice by the Democrat. The news represents a little more traditional political fare for people who are concerned about both the issues a President must master to govern America, but also the team of people they’ll need to manage our country’s affairs. There’s a lot of work to do by the Clinton campaign before naming anyone to any position, but Democrats have closed the gap in absentee early voting with Republicans in key swing states – like Ohio and also in Florida to date.
Joe Biden is also one amazing politician on the campaign trail, who managed to bait Republican nominee into a verbal sparring match which is distracting his campaign from doing much else than playing defense. Nobody knows if Joe Biden will accept Hillary Clinton’s offer, if the Democratic nominee does in fact become the first female President elect after November 8th, but we do all know that Joe Biden’s heavyweight speeches are having a major impact on this year’s general election campaign.
Just watch him nail Trump: Trump responds to @JoeBiden ’s wish to fight him: 'I'd love that' pic.twitter.com/oDWh0xuShd | 0 |
November 15, 2016
Sunday was the anniversary of the Bataclan attack, just recently was the 1,000th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings and the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster. Yet there is no record of anyone commemorating the first anniversary of the Battle of Hastings in 1067, nor the 100th anniversary in 1166.
It has gradually crept up on us though. At first, only significant anniversaries were recognised, numbers like 25, 50 or 100; but gradually it has spread to any year ending in ‘0’ or can easily be fitted onto a badge. If we don’t stop the trend then before long every year will be an anniversary of something that happened before.
Said one currency trader: ‘We can make £1 Billion in a second, so if we’re forced to remain silent for a minute you can see how this costs the economy’. He declined to explain his hypothesis further, saying that it was his birthday today and he was off to the pub for an extended lunch, but would be available for further comment after 4pm. | 0 |
Cyrus Mistry joins AAP; Tata Sons shortlists candidates for chairman’s post Posted on Tweet (Image via intoday.in)
Ousted Chairman of Tata Sons Cyrus Mistry today joined the Aam Aadmi Party. Speaking to the media Cyrus Mistry said, “The media, government, regulators or politicians, no one is supporting me in fighting against the injustice I have faced. Kejriwalji is my only hope. So I joined the AAP.”
Speaking at the occasion, AAP supremo and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said, “Having worked at Tata Steel several years ago, I have firsthand experience of how the board of directors of Tata Sons did not allow me to work. That is the reason I quit Tata Steel.”
“Just like Cyrus Mistry, I also took up the top job in Delhi because there were no other suitable candidate. I empathize with Cyrus Mistry when he says that Ratan Tata did not allow him to do work. In a similar way, Narendra Modi and Najeeb Jung do not allow me to do work in Delhi,” he added.
“Why should someone be fired for choosing to close loss making UK Steel business? First take care of Indians before subsidizing British citizens. Ratan Tata is a British agent. Even AAP does not fire its leaders so fast,” he declared
Meanwhile, our correspondent overheard this discussion between Cyrus Mistry and Rajdeep Sardesai.
Rajdeep Sardesai: So what I understand Mr. Mistry is that you are concerned about the rising intolerance by the majority against the minorities in India?”
Cyrus Mistry: No, I only said that I am concerned about the rising intolerance of the majority shareholders in Tata Sons against minority shareholders like me.
Meanwhile, AAP leader Ashutosh took to Twitter to blast Tata Sons.
“As per Cyrus Mistry, Tata Motors’ Nano plant in Gujarat is making losses. Even industrialists in Gujarat are losing money. Is this the Gujarat Model? Will Modi answer?” he tweeted.
“Cyrus Mistry spoke about risk of impairment in Tata Steal? Will Ratan Tata answer?” read his second tweet.
“Why was Cyrus Mistry not given a free hand to run Tata Suns? Will the Bored answer?” said his third tweet
A source who did not wish to be identified told our correspondent that Tata Sons is also planning to fire Cyrus Mistry from the board of directors and has already found his replacement.
After Ratan Tata asked for a versatile candidate with expertise in several fields and who is not afraid to speak his mind, a consultant suggested the name of Justice Katju. But Ratan Tata was not pleased at the prospect of being called an idiot in a board meeting and so vetoed the proposal. Instead Congress leader Ahmed Patel will be filling this post.
According to our source, the Tata Sons board was very impressed with Ahmed Patel after he told them that rather than abrupt firing, they should have kept planting stories in the media like “Ratan Tata unhappy with Cyrus Mistry’s decision to close down Tata Steel UK Business.”
This along with his ability to effectively manage a family trust and also manage a professional CEO without letting him drift from the group’s ethos and culture earned him a board seat.
Further, according to our source, several names came up during the latest board meeting to pick a new Chairman. Ahmed Patel suggested the name of Dr. Manmohan Singh but Ratan Tata vetoed it saying he wanted a person who could be a brand ambassador for the Tata Group.
Currently, there are 2 persons who are front-runners in the race for Chairman. One is Arvind Kejriwal. Several board members think that he will be a suitable candidate because he can just give speeches, visit offices and be a brand ambassador while the actual work could be left to the board.
Another name doing the round is Chetan Bhagat. Given his IIT, IIM qualifications along with his versatile persona of being an author, columnist, screenwriter, television personality and motivational speaker, several board members think he is the perfect candidate for the heavily diversified salt to software conglomerate. Further, he is good with numbers, an area the Tata Group is struggling at this point in time. | 0 |
by Dr. Mercola
The U.S. food system is set up to protect industrialized, centralized food production and distribution, while efforts to decentralize food are kept strictly under wraps.
There are many problems with this system, including the fact that food production is often out of sync with demand, leading to excessive amounts of waste. In 2016, for instance, the industrial dairy industry has dumped 43 million gallons of milk due to a massive milk glut.
The glut is the result of a 2014 spike in milk prices, which encouraged many dairy farmers to add more milk cows to their farms. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data shows that dairy cows have increased by 40,000 in 2016, with a 1.4 percent increase in production per cow.
With too much milk and nowhere to sell it, prices have tanked. Milk prices declined 22 percent in recent months to $16.39 per 100 pounds — a price so low some farmers can no longer afford to even transport it to the market. [1]
The milk glut isn’t only affecting the U.S., either. It’s been felt globally, which means milk producers can’t export their surplus milk. What’s a dairy farmer to do with a surplus of milk? Dump it — on fields, into animal feed or added to manure lagoons. USDA Steps in to Bail Out Dairy CAFOs
At its foundation, the milk glut is the result of dairy operations in the U.S. consolidating into concentrated feeding operations (CAFOs) — massive industrial “farms” with the sole goal of producing as much food as possible for the greatest profit. As reported by Yale Environment 360: [2]
While milk carton imagery pictures bucolic, small farms, more than 50 percent of U.S. milk is now produced by just 3 percent of the country’s dairies — those with more than 1,000 cows, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).The very largest U.S. dairies now have 15,000 or more cows.
The USDA, meanwhile, is coming to bail out these massive industrial enterprises. They’ve offered to buy $20 million of cheddar cheese from private sources, while milk producers try to get fast food outlets to add more cheese-heavy products to their menus. [3] The USDA already purchased $20 million of cheddar cheese in August 2016. 1 in 4 US Dairy Cows Contracts Mastitis
Dairy cows raised in confinement and fed unnatural diets of genetically engineered (GE) grain are at high risk of illness, as are all animals raised in CAFOs. It’s estimated that one-fifth of livestock are lost due to diseases, which is an unrecognized source of food waste. [4]
In the U.S. alone, 1 in 4 dairy cows contracts mastitis, which is a painful and serious udder disease. The result of producing large quantities of low-quality milk, mastitis is also the leading cause of therapeutic antibiotics treatment in U.S. dairy animals.
In an era where antibiotic-resistant disease is taking millions of lives, any preventable causes of antibiotics usage should be curbed. Mastitis is also preventable with clean, humane living conditions and proper diet, which lead to healthy cows.
Mastitis is also another source of food waste. Milk with antibiotic residues cannot be sold, so milk from cows being treated with antibiotics for mastitis must be poured down the drain — to the tune of 1.2 billion servings a year (not to mention the addition of more antibiotics into the environment). [5]
As noted by one study on antibiotics usage on a dairy CAFO in New York state, “One of the best options to decrease antibiotic usage is to prevent the infection in the first place …” [6] Indeed, which again brings us back to the way cows are raised. CAFOs are literal breeding grounds for infection.
Further, according to the 2016 Global Agricultural Productivity (GAP) Report prepared by the Global Harvest Initiative, once a cow contracts mastitis, she will probably not produce as much milk as before: [7]
In addition, the cow’s level of milk production through her entire life cycle will likely fall below her potential as she is more susceptible to contracting mastitis on a recurring basis.
The need for alternatives to protect the health of animals and preserve the long-term effectiveness of shared-class antibiotics has never been greater. As Dairy CAFOs Grow in Size, so Too Does Related Pollution
In Wisconsin, the heart of dairy country in the Midwest, farm consolidation is growing at an alarming rate.
While the number of overall dairy farms in the state dropped by about one-third in the last decade, the number of such farms with more than 500 cows grew by 150 percent — and those with 2,000 or more cows grew at the fastest rate of all. [8]
In addition to concerns like mastitis and milk gluts, such operations produce mind-boggling amounts of waste that represent one of the top sources of pollution in the U.S. Yale Environment 360 reported: [9]
According to the EPA, a 2,000-cow dairy generates more than 240,000 pounds of manure daily or nearly 90 million pounds a year. The USDA estimates that the manure from 200 milking cows produces as much nitrogen as sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people.
… Milking cows … produce more manure than beef cattle and the Holsteins that dominate the U.S. dairy industry produce almost twice as much manure as Jerseys.
Cows that give more milk per cow also produce more manure and per-cow milk production has almost doubled since the 1970s.
Manure spills and leaching of waste from storage “lagoons” contaminate waterways and drinking water, posing serious environmental risks in Wisconsin and elsewhere in the U.S. Grass-Fed Dairy: Better for the Environment, the Animals and Human Health
Demand for grass-fed dairy products is growing at an impressive rate, which is excellent news for the environment, animal welfare and human health. Grass is a cow’s natural food.
When cows eat grains, as they do on CAFOs that produce the milk used for most U.S. dairy products, their body composition changes. Most importantly for you, these changes include an alteration in the balance of essential fats.
Milk (and meat) from cows raised primarily on pasture has been repeatedly shown to be higher in many nutrients, including vitamin E, beta-carotene and the healthy fats omega-3 and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). According to a study published in the journal PLOS One: [10]
Milk from cows consuming significant amounts of grass and legume-based forages contains higher concentrations of ω-3 FAs [omega-3 fats] and CLA than milk from cows lacking routine access to pasture and fed substantial quantities of grains, especially corn.
In turn, lactating women consuming such milk have an increased CLA concentration in their breast milk …
This study confirms earlier findings that milk from cows consuming significant amounts of grass and legume-based forages contains less LA [omega-6 linoleic acid] and other ω-6 Fas [omega-6 fats] and higher concentrations of ALA, CLA and the long-chain ω-3s EPA and DPA, compared to cows lacking routine access to pasture and fed substantial quantities of grains. Grass-Fed Dairy is a Solution to the Problems Created by Industrial Dairy
Unfortunately, only about 22 percent of U.S. dairy cows have access to pasture and even then access tends to be very limited. [11] Grass-fed dairy producer Maple Hills Creamery further shared reasons why grass-fed dairy is better: [12] When a cow eats corn and grain, the pH of the rumen (the first chamber of the cow’s stomach) becomes acidic; this destroys some flora and increases systemic inflammation, shortening the cow’s lifespan and increasing her risk of infection Raising grass-fed cows requires fewer resources than growing grain crops to feed CAFO cows, along with fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides On a 100 percent grass-fed farm, manure is spread over pastures naturally as the cows roam; there is no need for environmentally destructive manure lagoons Grass-fed dairy farming works best with small herds, which in turn helps support local economies and small farmers, who are able to claim a premium price for their premium dairy products
“In short,” Maple Hills Creamery writes, “100 [percent] grass-fed organically produced dairy is a viable solution to the industrial dairy system, focusing on holistic care of both the animals and land, rather than an end goal of highest production and maximizing the bottom line at the cost of animal welfare and environmental concerns.” Support Raw, Grass-Fed Milk Products
Raw milk dairy products from organically raised pasture-fed cows rank among some of the healthiest foods you can consume. They’re far superior in terms of health benefits compared to CAFO-produced, pasteurized milk products, and if statistics are any indication, safer, too.
While many believe that milk must be pasteurized before it can be safely consumed, it’s worth remembering that raw milk was consumed for thousands of years before the invention of pasteurization. It’s also important to realize that pasteurization is only really required for certain kinds of milk, specifically that from cows raised in crowded and unsanitary conditions, which is what you find in CAFOs.
Your dairy products should ideally be pasture-raised, NOT pasteurized. Organically raised cows that are allowed to roam free on pasture where they can graze for their natural food source produce very different milk.
Their living conditions promote and maintain their health and optimize their milk in terms of the nutrients and beneficial bacteria it contains. Getting your raw grass-fed milk and other food from a local organic farm or co-op is one of the best ways to ensure you’re getting high-quality food.
Read the full article at Mercola.com. References | 0 |
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Live in New York long enough and you will lose somewhere you love. Good things die here. It’s what keeps the place alive. But every now and then a big one goes, as it did on Friday morning, when the owner of the Carnegie Deli suddenly announced that the Manhattan sandwich place would be shutting down at the end of the year. The famous Jewish restaurant on Seventh Avenue and 55th Street, down the block from Carnegie Hall, has been putting out cardiologically perilous fare since 1937. When it closes its doors on Dec. 31, the city will lose not only an irreplaceably iconic pastrami sandwich, but also a small piece of itself. News of the restaurant’s demise emerged at 7 a. m. on Friday when, at a meeting in the dining room, the owner, Marian Harper, told about 25 employees that she could no longer bear the stressful challenges of restaurant life. “The restaurant business is one of the hardest jobs in New York City,” Ms. Harper later said in a formal statement issued by her publicist. “At this stage in my life, the early morning to late night days have taken a toll, along with my sleepless nights and grueling hours. ” The shock waves quickly followed. Eater, the culinary website, reported on the closing with a mournful article with the headline: “Pastrami Bombshell. ” Twitter was full of photographs of deli meat and melancholy posts: “How’s a Jew like me supposed to suffer a heart attack at age 37 in this city anymore? !” And “It’s pastrami on cry. ” The restaurant had seen its share of turmoil in the last few years. In April 2015, it was closed for almost 10 months by Consolidated Edison, which was investigating its misappropriation of natural gas, an impropriety that the utility said had gone on for six years and resulted in a backdated bill of more than $40, 000. One year earlier, Ms. Harper and her husband of 22 years, Sandy Levine, went through a contentious divorce. According to her spokeswoman, Ms. Harper, 65, would not go quietly into retirement, but rather planned to devote herself — as awful as it sounds — to “licensing the iconic Carnegie Deli brand” by selling a line of wholesale products. Though the flagship restaurant would soon go the way of New York institutions such as Elaine’s and CBGB, satellite Carnegies would remain in operation at Madison Square Garden, the Mirage Hotel Casino in Las Vegas and the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pa. the spokeswoman said. The somewhat catty truth about the Carnegie Deli is that it is one of those New York destinations that actual New Yorkers visit once or twice and then frequently decide they have had enough of. Its 64 seats are usually filled with tourists. This was proved true by a quick poll of the people standing in line outside the restaurant on Friday afternoon. When asked where they were from, they provided a long list of locations that were not New York: Arkansas, Louisiana, Arizona, San Francisco, Miami, Dallas, Switzerland. “We came up on a bus trip from Baltimore, and I read the place was shutting down on my iPhone,” said Ruthann Smith, a retired high school teacher who was enjoying the pastrami with her husband, Dennis, a former financier. “We were trying to figure out where to go for lunch and I said, ‘We better go to the Carnegie Deli while we still have a chance. ’” With its linoleum floors and animal protein odors, the Carnegie Deli was never fine dining, but the seedy lighting and eclectic checkerboard of celebrity photos (from the quarterback Y. A. Tittle to the Fonz, Henry Winkler) gave the place a homey sort of charm. “I served Denzel Washington and James Brown and Bill Clinton,” said Desmarine Redwood, who has worked there as a waitress for 26 years. “It gave me peace of mind. I loved working at this place. I’m going to miss it. ” Once the deli closes, devotees of the sandwich will begin their hunt for other options — perhaps like the one at Katz’s on the Lower East Side. That, at least, was a possibility for Otis Allen, a credit manager and one of the few New Yorkers having lunch at the Carnegie on Friday. “I’ll miss the place — I’ve been coming here for years,” Mr. Allen said. “I haven’t figured out yet where my next place will be. ” | 1 |
Silicon Valley elites continue to push for a universal basic income in America that would give all citizens a guaranteed annual income from the government. [Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Y Combinator President Sam Altman are just two of the tech elites pushing for universal basic income in America. “We should make it so no one is worried about how they’re going to pay for a place to live, no one has to worry about how they’re going to have enough to eat,” said Altman in a speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco. “Just give people enough money to have a reasonable quality of life. ” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, also floated the idea in a Harvard commencement speech. “Every generation expands its definition of equality. Now it’s time for our generation to define a new social contract,” said Zuckerberg during his speech. “We should have a society that measures progress not by economic metrics like GDP but by how many of us have a role we find meaningful. We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas. ” Now Congressman Ro Khanna ( ) is getting onboard with the idea, pushing to introduce a $1 trillion expansion to the earned income tax credit that is currently available to families. “There’s a dignity to work,” Khanna told SiliconValley. com. “People, they don’t want a handout. They want to contribute to the economy. ” Y Combinator has given 100 randomly selected families in Oakland an income of approximately $1, 500 a month. The organization GiveDirectly is currently attempting to raise money to launch a basic income study in Kenya. The group currently plans to provide a basic income to more than 26, 000 people, with some continuing to receive payments for up to 12 years. In January the country of Finland began giving 2, 000 Finnish citizens a monthly income of $600. This study is set to last up to two years. | 1 |
Elly Warren, from Melbourne, was travelling Africa before she tragically died on Wednesday.
A 20-year-old woman who was travelling in Africa was last seen dropping off her bag at a beachside hostel before being found dead in a toilet cubicle.
Elly Warren, from Melbourne, was expected to return to Australia on Monday before heading to New Zealand with her boyfriend for a holiday.
Days before she set off for Africa, the 20-year-old told her father: ‘It’s dangerous Dad, I don’t know if I should be going over there.’
And things took a turn for the worst after she was raped and attacked when she reportedly walked home alone from a party in Mozambique on Wednesday.
The young traveller had booked two nights at the beachfront Wuyani Pariango backpackers in the picturesque Tofo Bay but she failed to return to her room.
Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the hostel manager, who wished to remain anonymous, said staff members had seen the woman before she went missing.
‘She came in alone to drop off her bag and then left to meet a friend,’ the hostel manager revealed.
‘She had pre-booked her accommodation but never stayed here.’
The 20-year-old had been holidaying and doing a volunteer stint in Mozambique.
The young woman had booked two nights at the Wuyani Pariango backpackers in Tofo Bay.
Daily Mail Australia understands Ms Warren’s body is currently being transported from Tofo Beach to the country’s capital Maputo, some 500 kilometres away where a post-mortem will be performed.
Paul Warren, the distraught father of the avid traveller, is currently travelling to Mozambique in an effort to bring his daughter’s body home.
On Thursday he revealed his heartbreak over his daughter’s terrible death.
A tearful Mr Warren told 7News: ‘She even told me, “It’s dangerous dad, I don’t know if I should be going over there”.
‘And I said to her: “Yes it is, very dangerous”.’
On Thursday evening, hours after paying a moving Facebook tribute to his daughter, Mr Warren also revealed on social media an autopsy would be conducted to determine her cause of death.
‘I would just like everyone to pray for our Elly right now,’ he wrote on Facebook.
‘She is at peace with Sam, our dog, who she grew up with and loved dearly. Thank you all for your thoughts and well wishes Elly touched us all in some special way.
‘The funeral is going to take some time as Elly was in a remote fishing village called Pemba.
‘There is going to be an investigation and autopsy, which I have been informed can take up to two weeks.
‘I will be going over there in a few day to bring my baby back home. God bless you Elly Rose Warren.’
The hostel manager said staff saw Ms Warren drop her bag off before heading out to see a friend but she failed to return to her room (pictured is one of the rooms at the hostel)
The young traveller had booked two nights at the Wuyani Pariango backpackers in Tofo Bay.
Staff members at the hostel claimed they saw Ms Warren drop her bag off before heading back out to meet a friend.
Her family, who found out about the young traveller’s death in a heartbreaking late-night phone call from another backpacker, believe she became separated from her group before her body was later found in a toilet cubicle, The Age reported.
The revelation comes after her sister Kristy Warren took to Facebook to warn backpackers to be ‘careful who they go [travelling] with’.
‘My sister was in Africa whilst my mum got a phone call from one of the backpackers saying to her that her daughter has been murdered,’ Ms Warren posted to Facebook.
‘As I heard that my heart dropped. It is a parent’s nightmare to get a phone call like this.’
Describing her sister as ‘maybe too ambitious’, she urged travellers to be vigilant when overseas.
‘I want to say if you are thinking of going travelling or going overseas please be careful who you go with,’ she wrote.
Ms Warren had been in the country since late September as part of Underwater Africa, a conservation program that ‘helps protect the oceans’.
The volunteer tour’s booking manager Graeme Warrack told Daily Mail Australia the young traveller had left their group the day before she was killed.
A room at the backpackers Ms Warren was last seen before her death.
Ms Warren (pictured) has been killed while on a volunteer holiday to Mozambique, Africa.
The 20-year-old from Mordialloc, in Melbourne’s south-east suburbs, was also reportedly sexually assaulted before her death.
‘Elly arrived with us on the 27th of September and left our program on the November 8,’ he said.
‘We dropped her at her new accommodation at 5pm, to hear the news the next day has left us as broken as anyone can be, she was our friend and colleague.
‘We’re trying to find out where exactly she went once she left us, that’s something we can’t answer.’
Mr Warrack described Ms Warren as ‘the life of the party’ and said her death had taken a large toll on her fellow volunteers and scientists.
‘Elly was an incredible volunteer who was doubtlessly the life and soul of any activity,’ he said.
Ms Warren’s mother, Nicole Cafarella told The Age her daughter was ‘just one of those girls that wanted to travel the world and see everything she could before she was 30’.
Just days earlier Ms Warren had posted a video to Facebook of herself swimming with whale sharks off the Mozambique coast.
Her father Paul also shared a tribute on social media and even passed on his condolences to her boyfriend (right) in the midst of his own grief.
Tributes flowed online from Ms Warren’s friends and family following news of her death.
Ms Warren’s sister Kristy took to Facebook to share a tribute to her sister and to tell how her mother had received a call from a fellow backpacker telling her of the terrible news.
Dozens of online tributes flowed from Ms Warren’s friends from Wednesday evening when news broke of her death.
‘Taken way too soon, a gorgeous girl who had an amazing life ahead,’ one girl wrote on Facebook.
‘I feel like this is all just a f***ed up dream… It can’t be true. Rip Elly Warren I’ll never forget your huge infectious smile and crazy stories. I love you,’ another posted.
In a statement to Daily Mail Australia, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they were ‘providing consular assistance to the family of a woman who died in Mozambique.’
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Florida had a mass ot election fraud in 2012 - did they do anything to prevent it this time or is it just business as usual for the Dems down there? | 0 |
by Dr. Mercola
Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame are typically used to sweeten so-called “diet” foods and beverages in lieu of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The idea is that reducing your calorie consumption will result in weight loss.
However, research has completely demolished this notion, showing that artificial sweeteners actually have the converse effect; they actually lower appetite suppressant chemicals and encourage sugar cravings and sugar dependence, thereby raising your odds of unwanted weight gain. [1],[2]
Research has repeatedly shown that artificial sweeteners promote insulin resistance and related health problems just like regular sugar does, including [3],[4],[5] cardiovascular disease, stroke [6],[7] and Alzheimer’s disease .
While poor diet is a major driver of Alzheimer’s in general (the primary culprits being sugar/fructose and grains, especially gluten ), the key mechanism of harm here appears to be methanol toxicity — a much-ignored problem associated with aspartame in particular.
In a previous interview, toxicology expert Woodrow Monte, Ph.D., (author of the book “While Science Sleeps: A Sweetener Kills” [8]) explains the links between aspartame and methanol toxicity and the formation of toxic formaldehyde. Newly Leaked Emails Discuss Rumsfeld’s Involvement in Aspartame Approval
John Podesta’s leaked emails have turned up a number of damning pieces confirming the collusion between the soda industry and high level officials within the U.S. government, including Hillary Clinton.
In a recent batch of leaked emails, Donald Rumsfeld’s [9] involvement in the approval of aspartame is discussed. [10] Rumsfeld served as White House chief of staff from 1974 to 1975. He was also secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977, and again from 2001 to 2006.
In 1976, Rumsfeld became CEO of the drug company G.D. Searle & Company, which was trying to get aspartame approved by the FDA.
To put the email chain into context, in 2013 the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting the agency “amend the standard of identity” for milk and other dairy products.
This change would allow them to add aspartame to chocolate milk, which is a primary milk product served with school lunches, without labeling it as a low-calorie drink. I wrote about this in my article, “ Big Dairy Petitions FDA to Allow Unlabeled Use of Aspartame in Dairy Products .” Former Head of FDA Reveals His Concerns About Aspartame
At that time, Wendy Abrams, founder of Cool Globes Inc., an organization dedicated to raising awareness of climate change, forwarded correspondence to Podesta that she’d received from Don Kennedy.
Kennedy is a former head of the FDA [11] and current editor-in-chief of Science Magazine. In his email correspondence with her, he shares his concerns about aspartame’s potential toxicity: [12],[13]
The whole sweeteners issue has interested me since my early time at FDA … A little later, still during my time as Commissioner I was called on by Don Rumsfeld, who introduced himself as the CEO of Searle …
[W]e told him that we would look carefully at the evidence and rely on our expert committee structure as usual.
Aspartame continued to attract concerned critics, and we at FDA saw no resumption of Searle’s effort to get it approved. I looked up one piece on that history, which I append below. Not a very nice story.
‘In 1985 Monsanto purchased G.D. Searle, the chemical company that held the patent to aspartame, the active ingredient in NutraSweet.
Monsanto was apparently untroubled by aspartame’s clouded past, including a 1980 FDA Board of Inquiry, comprised of three independent scientists, which confirmed that it ‘might induce brain tumors.’
The FDA had actually banned aspartame based on this finding, only to have Searle Chairman Donald Rumsfeld … vow to ‘call in his markers,’ to get it approved’ … Aspartame ‘Blew Holes in Their Brains’
In her correspondence with Kennedy, Abrams also noted her own adverse reactions to NutraSweet, noting that:
… I think it is poison … Doctors will swear to me it is fine, and I will tell them, maybe I’m the only person in the world who reacts like this, but clearly it affects me, and then they’ll tell me again, it is fine. They are so brainwashed by the propaganda, they refuse to believe anything contrary.
I also have a friend who worked for the researchers at University of Chicago (which has a top rated neurology dept [sic]) and the doctors there said when they gave NutraSweet to lab mice, it literally blew holes in their brains.
In a subsequent email, Kennedy tells Abrams that: “Rumsfeld has a lot to answer for in his next life.” Children Are at Increased Risk
As is often the case, children are particularly susceptible to damage from artificial sweeteners.
A recent study [14] evaluating how much artificial sweetener is actually absorbed into the blood when consumed by children versus adults found that children had DOUBLE the concentration after drinking a 12-ounce can of diet soda compared to the adults. As reported by Science Daily: [15]
The same research team previously found that these artificial sweeteners were also present in breast milk when mothers ingested foods, drinks, medicines or other products that contained artificial sweeteners.
Since infants have less ability to clear substances from their blood stream via the kidneys (lower glomerular filtration rate up to age 2 years), the authors speculate that the infants’ artificial sweetener blood levels may be proportionately even higher.
These results are important because early life exposure to artificial sweeteners may influence a child’s future taste preferences, diet and metabolic fate. Research Reveals Surprising Mechanism of Harm
Research published in the journal Nature [16] in 2014 revealed a previously unknown mechanism by which artificial sweeteners make you pack on unwanted pounds and disrupt your metabolic function. Most importantly, this study proved causation.
In recent years, we’ve learned that gut microbes play a significant role in human health. Certain gut microbes have been linked to obesity, for example, and as it turns out, artificial sweeteners disrupt your intestinal microflora, [17],[18],[19],[20],[21] thereby raising your risk of obesity, diabetes and other related problems.
Specifically, the researchers found that artificial sweeteners alter metabolic pathways associated with metabolic disease. Decreased function was observed in pathways associated with the transport of sugar in the body.
Artificial sweeteners were also found to induce gut dysbiosis and glucose intolerance in otherwise healthy people. Of the artificial sweeteners tested, saccharin (Sweet’N Low) had the strongest impact, followed by sucralose and aspartame.
Glucose intolerance is a well-known precursor to type 2 diabetes, but it also plays a role in obesity, because the excess sugar in your blood ends up being stored in your fat cells.According to the authors of this widely publicized study: [22]
[W]e demonstrate that consumption of commonly used non-caloric artificial sweeteners formulations drives the development of glucose intolerance through induction of compositional and functional alterations to the intestinal microbiota …
Collectively, our results link non-caloric artificial sweeteners (NAS) consumption, dysbiosis and metabolic abnormalities, thereby calling for a reassessment of massive NAS usage.
Another study, published in PLOS One, [23] also found that when rats were fed aspartame, it shifted their gut microbiota, causing it to produce propionate — short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) involved in sugar production — which resulted in elevated blood sugar. Diet Soda May Impact Your and Your Child’s Fertility
Recent research [24] also suggests artificially sweetened drinks may affect your fertility. It found a connection between saccharin and sucralose consumption and reduced fertility rates among women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. These artificial sweeteners also raised the risk of a woman’s embryo having at least one deformity. Professor Dr. Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society (BFS), told The Daily Telegraph: [25]
This is a very interesting study that suggests the false promise of artificial sweeteners that are found in soft drinks and added to drinks, such as coffee, may have a significant effect on the quality and fertility of woman’s eggs and this may further impact on the chances of conception. These findings are highly significant to our population. There should be more scrutiny of food additives and better information available to the public and, in particular, those wishing to conceive. ‘Diet’ Soda Is a Fraud
False advertising is prohibited by federal law, and the term “diet” is only permitted on brands or labels when it is not false or misleading. In light of the research demonstrating that artificial sweeteners actually raise your risk of obesity rather than combat it, the consumer group U.S. Right to Know (US RTK) has asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the FDA to investigate Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc. and other companies for false advertising. [26],[27]
In its 2015 citizen petition to the FDA, [28],[29] US RTK asked the agency to issue warning letters to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, concluding that the beverages are misbranded because the use of the term “diet” is false and misleading. In another letter, [30] the group urged the agency to stop Coca-Cola Company from making “illegal claims that its artificially sweetened sodas prevent, mitigate or treat obesity,” noting that Coca-Cola has made such claims on at least eight occasions.
For example, Coca-Cola Company announced that its No. 1 “global commitment to fighting obesity” is to “offer low- or no- calorie beverage options in every market.” [31]
However, if artificially sweetened beverages promote obesity rather than fight it — which research clearly indicates — then Coca-Cola’s commitment is anything but helpful. Nor is it supported by science. I listed a sampling of studies clearly refuting the industry’s “diet” claims in my previous article, “ Aspartame Update: Coke Illegally Claims Diet Soda Can Combat Obesity .”
Most recently, The New York Times [32] reported on a new study [33] showing water clearly beats diet soda for weight loss. Eighty-one overweight women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes ate the same diet, with one exception. Half drank diet beverages five times a week while the other half drank plain water.
Six months later, the group that drank water had lost an average of 14 pounds. The diet soda group lost an average of 11.5 pounds. The water group also saw greater improvements in measures of diabetes severity, such as fasting insulin and postprandial glucose. All of this is right in line with previous research showing artificial sweeteners promote weight gain and worsen diabetes . Expect More Artificial Sweeteners in Pepsi Products
PepsiCo is now vowing to reduce the amount of sugar they add to their drinks. [34] According to a recent announcement, at least two-thirds of its drinks will contain 100 calories or less from added sugar per 12-ounce serving by 2025. But while this may sound like good news, it simply means that more artificial sweeteners will be used.
Indeed, the company has stated it will achieve this sugar-reduction goal by introducing more artificially sweetened drinks and reformulating existing beverage recipes. Considering artificial sweeteners are more damaging than sugar, this means the company’s products will become even more harmful than they already are.
As you may recall, just last year Pepsi announced it would stop using aspartame. The decision came on the heels of declining diet beverage sales following a string of bad press discussing mounting health concerns.
Alas, by September 2015 the company reintroduced aspartame, claiming consumers were demanding more choices. Whether that’s true or not is impossible to tell, but another, and more likely incentive, is that PepsiCo is simply trying to hedge their bets should a tax on sugary beverages actually go through. Reclaim Your Health by Ditching ‘Diet’ Drinks and Snacks
When you add together the various routes of harm — from confusing your body with sweet taste without calories, altering your gut bacteria for the worse, impairing your fertility and, who knows, maybe even “blowing holes in your brain” — it becomes easy to see how artificial sweeteners have likely played a role in worsening the obesity and diabetes epidemics since their emergence in our food supply, and how they may be undermining health in a myriad of unsuspected ways.
I strongly recommend avoiding ALL artificial sweeteners, and to read food labels to make sure you’re not inadvertently consuming them. They’re added to some 6,000 different beverages, snacks and food products, so there’s no telling where they might be hiding.
As for safer sweetener options, you could use stevia or Lo Han, both of which are safe natural sweeteners. Keep in mind, however, that if you struggle with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or extra weight, then you have insulin sensitivity issues and would probably benefit from avoiding all sweeteners, including natural ones.
Read the full article at Mercola.com.
Sources and References | 0 |
On Tuesday’s “Mike and Mike” on ESPN Radio, Mike Golic reacted to a group of Boston Red Sox fans berating Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones with racial slurs Monday night. Golic said the fans, who were removed from the stadium, should be publicly outed along with their quotes for everybody to see. “What kind of idiot are you to do something like that?” Golic scolded. “The way I look at it, you’re yelling that out publicly to somebody, I wish you would be publicly outed. I wish your face would be somewhere and with the quote of what you said right under your face publicly for everybody to see since you feel the need to yell something about someone. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
The Shadow Pope: Inside Look into Francis’ Secretive Rule October 26, 2016 Pope Francis gestures during a meeting with the media onboard the papal plane while en route to Rome, Italy, November 30, 2015. REUTERS/Daniel Dal Zennaro/Pool/File Photo
Reuters Senior Vatican Correspondent Philip Pullella has publishing a scathing report which looks into the secretive and reclusive management style of the first Jesuit Pope. Pope Francis has elected to pursue a secretive management style to push through progressive doctrines. Pope Francis kept nearly the entire Vatican hierarchy in the dark about his decision to ordain Father Simoni. Father Simoni: “I did not believe either my ears or eyes. The pope said it, but I could not believe it. 'Can he be talking about another Ernest?' I said to myself." Pope Francis carries his own black briefcase, keeps his own agenda, and makes many of his own calls. In contrast: Benedict XVI and John Paul II, worked hand-in-hand with the Vatican bureaucracy, known as the curia. Internal critics say he relies too much on ‘snap’ judgments. Virtually ‘impossible’ to determine who is really close to Pope Francis. Francis's two priest-secretaries are Father Fabian Pedacchio Leaniz from Argentina and Father Yoannis Lahzi Gaid from Egypt. Source close to Pope: "He does not want any filters.” “Sometimes he will tell one of his secretaries 'so-and-so is arriving in a few minutes' and that is the first they hear of it. Sometimes he tells one without telling the other." "He is sometimes like the leader who says 'I don't care what the generals say, I will tell Lieutenant so-and-so to take that hill’.”
(VATICAN CITY) Father Ernest Simoni, a 88-year-old Albanian, was watching Pope Francis on television this month when, to his astonishment, he heard the pontiff mention his name.
Francis announced that the simple, white-haired Roman Catholic priest, who had spent many years in jail during Albania's communist dictatorship, was to become a cardinal.
It was the first that Simoni, or any of the other 16 new cardinals named by Francis at the same time, had heard of their elevation to the prestigious rank.
"I did not believe either my ears or eyes," Simoni told Reuters in Albania. "The pope said it, but I could not believe it. 'Can he be talking about another Ernest?' I said to myself."
But more significantly, the pope had also kept nearly the entire Vatican hierarchy in the dark about his decision, which he announced on Oct. 9 to thousands of pilgrims.
The episode illustrates how Francis has used his own distinct management style to try to shake up the Church since his election in 2013. He is keeping his cards close to his chest as he tries to push through a progressive agenda to make the Church more welcoming in the face of conservative opposition.
Interviews with a dozen current and past Vatican officials and aides paint a portrait of Pope Francis, a Jesuit who turns 80 in December, as eschewing filters between him and the outside world. He carries his own black briefcase, keeps his own agenda, and makes many of his own calls.
In contrast, his two immediate predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II, worked hand-in-hand with the Vatican bureaucracy, which is known as the curia.
Behind Francis's approach is a clear mandate, received from the worldwide cardinals who elected him in 2013, to overhaul the curia.
Over the decades the Vatican's administration has collected some of the Church's most orthodox officials, partly because of the lieutenants that Francis's two highly-conservative predecessors called to their entourages in Rome.
As a result, Francis believes that only by reducing the power of the curia – including surprising it on some decisions - can the 1.2 billion-member Church embrace those who have felt marginalized, such as gays and the divorced.
The approach has scored Francis some victories, such as bypassing conservative bishops to streamline the procedures by which Catholics can obtain marriage annulments.
There have also been setbacks, such as putting too much power in one cardinal's hands to resolve financial problems and later having to rein him in.
Some internal critics say he relies too much on snap judgments and others have urged greater transparency. They say his decisions to set up new structures, such as an economy ministry and an external advisory council of eight cardinals from around the world, were divisive and that he could have enacted change by putting new people at the top of existing departments.
NO FILTERS
One of the most striking differences between Francis and his two predecessors is that it is virtually impossible to determine who, if anyone, is really close to him.
The personal secretaries of Benedict and John Paul - respectively Georg Ganswein, now an archbishop, and Stanislaw Dziwisz, now a cardinal - were always at their side and became celebrities in their own right, the powerful gate-keepers to get to the pope.
By contrast, few people know the identities of Francis's two priest-secretaries - Father Fabian Pedacchio Leaniz from Argentina and Father Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, an Egyptian. Both have other part-time jobs in the Vatican and do not appear or travel with him.
"He does not want any filters," said a person who knows the pope well. "Sometimes he will tell one of his secretaries 'so-and-so is arriving in a few minutes' and that is the first they hear of it. Sometimes he tells one without telling the other."
This person, like most of the others interviewed for this article, has had direct dealings with Francis and all spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to the media.
This year, an Argentine visitor told a guard at a Vatican gate that the pope was expecting him. Phone calls had to be made to determine he was not a prankster. The pope had not told anyone he had invited the visitor.
One person close to the pope said he likes to manage this way because it gives him freedom to bypass rigid channels of communication and makes it impossible for anyone to become indispensable, as top aides of previous popes did.
JOYFUL DESTRUCTION
Francis likes to break rules and then change them once the shock has died down. Two weeks after his election, he included women in a liturgical service open only to men. Later, he ordered that the rules be formally changed worldwide.
Pope Benedict's sudden resignation in February 2013 brought to a climax one of the most turbulent periods in modern Vatican history, including the arrest of his butler for leaking documents that exposed corruption and cronyism.
Francis watched from afar as Benedict's papacy unraveled under the weight of successive scandals.
After he was elected, he appointed trusted people to lower or mid-level positions in Vatican departments, where they can be his eyes and ears. For example, Pedacchio, his Argentine secretary, also works in the department that decides who will become bishops.
Monsignor Battista Mario Salvatore Ricca, an Italian who runs the Vatican guest house where the pope lives, was given a position at the Vatican bank as the link man between a supervisory commission of cardinals and the board of directors.
"He is sometimes like the leader who says 'I don't care what the generals say, I will tell Lieutenant so-and-so to take that hill'," said a source, adding that the pope enjoyed rattling an inefficient bureaucracy with what the source described as "joyful destruction".
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Several of those interviewed said Francis puts much stock in his immediate gut feelings about people. When he takes a liking to someone he can become blind to their faults and when he does not, it is hard to reverse that first impression, they said.
Francis was impressed by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney when he met the Australian in 2013. In meetings cardinals held among themselves before that year's conclave, the former Australian Rules football player stood out not only for his height and broad shoulders but also for his command of financial matters.
Months after his election, Francis, hoping to put an end to Vatican financial scandals, moved Pell to Rome to head a new ministry, the Secretariat for the Economy.
After initially giving him sweeping powers, the pope later significantly trimmed them back when other departments accused Pell of treating them in an overbearing way and of being condescending to the Italian-dominated curia.
Pell's position in the Vatican has also been weakened by allegations of sexual abuse when he was in Australia. Pell denies the allegations and the pope has said he will withhold judgment until an Australian investigation is over.
In another controversial appointment, Francis, acting on a recommendation, named Francesca Chaouqui, a 32-year-old Italian public relations expert, to a commission advising him on reform. On July 8, 2016, a Vatican court convicted her of helping to leak embarrassing internal documents to journalists.
Insiders say the Pell and Chaouqui cases are examples of Francis making decisions too quickly.
Even though his health is good, they say he feels he has little time left and many things still to do; that perhaps explains the hastiness of some of his decisions.
Francis appears to enjoy sending signals that he alone is calling the shots.
When his predecessors spoke to the media on papal flights they were always flanked by the secretary of state or the deputy secretary of state. The stage management suggested that behind the man in white, there stood a centuries-old bureaucracy.
Under Francis, those prelates now stay out of sight in the front section of the plane.
This article was contributed by Reuters Please contact TRUNEWS correspondent Edward Szall with any news tips related to this story. Email: | Twitter: @EdwardSzall | Facebook: Ed Szall DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP on Apple and Google Play ! | 0 |
Look, I’m a “glass is half full” kind of guy. You have to be. I try to stay positive. I try to keep thinking maybe, maybe someday CONGRESS will remember the vision of our Founding Fathers … and that those we elect will represent us, not the special interests. [But Washington politicians are so far gone that the Constitution is not even an afterthought, and their master seems to be whatever industry funds them. It doesn’t have to be this way. We just had an election about change, about draining the swamp. President Trump promised to be different, and I believe he sincerely wants to be. But he is being taken for a ride through the swamp right now on “Obamacare Lite. ” For four STRAIGHT elections, REPUBLICANS ran on repealing Obamacare, and now “Republican orthodoxy” — I’m told — is keeping insurance subsidies, mandates, taxes, and insurance company bailouts. That’s not acceptable to me. And it isn’t keeping our promise. Though I want to believe the glass is half full, I am tempted, very tempted, to smash a glass half full of Obamacare Lite — smash that glass to smithereens! When did Republicans begin to believe that insurance companies should be put on the dole? That they should be bailed out when any of their customers become sick? When did Republicans begin to believe that the federal government should force you to pay a penalty to a private insurance company if you can’t afford insurance? When did Republicans begin to believe that we should levy a special tax penalty on those who choose to buy really good health insurance? The current Ryan Plan — “Obamacare Lite” — is not about patients. It isn’t about better health care. It isn’t about lowering costs. It is, plain and simple, about getting more money to the insurance companies and running more of your life from Washington. I am a career physician. I spent years training and learning to be a doctor. I did it for patients. I don’t give a flip about guaranteeing the profits of insurance companies. And as a Senator, I shouldn’t, either. But in Washington, somehow, the whole debate seems to be about getting people insurance instead of getting people health care. Insurance doesn’t equate to health care. Just ask all the Obamacare recipients with $6, 000 deductibles. I’m sick of the insurance companies putting me on hold and telling me to talk to their representative in a foreign country. Screw that. I’m sick of the government telling me I have to buy their crappy product, and I’m sick of watching us go into more and more debt to do it. We need a new way, and Obamacare Lite isn’t it. I want the consumer (aka patient) to be king. I want to empower the patient to get the health care they want at the price they want. I want to let every American be able to join a to buy their health care. When that happens, the buying power returns to the patients. Instead of patients having to kiss the boots of insurance company executives, my plan would have insurance executives come on bended knee to the patient. The patient would be king. The patient, as part of a large buying group, would be able to negotiate lower prices and a policy where you can’t be dropped or ripped off if you become sick. The patient would be able to purchase exactly the type of coverage that suited her needs, without government mandates telling her what she must buy. ObamaCare forced every American to purchase a policy that included Pediatric Dental, whether you had children under eighteen or not. Is that freedom of choice? Why should you have to pay for something you cannot use? Good for the insurance industry, but bad for patients. As a physician and as a patient, I hate Obamacare. Obamacare jacked up insurance rates and created insurance monopolies. But the answer is not replacing the government mandate with an insurance mandate, which is exactly what Obamacare Lite does. I don’t feel any less manipulated by being forced to pay the insurance company a penalty instead of the government. I want the patient to be king. If you want to disrupt the apple cart, if you want to take away the monopoly power of insurance companies, do one thing — allow every individual in America to join a to join a buying group, to join an association health plan. The insurance CEOs hate the idea — which should be enough to tell you it might just empower the patient. So if you hated Obamacare and don’t care much for Ryan’s Obamacare Lite, maybe you ought to consider telling them all to take a hike and give you the option of joining a . Give you the option of buying across state lines. Give you the option of having a YUGE Health Savings Account so you can spend your money how you want. I challenge the media to compare the price of LASIK surgery, contact lenses, and orthodontics in the last twenty years — prices come down when patients make decisions about what they are buying. While I am a “glass is half full” kind of guy, I also would love to give the middle finger to the man that profits off of government bailouts and forces his or her monopoly Brand of insurance schemes on an often worried and defenseless public. Just say no to Obamacare, to Obamacare Lite, and to any scheme to enrich the insurance cartel. | 1 |
WASHINGTON — A year ago, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch was midway down a ski slope when his cellphone rang. Justice Antonin Scalia, he was told, had died. “I immediately lost what breath I had left,” Judge Gorsuch said in a speech two months later. “And I am not embarrassed to admit that I couldn’t see the rest of the way down the mountain for the tears. ” President Trump, in nominating Judge Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, has chosen a judge who not only admires the justice he would replace but also in many ways resembles him. He shares Justice Scalia’s legal philosophy, talent for vivid writing and love of the outdoors. Mr. Trump’s selection of Judge Gorsuch was nonetheless a bit of a surprise, coming from someone who had campaigned as a Washington outsider. Judge Gorsuch has deep roots in the city and the establishment Mr. Trump often criticized. His mother was a official in the Reagan administration. He spent part of his childhood in Washington and practiced law here for a decade, at a prominent law firm and in the Justice Department. And, like all of the current justices, he is a product of the Ivy League, having attended college at Columbia and law school at Harvard. Judge Gorsuch, 49 — who was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver, by President George W. Bush — is an originalist, meaning he tries to interpret the Constitution consistently with the understanding of those who drafted and adopted it. This approach leads him to generally but not uniformly conservative results. “Ours is the job of interpreting the Constitution,” he wrote in a concurrence last year. “And that document isn’t some inkblot on which litigants may project their hopes and dreams. ” While he has not written extensively on several issues of importance to many conservatives, including gun control and gay rights, Judge Gorsuch has taken strong stands in favor of religious freedom, earning him admiration from the right. In two prominent cases, both of which reached the Supreme Court, he sided with employers who had religious objections to providing some forms of contraception coverage to their female workers. He voted in favor of Hobby Lobby Stores, a company that objected to regulations under the Affordable Care Act requiring many employers to provide free contraception coverage. Similarly, he dissented from a decision not to rehear a ruling requiring the Little Sisters of the Poor, an order of nuns, to comply with an aspect of the regulations. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby in 2014 and vacated the decision concerning the Little Sisters of the Poor in 2016. Like Justice Scalia, Judge Gorsuch takes a broad view of the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable government searches and seizures. Judge Gorsuch was born and spent his early years in Colorado, and he returned there when he became a judge more than a decade ago. Michael W. McConnell, who served with Judge Gorsuch on the appeals court and is now a law professor at Stanford, said his former colleague’s Colorado background would add something distinctive to the Supreme Court. “He’s a Westerner,” Professor McConnell said. “There are so many cases that have to do with the West, and I also think the cultural sensibilities of the West are different. He’s an outdoorsman, and the Supreme Court needs a little bit more geographical diversity. ” In Colorado, Judge Gorsuch is known for his involvement with the outdoors and the local legal community. He lives in unincorporated Boulder County, in a community on a property with several horses. He has raised chickens and goats with his teenage daughters, Emma and Belinda, and his wife, Louise, an avid equestrian. He is a black diamond skier and fisherman and hosts regular picnics for his former law clerks with another 10th Circuit judge, Timothy M. Tymkovich. Judge Gorsuch has not hesitated to take stands that critics say have a partisan edge. He has criticized liberals for turning to the courts rather than legislatures to achieve their policy goals, and has called for limiting the power of federal regulators. Nan Aron, the president of the Alliance for Justice, a liberal group, said Judge Gorsuch’s stance on federal regulation was “extremely problematic” and “even more radical than Scalia. ” “Not requiring courts to defer to agency expertise when an act of Congress is ambiguous,” she said, “will make it much harder for federal agencies to effectively address a wide variety of critical matters, including labor rights, consumer and financial protections, and environmental law. ” In a 2005 essay in National Review, written before he became a judge, he criticized liberals for preferring litigation to the political process. “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for education,” he wrote. “This overweening addiction to the courtroom as the place to debate social policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary. ” Like Justice Scalia, Judge Gorsuch is a lively and accessible writer. Consider the first paragraph of a 2011 libel decision, which dispensed with the and jargon that characterizes many judicial opinions. “Can you win damages in a defamation suit for being called a member of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang on cable television when, as it happens, you have merely conspired with the Brotherhood in a criminal enterprise?” Judge Gorsuch wrote. “The answer is no. While the statement may cause you a world of trouble, while it may not be precisely true, it is substantially true. And that is enough to call an end to this litigation as a matter of law. ” Judge Gorsuch’s writing differs from Justice Scalia’s in one major way: His tone is consistently courteous and mild, while some of Justice Scalia’s dissents were caustic and wounding. If Judge Gorsuch is confirmed, the court will return to a familiar dynamic, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate conservative, holding the decisive vote in many closely divided cases. Judge Gorsuch was born in Denver, but he moved to Washington as a teenager when his mother, Anne M. Gorsuch, joined the administration of President Ronald Reagan as the first woman to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. Gorsuch, known after her remarriage as Anne Burford, resigned under fire from Congress after 22 months. After law school, he also attended Oxford University in England as a Marshall Scholar, graduating with a doctorate in legal philosophy. He served as a law clerk for a year to Judge David B. Sentelle, a conservative member of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. After the appeals court clerkship, Mr. Gorsuch served as a law clerk to Justice Byron R. White, then a retired member of the Supreme Court. As is the court’s custom, Justice White shared his clerk with an active member of the court, Justice Kennedy. (When Judge Gorsuch joined the Denver appeals court, Justice Kennedy administered the oath of office.) Mr. Gorsuch then practiced law for a decade at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans Figel, a Washington law firm, before serving in the Justice Department from 2005 to 2006. He is the author of “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” published in 2006 by Princeton University Press. The book argued that laws banning those practices should be retained. In a 2002 article reflecting on Justice White’s death, Mr. Gorsuch criticized the Senate’s handling of judicial confirmations. “Some of the most impressive judicial nominees are grossly mistreated,” he said, mentioning two candidates for the federal appeals court in Washington who he said were “widely considered to be among the finest lawyers of their generation. ” One was John G. Roberts Jr. who went on to become chief justice of the United States. The other was Judge Merrick B. Garland, who was confirmed to the appeals court in 1997 after a long delay, but whose nomination to Justice Scalia’s seat last year was blocked by Senate Republicans. If he is confirmed, Judge Gorsuch will become the 113th justice, taking a seat that has been held not only by Justice Scalia but also by Justice Robert H. Jackson, perhaps the finest writer to have served on the court. “The towering judges that have served in this particular seat of the Supreme Court,” Judge Gorsuch said in his remarks at the White House on Tuesday night, “are much in my mind at this moment. ” But Judge Gorsuch seemed to take special pleasure in remembering the justice who had first hired him as a law clerk, a Westerner whose accomplishments were not limited to the law. “I began my legal career working for Byron White,” he said, “the last Coloradan to serve on the Supreme Court — and the only justice to lead the N. F. L. in rushing. ” | 1 |
Russia plans to test elements of new nuclear engine on ISS 27 October 2016 TASS Roscosmos is ready to allocate more than 264 million rubles (about $4 million) for this work. Facebook russia , space , nuclear
Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos has announced a tender for developing proposals on testing key elements of a megawatt-class nuclear propulsion system, including aboard the International Space Station (ISS), according to the tender documentation posted on the state procurement website on Thursday.
Specifically, Roscosmos expects to receive "proposals on the rational structure of key elements, systems and items of a perspective nuclear propulsion unit intended for tests in outer space, including with the use of the ISS’ Russian segment.
According to the tender documentation, Roscosmos is ready to allocate more than 264 million rubles (about $4 million) for this work.
The winner of the tender is expected to be announced on October 28.
As of now, only the Keldysh Research Center has submitted its bid for this work.
The works on creating a transport energy module based on a megawatt-class nuclear propulsion unit were approved by the Russian presidential commission for modernization and technological development of the Russian economy in 2009.
By the end of 2018, the energy propulsion unit should be prepared for flight and design tests.
It was reported earlier that 3.8 billion rubles ($60 million) would be allocated from the budget for developing a nuclear propulsion unit in 2016-2018. Roscosmos is the project’s customer and the Keldysh Research Center is its contractor. The contract should be fulfilled by November 2018. First published by TASS . | 0 |
PARIS — Just after midnight on Monday, Kim Kardashian West left an intimate Fashion Week reception and dinner in the Marais section of Paris, at which truffled scrambled eggs, white fish and copious amounts of Champagne were served. With her sister Kourtney Kardashian, she posed for some paparazzi waiting outside. Along with a bodyguard, they entered a dark van with tinted windows and drove off. About two and a half hours later, French officials said, Ms. Kardashian West, a reality television star, was robbed at gunpoint of jewelry worth at least 8 million euros, or nearly $9 million. She was alone in a luxurious apartment in the Eighth Arrondissement, nearly two miles from the dinner, when two men burst in, tied her up and gagged her, then escaped with at least three accomplices, officials said. The crime stunned fans of Ms. Kardashian West, who has millions of followers on Twitter and Instagram. Her husband, the musician Kanye West, abruptly walked off the stage of a concert in Queens when he learned of the crime. It also focused unwanted attention on France, where tourism has plummeted following a series of major terrorist attacks. Crucial details remained unclear on Monday, including why Ms. Kardashian West was alone and why she was carrying such valuable jewelry. But police officials and the mayor of Paris vowed to get to the bottom of the crime and to reassure their citizens, and foreigners, that the French capital was safe to visit. “I condemn the attack Kim Kardashian suffered last night in her hotel,” the mayor, Anne Hidalgo, said in a statement. “She has my support and will always be welcome here in Paris. I have full confidence that the police force, as part of their investigation, will quickly identify and apprehend the perpetrators of these acts. ” A spokesman for the investigative unit of the Paris police said the men were part of a group of about five people who stormed the V. I. P. residence, the Hôtel de Pourtalès, near the Madeleine church. At least one had a handgun. Luc Poignant, a spokesman for a police officers’ union, said the men locked Ms. Kardashian West in a bathroom after tying her up with tape. Along with the jewelry, which included a ring, they made off with cellphones and a wallet that contained credit cards. Three of the men left on foot, and two on bikes, he said. The men had targeted their victim — they forced the concierge to tell them where Ms. Kardashian West was staying, and tied his hands. The men appeared to have worn shirts identifying themselves as police officers — but also balaclavas and gloves, which are not part of the police uniform. Ms. Kardashian West was “badly shaken but physically unharmed,” her spokeswoman told The Associated Press, offering no further details. It appeared that Ms. Kardashian West gave a statement to the police before she departed, but her representatives did not respond to multiple messages requesting details. Foreign tourism to France has dropped substantially after major terrorism attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in the Mediterranean city of Nice in July. France remains under a state of emergency. “This is a very rare occurrence that took place in a private space, and in no way does it call into question the work of our police or the security of our public spaces,” Ms. Hidalgo, the mayor, said on Monday. “It is possible to visit the French capital and enjoy all it has to offer in secure conditions. ” Nonetheless, the attack on Ms. Kardashian West quickly became political fodder on Monday. Presidential elections are scheduled for next year, and the incumbent, François Hollande of the Socialist Party, is expected to face a stiff challenge from candidates who are competing with Mr. Hollande to appear tough on crime. “What happened to her is running nonstop on every channel,” Nathalie a member of the National Assembly with the opposition party, the Republicans, told the radio station Europe1. “Do you realize the kind of this is for Paris? Today, you can make any kind of commercial you want for Paris, and they are very expensive. All these commercials were canceled out by what happened to Kim Kardashian. ” On Twitter, Florian Philippot, the vice president of the National Front party, denounced the “violent aggression” against Ms. Kardashian West and warned, “Once again, tourism is going to pay for this chronic insecurity in France. ” He also accused Ms. Hidalgo of “blindness” and said she was in an “ivory tower. ” Ms. Hidalgo, for her part, warned politicians not to exploit the issue for political gain. crimes are not uncommon in France, which by many estimates remains the world’s country. In 2013, a thief robbed a luxury hotel in Cannes, on the Riviera, and made off with tens of millions of dollars in jewelry. In 2014, the Place Vendôme, one of the most fashionable squares in Paris, was hit by a series of robberies. Last year, thieves assaulted two armored vans and made off with jewelry worth an estimated $10 million. Only a few days ago, Ms. Kardashian West was tackled in a Paris street by a man who was pinned to the ground by her bodyguards. The man, identified as Vitalii Sediuk, had a record for following celebrities around and did not appear to be a robber. On Sunday evening, Ms. Kardashian West attended the Givenchy fashion show with her sister Kourtney and their mother, Kris Jenner, and the rock singer Courtney Love, before making her way to the dinner, which was hosted by the American design magazine Surface in honor of the designer Azzedine Alaïa. “I just can’t believe it,” said Pierre Hardy, who designs footwear and accessories for Hermès and attended the dinner. “There she was with all of us, and then hours later that happens. It’s unbelievable. ” Another guest at the dinner, Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, the new editor in chief of Vogue Arabia and a member of the Saudi royal family, said on Monday: “There’s no question in my mind that this will play heavily on the mind of shoppers and travelers from the Gulf when it comes to visiting in Paris. Lots wear their jewelry very openly here. They shop. And have always felt very safe doing so. But when something like this can happen, and to someone with such a good security detail, well — it’s a big surprise. And it’s very frightening. ” | 1 |
How WiFi & Other EMFs Cause Biological Harm Professor Martin Pall, PhD – professor of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Science at Washington State... Print Email http://humansarefree.com/2016/10/how-wifi-other-emfs-cause-biological.html Professor Martin Pall, PhD – professor of Biochemistry and Basic Medical Science at Washington State University, Pullman, says that WiFi & other EMFs can cause biological harm. In 2014 he said “I think this is going to be one of the major issues in the next few years. Most people are not aware of this, and the people who are mostly know the old data and there’s a lot of new stuff on this that’s extremely, extremely important”. According to some governments, it is not possible for microwaves from mobile phones, WiFi, ‘smart’ meters , etc. to cause harm, that research in the field is inconsistent and that there is no proof that such radiation can cause health issues. But Prof Pall who is an eminent physicist, geneticist and cell biologist, says they are wrong on all counts.In this video (below), Pall argues that research results showing harm are not “inconsistent” as is sometimes claimed, and that the health of the public now urgently needs to be protected. Pall’s extensive research over recent decades (some of his peer-reviewed studies on this subject are listed in the final two minutes of this presentation) shows that: Microwaves damage humans at levels far below present radiation limits, through mechanisms at the cellular level These biological mechanisms can – completely or partially – be behind growing “unexplained illnesses” like sudden cardiac death, ME, weakened immune system, fibromyalgia, post-traumatic stress, and increased DNA breakage, etc. The effects can in principle affect all multicellular animals, and is proven, for example, in mussels You need neither New Age, tendentious science or conspiracy theories to justify this. The conclusion to be drawn from Pall’s findings is that we face a new and increasingly present environmental pollutant. Some have called it the “21st century environmental bomb”, with implications for the environment, human health, construction of mobile towers, computers in schools, and handling of individuals presenting with symptoms of EHS. Martin Pall, prof. Em. at Washington State University, has an impressive body of work. His first article on EMFs and their role in VGCC activation earned a place in the “Global Medical Discovery” list of the most important articles in medicine in 2013. The video is footage from Arne Naess seminar 18th October 2014 Oslo: Source & reference: Yournewswire.com ; Video by Stop Smart Meters! (UK) | 0 |
A photo of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway sitting on a couch in the Oval Office, while taking photos of President Trump as he met with leaders of historically black universities and colleges, spurred outrage and debate on social media. [Leading the pack was Buzzfeed’s Deputy news director Jon Passantino, who said “Conservatives were pissed Obama put his feet on Oval Office desk. Watch their reaction tonight. ” Shoes on the couch in the Oval Office pic. twitter. — Jon Passantino (@passantino) February 28, 2017, Motherboard reporter Sarah Emerson said the Conway couch photo made her want “to go to therapy. ” i have to go to therapy after seeing the kellyanne conway shoes on the couch pic, — Sarah Emerson (@SarahNEmerson) February 28, 2017, Heat Street Louise Mensch said Conway was classless. No class @KellyannePolls — mutton dressed as lamb, feet on the couch, don’t look at leaders, your momma must be ashamed https: . — Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) February 28, 2017, Meanwhile some liberal journalists, including Mother Jones editor Ben Dreyfuss, argued that far worse things had been done on White House furniture. ”How dare Kellyanne Conway disrespect the Oval Office!” — People who rightfully defend Bill Clinton for getting a blow job in the Oval Office, — Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) February 28, 2017, WashPo’s Chris Cillizza concurred: The ’Kellyanne on the couch’ controversy is so incredibly dumb https: . pic. twitter. — Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) February 28, 2017, “This is all par for the Internet police,” Cillizza wrote. Soon, social media was being inundated with several photos of President Barack Obama sitting on and placing his feet on the Resolute Desk. @KeithOlbermann Oops, Trump is probably too busy cleaning Obama’s shoeprints off the desk to explain to liberals why they’re insane. #nuts pic. twitter. — Jock Doubleday (@jockdoubleday) February 28, 2017, Why trending … @USATODAY pic. twitter. — pete602 (@petefrt) February 28, 2017, @CBSNews Decorum in the oval? Pres Bush always wore his jkt in the office Obama rolled up his sleeves and put his feet on the antique desk. pic. twitter. — Waukesha GOP (@WaukeshaGOP) February 28, 2017, Lost in all the Conway faux fuss was President Trump’s important and historic meeting with leaders of historically black universities and college. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson | 1 |
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Donald Trump grabbed a new lifeline. Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, on October 15th, he raised a hand as if to take an oath and declared : “I am a victim!” The great business tycoon, the one and only man who could fix America and make the place great again (trust me, folks), was laying claim to martyrdom — and spinning another news cycle. “I am a victim,” he declared, “of one of the great political smear campaigns in the history of our country. They are coming after me to try and destroy what is considered by even them the greatest movement in the history of our country.”
“I am a victim.” That pathetic line echoed in my head, which is why I’m writing this. In my long life, I had seen a large white man stand up in a public arena and proclaim those words — the shrill, self-pitying complaint of the remorseless perpetrator — only once before. That was in a courtroom in lower Manhattan in 1988. The man was Joel Steinberg , a New York lawyer who, over a 12-year period, had brainwashed and beaten into oblivion a woman named Hedda Nussbaum, once a successful young editor of children’s books. In the early years of their relationship, she had run away several times, seeking help, and every time a doctor or friend had called Steinberg to come and get her. At that point — time and again — Steinberg would administer “punishment,” breaking her bones and her spirit. She took on what police would later describe as “a zombie-like quality.”
Some years earlier, a teenage girl had hired Steinberg to arrange an adoptive home for her baby. Instead he kept the child, Lisa, until one evening when she was six years old and “stared” at him in a way he didn’t like. He responded by striking her repeatedly in the head. After which he went out to dinner with his cocaine dealer, leaving the child unconscious on the floor. Nussbaum, by then so traumatized, so absent from anything like life, thought vaguely of calling a doctor, but she was not allowed to use the phone in Steinberg’s absence. Instead, she sat on the floor and watched over the girl as she lay dying.
On trial for the child’s murder, Steinberg blamed everyone but himself. “I’m the victim here,” he whined in court. He swore that he had “never hit anyone,” not anyone , even though he was known to have assaulted a business associate and three other women before he settled into the single-minded, single-handed demolition of Hedda Nussbaum.
Judge Harold Rothwax observed that Steinberg was “a man of extraordinary narcissism and self-involvement” who had “an extreme need to control everyone in his ambit” while he lived a “life of self-gratification.” Yet Steinberg could not see in himself the man Judge Rothwax described. He thought people should feel sorry for him. He had been disbarred and had lost a child (not to mention his Greenwich Village apartment). He railed at those who had conspired to bring him down: the police, the neighbors, the judge, the prosecutor, the expert medical witnesses, his defense attorney, the jurors, the press, and Hedda Nussbaum. “I’m the victim here,” he claimed.
At the time, nearly 30 years ago, the public blamed Hedda Nussbaum. The district attorney, the police, the doctors and psychiatrists who treated her intensively for more than a year before the trial all agreed that, on the evening in question, she was too physically and mentally “incapacitated” either to cause the girl’s injuries or take action to save her. Nonetheless, she was tried and condemned by the press and public opinion, including women who called themselves “feminists.” In court, the jurors were merciless. When they began to deliberate, only four thought Steinberg guilty of murder as charged, five were “in the middle,” and three held out for lesser charges, feeling certain that Hedda Nussbaum had somehow been responsible for killing the child.
They finally agreed upon a verdict of manslaughter. Even then, a woman juror assured the press that Nussbaum was “a very sick woman” who should have been charged and convicted of “some crime.” Another juror, also female, expressed popular opinion this way: “I just feel that she was to blame.” And a third woman juror, who claimed that “certain others” agreed with her, said, “Poor Joel. Joel’s a victim. We have to send a message to the system: ‘You don’t make victims out of nice men like Joel.’”
Judge Rothwax sentenced Steinberg to eight and a half to 25 years. Released after 17 years, Steinberg, now in his seventies, still claims to have done nothing hurtful to anyone. He has not paid a civil court-ordered settlement of $15 million to the birth mother of the dead child, nor has he ever been charged with any crime for what he did to Hedda Nussbaum.
Two lessons lurk in this story, one old and one very up to date. First, it’s a reminder of how much women at that time, even after a great wave of feminism, still blamed women (including themselves) for whatever happened to them at the hands of men; second, a man with a character like Steinberg’s is not the kind of guy you want to choose for high office — or any office at all.
Joel Steinberg stalked a far tinier stage than Donald Trump and he did more deadly damage, but the two men seem to be brothers under the skin, sharing common character defects well described in psychiatric texts: extreme narcissism, a taste for sexual predation, and very similar views of the women on whom they prey. Like Steinberg, who was incapable of seeing himself as the judge accurately described him, Trump seems blind to the real nature of his own behavior. (His current wife describes him as a “boy.”) Neither man seems capable of taking responsibility for the harm he’s done, and when their own actions finally call down retribution, branding them as losers — ah, then come the conspiracy theories and the vindictive wail of the victim.
Men Who Use Women
Last June, I published a piece at TomDispatch venturing to explain why candidate Donald J. Trump was getting “rock-bottom ratings” in the polls from women voters. Nearly 70% of them reportedly couldn’t stand the guy. I pointed out what seemed to me to be the obvious: “Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser.”
In a sworn deposition introduced in divorce proceedings , his first wife Ivana swore under oath that he had torn out her hair and forcibly raped her, raging at her because he didn’t like the results of a “scalp-reducing” procedure (meant to remove a bald patch) performed on him by a plastic surgeon she had recommended. (Before she collected a $14 million divorce settlement, she toned her story down, saying the assault was not “criminal.”)
About one in three American women are survivors of some version of such treatment, euphemistically called “ domestic abuse .” That’s roughly 65 million women voters who, as I wrote last June, “know a tyrant when they see one.” I raise this subject again because the now-infamous tape of Trump’s open-mic Hollywood Access bus ride in 2005 added a new page to the rap sheet of this particular abuser.
In that piece of mine, I traced the history of the principal tactics of coercion used by controlling men like Trump. Some of those tactics, including Steinberg’s favorites, involve physical force, but most, when used by a skilled abuser, require no force at all. Trump applies the handiest tools to his targeted victims regularly, leaving no physical marks behind: threats, intimidation, degradation, put-downs, humiliation, insults, trivial demands, occasional indulgences (a flash of charm, for example, or a bit of feigned reasonableness). The lesson is simple and clear: the mind can be bent and the spirit shattered without battering the body.
I neglected, however, to mention one of the most insidious tactics of such abusers, perhaps because it’s so obvious that it regularly hides in plain sight. In the military, it’s called “pulling rank.” High status is itself a powerful coercive force that can stifle resistance in a lower-status victim and so silence him or her. Status is Trump’s brandished weapon, his open carry. On this, he couldn’t have been clearer in boasting of his pussy-grabbing skills on that Hollywood Access tape : “When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.”
The most chilling moments on that tape, however, occur after Trump emerges from the bus in all his orange splendor, followed by his escort Billy Bush — now a former NBC “personality” — who could be heard on that tape laughing as Trump recounted his compulsive assaults. Bush then greeted his television colleague Arianne Zucker, who like so many women on American TV was less fully clothed than the men around her, and whom Trump had been ogling from the bus while sucking Tic Tacs to freshen his potty mouth for a possible kissing attack. Billy Bush “asked” Ms. Zucker, “How about a little hug for The Donald?”
In that short bus trip across the parking lot, Bush had learned just what to do to get in good stead with his high-status guest, and so, without missing a beat, he threw his lower status co-worker to his peppermint-salivating pal. He then collected a hug from her, too, as Trump is heard exonerating himself with the bizarre remark, “Melania said this was okay.”
It hardly seemed to matter what Arianne Zucker wanted or believed to be okay. Billy Bush’s question wasn’t actually a question, but a notice of what was expected. Clearly, she wanted to keep her job and, just as clearly, hugging predatory, high-status stars and coworkers had never been part of her job description, but was a little instant add-on of coercion from her colleague.Setting the star power aside, all of this amounts to commonplace harassment in what appears to be a hostile workplace , and it just happens to be against the law.
One in three women between the ages of 18 and 24 say that they have been harassed at work . Yet 70% of all workers (woman and men) harassed on the job do not report the offense, often for fear of disbelief or reprisal. Think of all the women in television who were subjected to harassment and worse by Roger Ailes — the charges now reach back 50 years — fired at last by Fox News, only to become official media adviser to whom else but presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Some in the media glossed over Trump’s bragging as just so much “ lewd conversation ” — or as Trump himself put it “ locker room talk ”— while his wife Melania dismissed it as “ boy talk .” In fact, Trump’s unwanted kissing and groping — his self-described M.O. substantiated by one victim after another — can be classified in his home state (under New York Penal Law, Article 130 , Section 130.52: forcible touching) as a Class A misdemeanor. That may not sound serious, but it’s punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000 (chump change for The Donald) and a more sobering potential year behind bars.
It was that tape, all over the media on October 7th, that prompted Anderson Cooper during the second presidential debate to ask Trump three times if he had actually done the sort of things he described to Billy Bush, which Cooper correctly named “sexual assault.” Trump finally answered: “And I will tell you, no I have not” — and women who had lived for five, 10, 20, even 30 years with nagging memories of a Trump assault and humiliation had to restrain an immediate impulse to smash the TV set and instead called a news outlet or a lawyer.
As of this writing, more than a dozen women have gone public with reports of Trump’s sexual attacks since the release of that Hollywood Access tape. They join a list of women and girls who had previously reported offenses ranging from outright sexual assault to crashing dressing rooms at beauty contests where nude and semi-nude women and girls were preparing to compete for the titles of Miss Universe or Miss Teen America. That brings the number of Trump’s accusers , as I write, to at least 24. Journalists and lawyers have generally managed to verify their accounts.
Of course, Trump has repeatedly denied the women’s allegations, saying before, during, and ever since the third presidential debate that he had never seen those women before, had no idea who they were, found them insufficiently attractive to warrant his attention, and that their stories had, in any case, been debunked . None of his claims were true. (And, for good measure, he announced during his version of a Gettysburg Address that he would sue every one of them after the election was over.)
In my June post, I wrote:
“Trump’s behavior perfectly fits the profile of an ordinary wife abuser — but with one additional twist… Trump has not confined his controlling tactics to his own home(s). For seven years, he practiced such tactics openly for all the world to see on The Apprentice , his very own reality show, and now applies them on a national stage, commanding constant attention while alternately insulting, cajoling, demeaning, embracing, patronizing, and verbally beating up anyone… who stands in the way of his coronation.”
In this fashion, he humiliated his male Republican primary opponents, demeaning them with nicknames — Little Marco, Lyin’ Ted, Low-Energy Jeb — and denigrated his only female primary opponent, Carly Fiorina, by unfavorably appraising her appearance. (“Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?”) More recently, of course, he’s disparaged “Crooked Hillary” in a similar fashion . (“Such a nasty woman!”)
Growing Up in America
Hillary Clinton, as Trump himself has acknowledged, is a fighter who will not quit — unperturbed even by his stalking her on stage throughout the second presidential debate and body-shaming her afterwards. “She walked in front of me,” he said of a moment in that debate when she crossed the stage to speak to a questioner in the audience. “Believe me, I wasn’t impressed.” In the third debate, she called him out directly on his behavior. “Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger,” she said. “He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don’t think there is a woman anywhere who doesn’t know what that feels like.”
Here was something new under the sun: a woman on a presidential debate stage calling out an insufferable man — a serial predator, at that — on behavior so common among men for so long that the vast majority of women in this country have experienced it and learned to call it “life.”
Some women still see it that way. The New York Times , for instance, interviewed a 62-year-old woman voting for Trump who said that other women offended by his “banter” should “ grow up .” I like to think that hers is a good description of what’s happening nationally at the moment, though obviously not in the fashion that she imagined. After all, grown-up women led the way, among congressional representatives, in calling Trump out. Republican Congresswomen Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Martha Roby of Alabama both asked him to withdraw from the race. Kay Granger of Texas, Mia Love of Utah, and Ann Wagner of Missouri said they could not vote for him. Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia withdrew their support. Susana Martinez, Republican governor of New Mexico, said she would not support Trump, while former Republican presidential candidate Fiorina said that Trump should step aside. Republican former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice wrote on her Facebook page: “Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw.”
Still, don’t expect a serial abuser to be a quitter either. Faced with accusations of abhorrent and criminal acts he can’t acknowledge, plus impending incomprehensible defeat at the polls, and the very real possibility of becoming one of those people he so despises — a loser — Trump casts about for others to blame. Given his character, it’s not surprising that he follows, as if by instinct, what we might call the Joel Steinberg path to self-exoneration — painting himself, and himself alone, as the ultimate innocent victim of abusive others in a world whose every aspect is “rigged” against him.
In his own telling, he, not the women he’s demeaned or assaulted, is the abused one and he’s taking it for us, for America. It’s quite a self-portrait when you think about it and should make us appreciate all the more those women who stepped before the cameras, reported his sexual assaults, and left themselves open to further abuse from Trump and his supporters. They have done something rare and brave. It’s one thing for a woman to say publicly that she has been sexually assaulted or battered or raped. Feminist speak-outs taught us decades ago to support our sisters by sharing our experience in this way. But it’s another thing to name the perpetrator and call him to account. That’s what these women have done. And wonder of wonders, most women and a whole lot of men believe them , and more than 60%, in the tepid language of the pollsters, “have some concerns” about the issue. Count that as a positive change of recent years — a light in dismal times.
On the dark side, you never know what a sore loser and his loyal, bullying, misogynist followers might do. Say, for example, followers of the type who show up outside Hillary rallies with banners reading “Trump that Bitch!” The moment the trial of Joel Steinberg ended, armed guards surrounded him and hustled him off to prison. Unfortunately, when this election is over, whether Trump wins or loses, he’s not likely to go away.
Ann Jones, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of several books on violence against women, including the feminist classic Women Who Kill and Next Time, She’ll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It , which Gloria Steinem calls “the one book you should read” on the subject. It includes a chapter on the Steinberg case. She is also the author of the Dispatch Books original , They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — The Untold Story . (Reprinted from TomDispatch by permission of author or representative) | 0 |
0 We want to be creative so much, though it is only rarely given to us.
Only when we are not under the pressure to perform and when we can freely let out the creative spark within us: it then goes on a rampage, the creative fire comes alive and prepares to explode and with feverish excitement, we begin to make our vision real.
You may have a brilliant idea. You see the idea crystal clear, you know where you want to get, what you want to make real. You know, you feel what you have to do, how you need to do it in order to realize and manifest your plan. “Oh, this is a really great idea. If I implement this plan, then I will surely help others, and secure my living at the same time.”, the excitement bursts out from you.
The only extremely unpleasant thing is, that these peaks of feverish creativeness occur rather rarely. As your enthusiasm decreases, moderates, countless concerns fill you: “Oh, I am sure I am not able to do this. I am not good enough or skillful enough for this. I am afraid that I will fail.” – this is what you think and your dreams, which seemed to be so refreshing, exciting and radiant, begin to fade. What you thought was great, very important, now it just does not seem like that anymore. In fact, doubt gradually conquers you: “I am sure I cannot accomplish this!”.
In other cases, our plans may not necessarily be “world-changing”, just some smaller-scale idea, but this would be far enough for you to find happiness. Perhaps the planning of a flower bed, or organizing a trip would be just enough to get you all fired up and excited and make you want to completely engage in realizing it. But somehow, your excitement drops underway. You give up.
Or maybe your boss forwards an email to you, which begins like this: “This is a creative task, suitable for you!”. You run your eyes through it and note it with disappointment: “This is a routine task, even a machine could do it.”.
The disappointment following the unrealized dreams remains in you every time: “I am doing my job, running around, I can barely breath anymore. I wanted to make real so many things, but I had no time for them. I am getting old, all the gates close in front of me.”.
Too many conflicting thoughts attack us and they viciously demand attention: “Can I do this?”, “What am I going to do with the emerging obstacles?”, “Others failed in this, why would I succeed?”
There are those little selves in us, the egos, and they make us do strange things. They want to reach something very important, they project themselves into the future, celebrating the success of their not yet realized plans, they would like to be there in that moment as soon as they can, when everything functions perfectly – and while they daydream about the future or wallow in their doubts, they completely forget about the present moment.
But the only thing they should do, if they want to live, is to take the chances the present moment gives.
You can take those initial steps, which will slowly but surely take you to the realization of your dream, only here and now, never at any other time. Taking you closer and closer to the realized dream each day. The dreams and doubts take over the role of the leader, they fly you far into the future or the past, making you miss those opportunities that open up for you only right here, right now, in this moment.
And this is really unpleasant.
You lose the grip on reality and drown in your dreams or nightmares.
The source of creativity is your inner quiet, intelligent consciousness that fully embraces and accepts the completeness of the present moment.
Creativity, as a creating power, works like a rollercoaster: sometimes it acts in the heat of the feverish creative work, sometimes it turns silently inwards, drawing inspiration from the state of pure consciousness.
Like Brahman of the Eastern legends, the only embodied spirit inside us: it dreams a world for itself sometimes, takes up the shapes of millions of forms, the shape of a rock, a grass blade, a tree, a kitten and your shape, it plays the roles of its life, then sheds this human skin and retires from the stage of life. When this happens, the world is destroyed and the sole consciousness turns back into its own emptiness, only to create other dreamworlds for the sake of its own amusement.
Create, then rest. Rest, then create. Be awakened, conscious. Live in the now, in the present moment.
Live and enjoy existence, throw yourself into every experience. Be open and enter the game of life. Do!
When you feel like you need to do something, just do it.
Do it consciously, with your full attention focused on how you are doing what you do.
Do not seek the future, do not harvest the fruits of the work done, but be there, where you are physically and mentally, and most importantly consciously, and watch how you do what you have to do.
If the idea that you want to realize is present in the space of your consciousness as a crystal clear picture, gently, vaguely affecting every thought and emotion, then you are able to see the dance of the forms clearly in the existence in the present moment, and also when they arrange into opportunities which are necessary to make your plans come to life.
“Coincidences” happen, synchronicities. Something happens and you notice it with enthusiasm that this was just what you needed to proceed and go further, climbing more and more steps right until achieving your goal. Like the whole universe is helping you: the events occur when they should, new guides appear, the realization of your plan rapidly unfolds.
You consciously do what you have to do.
If you do not have to do anything or just feel like it, then retire for a while. Put down your to-do list and let yourself get into the quiet, peaceful, calm, relaxing contemplation, the sheer existence without deeds. Be!
Those people who “slow down”, sometimes retire to passively recharge themselves, meditate – they do nothing – are still considered to be strange by the Western world. Many people feel that they can only have a good time if they suppress their troubles and concerns. But they ignore the fact that the person, who works day and night and gets lost in their thoughts, is exhausted, their performance is decreased, stressful and depressed. They are those who need it the most to take some time and rest in themselves.
When the creative force lessens, its fire no longer burns with that lively flames, then it is advisable to switch into the “existence” mode.
Completely pause all your activities. Let go the compulsive feeling to do something: “I have been so good at this, I must be good at it now!”.
Give in to resting in your body.
Stay in the inner silence and peace, contemplate calmly, let your eyes wander and discover things that are important for them.
If you want to, then take a walk in a peaceful, quiet environment of nature. Walk slowly, gracefully, consciously.
Feel how relaxed and easy your steps are, and notice the beauty of nature.
Relax in the space of consciousness. This is how you can recharge your creative energy. And as the desire to do something comes alive again and you feel its irresistible, blazing fire, do not hesitate, throw yourself back into action. Consciously and with joy again. Be, do, be, do!
Life suddenly makes you face a complex exercise, a challenge awaits you, to which you do not know the solution. You speculate, think, your head buzzes, you go through the script of every possible scenario, but none of them satisfies you. You think “These solutions are not good and I do not see if there is a solution at all.”.
Your mind examined every previously satisfying template in its arsenal: “Last time I did this and it helped me”, but it did not find a solution pattern in your memories that would come useful in this new situation. And after trying all the old “solution templates”, it has no aces left, it has a tendency to turn anxious or downbeat. It finds no escape from the trap of the problem. It gives up.
When this happens, the time has come: it is time to retreat into the realm of the quiet inner peace.
We see the things and events in the state of pure consciousness as they really are, the cover of imaginations, glued to them by the mind, falls down.
You are an alert observer.
You sent your mind on a day-off, it does not have to mull on the problems it created.
Things become clear in the state of pure consciousness. Nothing is dramatic anymore, things are just the way they really are. You discover the forms, events in the completeness of the moment, which could become tools that help you reach your goal. You notice how you have to alter the processes gently and smoothly, so that they help for you, but also for you fellows.
Realizations are born in you.
You wisely understand the completeness of the moment.
You gain inspiration.
And when you feel you need to do something, you do it. And as the present moment no longer needs your intervention, you return to the silent contemplation again.
Do! Be! Do, then be again! Enter the creative-inspiring pulsing of life! | 0 |
Donald Trump won’t officially become president until January 2017, but within hours of his victory the world has already begun to change.
Via Independent
1) A top Israeli government minister declared the idea of Palestinian state “over”.
Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a key figure on the right wing of the Israeli governing coalition, said that Trump’s victory “is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state”. Citing Mr.Trump’s election manifesto, the minister added: “The era of a Palestinian state is over.”
2) American Muslim women who wear the hijab agonized over whether its still safe to wear one. “Seeing my mom cry because she’s even more scared of the racism she’ll face because of her hijab absolutely broke me…” “My mom literally just texted me “don’t wear the Hijab please” and she’s the most religious person in our family….” “My 8 year old sister just told me she’s scared to be Muslim. That broke my heart. I’m crying. Don’t tell me his words don’t matter.”
3) Demonstrators set fires and overturned cars in major cities across America.
Protests across America after Trump victory
Thousands of people took to the streets across the US’s western seabord to protest against Mr Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. Cities in California, Oregon and Washington all witnessed angry demonstrations, with objects being set alight, windows smashed, and effigies burned. Protests are also planned outside US embassies across the world.
4) Global financial markets went haywire.
Investors piled into safe assets like gold while currency markets and stock markets reacted with volatility to Mr Trump’s win.
The Mexican peso plumetted, with stock markets including the Japanese Nikkei and FTSE all down. Stock market futures plunged in US markets, a sign that investors believe long-term volatility is ahead.
5) Sarah Palin said Britain and America are “hooking up” in light of Brexit and Trump. Sarah Palin, the former Alaskan govenor tipped for a position in Mr Trump’s cabinet, told reporters that Britan and America were “hooking up” following the election. “Well, see, Great Britain and America, see how we’re hooking up now?” she said at a Trump rally as the results rolled in. “We’re going rogue and saying, you know, the people are going to take back control of our governance.”
6) Former KKK leader David Duke declared tonight “one of the most exciting nights of my life”.
David Duke, who formerly led the KKK as its “Grand Wizard”, celebrated Mr Trumps election: “This is one of the most exciting nights of my life,” Mr Duke wrote. “Make no mistake about it, our people have played a huge role in electing Trump!”
7) Shares in renewable energy companies tanked…
Shares of renewable energy companies that operate in the US tanked on the news that Mr.Trump would be the next president.
The Republican president has previously claimed climate changed is a hoax perpetuated by the Chinese to cripple American industry. Vestas, a major maker of US wind turbines that gets about 40 per cent of its business from America, saw a maximum fall of 14 per cent.
8) …while shares in arms companies surged to a record high
9) Russia’s political establishment celebrated. Russian parliament bursts into applause upon announcement of US election result.
Jubilant parliamentarians burst into applause in Russia’s legislature at the next of Mr.Trump being elected. Clapping drowned out the announcement. Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, sent Mr.Trump a welcome telegraph, while his allies expressed satisfaction as the Republican candidate beating Hillary Clinton.
10) Canada’s immigration website crashed under the demand of American visitors.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Rex Features)
The official website for ‘Citizenship and Immigration Canada’ stopped working overnight, apparently because of the sheer number of Americans looking to emigrate north. Service was later restored, with the Canadian citizenship and immigration service tweeting dryly that in Canada “immigrants are encouraged to bring their cultural traditions with them and share them with their fellow citizens”.
11) Jihadi leaders welcomed the new US president.
“Trump’s victory is a hard slap to those promoting the efficiency of democratic systems,” Hamza al-Karibi, a spokesperson for the al-Qaeda affiliated Syrian jihadist group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham wrote to his Twitter followers. “Starting today, we won’t need media releases clarifying the West’s machinations. All we need to do is retweet what Trump says,” he added.
Meanwhile, prominent Egyptian-born jihadi cleric Dr.Tariq Abdel Haleem said: “Trumps [sic] winning might be bad for us in the short run. However, it is better for Muslims in the long run as he’ll ruin the US.”
12) Mexico’s foreign minister made it clear they wouldn’t be paying for that wall.
A mock-up of what such a wall might have to look like in scale (Agustin Avalos/Estudio 314)
Mr Trump’s signature policy of building a huge wall across America’s southern border with Mexico to stop immigrants seemed less likely than ever. “Paying for a wall is not part of our vision,” Claudia Ruiz Massieu, Mexico’s foreign minister, told a local television station on Wednesday in the aftermath of Mr Trump’s triumph.
Source: Independent
| 0 |
Three people were arrested Friday in connection with a massive fire under a bridge on Interstate 85 in Atlanta that caused part of the bridge to collapse. [Deputy Insurance Commissioner Jay Florence said Basil Eleby, Sophia Bruner, and Barry Thomas were the three suspects arrested, the Daily Mail reported. Eleby, whom Florence believes started the fire, faces a charge of criminal damage to property. Bruner and Thomas each face charges of criminal trespass. “We believe they were together when the fire was set and Eleby is the one who set the fire,” Florence told the Atlanta . Florence did not release details of how or why the fire was started, saying that those details would be released as the investigation continues. He said the suspects may have used “available materials” at the site and added that all three suspects may have been homeless. Crews worked to restore the bridge Thursday after the blaze caused it to collapse during rush hour. Nobody was injured despite the large clouds of smoke and flames that filled the air. Officials say reconstruction of the damaged section of the bridge could take several months, causing the 225, 000 commuters who use that section of the highway daily a traffic nightmare. | 1 |
cool and true | 0 |
Posted on August 16, 2013 by Dr. Eowyn | 143 Comments Jonathan Foster (l); Mona Nelson (r). Would the media report this if Foster wore a hoodie?
We couldn’t escape the media’s 24-7 coverage of the death of 17-year-old 5′ 11″ black teen Trayvon Martin and the trial of his shooter, half-Hispanic George Zimmerman. But have you heard or seen news about a 44-year-old black woman named Mona Nelson who is on trial for the murder-by-blow-torch of a 12-year-old white Texas boy, Jonathan Foster?
Even worse, Nelson committed the murder more than 2½ years ago, on Christmas Eve 2010 — but we’d heard/seen NOTHING about this.
That’s because in Obama’s America, blacks now enjoy “black skin privilege” and Big Media simply turn a blind eye to black crimes, especially black-on-white crimes.
As recounted by the UK’s Daily Mail , 12-year-old Foster was reported missing from his home on Christmas Eve 2010, after his mother, Angela Davis, said she had received a strange call at her workplace from a gruff-sounding woman. Davis initially told police her boy was with a babysitter. But she later admitted that he was home alone.
The boy’s burned body was discovered on December 28 in a roadside ditch in Houston, Texas , not far from where he lived.
Mona Nelson told local KTRK TV that a member of Jonathan’s family had given her $20 to dump a plastic container on Christmas Eve. She said she was drunk on vodka and didn’t know what was inside the container.
But police revealed that Jonathan’s burned body had not been discovered in a plastic container, but in a ditch. Police also say Nelson’s truck was spotted on surveillance footage dumping something in the ditch where the boy’s body was found. In addition, investigators discovered evidence at Nelson’s apartment that allegedly links her to the crime, including burned carpet and twine similar to that used to bind Jonathan’s hands.
While denying she had killed Jonathan, insisting “I’m not a monster. I have five grandkids and I love kids,” Nelson admitted having a cutting torch that she claims she used in her job as a welder. But police say she used the torch to burn the boy’s body. Jonathan’s home in Houston, Texas
Cynthia Cisneros reports for KTRK on December 30, 2010, that police revealed more about Jonathan’s abduction and murder at a news conference. Police believe the boy was home alone on Christmas Eve and was killed and his body dumped on that very same day.
Nelson admitted to dumping Jonathan’s badly burned body in northeast Houston off of East Hardy, but she denied killing the child. But surveillance cameras near where Jonathan’s body was found showed Nelson to have lied.
HPD Captain David Gott said around 6pm Christmas Eve, surveillance video showed a silver truck pull up to a ditch outside of a building on East Hardy. A person, whom neighbors and family identified as Nelson, can be seen getting out of the truck, taking a body out of the bed of the truck and placing it in on the ground. Nelson also drives a similar truck. Mona Nelson’s apartment
When authorities searched Nelson’s apartment in northwest Houston, they found “a wealth of evidence” that showed Jonathan’s body was burned at Nelson’s residence, as well as the tools (torches and welding tools) used to burn the boy. Authorities say Nelson is a maintenance worker who works with tools and torches. Authorities believe Jonathan was taken there, killed and burned beyond recognition the same day within hours. Twine used to tie Jonathan was also found inside Nelson’s home. Jonathan’s burnt body was identified by his dental records.
A next door neighbor, Rita Jackson said Nelson was there while Jonathan’s family was looking for him on Christmas Eve: “Yeah, she was just sitting there, looking at what was going on.” Police also said they believe Nelson is a a predator who has done this before and that they don’t believe her brutality begins with Jonathan.
The horrible details of Jonathan’s murder were too much for several detectives who struggled to keep from crying.
“There are few cases that impact homicide detectives — this is one of them,” said HPD Homicide Detective Mike Miller , who’d interviewed Nelson and held back tears as he described her. “She is a cold, soulless murderer who showed an absolute lack of remorse in taking the life of Jonathan Foster. She decided when the time was right and she swooped down and took him when she saw the time was right, and she saw an opportune moment. I’ve worked in Homicide Division 14 years and this is the worst case I’ve been a part of — an innocent 12 year old who everybody says was happy, outgoing and well-liked by everyone in the neighborhood. It’s an absolute tragedy.” Mona Nelson (l); Jonathan Foster (r)
KTRK reports that on August 12, 2013, the trial of Mona Nelson for the murder of Jonathan Foster finally began in a courtroom in Houston. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty. Nelson has asked for a judge instead of a jury to decide the verdict.
According to Donald Joy of ClashDaily.com , “ Nancy Grace dropped the story as soon as she realized it was a black woman murdering a little white boy. The media have avoided the story like the plague, never once looking into whether it was a ‘hate crime.’ The original local news report has been removed. Suspect has sought and received legal counsel from local leadership of the New Black Panther Party. No story here, folks. Move along …” (See also “ Nancy Grace makes racist slur about Zimmerman “)
H/t FOTM’s TPR and joworth | 0 |
Immigration officials are set to deport 199 Iraqi nationals after their home country agreed to accept deportees as part of President Donald Trump’s negotiations regarding the travel ban executive order. Prior to order, Iraq refused repatriation. [U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) officers carried out targeted arrest operations over the past few weeks leading to the arrest of 199 Iraqi criminal aliens. Most of the 199 Iraqis, 114, were arrested in the Detroit area, ICE officials stated. The arrested Iraqis have criminal records in the U. S. for homicide, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, burglary, and a host of other crimes. As part of the ongoing operations by ICE to deliver on President Trumps campaign promise to remove criminal aliens, ERO officers have been working diligently to increase their number of arrests. “According to federal data, there are at least 2 million criminal aliens now inside the country,” candidate Trump said in an August speech in Phoenix. “We will begin moving them out day one, in joint operations with local, state and federal law enforcement. Beyond the 2 million, there are a vast number of additional criminal illegal immigrants who have fled or evaded justice. But their days on the run will soon be over. ” During the first 100 days of the Trump Administration, ICE arrests were up nearly 40 percent over the previous year, Breitbart Texas reported. “The operation in this region was specifically conducted to address the very real public safety threat represented by the criminal aliens arrested,” Detroit ERO Field Officer Director Rebecca Adducci said in a written statement. “The vast majority of those arrested in the Detroit metropolitan area have very serious felony convictions, multiple felony convictions in many cases. I applaud the efforts of the law enforcement personnel who, day in and day out, put their lives on the line to protect this community. ” ICE officials had previously been blocked from deporting Iraqi citizens because their home country refused to accept American deportees. However, during the negotiations to remove Iraq from President Trump’s travel ban, the country conceded. “(S) ince May 2017, the agency has arrested 199 Iraqi nationals nationwide, the overwhelming majority of whom had criminal convictions for crimes including homicide, rape, aggravated assault, kidnapping, burglary, drug trafficking, robbery, sex assault, weapons violations and other offenses,” ICE’s Michigan Information Officer Khaalid H. Walls wrote in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “Two individuals did not have criminal convictions but have pending criminal charges for drug trafficking, receiving stolen property and multiple arrests for domestic violence. One individual is a with a final order of removal. ” He directly attributed the arrests to the president’s negotiations with Iraq. As of nearly 1, 500 Iraqi nationals have final orders of removal issued by an immigration judge that were previously unenforceable. Following the agreement, ERO officers began executing operations to reduce that number. Over the past several weeks, ICE officers arrested 85 Iraqi nationals in cities across the nation. Over this past weekend, ERO officers conducted targeted arrests in the Detroit area resulting in the 114 arrests. “Since the March 12, 2017 agreement with the Government of Iraq regarding removals, eight Iraqi nationals have been removed to Iraq,” Walls stated. Following the arrests of these violent criminal aliens, activists in the Detroit area are planning a lawsuit to block their deportations, Mlive reported. “We are filing our class action immigrant rights lawsuit to halt the death deportations of over a dozen Chaldean, Muslim and other immigrants who were picked up during the ICE raids over the weekend,” By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) national coordinator and lead attorney Shanta Driver said in a written statement. BAMN is a “ militant group” that played a leading role in the violent protests at U. C. Berkley earlier this year, Breitbart News wrote. Breitbart News also reported on the group’s violent tendencies in February, stating: BAMN sees no distinction between admitted white supremecists and people who support President Trump, and considers both valid targets for attacks. Last summer, members of the group the Traditionalist Workers Party on a permitted march were physically attacked by a group of about 400 protesters organized by BAMN. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 |
Videos Economist Jack Rasmus: Eurozone Benefits The Strongest Economies At The Expense Of The Weakest ‘Greece has tied its tail to the eurozone, dominated by Germany, and it can never get out of this situation as long as Germany dominates the institutions, which it does, because the whole arrangement is great for Germany,’ the writer and economist tells MintPress News. | October 31, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Bystanders wait to be handed bags of oranges during a free distribution of fruit and vegetables as a protest by farmers and vendors over proposed pension reforms, in Athens on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2016. Greece’s leftwing government is facing an escalating wave of protests over its proposed pension overhaul that has been demanded by bailout creditors. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
ATHENS — This has been another eventful year in Greece. Almost one year after it turned its back on the July 2015 referendum result which rejected further austerity, the Syriza-led government has pushed forward a program of even harsher austerity, spending cuts, and privatizations .
Following the British vote to proceed with “Brexit,” or a departure from the European Union, fears that Greece might follow suit led Greece’s lenders to demand even more austerity measures from a country already mired in an economic depression.
In this interview, Dr. Jack Rasmus , a professor of economics and politics at St. Mary’s College of California, analyzes these issues and the many challenges facing the Greek and European economies today.
The author of such books as “ Looting Greece ” and “ Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy ,” Dr. Rasmus shares his insights into the consequences of austerity for Greece and other peripheral European economies, and presents his proposed solutions for an end to the crisis and austerity.
MintPress News (MPN): In September, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras gave his annual “state of the nation” address, where he boasted that the Greek economy has turned the corner, that unemployment is going down, that salaries will be increased, and that the country is returning to growth. Is this what Greece’s economic indicators actually show? Protesters march to the Greek Parliament in Athens on Tuesday Nov. 6, 2012. Greece’s unions are holding their third general strike in six weeks to press dissenters in the country’s troubled coalition government not to back a major new austerity program that will doom Greeks to further hardship in a sixth year of recession. Two days of demonstrations are planned to start Tuesday, continuing until lawmakers vote late Wednesday on the bill to slash euro13.5 billion ($17.3 billion) from budget spending over two years. (AP Photo/Dimitri Messinis)
Dr. Jack Rasmus (JR): No, not quite. Greece’s debt is still the same as it was in 2011, roughly 180 percent of GDP. Unemployment has come down by only 3 to 4 percent, so instead of 27 percent, it’s about 23 to 24 percent. That’s depression-level unemployment. All the other indicators in the economy are flat or declining, so I don’t see anywhere that Greece is really “recovering,” and neither, really, is the entire eurozone economy. It’s been bouncing along the bottom.
As I said in my book “Systemic Fragility,” it’s a case of chronic stagnation. [The eurozone] might grow a little, 0.5 percent or 1 percent above GDP, mostly as a result of Germany’s growth, then it flattens out or goes below. Most of the periphery economies in Europe are stagnant or in a recession, as they have been for quite some time.
As far as raising wages, Greece cannot raise, at least in the public sector, any wages without the approval of the troika [Greece’s three major lenders: the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund]. It’s a real stretch to say that Greece is recovering. It’s kind of moving sideways, in the condition of still chronic economic depression.
MPN: One of the perceptions that has been prevalent in global public opinion with regard to the economic crisis in Greece is that the country has been “bailed out” with billions upon billions of euros in free money. Is this really the case, and where has the so-called “bailout” money to Greece actually gone?
JR: Countries don’t get bailed out. Governments, banks, businesses, and sometimes, though not so frequently, households get bailed out. So the question is, who got bailed out here, in the debt restructuring deals of 2010, 2012, 2015, and this past spring? The banks got bailed out several times. Foreign investors and speculators in Greek bonds and other securities clearly got bailed out in 2012. If you look at where the money has gone, there’s $400 billion in debt in Greece still, that they have to pay off, with an economy that is less than half that size, so it’s impossible.
Where has all this money gone? Recent studies by the European School of Management and Technology documenting the 2010 and 2012 bailouts indicate that 95 percent of all the loans to “bail out” the Greek government, which then bailed out the Greek banks — 95 percent of that went back to Northern Europe, mostly to the German and Northern European banks that had loaned so much money to Greece. [Bailout funds also went] to the troika, particularly the European Commission, that then distributed it to the banking system and investors in turn. The EC is the big player here, and to some extent the European Central Bank, and to a minor extent now the International Monetary Fund. So, 95 percent of all the money loaned to Greece went right back to [Europe] and less than 5 percent of that went back into the Greek economy. Greece has been subsidizing the financial system elsewhere in Europe. A supporter of the communist-affiliated union PAME takes part in an anti-austerity rally in front of the parliament in Athens, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016.
MPN: What do you believe needs to be done about the Greek debt?
JR: You might ask what needs to be done about debt throughout the eurozone, because it’s not just Greece. Greece is perhaps the most serious case, but other places in the periphery of Europe are still heavily indebted. You cannot sustain, with austerity measures designed to pay the interest and principal on debt, a $400-plus billion debt based on an economy that’s less than $200 billion. Even the IMF has come to that conclusion and is maneuvering with the other troika members on that particular point.
Is [the debt] legitimate? Well, you have to understand the origins of this debt. It was originally private sector debt that was created as a result of the formation of the eurozone in 1999, the ECB as part of that creation, and other elements of the eurozone agreements, particularly the Lisbon Strategy that Germany adopted. Germany and other Northern European businesses and bankers pumped money and capital into the periphery, including Greece, from 2005 onward. Germany had a strong competitive advantage in exports, so a lot of the money and capital was pumped into the periphery, including Greece, in order to purchase German and other exports. So the money went in and circulated around, leaving a pile of private sector debt in Greece, Italy, and other places.
Then we had the crash of 2008-2009 and the debt could not be repaid, and the troika stepped in to [offer] the governments of Greece and other countries money in order to continue to bail out the private sector and enable the repayment of the private debt. So it starts out as private debt, because of this great imbalance in exports within the eurozone, and then that gets converted to government debt, and then the big crash of 2008-2009 adds even more debt, and then you have the recession of 2011-2013 in the eurozone and the 2012 bailout, which piled on more debt in order to pay the old debt, and then in 2015 the same thing. So the troika’s piling more debt on Greece in order for Greece to pay the previous debt, and that’s totally unsustainable. They’re going to have to expunge some of that debt.
Of course, the Germans, Wolfgang Schauble [the German finance minister] and the coalition in the north, does not want to allow that. And they don’t really want to change the eurozone, because the eurozone, while very imbalanced for the periphery, has benefited Germany significantly. [The Germans] dominate the finance ministers’ council in the EC and they dominate the ECB, and they’re just keeping the situation the way it is because it’s profitable for them. Demonstrators hold a poster against the austerity policy of Germany prior to a special session of the parliament Bundestag on negotiations with Greece for a new bailout in Berlin, Germany, Friday, July 17, 2015. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
MPN: Why must Greek banks be nationalized, in your view?
JR: Look at the debt negotiations of 2010, 2012, and 2015. What happened was the ECB, which pretty much controls the Greek central bank — the ECB is just a council of central banks dominated by the Bundesbank [the German central bank] and its allies, so they have control — and what you saw in the negotiations is that in 2015, the ECB put the screws to the Greek economy, and Syriza collapsed and agreed each time the screws were tightened, bringing the economy to a halt. They couldn’t deal with the squeeze on the economy by the ECB. This brought the economy to a halt, squeezing it and of course not releasing loans that [the troika] had agreed to provide Greece under previous agreements. There was an economic squeeze that Syriza did not have a strategy to deal with, and eventually it capitulated.
You’ve got to nationalize, make the Greek central bank and the banking systems independent of the ECB. Gain control over your economy once again, and that is one of several key steps to prevent the squeeze every time you attempt to renegotiate the debt or restructure the debt. Without an independent, Greek, people-controlled banking system, the eurozone and the troika will squeeze and bring Greece to its knees every time. We’ve seen that three times. You’ve got to nationalize the banking system, including the central bank, or if you want to just leave the central bank as part of the ECB structure, go ahead, but create an independent central bank authority elsewhere in the Greek government.
In the U.S. during the Great Depression, the U.S. central bank had screwed up badly, and [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt took over and had his Treasury Department take over and run the economy. Greece would have to set up a parallel central bank in its finance sector, and isolate and bypass the influence of the ECB through the Greek central bank. You would have to create a parallel currency as part of this and impose serious controls on bank withdrawals and capital flows outside the country, which Syriza did not really do, because the ECB and the troika opposed it. When you have all the capital, bank withdrawals and capital flight is another way of squeezing the country economically. FILE – In this Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015 file photo, a man walks past street art depicting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Athens, Greece. Tsipras’ decision to sign off on a bailout led to many in his left-wing Syriza party to quit in protest.
MPN: The current government in Greece has been continuing a policy of massive privatizations of Greek public assets, with profitable airports and harbors having been privatized in the past year, in addition to the recent selloff of the Greek national railroad for a total of €45 million ($49 million). What are the short- and long-term impacts of the privatization of such public assets?
JR: The short-term is that when you privatize them, under the aegis of the troika, if you sell below market prices, which a lot of these assets are being sold at, that’s profit on the sale for the investors who are buying up these assets. But once the assets are in private hands, where does the revenue go? Does it go back into Greece or does it go back into the pockets of the investors and the corporations and the banks outside Greece that are buying it up? Well, it goes out. It’s a form of capital flight. Money that is needed in Greece flows out of Greece.
This is a new form of financial imperialism, wealth extraction in other words, that is being structured and managed on a state-to-state basis. It’s not 19th century British imperialism where they set up a factory in India, paid them low wages, and brought the textiles back to London to re-sell at a higher price. It’s not that kind of production imperialism. This is financial imperialism imposed on Greece, and it’s a new form that’s emerging everywhere, where you indebt the country and then you force the country to engage in austerity in order to pay the principal and interest on the debt, and you extract the income from the country. Privatizations are another form of that.
You privatize public goods, you get them at fire-sale prices, and then the income flows from those assets flow back to the coffers of the private companies or the banks, outside of Greece.
The other consequence is when you privatize, they come in and they cut costs, which means they lay off people in mass numbers, they put a hold on wages, they get rid of benefits, and they do everything else to maximize their revenue.
Finally, longer term, it means that Greece has less control over its own economy if it can’t control its infrastructure and everything is owned by foreigners. Then you can’t influence it as much, and if you’re part of the eurozone, you’re legally prohibited from what you can do to make sure that these foreign-owned infrastructure companies are behaving in terms of the benefit for the public sector, for the rest of Greece.
MPN: You have argued in your book, “Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy,” that there are nine major trends which account for the economic troubles that are seen on a global scale. What are some of these trends?
JR: Everywhere, and particularly since 2008, we see central banks and monetary policy to be ascendant, and that means creating money, pumping it into the economy to bail out the financial systems, the financial institutions, the banks and the shadow banks, meaning speculators, hedge funds, private equity firms, asset management companies, and so forth. We’ve seen bailouts of tens of trillions of dollars since 2008. All of that liquidity injection into the economy has driven interest rates down to zero or even, in Europe and Japan and elsewhere, negative rates, and that fuels debt. With rates that cheap, corporations and businesses float new corporate bonds, and they use the money not to invest necessarily, they use it to buy back the stock and drive up the stock prices and pay out dividends, or they sit on it, they hoard it, or they send it to emerging markets. That’s a problem everywhere, and that’s the result of massive liquidity injections, which have really been escalating since the 1980s, when controls on international capital flows were eliminated everywhere.
After the 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system collapsed and central banks took over, the combination of those has led to the financialization of the global economy in the 21st century, where profits are far greater for investing and speculating in financial securities than they are in investing in real assets and real things that create real jobs and real income and real consumption. We’re becoming dependent on debt more and more. The economy is increasingly credit- and debt-driven, and that’s the result of this massive liquidity injection, and it also leads to a shift from real asset investment — investing in real things that create jobs that people need — toward financial asset investment. That means that real investment collapses over time and productivity collapses over time as well, and we see that happening everywhere.
That’s a major point that I argued about in my book, “Systemic Fragility,” this financialization of the global economy based on liquidity and debt and squeezing out. It’s diverting money and capital from real investment into financial speculation. What’s going on in Greece is a concrete expression of this, the reliance on financial means and financial manipulation. The periphery in the eurozone is at a great disadvantage to Germany and others, and they’re being manipulated financially. All the payments on interest and the debt flow back to the north. This is all flowing through the EC to the private sector, and it’s a nice constant money capital flow from interest payments and privatization and speculation on government bonds and securities and stocks in these countries as the volatility occurs.
It’s a reflection, in Greece, of what’s happening on a broader scale elsewhere in the global economy, and that’s why we haven’t seen much of a recovery in the global economy. Global trade is stagnant and real investment everywhere is drifting toward zero, productivity is negative almost everywhere, even in the U.S., and we’re seeing growth rates of barely 1 percent, 1.5 percent, at best, when it should be double that. We see these growing, non-performing bank loans, almost $2 trillion in Europe, the worst in Italy with about $400 billion. We see the same thing in Japan and in China. We’re becoming more systemically fragile financially because of this shift to financial speculation. In this July 5, 2012 file photo President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi speaks during a news conference in Frankfurt, central Germany. (AP Photo/dapd, Mario Vedder, File)
MintPress: What is your outlook for the eurozone economy and the difficulties that it is currently facing?
JR: The European banking system has never fully recovered from the 2008-2009 crash. The ECB is pumping money into the banking system in various ways, long-term refinancing options and all the bailout funds and qualitative easing and negative interest rates and so forth. They’re desperately pumping money into the banking system, but the banks aren’t really lending, at least to those businesses that would reinvest in real assets to create jobs. It’s far more profitable to make money now. Investors make more money from financial speculation than they do from investing long-term and expecting to get a return over 10 to 20 years for investment in a real company that creates real things.
We can see the strains now with the non-performing loans, in particular in Italy. Of course, we know the situation with the non-performing bank loans in Greece. Portugal is in bad shape as well in terms of non-performing loans, and now we see even institutions like [Germany’s] Deutsche Bank and others beginning to feel this strain, and the further impact on the European banking system of the “Brexit” [the departure of Great Britain from the European Union].
The problem is that the private banks are either hoarding the cash, they won’t invest in real growth, or they’re sending their money offshore to emerging markets, or they’re using it, as in the U.S., to buy back stock and pay out dividends and loaning money to companies to do just that. The global economy has changed dramatically in ways that make it much more fragile than ever before. A lot of debt has been building up everywhere: Over $50 trillion in additional debt has occurred since 2009, and when the next recession comes, how are they going to pay that debt?
When times are stable or growing, you can add debt without a great crisis emerging, but when you have a recession or a downturn that’s significant, where are you going to get the money capital to pay the principal and interest on the debt? Then you start seeing defaults and you start seeing financial asset price collapses going on, and now you’re back in 2008-2009. That’s the picture of the global economy. A farmer tries to protect himself as he clashes with a riot policeman during an anti-government protest at central Syntagma square in Athens, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2015. Greek farmers protesting over planned tax and pension reforms demanded by the country’s bailout creditors have clashed outside parliament with police, who used tear gas to disperse them. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)
MPN: What would be the steps for Greece to follow, in your view, in order to escape the spiral of economic depression and austerity?
JR: Syriza made it clear, when it came into power, that it was not in favor of “Grexit” [a Greek departure from the eurozone], and it has always maintained that position. An unprepared, “we’re leaving the eurozone and the euro” kind of decision would cause a collapse of values, particularly among those who have investments in some savings in Greece. To some extent, Syriza was caught between a rock and a hard place here. They couldn’t or didn’t want to advocate an exit, and at least those who had investments didn’t want it because of the potential effect on their investments. The broader Greek populace thinks, still, that to be European you have to be in the eurozone. That’s a big mistake.
I think what Greece and Syriza should have done is to create a parallel currency and to take over its banking system. In other words, make the banking system truly independent, including the Greek central bank, and if that was not possible, bypass the Greek central bank and set up a central banking function in the finance ministry, as the U.S. has done at different times. Create a parallel currency, and policies and programs to get people to convert their euros into the parallel currency. Maybe declare that henceforth all taxes to the Greek government will be paid with the parallel currency, and that means that people would then trade in their euros for the parallel currency to pay their taxes.
Then tell the troika [the EC, the ECB, and the IMF — collectively, Greece’s lenders] that we’re going to pay you in your euros, but if we run out of euros here as a result of the conversion, well, tough luck, we don’t have a way of paying you, let’s negotiate a final deal where you expunge some of it and we pay you off and we go our separate ways. Of course, you would have to create significant capital flow controls, which has always been a problem every time there’s been a crisis; the money flows out of Greece. Take the economy out of the control of the troika without a formal exit.
That could have been done, but for some reason Syriza and its finance advisers either didn’t want to do that or didn’t know how to do that.
MPN: Arguments that have been heard against a parallel currency include the claim that the existence of two currencies would create a situation where there would be “haves” and “have nots” — between those who would hold a stronger, hard currency, compared to those holding a weaker, devalued currency. How do you respond to this?
JR: There are policies and approaches you can take that entice and require people to convert their euros into the new currency. That would raise the demand and therefore the value, the price of the new currency. If you just had the currency and you didn’t have this forced trade-in, then of course you would have “haves” and “have nots,” the new currency would collapse, and pretty soon no one would want to use it. But, for example, saying that taxes could only be paid with the new currency, would force people who had corporations and businesses and so forth to purchase the new currency with the euro. It would undermine the value of the euro in Greece and it would raise the value of the new currency in Greece as well. That might set off a parallel elsewhere in the eurozone with other countries thinking the same thing, which would undermine the value of the euro and put the squeeze on the troika for once. Greece never put the squeeze on the troika, it was just the opposite in all of these negotiations that occurred, they never really hurt the troika in negotiations, and that’s the only way you prevail in negotiations. You’ve got to make it unpleasant for the opposition. Syriza never did that, they played along and made concession after concession.
Syriza thought that their example would strike a spark elsewhere in Europe of other social democratic forces and governments. They thought that they would get the rest of the social democracies behind them and together they would reform the eurozone. That was a fiction, a fantasy thought on the part of Alexis Tsipras and others, but that was the core of their whole strategy. European social democracy is a dying force, and that’s why you see the growth on the fringes, both to the right and the left.
Tsipras and [former Greek finance minister] Yanis Varoufakis’ problem was that they thought they could get all these elements behind them and that together they would have enough weight to force Schauble and other finance ministers to make concessions. Well, Schauble and the other ministers, the “German faction,” as I call it, within the finance ministers’ council in the EC, remained dominant. At every step along the way, whenever Syriza and its few allies tried to make a compromise where some concessions were made to them, the German faction squelched it. We saw that, for example, at the very end, when [Greece held] the referendum in July 2015. Greece held the vote, and the vote said “go back and negotiate a better deal for us,” and what did Tsipras do? He totally caved in to the Schauble faction, and then the Schauble faction said, “The offer we made last week is now off the table, you’re going to have to accept an even worse one.” So they put the screws to Syriza, and Syriza looked to its allies in the EC, and they totally caved in as well. Things just got worse and worse until you had the final [austerity] agreement on August 20, 2015.
It was a step-by-step retreat from [Syriza’s election in] January 2015, because Syriza had the wrong strategy and was not engaged in certain necessary tactics. Of course, the troika itself had a lot of cards to play. It would have been an uphill fight for Syriza. The time where they might have been able to strike some concessions from the troika was 2012, but New Democracy [the center-right party in power at the time in Greece] was totally in the pocket of the troika, so that was impossible.
[This past spring], the IMF and the troika were worried about “Brexit” and what impact that might have on renewing “Grexit.” So they put the screws to Greece again, raised the debt even more, austerity even more, and I think another round of that is coming, because the IMF wants out of the troika deal. We’ll see what happens at the IMF meeting, but they haven’t endorsed even the 2015 agreement because they know it’s unsustainable. I think the IMF is maneuvering to have the EC to buy its portion of the debt, and once that happens, the EC will demand even more austerity from Greece. President of France Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Obama, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel attend the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) meeting at the G20 the G-20 leaders summit in Brisbane, Australia, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.
MPN: In the event that a parallel currency is implemented and steps are taken to maintain or strengthen its value, could that be a prelude to a switch to a national, domestic currency?
JR: Yes. At some point, one currency will become dominant. You can’t have two equal currencies like that. Another advantage of the new currency is that it will start out at less value than the euro, and that will be used as the trading currency. That will stimulate Greek exports to elsewhere, outside the eurozone.
Part of the problem is that the periphery in Europe is so dependent on exports and imports to Germany and the north, that it can’t really engage in its own independent export strategy without cutting wages. Throughout Europe, you have what’s called “internal devaluation,” when you are stuck with a currency and someone else’s central bank, the ECB and the euro. You can’t really engage in independent monetary policy to stimulate your economy and you can’t engage in lowering your currency in order to gain some advantage in exports. You’re stuck, and only the most powerful country that’s most efficient and has the lowest costs is able to take advantage of global exports, and that’s Germany. The weaker economies of the periphery will always be at a disadvantage to Germany when it comes to trying to push their exports anywhere else outside the eurozone.
That’s the lesson. The lesson is that you’ve got a 1999 agreement in which you have this quasi-central bank, the ECB, and you have [the euro], and that arrangement significantly benefits the most efficient, low-cost producer, which is Germany, at the expense of the periphery. Until you have a true central bank and fiscal union to some extent, that will pump the money into the periphery to help it grow when it doesn’t, you will always have the situation you have in Europe right now.
Compare that to the U.S., where there’s a fiscal union, so that if certain states have economic problems … the federal government can pump money into those specific locations. If you don’t have a true federal government and fiscal union, you can’t do that, and if your central bank is dominated by the largest economy — Germany — even the monetary policy has no effect. And if it’s a single currency, it’s to the advantage of the stronger economy at the disadvantage of the weaker.
The eurozone economy is structured to emphasize the growth of the strongest economies at the expense of the weaker, and that’s not going to change. It’s built into the eurozone. You cannot create a currency union and a customs union without a true banking union and fiscal union. More and more countries in the eurozone are beginning to come to that conclusion, but it was foreordained. Economists knew this from the beginning, and that’s the tragedy. Greece has tied its tail to the eurozone, dominated by Germany, and it can never get out of this situation as long as Germany dominates the institutions, which it does, because the whole arrangement is great for Germany. A protesters carries a protest sign during a rally prior to the opening of the new European Central Bank (ECB) headquarter in Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, March 18, 2015. At least four police cars were set alight and two officers injured Wednesday as authorities confronted violent anti-austerity protesters ahead of the inauguration ceremony for the European Central Bank’s new headquarters (AP Photo/dpa, Arne Dedert)
MPN: Tell us about your most recent book, “Looting Greece.”
JR: It’s really a case study of the consequences of financialization and globalization and integration. I argue that there is this phenomenon of the smaller economies being tied into the larger economies through free trade agreements, which lead to currency unions, which lead to banking unions, and then you’ve got a situation like Greece and the euro periphery and the problems associated with that.
The book also takes a historical look at the origins of the Greek debt, that starts in 1999 with the [creation of the] eurozone, the adoption of the euro by Greece in 2002 and the consequences of that, how the debt developed, first in the private sector because of German export domination and then conversion of the private debt in 2008-2009 to the public debt, and then the collapse of 2008-2009, which added to the government debt. Then you had the 2012 agreement where the private sector was bailed out, and that added more debt, and then 2015 and so forth. All this is described in detail in the early chapters, and then most of the book is a step-by-step look at the negotiations between Syriza and the troika, from [Syriza’s January 2015 election] through the spring of 2016, and what were the strategic and tactical errors of Syriza and the strategic and tactical moves by the troika which enabled it to prevail.
At the end, [the book discusses] how this is a form of a new emerging financial and wealth extraction from smaller economies by the larger economies, because of the globalization and integration arrangement that exists, the emergence of financial extraction and financial exploitation, and how central banks are feeding that all. This will lead to my next book, which is about global central banks and the problems they’ve created as we move to another crisis, which I think is coming in the next five years. Demonstrators dressed as clowns pass by a burning police car Wednesday, March 18, 2015 in Frankfurt, Germany. Blockupy activists try to blockade the new headquarters of the ECB to protest against government austerity and capitalism. (AP Photo/Michael Probst) Be Sociable, Share! | 0 |
Una soprano se come un plato de albóndigas en plena representación de “La Bohème” ENCARNABA EL PAPEL DE UNA COSTURERA CONSUMIDA POR LA TUBERCULOSIS soprano
El pasado fin de semana, los aficionados a la ópera congregados en La Scala de Milán se quedaron boquiabiertos cuando la protagonista de la obra no sólo sacó una fiambrera repleta de albóndigas sino que, además, procedió a comérselas al tiempo que cantaba con la boca llena la conocida aria “Mi chiamano Mimì”. Era el final del primer acto, un momento en el que los dos protagonistas de la pieza de Puccini, Mimí y Rodolfo, se declaran su amor.
El público milanés contemplaba estupefacto una situación que claramente se salía del libreto: en “La Bohème” se retrata las estrecheces de los artistas en el París de finales del siglo XIX, jóvenes que pasan hambre y frío, por lo que muchos aficionados creyeron que la aparición de las albóndigas respondía a una provocación del director de escena. La explicación era mucho más sencilla pero no llegó hasta la rueda de prensa posterior a la representación.
Diana Damrau (Guzburgo, 1971) es una soprano de coloratura alemana especializada Mozart, Mahler y Strauss. Era la primera ocasión en la que cantante se enfrentaba a la partitura de Puccini y, para poder interpretar el papel de Mimí, una costurera consumida por la tuberculosis, estuvo seis meses sometida a una dieta estricta. Dieta que rompió el sábado en pleno escenario: “Ha sido un infierno cantar en italiano”, ha dicho Damrau en la posterior rueda de prensa. “En italiano todo suena a comida. Hasta el propio nombre de Puccini suena a tipo de pasta: ‘Puccinis a la carbonara’”, ha manifestado la soprano entre lágrimas mientras daba mordiscos a una pizza “alla napoletana”. “Antes de desmayarme en escena, he preferido sacar las albóndigas”, ha concluido conteniendo un eructo.
Han llovido muchas críticas sobre Damrau, que ha corrido a refugiarse en casa de su madre, la autora de las albóndigas. Sin embargo, ha salido en su defensa el director musical de La Scala, Riccardo Chailly, argumentando que el público de hoy en día ya no está acostumbrado a este tipo de actos por parte de tenores y sopranos, pero ha recordado que antes era lo habitual: “El gran tenor wagneriano Wolfgang Windgassen se comió un buey entero mientras interpretaba el papel de Parsifal en la mítica representación de 1954 en el Festival de Bayreuth”.
En estos momentos, la soprano valora dejar la ópera “a no ser que algún compositor escriba una obra llamada ‘Ratatouille’ o ‘Il Masterchef’ y que tenga un papel a mi medida”. | 0 |
As mourners gathered on Tuesday for the funeral of the owner of a popular Brooklyn pizzeria, shot to death in front of his home last week, the authorities released a video of a man being sought in connection with the killing. The owner, Louis Barbati, 61, had been an institution at LB Spumoni Gardens, the restaurant started by his grandfather, an Italian immigrant who started out peddling ices from a wagon, which is depicted in the company logo. On June 30, Mr. Barbati was shot five times outside his home in the Dyker Heights neighborhood, leaving behind a wife, two sons and the restaurant — a fixture on the Brooklyn street corner where it has sat since 1939, topped with fluttering Italian and American flags. St. Ephrem’s Church in Dyker Heights was thick with incense, grief and the unanswered question on every mourner’s face: Why was Mr. Barbati killed? He was best known for doling out spumoni, layered Italian ice cream in pistachio, vanilla and chocolate flavors that gave his family’s restaurant its name. “He was the best boss,” Efraim Meza, 46, a pizza maker who said he had worked for Mr. Barbati for the past 25 years, recalled outside the church. The restaurant was closed on Tuesday for the funeral, which Mr. Meza had attended with a group of six Spumoni staff members. On the restaurant floor, he said, workers were known by the nicknames bestowed by Mr. Barbati, whom Mr. Meza remembered for his playfulness. Mr. Meza’s nickname was Fraggle. Mr. Meza said the restaurant was “like an empty space” without the presence of Mr. Barbati — whose catch phrase, “Atta boy,” would fill the cafe. “He would always take care of you,” Mr. Meza added. The New York Police Department on Tuesday issued a video showing a person of interest in the case, with the hope it will generate tips and information from the public. “We’re treating it as a botched robbery,” said J. Peter Donald, a police spokesman. “There’s some other potential motives, but this is the leading theory. ” Mr. Barbati was shot as he returned for dinner with his family, carrying a loaf of Italian bread and more than $10, 000 — which was not taken. Officials have said that Mr. Barbati carried that much cash home only five or so times a year, without saying why. Detectives are investigating whether his killer knew he was traveling with so much money when he left Spumoni Gardens. Mr. Barbati was wearing jewelry at the time, but that was also left behind, officials have said. In the footage, a man wearing sunglasses, a dark sweatshirt and shorts walks on a sidewalk. The police said investigators wanted to question the man. The assailant has been described similarly to the man in the video clip. Police officials believe he had been waiting for Mr. Barbati as he returned from work. The gunman fled by car as Mr. Barbati called for help before collapsing in his yard. “We don’t know who it is, but we are looking for the public’s help in identifying the shooter,” Mr. Donald said. At Spumoni Gardens, signs in the window memorialized Mr. Barbati, a throwback to an earlier era of Italian Brooklyn, who once had skirmished over the secret recipe for his pizza sauce and who was known as Lu Lu. Arriving at the locked doors, Deanne Smith, a parole supervisor visiting from New Braunfels, Tex. was trying to make sense of the news. She had brought a group of visitors to try the sauce. “It tastes just like my grandmother’s,” Ms. Smith said. “It’s the only place in all of America that does. This is shocking. ” Shortly before she arrived, a hearse bearing Mr. Barbati’s body was driven past the restaurant, according to people who had gathered to pay their respects in its courtyard on Tuesday. One onlooker put his hand on his heart. | 1 |
Ask Holly: Why am I such a miserable git? 03-11-16 Why am I such a miserable git? Jose Manchester Dear Jose, Happiness comes from sweets and things made of plastic and sparkly items you see in the adverts on Channel 5. All you need to do is get a job which pays you about £21.99 a week. If you are too young to work, ask your mum and dad every half an hour for several days to give you the money and then you can get some wine gums, a Sherbet Dip Dab, some Shopkins and a Barbie and you will be happy for at least five minutes. Hope that helps, | 0 |
President Donald Trump and his team of White House officials will discuss the issue of visas during the tech summit Monday — an issue of high importance for CEOs in the tech industry. [“The president is going into this meeting to listen,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer responded, when asked by Breitbart News if the president was open to the idea of expanding visas. According to a White House official, visas would be one of many topics discussed with White House staff and the CEOs during the meeting. Spicer pointed to Trump’s promised reform of the entire visa program when asked about whether or not he supported the visa program — one that allows some foreign investors in American businesses to legally stay in the United States. At a Republican primary debate at Miami University during the campaign, Trump said that he favored ending the program. “I know the very well. We shouldn’t have it, it’s very, very bad for workers,” he said, calling it “unfair to our workers. ” The tech meeting began this afternoon with remarks from White House senior advisor Jared Kushner, who focused on the changes that technology companies could bring to the United States government. “Together we will unleash the creativity of the private sector to provide citizen services in a way that has never happened before,” Kushner said. Trump is expected to make remarks later this afternoon. | 1 |
The remaining contestants on a reality television series have emerged after surviving 12 months in the Scottish wilderness — fending off hunger, infighting and fatigue — only to learn that the show stopped broadcasting after four episodes, the last of them in August. The show, “Eden,” was billed as a unique social experiment in which 23 men and women living in isolation “would take on the challenge of building a new life and creating a society from scratch,” according to a statement promoting the show. The contestants were taken to a estate on the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, which is known for its forests, lochs and beaches. But “Eden” proved to be anything but paradise. Over time, all but 10 contestants quit the show, The Press and Journal of Aberdeen, Scotland, reported. Those who left cited concerns about health and safety, boredom and swarms of tiny biting insects called midges. The contestants were on an uninhabited private estate that the Ministry of Defense used as a training ground during World War II, The Radio Times of London reported. A fence was erected on three sides of the estate, with the fourth side bordered by the sea, it said. The series was filmed with a crew of four embedded with the contestants, who also had personal cameras. A rig of 45 cameras, described by The Radio Times as a network of television cameras that could be controlled remotely, was also used. Unlike American reality television shows, such as the “Survivor” series — in which contestants compete against one another — “Eden” had no winners or losers. It was intended to feature the making of a society from scratch. The show followed the contestants, which included a doctor, a chef, a carpenter and a shepherd, as they debated their own rules and laws and decided on their living arrangements. “The series aims to challenge everything about modern living, raising questions about what we need to be happy, what we want from our communities and how we are influenced by society as a whole,” the television station behind the series, Channel 4, said in a statement. Goats, sheep, pigs and chickens and equipment for fishing and hunting were supplied. Materials for building, cooking and safety and hygiene were also provided. But for some, the primitive accommodations proved too much, and they took to getting food and liquor from the pockets of civilization that dot the region, according to news accounts. Four episodes of the show were aired and viewership dropped to 800, 000 from 1. 7 million. The first episode aired on July 18 and the last on Aug. 8. Channel 4 said the show would return later this year, The Guardian reported. “The appeal of Eden is that it was a real experiment, and when filming began we had no idea what the results would be and how those taking part would react to being isolated for months in a remote part of the British Isles,” the station said. | 1 |
The joy must have been palpable in 2013 when three New York art traders arranged through Sotheby’s to sell a newly discovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance master, for $80 million. One of them had purchased it at an estate sale for less than $10, 000 eight years earlier, when most experts viewed it as only the work of Leonardo’s school. But the traders’ joy later soured, according to court papers, when they learned that the man who bought it, an important Swiss art dealer, had turned around and sold the painting within days to a Russian billionaire for $47. 5 million more. The traders asked Sotheby’s, according to court papers, whether it had been aware that there was a much higher price to be had for the painting. Hadn’t Sotheby’s taken the painting, presale, to an apartment where the Russian billionaire had viewed it? Were the traders misled to favor the Swiss dealer, a valued Sotheby’s client named Yves Bouvier? Disturbed by those questions, the traders have told Sotheby’s they plan to sue, claiming fraud, to recover the millions they say they missed out on, according to the court papers. The papers were filed in federal court in Manhattan last week by Sotheby’s in a move to block such a suit. Sotheby’s says in the filing that it never knew Mr. Bouvier had the Russian billionaire waiting in the wings to pay much more for the work, a depiction of Christ known as “Salvator Mundi. ” The price it helped achieve, Sotheby’s said, was “likely a world record price for an old master painting” at the time. The traders, Sotheby’s lawyer wrote, “apparently experiencing seller’s remorse, are trying to gain the benefit of a subsequent sale price that Sotheby’s had nothing to do with. ” The dispute, with its skyrocketing prices and accusations of intrigue, offers a compelling view of the messy side of the international art market. But it is only part of a much larger, and far messier, battle between Mr. Bouvier and the Russian billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev, a battle in which Sotheby’s is now entangled. Mr. Rybolovlev, among the world’s most prolific art collectors, has accused Mr. Bouvier of defrauding him in the purchase of 38 paintings for which companies controlled by Mr. Rybolovlev’s family trust paid nearly $2 billion. The Russian has said he thought Mr. Bouvier was acting as his agent, on commission, in such sales, but instead he said he later found that Mr. Bouvier had skimmed as much as $1 billion in profits by quietly buying the paintings himself first, then reselling them to his Russian client at escalated prices, according to court papers filed by lawyers for Mr. Rybolovlev. Mr. Rybolovlev leveled criminal charges against Mr. Bouvier in Monaco, where he was arrested last year, and has also pursued him in courtrooms in Singapore and France. Twelve of the 38 paintings were originally bought by Mr. Bouvier in sales arranged by Sotheby’s, only to be flipped to Mr. Rybolovlev. Sotheby’s says it has done nothing wrong, that it was completely in the dark about Mr. Bouvier’s intentions. In a statement, Sotheby’s said that it had hired an outside law firm to investigate its behavior and that it found no wrongdoing. Questions have been raised about another of the 12 sales to Mr. Bouvier, who has denied all accusations. In that 2012 sale, the heirs of Jenny Steiner, a Jewish woman from Vienna whose painting, “Water Serpents II” by Gustav Klimt, was looted by the Nazis during World War II, and the widow of a former Nazi official who ended up with the Klimt, sold it to Mr. Bouvier for $112 million, according to court papers. Later that year, Mr. Bouvier resold it to Mr. Rybolovlev for $183. 8 million, according to court papers filed this year by Mr. Rybolovlev, also in federal court in Manhattan. The estate of one of the Steiner heirs said in a statement that the transaction “deserves very close scrutiny considering the seriousness of the allegations and the suspiciously opaque business style of the agents involved,” but declined further comment. Sotheby’s declined to comment on any questions raised about the Klimt sale. Mr. Rybolovlev has also questioned Sotheby’s role in the sales to Mr. Bouvier. In particular, his advisers have expressed concern about a set of valuations that Sotheby’s prepared for Mr. Bouvier that, the advisers said in court papers, appeared to buttress the much higher prices he had charged Mr. Rybolovlev. One of the valuations, for example, was prepared for Mr. Bouvier last year after Mr. Rybolovlev learned he had paid $47. 5 million more for his Leonardo than the prior purchaser. At that point, Sotheby’s, which 20 months before had brokered the sale of the painting for $80 million, provided Mr. Bouvier with an insurance appraisal that valued the painting at about $113 million, closer to the $127. 5 million that Mr. Rybolovlev had paid. In the court papers filed this year in federal court in Manhattan, a lawyer for Mr. Rybolovlev took issue with the Sotheby’s valuation. “In its valuation,” the lawyer, Daniel J. Kornstein, wrote, “Sotheby’s did not discuss Bouvier’s purchase of the painting for $75 to $80 million in May 2013 in a transaction it had brokered. ” Mr. Kornstein also questioned why the Sotheby’s valuation was so much higher than the price Mr. Bouvier had paid. Mr. Kornstein has asked a judge to order Sotheby’s and the Leonardo sellers to produce a series of documents that outline the sale of the “Salvator Mundi” and other artworks, and interactions with Mr. Bouvier. In a statement last week, a spokesman for Mr. Rybolovlev, Sergey Chernitsyn, said, “Unfortunately, tracing back Mr. Bouvier’s steps has thrown up some questions about the private sale process conducted by Sotheby’s, and the subsequent role that the organization may have played. ” The spokesman declined further comment. Sotheby’s has said it stands behind the integrity of how it appraised the works. In the court papers filed last week to block a lawsuit over the Leonardo, it explained the discrepancy in values as being a distinction between fair market values and retail replacement values for insurance purposes, which are typically higher. Its appraisals were for insurance purposes, in which the values are often greater because they reflect the cost of having to go out and swiftly replace an item, compared with buying it under lesser time constraints. Appraisal experts said that insurance valuations don’t require discussion of a prior sale, though they said best practices certainly encourage it, especially when such large dollar amounts are involved. Some experts said that a big increase in the valuation in just two years or so might be justified by the volatility of prices in today’s art market. But others questioned whether a gap of more than $30 million was realistic, partly because private sales for trophy artworks are already, in effect, insurance level valuations because of their rarity. Mr. Bouvier, who is free on a euro bond in the Monaco case, says he had a right to charge whatever price a buyer would pay. He also operates art storage warehouses around the globe, including a major one at the haven in Switzerland known as the Geneva Freeport. A spokesman for Mr. Bouvier, who is one of the auction house’s better clients, said that Sotheby’s knew nothing about his relationship with Mr. Rybolovlev, and that he never misled Sotheby’s. “Mr. Bouvier had no obligation to disclose to Sotheby’s that he intended to sell the Leonardo once he purchased it, and no obligation to provide further details about the painting once it had been sold by Sotheby’s,” said the spokesman, Jeremy Fielding, in a statement. It is unclear how much Sotheby’s earned on commissions from brokering the 12 sales of art to Mr. Bouvier because it does not disclose such information about private sales. But it revealed in the court filings that it had earned $3 million for arranging the sale of the Leonardo. Much of the speculation about Sotheby’s role in the sale of the Leonardo revolves around what its representative knew, or didn’t know, in 2013 when he took the “Salvator Mundi” to a Central Park apartment, where Mr. Bouvier and Mr. Rybolovlev inspected it. The meeting occurred six weeks before the sale to Mr. Bouvier and the flip to Mr. Rybolovlev. The meeting took place in a grand apartment, one of the most expensive in Manhattan, that is owned by a Rybolovlev family trust. In its court papers, Sotheby’s argues that its representative, Samuel Valette, its vice chairman for private sales worldwide, did not realize it was Mr. Rybolovlev’s family apartment or that he was inspecting the painting as a potential buyer. The meeting had been requested by Mr. Bouvier, the auction house said, and though Mr. Valette said that he recognized a third man in the room as having been associated with a previous sale to Mr. Bouvier, he said that he had not known his name. “It was not, however, until much later that Valette and Sotheby’s learned that this third man was Rybolovlev,” the papers state. A month and a half after the meeting, Mr. Bouvier bought the “Mundi” for $80 million, putting down $68 million in cash, and a Picasso valued at $12 million. Shortly afterward, Mr. Bouvier sold the “Mundi” to Mr. Rybolovlev for $127. 5 million, according to court papers. Sotheby’s declined to say whether, as part of the security arrangements associated with transporting such a valuable work, it would typically identify who owned the apartment to which it was bringing a painting. In response to a series of additional questions, Sotheby’s referred to the lawsuit it had filed last week, in which it depicted Mr. Bouvier as someone who had misinformed them. “Bouvier,” it says in the filing, “not only never disclosed to Sotheby’s his resale to Rybolovlev at a huge markup from what he had paid the defendants, but he also misled Sotheby’s into believing that he in fact remained the owner of the ‘Salvator Mundi’ long after he acquired the piece in May 2013. ” A lawyer for the original sellers of the Leonardo, though, said they remain unpersuaded. “The picture painted by Sotheby’s in its complaint is incomplete, and brushes aside many of the events surrounding the sale of the da Vinci,” said the lawyer, Thomas C. Danziger. “We look forward to presenting our case in court. ” | 1 |
Wildfires raging in the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, and Kansas claimed the lives of at least seven people and numerous cattle. [Fires in the Texas Panhandle region killed at least five people. The fires caused several firefighters to be injured as well, CNN reported. Firefighters continue to work on containing three large fires in the Panhandle region, Texas AM Forrest Service reports. The fire near Dumas, Texas, is reported to be 100 percent contained as of about 8 a. m. Wednesday morning. The largest fire, located near Ochiltree, Hemphill, and Lipscomb Counties, is 60 percent contained. The fire consumed at least two homes but skirted by the southern end of the City of Higgins. The “Perryton Fire” covers 315, 135 acres, nearly half the size of the state of Rhode Island. #PerrytonFire #RogerMillsCountyTaskForce pic. twitter. — Jaryn Green (@JarynThomasG) March 8, 2017, #PerrytonFire #RogerMillsCountyTaskForce #BackBurn pic. twitter. — Jaryn Green (@JarynThomasG) March 8, 2017, A third fire, located in Gray County is about 95 percent contained as of the 1 p. m. report. The fire covers 135, 000 acres. Five Texans lost their lives in the fires. The deaths include three ranchers who died attempting to rescue their cattle. The victims are Cody Crockett, 20, Sydney Wallace, 22, and Sloan Everett, Gray County Judge Richard Peet told CNN. Wallace died from smoke inhalation while the fire severely burned Crockett and Everett, the judge said. The fires left at least five firefighters injured near Amarillo. Governor Greg Abbott activated state resources to assist in fighting the fires on Monday. “I urge local residents to heed all warnings from local emergency management officials,” the governor Tweeted. “Stay safe and alert. ” In Kansas, Governor Sam Brownback told CNN one man died from smoke inhalation in Clark County. He had exited the he was driving and became overwhelmed by the smoke. The fires in Kansas destroyed at least thirty homes, officials stated. It consumed more than 350, 000 acres and is now about 50 percent contained. Thousands of people in Kansas evacuated their homes in advance of potential fire danger. A woman in Oklahoma also died from circumstances surrounding a fire in that state. The woman suffered a heart attack while helping her husband fight a fire in Harper County. Winds that have been fanning the Texas Panhandle fires are expected to die down later on Wednesday. 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 |
STORE TRAITOR! WIKILEAKS Dump Just EXPOSED PAUL RYAN As ONE OF THEM! VIA | It’s another day and there’s a fresh batch of emails from Wikileaks, and this time around we found a connection to House Speaker Paul Ryan. Throughout the election, Ryan has been notably against Donald Trump, and recently he declared he would no longer be campaigning with or defending the Republican nominee. Ryan claims the reason is that Trump is so outrageous he can’t in good conscious support the billionaire, but a new email from Wikileaks may lend some insight into Ryan’s true reason for being against the people’s candidate – he’s an establishment hack in bed with Washington elites. In fact, his brother-in-law’s wife is a district court judge that Hillary Clinton is floating as a possible Supreme Court nomination, should she be elected in November. Check it out:
— Sean (@Patriot_Beaver) October 26, 2016
“Ketanji Brown Jackson is a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was confirmed by without any Republican opposition in the Senate not once, but *twice*. She was confirmed to her current position in 2013 by unanimous consent – that is, without any stated opposition. She was also previously confirmed unanimously to a seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission (where she became vice chair).
…
Her family is impressive. She is married to a surgeon and has two young daughters. Her father is a retired lawyer and her mother a retired school principal. Her brother was a police officer (in the unit that was the basis for the television show *The Wire*) and is now a law student, and she is related by marriage to Congressman (and Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan.”
Lovely, isn’t it? While we can’t know for certain if this is a motivating factor in Ryan being so against Trump, the “appearance of impropriety” is undoubtedly there, and as we all know, appearances are quite important.
If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow Sean Brown on Facebook, and check out his website, politicalcult.com.
God Bless.
VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP AND TOGETHER WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Search for: | 0 |
Print Saeed Toosi, right, and Ayatollah Khamenei
After failed attempts by top Iran officials to cover up the scandal, the nation’s leading reciter of the Quran and close friend of Ayatollah Khamenei has been accused of raping 19 of his students and charged with “advocating corruption.”
Saeed Toosi, 46, winner of the first prize for reading the Quran, both internationally and locally, fell under suspicion after a broadcast by Persian Voice of America – banned for viewing by Tehran – in which three alleged rape victims came forward with written and audio evidence and described sexual assaults by Toosi, reported Al Arabiya.
In an audio recording, Toosi said that Khamenei knew of the sexual assaults and, together with the head of Iran’s judicial authority, had agreed to a cover-up to protect the reputation of the nation’s quranic institution and the regime.
It’s time to stop tiptoeing around the facts. “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades” is a much-needed dose of truth about the “religion of peace.”
One document has Toosi admitting that his actions with his students had been a “mistake.” One of the victims – a recent first-place winner in a quranic competition – claimed he was raped when he was 12 while traveling abroad with Toosi to attend a competition. The mentor, according to the charge, booked the pair in a single hotel room where the attack took place.
All victims who have filed statements were between 12 and 14 at the time of the alleged attacks. The incidents took place over the past seven years during “quranic trips to more than 20 countries in the world aimed at ‘spreading the quranic culture’ and to participate in quranic competitions.”
Toosi is highly respected as Iran’s most celebrated reader of the Quran and was previously called an “exemplary model to be followed” by Khamenei, current supreme leader of Iran. He is a permanent guest of Khamenei in the annual quranic councils celebrated during Ramadan. Last May, Toosi was asked to recite verses from the Quran at the opening session of the Shura council, with many of Iran’s top officials in attendance.
The students told Persian VOA they had filed charges with the House of Leadership, but officials dismissed their claims, citing a “repentance letter” from Toosi admitting his actions and claiming to be a “changed man.”
While Iran officially imposes the death penalty for homosexuality, sex between men and boys is viewed with some toleration in the culture, causing confusion as to whether the resulting relationships are consensual or forced. The case is further complicated by the fact allegations of sexual misconduct against powerful officials are unheard of in the Islamic Republic.
According to the reformist Amad News, officials held a two-hour emergency meeting with the judiciary following outcries over the broadcast. The initial intent to bury the story failed after it reached the national press and resulted in Toosi now being charged.
Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, whom the victims’ audio showed conspiring with Khamenei to cover up the incidents, defended the regime’s handling of the case, London Guardian reported. Larijani called for punishment of those who cooperated with “hostile media” in the VOA story, “so we know who is [loyal] to the revolution and who is not.”
The case has been given to a judge for a ruling, though there will be no public trial. Awad News reports members of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution are planning to “assassinate” Toosi to end the scandal and save the regime’s reputation.
Toosi, who has denied the charges against him – calling them “total lies” meant to discredit Iran’s religious institutions and the ayatollah – is reportedly threatening to release the names of 100 of Iran’s top officials he claims are implicated in the rape and molestation of children, if the prosecution proceeds. | 0 |
Political analyst of the Daily Mail Introduced by Lasha Darkmoon with additional comments (includes historic 20-minute video) “Most European leaders can barely bring themselves to look at him.” — Dominic Sandbrook LASHA DARKMOON’S INTRODUCTION : Only yesterday an esteemed political commentator on my site had these prophetic words to say: “Whoever wins, it’s going to be a shock to end all shocks. Half of America will be shocked by jubilant rapture, the other half by black despair. I’ve never know any other election like this.”
Like so any others who have ended up with egg on their faces, the same commentator had confidently predicted a victory for Hillary Clinton. These false prophets, among whom we can number the author of this present article, Dominic Sandbrook, were convinced that Hillary Clinton would soon be installed in the White House. Here is what our esteemed commentator told us yesterday. How hollow and even ridiculous his words sound today! I quote them only because they are so typical.
Listen buddies, you are my online friends and I hope you’re all gonna be made very happy tomorrow morning as Trump becomes the new Augustus of Pax Americana . But I have this sinking feeling in my gut that it ain’t gonna happen. Hillary is gonna win because all the cards are stacked in her favor.
Remember this, even if 70% of Americans vote for Trump, those Diebold voting machines are gonna turn real nasty and start spitting out fire and devil smoke.
And it’s gonna be Crazy Hillary and rapist Hubby Bill waltzing into the White House and up the gallery stairs into the hot tub on the top floor, with assorted nymphettes simpering among the bubbles and going “Oooh! . . . Ahhh! . . . take it easy sir, I’m only a Girl Scout!”
Ya can’t make this up. 🙂
Silly words? Obviously. If I’d said them myself, I’d now be blushing with shame for making such a fool of myself.
The fact is, we have all made fools of ourselves, not least the Republican Party that took the unprecedented step of disowning their own candidate, Donald Trump, and giving their support to his Democratic competitor Hillary Clinton. Here was a man, they alleged shamefully, who was was in the pocket of Vladimir Putin and took orders from the Kremlin. He was closer to the Kremlin than he was to Nato. If America elected this man, they spluttered, the trump of doom —no pun intended—would soon be reverberating from Washington to Vladivostok.
The man they spat upon and denigrated so treacherously is now their boss. Let’s hope he punishes them. Let’s hope he puts Hillary behind bars, as he promised .
If he now does a U-turn and cuddles up to the Establishment, and if his first trip abroad is to Tel Aviv, his millions of supporters will know they have been cruelly betrayed. Just as Tony Blair betrayed Britain, turning into one of the greatest liars and war criminals in British history, it remains to be seen if Trump is not going to do a similar U-turn by cuddling up to the enemies of America: to the Rothschilds and Soroses and Adelsons and the neoconservative warmongers who put Israel before America and pay regular visits to the Wailing Wall.
And so we come now to this “prophetic” article by Dominic Sandbrook, political sage of the Daily Mail . I wish it were satire. It is not. It is written, three days before the election on November 5, with a straight face. Fasten your seat belts, dear readers, and get ready for a good laugh. Here is the mainstream media at its most fatuous and farcical, spewing forth imbecilities for the semi-moronic masses. Oh, how sad! and how deeply sobering. [LD] WHAT IF TRUMP DID WIN? by Dominic Sandbrook
The 45th President of the United States reached his 1,000th day in office yesterday, and he marked it in characteristic style.
Rising shortly before lunch, the most powerful man in the world took a congratulatory phone call from his closest ally, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, before strolling into the White House Rose Garden, where a group of swimwear models were waiting with an enormous white and gold cake.
‘Thank you, Mr President,’ they chorused, ‘for making America great again!’
If the impromptu party was overshadowed by the chanting of thousands of protesters outside the perimeter, the President showed no sign of being particularly worried.
‘Take care of them,’ he told the head of his Russian bodyguard, who had replaced the Secret Service a few months ago. Then he nodded meaningfully at the models: ‘I’ll see you girls later . . .’
According to his spokesman, the President spent the afternoon closeted with his advisers in a private suite at his wife Melania’s $1,000-an-hour spa (formerly the White House’s East Wing), discussing the opening of his Senate impeachment trial in a few days’ time. Then he retired for the evening with some of his closest confidants, among them the actor Charlie Sheen, the former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and the ex-wrestler Hulk Hogan.
To look at the President’s beaming, orange-skinned face, you would hardly know that Washington is in meltdown, that he faces multiple congressional investigations into his finances and that, every day, rival mobs of demonstrators do battle only steps from the White House.
Nor would you know that the American economy is in deep recession, its cities are ablaze after months of race riots, an undeclared war is raging on the Mexican border and a nuclear conflict now seems inevitable in the Pacific.
Never has the gap between image and reality been greater. Never has the world’s greatest republic plunged to such depths.
But then what did you expect from President Donald Trump?
The trouble started within moments of Mr Trump’s unexpected comeback victory in the election of Tuesday, November 8, 2016, when riots broke out in several cities, including Chicago, Boston, Miami and Los Angeles.
Thousands of buildings were burned, but the new president-elect nevertheless maintained that it had been the ‘greatest night’ in American history: ‘The greatest. Period.’
In his victory speech he broke with the traditional courtesies by openly pouring scorn on his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton (‘a major-league loser’), and promising his supporters that ‘Crooked Hillary’ would shortly be facing a ‘long stretch in jail’. LD : Wrong! See the 20-minute video below in which Trump, doing his first apparent U-turn, lavishes words of praise on Hillary and tells Americans how grateful they should be to her for all her hard work and dedication. So what happened to all that talk of putting her behind bars?
In fact, Mrs Clinton remains very much at large.
Even though President Trump insisted that her criminal conviction would be one of his chief priorities, and immediately appointed a special prosecutor with a brief to investigate her activities dating back to the Seventies, the FBI are reportedly still trawling through thousands of emails, having unearthed yet another tranche last month.
There were more signs of the new era, meanwhile, at his inauguration ceremony in January 2017, when Mr Trump appeared on the stage waving his ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball cap, in front of a mock-classical façade in which his own surname was spelled out in gigantic, diamond-studded letters.
Unusually, the 45th President broke with precedent by refusing to deliver a prepared speech, preferring to ‘speak from the heart’, as he put it.
Returning to some familiar themes, he told his audience that his predecessor, Barack Obama, was a ‘terrorist’ and a ‘Muslim’, that most Mexicans were ‘rapists’ and ‘murderers’, that China was ‘in for a shock’ and that Nato was ‘a complete waste of time and money’.
Most foreign leaders were appalled. But one man who clearly approved was Vladimir Putin, who had been the first head of state to telephone his congratulations to the new president-elect.
After only two weeks in office, Mr Trump rewarded his new friend by making his first overseas trip to Moscow, where he assured the press that Mr Putin ‘couldn’t have been nicer’ and promised that under his administration, the Russians would be ‘our number one ally. Number One. I mean that’. LD : It remains to be seen whether Trump’s first trip abroad is to Moscow or Tel Aviv. That would be the litmus test.
His European tour later in 2017, however, was a disaster.
After Mr Trump was recorded making remarks about Germany’s Angela Merkel that cannot be repeated in a family newspaper, he moved on to London, where he told Theresa May that she had a ‘massive Muslim problem’ and urged her to redevelop Chequers as a high-end golf course.
Today, the American republic’s reputation in the world has never been lower. Even at the United Nations it has become a laughing stock, especially after Mr Trump’s UN ambassador, Sarah Palin, gave a speech in which she confused Iraq and Iran, suggested Africa was a single country and joked about dropping a nuclear bomb on Saudi Arabia.
On the U.S.-Mexican border, however, things have gone well beyond a joke.
Work on what Mr Trump calls his ‘Great Wall’ began within days of his inauguration, though it is unlikely to be finished before he leaves office and will reportedly cost at least $25 billion.
After a series of sabotage attacks by Mexican protesters in mid-2018, Mr Trump abruptly lost patience and ordered the U.S. Marines to cross the border and occupy a strip some ten miles deep — which prompted the Mexican government to move its own troops to within a mile or two of the U.S. incursion.
As yet, the two sides have merely skirmished, though the death toll currently stands at almost 400 — a figure that would have been unthinkable three years ago.
It would take only one incident, one clash that gets completely out of hand, to trigger a full-scale war.
At home, meanwhile, Mr Trump’s authoritarian measures, such as his shambolic and callous attempt to deport 11 million undocumented migrants, have provoked outrage.
The summer of 2018 was marked by weeks of rioting in many major cities, while the President’s insistence on declaring the Left-wing activist group Black Lives Matter a ‘terrorist organisation’ sparked huge protests on campuses across the nation.
It was at this point that Congress, already enraged by Mr Trump’s reliance on high-handed and arguably unconstitutional executive orders, began discussing impeachment proceedings against the President.
But of course, this only enraged his loyal supporters, who maintain that he is the innocent victim of a conspiracy masterminded by Barack Obama, the Clintons and the American media.
Mr Trump himself remains remarkably unruffled by the prospect of impeachment, though some experts claim his famously unearthly hair is a lot thinner than it used to be.
He maintains his Congressional critics are ‘crooks’ and ‘liars’, and has made extraordinarily insulting remarks about the potency and masculinity of both the Democratic leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, and the Republican Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
Recently, Mr Trump’s attacks on Congress have reached new heights. He now appears to believe that many leading politicians, both Democratic and Republican, have secretly converted to Islam.
‘How do we know that the Bushes aren’t Muslims?’ he demanded last week. ‘Why else were they so keen on going to Iraq?’
Genuine Muslims, however, have no place in Mr Trump’s America. He made that very clear within hours of taking the oath of office, when he signed an emergency executive order banning any Muslims from entering the United States.
Since he became President 1,000 days ago, attacks on Muslim Americans, including men and women who have worn their nation’s uniform, have reportedly increased tenfold.
There have been arson attacks on mosques in Boston, New York, Chicago and Detroit, all of which Mr Trump refused point-blank to visit afterwards.
All of this has naturally put him at odds with America’s traditional Nato allies. But Mr Trump’s disregard for Nato was well-known even before he took office.
Most European leaders can barely bring themselves to look at him.
Theresa May has reportedly not even said a word to him for more than a year. But as Mr Trump is fond of reminding people, ‘small-time’ countries such as Britain and Germany are ‘finished’. ‘My friend Vladimir,’ he says smugly, ‘is the strongest man in the world. Apart from myself, obviously.’
As it happens, the Russian President is scheduled to fly into Washington next week to express his solidarity at the beginning of his friend’s formal trial in the Senate. As usual, Putin is likely to arrive with a large military entourage, many of whom are expected to stay on in the U.S. capital as additional ‘security’ for his beleaguered ally.
As Mr Trump remarked last week, he has already arranged a suitable welcoming committee of young American female interns for his Russian counterpart.
‘All gorgeous,’ he said proudly. ‘I just start kissing them . . . and when you’re a president, they let you do it, you can do anything.’ “I can’t stop kissing them. When you’re a president, you can do anything !”
Those last words have been something of a motto for Mr Trump. Since his election as President, he has indeed done anything he wants.
The result, however, has not merely tarnished forever the image of the Presidency, driven the American economy into recession and destroyed relations between religions and races. It has shattered the Western alliance, allowed Vladimir Putin to rebuild the Soviet empire and left the United States on the brink of nuclear war with the world’s most populous country.
Yet even as American cities burn and Congress attempts to drive him from office, Mr Trump remains undaunted. HISTORIC — TRUMP’S VICTORY SPEECH VIDEO : 20 mins | 0 |
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