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President Obama inherited two wars from his predecessor, George W. Bush, and has struggled to wind them down. American troops are still in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but their missions have changed and there are far fewer troops in combat than at the heights of those wars a decade ago. Didn’t Mr. Obama declare an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yes. Mr. Obama declared an end to the combat mission in Iraq in 2010, and the one in Afghanistan in 2014. But we still have thousands of troops in both countries. Why are the troops still there? Mr. Obama sent American forces back to Iraq in 2014 after the Islamic State seized wide stretches of territory there and was threatening to take Baghdad. In 2015, Mr. Obama, saying he continued to oppose the idea of an “endless war,” said he would keep thousands of troops in Afghanistan to continue to target remnants of Al Qaeda and to help Afghan forces defeat the Taliban. How many troops do we have in each country? The Pentagon will not say exactly. Military officials say there are roughly 5, 000 troops in Iraq and 11, 000 in Afghanistan. At the heights of those conflicts a decade ago, the United States had more than 150, 000 troops in Iraq and 100, 000 in Afghanistan. Wait, why don’t we know exactly how many troops are in each country? The Pentagon says that for “force protection” reasons it cannot say how many service members there are in the theater. Mr. Obama has set a cap of 4, 087 troops for Iraq and 9, 800 in Afghanistan. The Pentagon can exceed the caps because it uses an accounting system that exempts many groups from being counted, including troops that commanders plan on having in the country for less than four months. What is the mission of those troops? Most of them are dedicated to what is called “train, advise and assist,” in Pentagon jargon. In layman’s terms, that means helping the Iraqis and Afghans beat back their enemies without actually sending Americans out to do a lot of the fighting, as the United States did a decade ago. The other mission is a counterterrorism one in which American troops and airmen take direct action against Islamic State and Qaeda militants. So what does that mean our troops are doing on a basis? In both countries, Air Force jets conduct strikes on militants, safe houses, ammunition depots and training camps. On the ground, commandos launch raids to kill and capture militants military advisers train local commanders and soldiers, at times, fight alongside the local forces. Does that mean the troops are in combat? The White House does semantic cartwheels to say neither mission is combat. In 2014, when Mr. Obama first sent troops back into Iraq, he was unequivocal in his description of their mission. “I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil. ” The White House has stuck to the notion that the troops are not in combat. Pentagon officials roll their eyes at such denial, and senior officials — including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — have publicly called it combat. How has Mr. Obama changed the United States’ role in Iraq? At the end of 2011, Mr. Obama — who had campaigned on ending the war in Iraq — decided to pull out the 50, 000 troops we still had in the country and declared an end to our mission there. After the Islamic State took substantial territory in Iraq in 2014, Mr. Obama sent several hundred advisers back to Iraq to determine the strength of the Iraqi military and how the United States could help it combat the Islamic State. By the end of that year, he had increased the United States’ involvement, and roughly 1, 550 troops were in the country. In 2015, the number climbed to 3, 000, and this year Mr. Obama increased it to over 4, 000. When are the troops going to return home? Military commanders say more troops are likely to be sent into Iraq in support of Iraqi forces preparing to try to retake Mosul. The troops in Afghanistan were initially supposed to return home by 2017. But the Taliban have had a significant resurgence, and the troops are likely to remain there through next spring, if not longer. According to the website icasualties. org, six American service members have died in Iraq this year and three in Afghanistan. In the past decade and a half, 4, 501 Americans have died in Iraq and 2, 381 in Afghanistan. | 1 |
Donald Trump Says Hillary Clinton Will Start WWIII With Russia, but Moscow Disagrees (Video) Juan Cole / Informed Comment
Donald Trump alleged on Tuesday that if elected, Hillary Clinton would start World War III with Russia over Syria. He wondered how Clinton would be able to negotiate with Putin, whom she has demonized, and said that her plan for a no-fly zone over Syria would bring her into military conflict with the Russian Aerospace Forces flying missions over that country. To be fair, as the BBC points out, the US generals do share Trumps concerns in this regard.
Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine General Joseph Dunford, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Right now, senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia.”
Trump pointed out that Russia has a nuclear arsenal, making brinkmanship with it extremely risky.
Trump is not reckoning, however, with Clinton’s extensive experience as Secretary of State, a job that is all about negotiation and horse trading and compromise. In fact, the position has pragmatism so baked into it that its incumbent often offends ideologues in Congress. It is no wonder that the office has not been a springboard to the presidency since the early decades of the republic.
Superpowers don’t fight one another in the nuclear age. If Russia brandishes enough threats and weaponry, it will simply dissuade Clinton from her proposed no-fly zone. Ike Eisenhower back down over Hungary in 1956, and Johnson did nothing about the crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968. Russia is claiming Syria as a sphere of influence, and while the US is contesting that claim, it is unlikely to go mano a mano with Moscow over it.
Superpowers fight proxy wars like Vietnam and Afghanistan. So is it possible that Clinton will give Syrian rebels shoulder-held missile launchers to use against Russian fighter jets? Sure. Although one reason that hasn’t been done is that they could end up being used against the Israelis. In any case, that Clinton will engage in a proxy war with Russia over Syria with far more vigor than President Obama is fairly obvious. That it will spiral out of hand is actually fairly unlikely, though it can’t be ruled out.
Interestingly, many high Russian officials and commentators in the Russian press, according to BBC Monitoring, do not agree with Mr. Trump, and indeed see Clinton as the pragmatist:
“Moskovsky Komsomolets (popular Moscow daily) www.mk.ru –“The Russian leadership hopes that pragmatism will prevail in US foreign policy after the presidential election… And Hillary Clinton is the one whom the Kremlin sees in the role of this main foreign policy pragmatist… Trump would, of course, be a more convenient partner than Clinton but the Kremlin has realised: no matter what its wishes and preferences are, Trump will not become president…”
The article continues that it is the Kremlin that is playing brinkmanship, not Clinton, saying that Moscow has deliberately made relations so tense that Clinton may be forced to back down rather than risk a hot war. Editorial writer Mikhail Rostovsky does admit that if Clinton instead ratchets up tensions, “things could get out of hand.”
Russian journalists and officialdom seem largely to have written off Trump. Victoria Zhuravleva, senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of International Relations and World Economy, wrote in Lyubov Glazunova that “the campaign for Trump is most likely to be over.”
Stanislav Ivanov, “Carte blanche. Storming Mosul: what is next?”; bit.ly/2e5JL0b in Nezavisimaya Gazeta (centrist daily) www.ng.ru , says that Washington’s policy is to turn the Middle East into an arena of conflict between the Gulf monarchies and Iran. He expects the Mosul campaign to be prolonged, but for the Baghdad government to win in the end: “Under this scenario, Iraq and Syria may remain hostages to this confrontation for years to come and turn into a ground of permanent armed conflicts. The overseas puppet masters will try to take advantage of the existing ethnic and religious conflicts in the region.”
The Russian press is also not concerned that Russia will be sanctioned over its air campaign against fundamentalist rebel forces in East Aleppo.
So, rather than the chicken little hysteria of Trump about a world war and nuclear exchanges, many in the Kremlin see him as less pragmatic than Clinton and are expecting to work with her. They have already discounted the possibility of a Trump presidency, and so are readying themselves for a Clinton administration. The Russians met with Clinton a lot when she was Secretary of State and so know her well. They think she will blink rather than take US-Russian relations to the boiling point, and they admit that the Kremlin as the one playing brinksmanship. Trump can’t even get support for his wild charges from the the Kremlin itself, which sounds positively even-handed and practical in comparison. TAGS: | 0 |
The Richest Man.., Considered, Invested In One U.S.-Based Company – CNL! CONTINENTAL GOLD (TSX: CNL; OTCQX: CGOOF) is a well-funded advanced-stage exploration and development company focused on becoming a leading gold producer in Colombia. The Company´s 100% owned flagship Buriticá project is a large and high-grade gold deposit located 75 km northwest from Medellín. Continental´s management team has proven experience in permitting, financing and building precious metal mines in Latin America. The Company is dedicated to maximizing shareholder value while working to the highest standards of community commitment and environmental defensiveness. Symbol CNL on the TSX and CGOOF in the United States. CONTACT THE COMPANY DIRECTLY t o get more information by calling ( 416) 583-5610 or email [email protected] . Continental Gold which has one of the highest grade gold deposits in the entire world. The company’s flagship high grade gold and silver project Buritica, has extremely high 97 and 95% recovery rates for gold and silver. Buritica has gold resources of 2.97 million ounces measured and indicated and 4.4 million ounces inferred with grades averaging nearly 10 grams per ton of gold equivalent, which includes high-grade silver resources. The company has high priority targets being drilled at Buritica and a portfolio of other potential high-grade exploration projects and all projects are 100% owned. Continental Gold has roughly $100 million of cash in the bank and management also owns roughly 16% of the company. Continental Gold, symbol CNL in Canada and CGOOF in the US.
Continental Gold (TSX:CNL; OTCQX:CGOOF) is an advanced-stage exploration and development company focused on maximizing shareholder value by becoming the leading gold producer in Colombia.
Why Continental Gold?
Continental Gold is an advanced-stage exploration and development company focused on maximizing shareholder value and committed to the highest standards of community and environmental responsibility. The Company´s 100%-owned flagship Buriticá project is a large high-grade gold deposit located 75 km northwest from Medellín, Colombia. On February 24, 2016, the Company announced the results of an independent Feasibility Study for the Buriticá project. Utilizing a gold price of $1,200/ounce, a silver price of $15/ounce and a US$:COP exchange rate of 1:2,850, the base case scenario resulted in an after-tax net present value at a 5% discount (NPV5) of $860 million, an internal rate of return (IRR) of 31.2% and payback of 2.3 years.
What Differentiates Continental Gold?
The Company´s 100%-owned flagship high-grade Buriticá project is a rare combination of size, grade, straightforward metallurgy, excellent infrastructure and growth potential. On February 24, 2016, the Company released the results of an independent Feasibility Study that indicates the Buriticá project will be a lowest quartile cost producer and an economically robust mine with modest initial capital expenditure. Once in production, Buriticá has the potential to approximately double the legal production of gold in Colombia and become the largest single gold mine in the country.
In association with various government entities in Colombia, the Company was the first in the country to formalize small-scale mining associations, paving the way for the implementation of legal and responsible small-scale mining operations at the Buriticá project. In addition, the Company has operated a 30 tpd small-scale operating mine at Buriticá since 1992 and is one of the largest employers in northwestern Antioquia, employing over 300 people. The Company focuses on providing a safe working environment and partnering with the local communities on key social projects.
ARI SUSSMAN – CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER – Ari Sussman has over 15 years of experience in both the natural resources and investment markets sectors. Having dedicated the majority of his career to the natural resources industry, Mr. Sussman has been instrumental in sourcing, funding and developing high-quality mineral assets. During his career, Mr. Sussman has built a strong network of business contacts throughout Latin America, and in the past decade has raised over $500 million for various resource companies Association. MATEO RESTREPO – PRESIDENT – Mr. Restrepo was Vice-President of Corporate Affairs at Prodeco Group (a Glencore subsidiary), Colombia’s third largest thermal coal producer, where he was responsible for managing the company’s key relationships with the Colombian government, non-government organizations, and national and local stakeholders proximal to its operations. He was also Director of the Colombian Office of Grupo Salinas – Banco Azteca of Mexico, where he played a pivotal role in the process of licensing and setting up operations in Colombia. Mr. Restrepo has held various positions with the Colombian Government, including Senior Counselor to the President of Colombia on Economic Recovery (2009-2010) and Advisor to the Presidency of Colombia (2005-2008). Born in Medellín, Colombia, Mr. Restrepo holds a Master in Public Administration from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Berkeley College. | 0 |
The red carpet premiere for the film “A Dog’s Purpose” scheduled for Saturday has been canceled amid calls for a boycott after a video surfaced on Wednesday showing a German shepherd being forced into rushing waters during filming. In the video, obtained by TMZ, the dog appears to be fighting to stay out of the stream as a man in a green suit wrestles to put the animal in. The footage then cuts to a scene of the dog submerged as people swim toward it. A voice can be heard yelling : “Cut it! Cut it!” The source of the video, recorded in 2015, was not immediately clear, but the filmmakers have not disputed its authenticity. The identity of the man in the video was also not immediately revealed. Amblin Entertainment, the film’s producer, and Universal Pictures, its distributor, said in a joint statement on Thursday night that it was in the “best interest” to cancel the premiere and press junket set for Saturday in Los Angeles. The statement said Amblin’s review into the video was continuing. The movie, starring Dennis Quaid, will open in theaters nationwide on Jan. 27 as scheduled. “Amblin and Universal do not want anything to overshadow this film that celebrates the relationship between animals and humans,” the statement said, adding: “Since the emergence of the footage, Amblin has engaged with many associated with the production of the film, including safety personnel, trainers and stunt coordinators as part of their review. While we are all disheartened by the appearance of an animal in distress, everyone has assured us that Hercules the German shepherd was not harmed throughout the filmmaking. ” In a statement on Wednesday, Amblin and Universal said Hercules was “happy and healthy. ” “There were several days of rehearsal of the water scenes to ensure Hercules was comfortable with all of the stunts,” the statement continued. “On the day of the shoot, Hercules did not want to perform the stunt portrayed on the tape, so the Amblin production team did not proceed with filming that shot. ” For a movie aimed squarely at an audience of dog lovers, the footage threatens to repel the precise audience filmmakers hope to draw. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has urged moviegoers to boycott the film. Several people involved in the film condemned the actions seen in the video. Lasse Hallstrom, the director, said on Twitter he had not witnessed the events but was “very disturbed” by the footage. He said he had been promised “a thorough investigation. ” “We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film,” he said. “I have been a lifelong animal lover, and ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ is my third film about dogs. The animals’ safety was of utmost priority. ” Josh Gad, an actor who voices one of the dogs in the film and said he was never on the set, released a statement on Twitter that said he had “signed on to a film that truly stands out as one of the most beautiful love letters to animals I have ever seen. ” He added he was “shaken and sad to see any animal put in a situation against its will,” and had contacted the production team and studio to ask for an explanation. Mark Stubis, a spokesman for the American Humane Association, which monitors animals on movie sets, said in a statement that a representative had been present during filming. The employee was later placed on administrative leave, and the organization was “bringing in an independent third party to conduct an investigation,” according to the statement. “When the dog showed signs of resistance to jumping in the water, the scene should have been stopped,” Mr. Stubis said. The movie, whose cast also includes Peggy Lipton, is based on a book of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron. He wrote on Facebook on Wednesday that he was “as disturbed as you were by the video I saw earlier today. ” Dog lovers on social media appeared to be unforgiving. “This was abuse, and that human shoving the dog into the water should be charged,” one woman wrote in response to Mr. Cameron’s post. “It is inexcusable, and I won’t be spending money to see this movie. ” | 1 |
Email It’s not just the FBI that has been forced to reveal that they’ve made new and worrisome discoveries about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal .
The Department of the Defense apparently sent Congress a letter on Tuesday detailing their discovery of at least 1,000 new, previously unknown Clinton emails between she and General David Petraeus. House Oversight Orders DoD Sec. Ashton Carter Hand Over Clinton E-Mails to Pertraeus. #DC https://t.co/E19GbZ8SX6 pic.twitter.com/aghRlCMbqI
— Bruce Porter, Jr. (@NetworksManager) October 29, 2016 LOOKs like it declassified this morning now Ashton Carter n mix wonder how many going down 4 #HillarysEmail #DoD #DC https://t.co/vzQlohNZ4r
— Bruce Porter, Jr. (@NetworksManager) October 29, 2016 Mon House likely knew more #HillarysEmail Tues House order DoD give Clinton-Petraeus emails
— Bruce Porter, Jr. (@NetworksManager) October 29, 2016
These 1,000 new emails are likely to be quite important, considering that the General was the Commander of CENTCOM and then the Director of the CIA. While we may not know what appeared in these emails, the probability that these are simple boilerplate political issues is low. The most likely reason for Clinton and Petraeus to be communicating would be to discuss classified security issues.
Even more troublesome (for Clinton and for our national security) is what the FBI seems to have discovered on devices acquired from Anthony Weiner (and Huma Abedin).
The FBI seems to have discovered “ tens of thousands” of emails on a laptop belonging to Abedin, and in those emails they’ve discovered a worrisome amount of obviously classified material .
What is more troubling is the amount of redaction involved in these emails which migrated to the open email account, which as we now know ended up in Anthony Weiner’s computer: in the above example, the two pages of timetables and deliverables attached to the email were 100 percent redacted, with “PAGE DENIED” stamped across the first redacted page.
An argument can be made that the extensive redaction confirms confidential material was part of the transmission…
… According to the NYT , the number of Huma emails that made their way to Weiner’s PC was staggering:
The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the tens of thousand
While this could (and should) damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes, the latest revelations could mean even stiffer punishment for Abedin in the not-too-distant future. Remember, Abedin swore under oath that had given up each and every device that contained State Department emails, and that she had held nothing back from investigators. This latest discovery proves that story to be a complete lie.
This should serve as a reminder to everyone that Hillary Clinton isn’t the only person involved in this morass that deserves to serve time in prison. There is a small circle of Clinton confidantes that all owe the American people a few years in a federal prison, including Huma Abedin .
Article posted with permission from Constitution.com Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares | 0 |
By Rmuse on Thu, Oct 27th, 2016 at 10:36 am To avoid climate-ending global temperature rise, it is critical for the world to transition off fossil fuels and embrace renewable, clean energy sources. Share on Twitter Print This Post *The following is an opinion column by R Muse*
Over the past few months, there has been a dearth of good news, and if there did happen to be anything good to report it was overshadowed by the national clown show that is a typical American election. Where there has not been one iota of good news is on climate change. Even dismissing the horrible flooding, wildfires, droughts, sea level rise, melting ice caps, hurricanes and worldwide food shortages, there have only been dire reports on the level of CO2 permeating the atmosphere and the subsequent yearly record-setting rise in global temperatures.
This week, while most Americans were living, breathing and bleeding over Donald Trump and the tortuously-long presidential campaign, the International Energy Agency offered up some good news; for the climate, the Earth’s population, and even for America.
The good news for the planet came in the form of an announcement on Tuesday by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that stated according to new data, for the first time “Renewable energy sources have passed coal as the largest new source of electricity in the world.”
It may not seem like such fantastic news, but climate scientists the world over have warned that if human beings are going to avoid that climate-ending 2-degree C rise in global temperatures, it is critical for the world to transition off of carbon-producing fossil fuels and embrace renewable, clean energy generating sources. This is particularly true for getting off dirty coal-fired electrical generation plants that are responsible for a quarter of America’s C02 emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions are one of the main culprits contributing to climate change driven by global warming.
The IEA report revealed that solar and wind account for nearly two-thirds of current renewable energy growth and interestingly those increases are occurring in, and coming from, developing and industrialized nations alike. For a developing nation, it makes perfect sense to embrace cheaper renewable energy as opposed to any fossil fuel-generated power sources whether they are dirty coal-fired plants or not-quite-as-dirty natural gas-burning generating plants.
The IEA also revised its earlier projections for renewable energy’s continued expansion and growth and “ significantly increased” the amount of “ green energy ” it expects to “ come on line ” over the next five years. Renewable energy includes so-called “green” sources such as biomass, biogas, eligible biomass and small hydroelectric sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both terms, “renewable and green energy,” include solar and wind generating sources and depending on the context they can be interchangeable.
In addition to pro-renewable policies (such as the Paris climate agreement and to a lesser extent the America-China deal to roll back coal-generated emissions, there has been a significant price decline that is helping drive the growth in renewables; particularly in solar. And, the IEA projected that the worldwide costs for solar-generated power will continue declining by an additional 25 percent over the next five years. Onshore wind generated electricity costs will drop by at least another 15 percent during that same five-year period.
Although the IEA report was incredibly good news for the entire planet, there was some extra good news in the report about America’s transition to renewable energy. According to the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Market Report, the United States is adding renewables at a faster rate than demand is growing. What that means for the climate is that renewables are not only covering the ever-increasing demand for electricity but are now supplanting some fossil fuel electricity. Still, America has a long way to go because wind and solar generating sources make up a small portion of America’s electricity.
In time and if the Koch brothers allow it, America may catch up to still-developing nations where renewable energy accounts for about half of new electric power sources. Industrialization is fueling a rapid increase in demand for electricity that is best generated with cheaper renewable energy.
Although there appears to be no down-side in this bit of good news, the growth of renewable energy does have economic implications. The dirty coal industry is facing some struggles in part due to the glut of oil and lower national gas prices, financial mismanagement, and new clean-air regulations, but the amount of CO2 driving climate change is a testament that they have had a good long reign in providing dirty fuel to generate electricity. It is noteworthy that as coal jobs may be declining the solar industry is growing and thriving to more than take up the slack in any lost coal jobs.
The IEA couldn’t pass up the chance to note one “sticking point” in their otherwise encouraging report; “ persistent challenges of heating and transportation energy ” that renewables are not affecting. However, since the IEA only monitored and tracked the world’s transistor from oil and gas to biofuels, they note that as electric and hybrid vehicles continue to increase around the world, they will be connected to the same electrical grid that is steadily getting a little greener, significantly cheaper, and one Hell of a lot more friendly for the climate and the people.
It is a mystery how Republicans beholden to the Koch brothers and dirty fossil fuel industry, particularly the dirty coal industry, will absorb this good news. In the past eight years, Republicans , the Kochs, their lobbyists at the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have made killing renewable energy one of their primary goals. It is likely that the IEA’s report will signal they are not winning the war on renewable energy and in the past that may have been worrisome. But now that more Americans are benefitting from renewable energy, particularly solar, Republicans will have a difficult time convincing them to stop getting free electricity from the Sun and saving the climate for their children’s future; something the IEA’s report never mentions.
image: J Pat Carter | 0 |
Bomb shelters are upgraded, gas masks tested amid strained relations between Putin and U.S. By THOMAS GROVE
MOSCOW—Russian authorities have stepped up nuclear-war survival measures amid a showdown with Washington, dusting off Soviet-era civil-defense plans and upgrading bomb shelters in the biggest cities.
At the Kremlin’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Cold War is back.
The country recently held its biggest civil defense drills since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., with what officials said were 40 million people rehearsing a response to chemical and nuclear threats.
Videos of emergency workers deployed in hazmat suits or checking the ventilation in bomb shelters were prominently aired on television when the four days of drills were held across the country. Students tried on gas masks and placed dummies on stretchers in school auditoriums.
The capital’s civil-defense plans are also being upgraded, said Andrey Mishchenko, deputy head of the ministry.
“An inventory was taken in Moscow of the city’s underground spaces, in order to allow us to plan for sheltering 100% of the city’s population,” he said, as reported by state news agency RIA Novosti.
In parallel, commentators on state-dominated airwaves issued some of the shrillest anti-American rhetoric in years. “Russia is sick of America’s arrogant lies,” influential commentator Dmitry Kiselyov said this month after a Syrian peace plan collapsed.
After a mistaken strike by U.S.-led coalition warplanes on Syrian troops in September, Russia’s Defense Ministry warned that its air defense systems could shoot down any American plane that threatened its own forces.
And when a Russian tabloid wrote that government officials had been asked to take their children back from the prestigious preparatory schools and universities they attend in Britain, France and the U.S., speculation swirled about preparation for all-out war with the U.S.
The rhetoric reinforces Russians’ idea that their country is a superpower on par with the U.S. It also offers a distraction from an economic recession and from President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings, which have dipped from recent highs. The threat of nuclear war also keeps the population
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“We learn from history that we do not learn from history,” observed German philosopher Georg Hegel. Perhaps nothing illustrates this better than a new survey showing that far too many “millennials” are not just cool to “capitalism,” but are actually cool with communism. As MarketWatch reports : Of the 2,300 Americans polled by YouGov , 80% of baby boomers and 91% of the elderly agree with the statement that “communism was and still is a problem” in the world today. Millennials? Only 55%. Furthermore, almost half of Americans between the ages of 16 and 20 said they would vote for a socialist, while 21% would go so far as to back a communist. Capitalism, on the other hand, is viewed favorably by 64% of those over the age of 65, compared with only 42% of millennials.
Citing these results, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s Marion Smith stated, as quoted by MarketWatch , “One of the concerns [the foundation] has had since its establishment is that an emerging generation of Americans has little understanding of the collectivist system and its dark history.” For sure. This was evidenced when a teenager once naively asked me, “What’s so bad about communism?” Another registered a look of shock when I gave him part of the answer: During the 20th century, Marxist governments exterminated approximately 100 million people, making them history’s most murderous ideologues.
Related to this, MarketWatch also tells us that “a third of millennials say they believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than Joseph Stalin,” clearly oblivious to Stalin’s psychopathic actions having accounted for upwards of 20 million of the above number. Of course, 82 percent of millennials at least knew who Stalin was. This cannot be said regarding Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung; 42 percent of millennials were unfamiliar with this mass murderer of approximately 60 million. Forty percent didn’t know who Argentine Marxist and major Cuban Revolution figure Che Guevara was. With respect to Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx, the “unacquainted with” figures were, respectively, 33 and 32 percent.
Not surprisingly, this ignorance goes beyond history. While it’s troubling that almost half of those aged 16 to 20 would support a socialist, there’s good and bad news here. And they’re the same thing:
These young people generally don’t know what socialism is.
As I wrote in February, “People 18 to 29 just helped vault Senator Bernie Sanders to a resounding New Hampshire primary victory, not at all deterred by his socialist label. But while they view that positively, they don’t believe in socialist (in Sanders’) wealth redistribution. In fact, this research shows that they cotton to it little more than do average Americans and no more than their age group did 20 years ago. In other words, millennials may like the word socialism, but, as with so many others, they don’t understand well what it signifies or the nature of those for whom they vote.”
In reality, the label “socialism” is applied loosely today, yet it has a firm definition. Note that socialism was popularized via Karl Marx’s and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto . And under Marxist doctrine, “socialism” — or the socialist revolution — is the transitional phase that extinguishes economic freedom and ushers in communism. Moreover, there are no communist governments because “communism” is the culmination of socialism, the stage where, the fanciful theory goes, the government has melted away and everyone lives happily and harmoniously in a state of economic equality-induced bliss.
This is why the Iron Curtain-disgorging evil empire could, with a straight collective face, call itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And it’s why we should see a red flag (pun intended) when a politician such as Bernie Sanders calls himself a socialist. Maybe he’s more wizened than wise and doesn’t really know what the word means — or, perhaps, he knows full well — and is capitalizing on the fact that others don’t.
Whatever the case, it would be a mistake to view socialist seduction as solely a “millennial” problem, as this only sparks intergenerational squabbling. For there are old fools and young fools and much foolishness in-between. Yet while we recognize that people are largely products of their upbringing, we nonetheless will analyze a given generation as if it’s a breed apart as opposed to what it almost always is: the next iteration in a pattern.
Consider how 80 percent of Boomers consider communism a problem. While a high number, it’s still a statistically significant drop from their elders’ 91 percent figure. And this is just part of a pattern, with the percentage of each age group that views “socialism” positively being as follows: age 65+, 13 percent; 50-64, 25 percent; 30-49, 34 percent; 18-29, 49 percent ( Pew Research Center , Dec. 28, 2011). Evident here isn’t an overnight sea-change, but steadily increasing ignorance.
Tragically, this is a worldwide phenomenon. Marxism has to an extent taken hold in Japan , Spain , and elsewhere, and Karl Marx is more popular than he has been in decades. As I wrote in 2013, “Sales of The Communist Manifesto (the best-selling book in history next to the Bible) and Das Kapital have soared since the 2008 financial crisis. Karl Marx was voted ‘favorite philosopher’ by BBC radio listeners, beating out contenders such as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Thomas Aquinas. And in an irony akin to having Marx’s picture on a Bible tract, his image is the one most often chosen by customers of Germany’s Sparkasse Chemnitz Bank — for their credit cards.”
Given the above, it’s not surprising that what inspired mockery of late Senator Joe McCarthy has become reality: Marxist types abound in our government. New York City elected “Bolshevik” Bill de Blasio, who raised money for the Sandinistas, subscribed to their newsletter, and honeymooned in Cuba. John Drew, a former Barack Obama acquaintance and reformed Marxist with whom I’ve spoken personally, revealed that when he knew Obama, Obama was an “ardent Marxist-Leninist” who “was in 100 percent, total agreement with [his] Marxist professors”; this is no surprise because Obama’s mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA.
Then there are Obama’s appointees, such as former “Green Jobs Czar” and self-proclaimed communist Van Jones; former communications director Anita Dunn, who said that Mao Tse-tung was one of her “two favorite philosophers”; “Manufacturing Czar” Ron Bloom, who said in a speech, “We agree with Mao”; and “Global Warming Czar” Carol Browner, who was until recently listed as a leader of the socialist organization “Commission for a Sustainable World Society.”
And, finally, there’s the woman who wants to succeed Obama, Hillary Clinton. Former Clinton operative Larry Nichols tells us that when he first met her, in the 1970s, she was wearing a medal around her neck stating, “Proud member of the American Communist Party” (video here ; forward to 6:07). No wonder the Communist Party USA is “all in” for Hillary .
It’s also no wonder that Clinton is beating Donald Trump by 28 points among under-30 voters. But tolerance for socialism/communism is intolerable. If we learned that almost half of young Americans would vote for a fascist and 21 percent would go so far as to back a Nazi, we’d rightly be aghast. Instead, they’re warming to the ideological descendants of even more prolific killers. Hey, what’s 100 million victims between comrades? | 0 |
GENEVA — Russia and the United States agreed early Saturday on a new plan to reduce violence in the Syrian conflict that, if successful, could lead for the first time to joint military targeting by the two powers against Islamic jihadists in Syria. The agreement was reached after 10 months of failed attempts to halt the fighting and of suspended efforts to reach a political settlement to an increasingly complex conflict that began more than five years ago. The conflict has left nearly half a million people dead, created the largest refugee crisis since World War II and turned Syria into a prime incubator of recruiting for the Islamic State and the Nusra Front, an affiliate of Al Qaeda. Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, announced the agreement in Geneva after weeks of negotiations that were marred, in President Obama’s words, by deep “mistrust” between the Russians and Americans, who back opposite sides in Syria, but share an antipathy to the Islamic jihadists flourishing there. It came at a time when relations between the United States and Russia, which have worsened throughout much of the Obama administration, have been especially jolted by accusations of Russian hacking and subterfuge in American politics. The tensions have been further exacerbated by the effusive praise for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. The new arrangement on Syria, set to begin Monday, was greeted with skepticism by Syrians on all sides and carries many risks of failure, which the Pentagon and Mr. Kerry acknowledged. “No one is basing this on trust,” he said. “We are basing it on oversight and compliance. ” The plan starts with a continuous “genuine reduction of violence,” in Mr. Kerry’s words, and broad, unrestricted humanitarian access to the ravaged northern city of Aleppo and other besieged areas. If that works, the United States and Russia are to establish a Joint Implementation Center, where they will share targeting data, and begin to coordinate bombing of militants of the Nusra Front and the Islamic State. The key element is that Russia must then restrain the forces of President Bashar of Syria from conducting any air operations over areas held by Nusra and other opposition forces. The United States hopes this will end the indiscriminate dropping of barrel bombs — including chlorine gas attacks — that have punctuated the conflict. In return, the United States is to persuade the opposition groups it has been supporting to separate themselves from the Nusra forces. Mr. Assad has attacked many of them on the pretense of attacking Nusra fighters. American officials expressed strong reservations about whether this new arrangement would work. Especially skeptical was the Pentagon, long suspicious of Russian intentions in Syria, since the Kremlin first deployed military forces there to help Mr. Assad a year ago. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was among Obama administration officials who raised questions over whether either Russia or the Assad government would comply with the terms. Mr. Kerry’s announcement of the deal, Mr. Lavrov at his side, was permeated with caveats. “We believe the plan, if implemented, if followed, has the ability to provide a turning point, a change,” he said. But he sounded far more cautious here than he did in Munich in February when he announced an earlier “cessation of hostilities” that failed. The accord was reached after sharp divisions inside the Obama administration over the wisdom of sharing targeting information with Russia, and accusations that the Russians have used the negotiating period to help Mr. Assad regain control in Aleppo and strike at opposition groups. For Mr. Obama, who asked Mr. Kerry to keep working on the negotiation after the president failed to reach an accord with Mr. Putin during the Group of 20 summit meeting in China last weekend, the new accord poses considerable risks. For example, if the bombing of Nusra sites kills civilians — almost inevitable given the proximity of militant extremist groups and civilians — there are bound to be accusations about who is responsible. Pentagon officials are also concerned that Russia will use the targeting data to learn more about how American forces identify and attack targets, at a time when forces from the two countries are often near one another around Europe. Mr. Lavrov took a few shots at the United States even while celebrating the arrangement, denouncing “arrogant sanctions” levied against Russia for its annexation of Crimea two years ago. Late on Friday, he suggested the United States could not decide about the deal, sending pizza and vodka to reporters to ease the wait, and coming by to joke about how long it took Mr. Obama and his team to make decisions. But for Mr. Kerry, reaching this deal has become a personal mission, one that at times put him in conflict with the White House. He has pressed for a stronger military commitment in Syria and support for some opposition groups, along with a series of more aggressive covert actions, according to administration officials. Mr. Obama has been reluctant, as have others in the White House who fear that, even if they could engineer a transition in Syria, it could create a power vacuum that Iran, Russia and militant terrorist groups could exploit. The American skepticism is partly rooted in the failed agreement for a cessation of hostilities reached with the Russians in February. That arrangement collapsed weeks later when Russia moved heavy artillery into the Aleppo area to help Mr. Assad’s forces. Among the Syrians, the latest plan was greeted with wariness, particularly from armed opposition groups and their supporters, who, broadly speaking, have come to believe that the United States has lost interest in ousting Mr. Assad, and is willing to see them wiped out. It is a measure of how little trust the Syrians have in the international community — especially after the in February — that initial reactions were lukewarm, even though the deal holds out the possibility of at least a temporary calming of the violence. Armed opposition groups read the deal as ordering them to remove Nusra fighters from their areas, something they lack the military power to do alone, or else face attack by the United States — a country that has provided some of the rebel groups with training and weapons for years. Some government opponents noted that the deal came hours after Syrian military forces — with Russian air support — their siege of the sections of Aleppo. While Mr. Kerry began his announcement by noting that Mr. Assad’s airstrikes were, as he put it, “the main driver of civilian casualties and migration flows,” the deal — as partly described — contains many loopholes that could allow them to continue. And no measures were described that would hold any of the parties to account if they violated the terms of a deal that is being struck at a time when the United States has little leverage over Russia in Syria. The deal allows Syrian government warplanes to continue to fly missions in some areas that are to be defined later. And Russia and the United States will target areas where they both agree Nusra or Islamic State fighters are present. What that really means hinges on how Russia and the United States define legitimate opposition groups that cannot be targeted under the deal, and how they define areas where Nusra is present. The deal also failed to mention anything about the presence of foreign Shiite militias — such as Hezbollah, which like Al Qaeda and Islamic State is considered a terrorist group by the United States — fighting on the Syrian government’s side. It also said nothing about the tens of thousands of detainees in Syrian government prisons, whose release had long been touted as a possible measure under a deal. And while it spoke of allowing aid deliveries into besieged areas, it said nothing of lifting the sieges and restoring freedom of movement of goods and people. | 1 |
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Henry Seltzer – The astrology of November features Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Eris. All the outer planets are strongly represented in the New Moon and Full Moon configurations, so that, as the month continues to unfold, our awareness of the transformational intensity of these times that we are living through is ever-present. The October 30th New Moon sets the stage for this powerful November cycle, bringing forward into the picture the astrological factor of thoughtful Mercury, in close conjunction with the Sun and Moon that day, and representing greater consciousness and a species of abstract logical analysis.
The sign placement of these personal planets being Scorpio becomes an added factor of emotional intensity that stirs us deeply, especially when we consider that Mercury is in partile or same-degree trine formation with the Pisces placement of numinous Neptune. We are therefore this entire month experiencing a compassionate and a highly idealized time of recognizing what we all hold deep inside ourselves, that directly connects with, and supports and underlies, the surface details of all our activities in the visible physical plane that we more consciously inhabit.
As befits this Scorpionic time of the year, the surface layers of our more normative comings and goings are only part of the story now, with the vast unseen realm of unconscious process taking a major role in the characterization of this month’s true activity.
Neptune, along with the other outer planets, represents access to numinous realities beyond the purely physical, the significant life of our deep internal process. This is the vast unconscious realm, deep within, which Freud and Jung first annunciated in the early 20th century, and which finds even greater credence today. The highlighted placements of Uranus with Eris, and of Saturn and Pluto, complete the roster of planetary significators, also including Venus in close aspect with Mercury and Mars at the timing of the mid-month Full Moon that punctuates this rather intense monthly cycle.
The new planet, Eris, beyond Pluto, only named as recently as 2006, represents the astrological archetype of Spiritual Warrior: that is to say the determination to stand up for what one most deeply believes, at soul level. This energy is strongly highlighted now, and is thus prominent on our inner radar, because still within little more than a degree of Uranus, and closely squared by Mars, in the timing of the New Moon that initiates the Scorpio cycle.
The question that comes up for everyone quite poignantly these days is whether you can find that inner urge for true achievement, what you feel, at the most profound level, that you must, at all costs, accomplish in this lifetime. This might have nothing to do with success in the eyes of the world, but is nevertheless vital from the standpoint of an inner drive, deep within, for what feels most important.
This month of November represents quite a ride. When we see in the timing of the First Quarter Moon of Monday, November 7th, that the Sun and Moon are closely aligned with both Saturn and Pluto, in the same degree that they occupy, in the two signs between, and that Saturn is almost exactly in parallel aspect with Pluto, we can be sure that in some profound and completely individual fashion, the structure of our lives is changing.
We can see this also in the collective, where this thought can give us courage as we come to understand that we are not hopelessly enmired in an existing status quo, but that everything, even the underlying social fabric of our lives, is in serious flux.
With the Full Moon of the following Monday, November 14th, at the 22 degree mark of Scorpio, the same degree that Eris occupies in Aries, we come to a culmination of these remarkable two weeks, the launch point for the remainder of the November cycle. We come as well to a better understanding of what we have going on deep within us. This includes the necessity for standing up for ourselves, and for our most deeply held values, no matter what. SF Source Astrograph Nov. 2016 Share this: | 0 |
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday began formal debate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, hurtling toward a blistering partisan conflict this week over the selection itself, the chamber’s future rules and the decaying standards of civility among lawmakers. The consideration of Judge Gorsuch began as the Republican majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, took a procedural step to end debate this week on President Trump’s nominee. Mr. McConnell’s maneuver will set in motion a series of critical votes expected to take place on Thursday and Friday. With an almost certain Democratic filibuster of the nomination, the Senate is to vote first on whether to end debate and proceed to an vote. If the filibuster holds, meaning fewer than 60 senators vote to proceed to a full vote on the nominee, Republicans have said they will pursue the nuclear option: changing longstanding rules to elevate Judge Gorsuch on a simple majority vote. That would allow Judge Gorsuch to be confirmed on Friday. Yet, if the ultimate outcome has seemed preordained for weeks, lawmakers nonetheless felt compelled on Tuesday to frame the confrontation on their terms: Republicans have argued that the responsibility for their own prospective vote — upending Senate tradition to bypass the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations — actually lies with Democrats. Many have refrained from even uttering the phrase “nuclear option” when pressed, despite its common use in the Capitol, for apparent fear of associating with an act of procedural aggression. At the same time, Democrats have operated on two tracks: They have sought to present their opponents as hypocrites by reminding the public about Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the seat last year, whom Republicans refused to even consider during a presidential election year. But the minority party has insisted that its resistance to Judge Gorsuch is not about retribution, citing his record on workers’ rights and his degree of independence from Mr. Trump, among other concerns. They have argued that the nomination should be withdrawn if the judge cannot earn 60 votes. “We lost one, they lost one,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, told reporters, predicting a successful blockade. “We should now get in a room and come up with a compromise. ” Mr. McConnell said he would have no choice but to change the rules if faced with a filibuster. “Americans will be watching. History will be watching,” he said, urging Democrats to abandon their plans. “And the future of the Senate will hang on their choice. ” The posturing came one day after Judge Gorsuch was approved 11 to 9 by the Judiciary Committee in a vote. Both sides have pointed repeatedly to examples of escalating obstructionism in recent years, from Democratic attempts to block judicial nominees under President George W. Bush to a proliferation of Republican filibusters under Mr. Obama. Most senators seemed to agree that they were participating in a low moment for the chamber, even as they appeared resigned to the conclusion. Grim reflection has grown more common than usual, which is saying something. “There’s a reason they call it the nuclear option,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said. “There’s fallout. ” He alluded to Republican criticism of the Democrats’ choice in 2013, when they held the Senate majority, to bar filibusters on lower judgeships and executive branch nominees. “There is no equivalence,” Mr. Blumenthal said. Asked what was happening to an institution many lawmakers still revere, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, stared gravely at a group of reporters in the basement of the Capitol. “Partisanship. Partisanship. Partisanship. Partisanship,” he said. (The word returned occasionally later in his remarks.) Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, suggested there were still sporadic conversations underway between senators about a possible deal to avert the coming maelstrom. “But nothing promising,” he said. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — The playing of the United States’ national anthem at Olympic medal ceremonies is bringing tears to the eyes of American athletes here. Elsewhere, the song is having a very different effect. “It is driving me crazy,” said Jason DeBord, a living in Ann Arbor, Mich. “I hit the mute button, or I make dinner, or I just sit there and brace myself. ” DeBord has nothing against displays of patriotism, nor is he simply eager to return to the action. What irritates him is the version of “The Banner” being used at the Olympics. Put bluntly, it has been butchered. O. K. that might overstate the problem. Maybe it would be more accurate to say the song has been altered in ways that rob it of its oomph, its power and its optimistic essence. Specifically, DeBord said, this “Banner” segues several times to minor chords, which in the Western canon are considered melancholic, in places where major chords, which are heartier and more upbeat, are the norm. The effect, DeBord said, is a rendering of the anthem that is darker and sadder. “It has a totally different emotional feel,” he said. “It is supposed to have an ascending chord structure. Instead, it sort of has a descending chord structure. ” In short, this is a defeatist “ Banner,” and it is broadcast, around the globe, at a moment of ecstatic, international triumph. DeBord, who spent 16 years on Broadway as a conductor and pianist, is on the faculty at the University of Michigan’s department of musical theater. He is the first to admit that few people are likely to notice, let alone be bothered by, the elements of the song that annoy him. But when he posted his feelings on his Facebook page, he quickly found that he had company. Lots of perturbed company. “Glad it’s not just me,” one commenter wrote. Another person posted: “Sounds like a music school project gone awry. Just awful. ” “I’m not on Twitter,” someone else added, “but there must be a way to tell ‘them’! !!” Asked for the particulars of his beef with this “Banner,” DeBord offered to head to the piano in his home and provide a live tutorial, over the phone. He quickly plowed through the beginning of the song — “O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light” — but stopped when he got to “What so proudly we hailed. ” At “proudly,” he noted, the Olympic version of the anthem goes to one of those sad, dark minor chords where majors have long been the norm. He played the standard version and then the Olympic version — standard, Olympic, over and over. Once he pointed out the difference, it was obvious. The Olympic version was conciliatory, maybe even retreating. The standard version was and on the offense. “It happens again on ‘rockets’ red glare,’” he said, hands on the piano, “and then again on ‘land of the free. ’” There is no official or definitive version of “The Banner,” and that is no accident. The 1931 bill signed into law by President Herbert Hoover that adopted the song as the nation’s anthem is a model of terseness. It is mum about both lyrics and arrangement, which, said Mark Clague, an associate professor of musicology at the University of Michigan, is one reason the anthem has continued to evolve over the years. “When Francis Scott Key wrote it, he’d just seen a decisive victory in Baltimore in the War of 1812, which was like a second war of independence,” he said in an interview. “He writes the song in celebration, and it’s played for years with a celebratory feel, and light. Only later does it become the song we know, slower and more majestic. ” Clague, who is working on a book about “The Banner,” did indeed notice the new Olympic take on the song. What struck him most was the way it handled the climactic “land of the free,” which is typically wrung for maximum emotion. “Here it goes to a minor chord,” he said, “so rather than having that firm, confident expression of the word ‘free,’ you get an unstable, questioning chord. Where you should be feeling victory, you have a question mark. ” Clague sounds less bothered by this take on the anthem. Maybe it is because he knows thousands of versions have been created over the years and he regards the tune as a variety of clay that everyone is free to mold. He also surmises that the arranger was adapting the song for the moment. “When we play the anthem in the U. S. it’s often all about creating a sense of unity in the country,” he said. “The Olympics is a very different context. We’re really celebrating brotherhood, international cooperation, rather than martial qualities that anthems are often called upon to express. Three flags are being raised, not one. So I think that what has happened here is they’ve softened the song, the militant aspect and emphasizing the song’s lyrical side, to bring out the idea. ” The United States Olympic Committee said it was not responsible for submitting the anthem to Olympic organizers. The group that is running the Rio Games said it would look into the origin of the United States anthem being played here. This version may not be making its Olympic debut. According to DeBord and Clague, the version heard here in Rio was also used at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and the 2012 Summer Games in London. Those were in the key of C major and were 70 seconds long. During a medal ceremony, Shazam, the song identification app, tagged the track as “The London Philharmonic Orchestra Philip Sheppard. ” If this rendition originated in London, where did London get it? As it happens, a 2012 YouTube video shows the ambitious effort undertaken in the to the London Games to record new arrangements of more than 200 national anthems. That project was led by Sheppard, a British composer, cellist and professor at the Royal Academy of Music whose website states that he has scored more than 30 films and worked with David Bowie, Jeff Buckley, the Weeknd and many other recording artists. In the video, he is seen conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road, the studio made famous by the Beatles. Sheppard could not be reached Wednesday. “The anthems serve a particular purpose at the Olympics,” he tells an interviewer in the video. “That is namely to get the flag up the pole during the gold medal ceremonies. ” He is making the practical point that the songs cannot go on and on. So one of his biggest challenges, he said, was ensuring that each anthem lasted 60 to 90 seconds. This meant dramatic cuts for some anthems — like Uruguay’s, which usually lasts for six and a half minutes — and looping repetition for others, like Uganda’s, which is only nine bars long. All the countries had to sign off on the new arrangements, Sheppard says. At one moment in the video, he sounds a little nervous about whether Britain will give a . The video ends, inexplicably, with the full, rendering of “The Banner” as the camera shows an American flag. There is no commentary. Is it possible that Sheppard went with minor chords as a way to shave time off the tune? The standard “land of the free,” for instance, when milked properly, takes its time. DeBord doubts it. But for him, the need for edits could never justify such maddening results. “You don’t need to compromise a piece of music,” he said, “to make it work for time. ” | 1 |
Single woman genuinely loves getting shitfaced alone 01-11-16 A WOMAN who went to a dinner party with three annoying couples would definitely rather be getting hammered at home, she has confirmed. Nikki Hollis was invited to dinner by friends concerned she might be lonely and sad due to being single, when she would rather have been at home with some wine and not having to put up with their tedious married bullshit. Hollis, 32, said: “I only went along to humour them, as I know it makes them feel good to patronise me a bit about being single, especially as they are all clearly seething with resentment towards their partners. “But it was a wasted night really, as for me there is no greater pleasure than spending the night in, getting pissed and not having to talk about middle class wank. “Sometimes I drink a bottle of Prosecco from one of those massive Sports Direct mugs using a straw, just because there’s no one around to get funny about me not using a ‘proper’ glass. “Then I’ll watch seven episodes of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares in a row before nearly setting the house on fire making toast. “Would I swap it for being tutted at and asked if I’m coming to bed soon? No fucking chance.”
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SEOUL, South Korea — She is facing impeachment and prosecution over allegations of corruption and . One of her advisers is being likened to Rasputin by a shrill South Korean news media. Increasingly large crowds of protesters have taken to the streets, demanding her resignation. President Park has been paralyzed by a bizarre scandal and an escalating public backlash that could make her the first South Korean leader to be removed from office since her father, the military dictator Park was assassinated in 1979. But even as her approval rating slips into the low single digits, Ms. Park has been defiant, meaning that South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades is likely to drag on for months, leaving her conservative government distracted and in disarray while it grapples with a slowing economy and rising household debt. Moreover, with reports that the cold conflict over North Korea’s nuclear missile program may be heating up as Donald J. Trump prepares to take office in Washington, the standoff in Seoul could leave the United States with a seriously hobbled ally. On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Seoul for what is believed to be the largest protest against a South Korean president. The protest capped a dramatic week in which a scandal involving a shadowy adviser to Ms. Park moved inexorably toward an impeachment vote in the National Assembly and government prosecutors accused her of criminal conspiracy, the first time a sitting president has been identified as a criminal suspect. Two top aides, meanwhile, have talked of resigning, saying they are unable to serve amid the storm of the scandal. Ms. Park has remained cloistered in the presidential Blue House, denying the charges against her through a spokesman and refusing to allow prosecutors to question her. “The president has no intention of stepping down, the people are fighting on the streets, and the government is paralyzed,” said Woo the floor leader of the main opposition Democratic Party. “We have no option but to impeach her. ” An impeachment vote, expected early next month, requires a majority to pass. If the opposition parties remain united, they will need fewer than 30 votes from Ms. Park’s governing Saenuri Party to impeach her. The vote would have to be ratified by the Constitutional Court. One prominent defection came last week when Kim a former party chairman and Ms. Park’s presidential campaign manager, vowed to impeach her, saying she had “betrayed the people and our party. ” The alleged conspiracy revolves around a secret presidential adviser and confidante, Choi who was indicted on Nov. 20 on charges of exploiting her influence with Ms. Park to gain access to confidential government documents and to force businesses to donate $69 million to two foundations she controlled. Prosecutors said Ms. Park was an accomplice in the scheme, directing her aides to help Ms. Choi shake down major corporations like Samsung and Hyundai. But it is Ms. Park’s relationship with Ms. Choi, who has been described as a “shaman fortuneteller” by opposition politicians, that has enthralled South Koreans. Ms. Choi’s father, Choi the founder of the Church of Eternal Life and a messiah, had been a mentor to Ms. Park. According to a report by the Korean intelligence agency, he approached her after her mother was assassinated in 1974, telling her that her dead mother had spoken to him in his dreams. The report said Mr. Choi had cultivated his influence with Ms. Park, the dictator’s daughter, to solicit bribes and accumulate a family fortune. According to the Nov. 20 indictment, his daughter continued the family business. Ms. Choi’s former driver told the Segye Ilbo newspaper last week that he had delivered a suitcase of cash from the Choi family to bankroll Ms. Park’s run for Parliament in the late 1990s. During her presidential campaign in 2012 and even after her inauguration, Ms. Choi edited Ms. Park’s speeches, Ms. Park has acknowledged. After Ms. Park took office in 2013, Ms. Choi used her connections to force a Seoul university to accept her daughter and give her good grades even though she hardly attended any classes, Education Ministry officials said. In 2014, Ms. Park instructed an aide to ask Hyundai Motor Company to sign a contract with a parts supplier owned by a friend of Ms. Choi’s, prosecutors said in their indictment of Ms. Choi. Ms. Choi later collected $44, 000 in kickbacks from her friend. In February, again acting on Ms. Park’s orders, the aide asked Hyundai to hire Ms. Choi’s advertising agency. Ms. Choi’s company earned $780, 000 from the account. Ms. Park was accused of leaking secret government documents to Ms. Choi, who did not have security clearance and had no experience in government or policy making. She shared with Ms. Choi classified information on things like appointments to top government jobs and where the government planned to build a sports complex. Two of Ms. Park’s former aides were also indicted. As early as 2013, officials tried to raise alarms about Ms. Park’s relationship with Ms. Choi, only to be demoted, fired or even imprisoned. A police detective who worked in the president’s office filed a report in 2014 accusing relatives and associates of Ms. Choi of meddling in state affairs. The detective was reassigned, and was then charged with leaking government documents, convicted and sent to prison. Ms. Park has publicly apologized twice for the scandal in televised speeches, saying she let her guard down with a trusted friend. But she has not said she knew of any extortion, and her office last week called the prosecutors’ findings groundless. “We don’t think the prosecutors’ investigation has been fair or politically neutral,” said her spokesman, Jung . Party loyalists have banded together to thwart the impeachment effort. Lee the party’s chairman, warned against breaking ranks: “Even if you jump off because the ship is tilting, the only thing that awaits you is a sea of death. ” He also compared party members wanting to impeach Ms. Park to Judas. Still, the prosecutors’ revelations alienated even some of Ms. Park’s staunchest conservative allies, many of whom saw her as a replica of her father, who was revered for leading the country out of poverty. Critics say her administration has been a poor copy, mimicking some of her father’s authoritarian tendencies and lacking his effectiveness and policy drive. She has shunned briefings from her top aides and has held only one news conference a year. Her perceived aloofness came under fire after the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014, in which more than 300 people died. She emerged from her residence seven hours after she was first informed of the accident. At the same time, she adopted a policy against North Korea and agreed to base American defensive missiles in South Korea, angering China. North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests over the last decade and launched more than 20 ballistic missiles this year, with the professed goal of developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States. Although they are disillusioned with Ms. Park, many South Korean conservatives also fear that her travails have increased the chances of a progressive candidate winning the next presidential election and reversing or softening South Korea’s policy on the North. At this point, Ms. Park’s fate may hang on timing as much as the weight of the evidence. If an impeachment bill passes, her presidential powers will be suspended while the Constitutional Court has six months to rule on its validity. Ms. Park’s term ends in February 2018. Analysts say she is buying time by stonewalling the investigation, hoping for the uproar to subside or for the National Assembly or the Constitutional Court to vote against impeaching her. Running out the clock on impeachment will not necessarily spare her from prosecution, however. Already identified by prosecutors as a criminal suspect, she could be arrested the day she leaves office and loses her presidential immunity. That does not appear to be a privilege she will give up voluntarily. “She will sit tight, even if the entire 50 million people of South Korea turn out to deny her presidency and demand her resignation,” former Prime Minister Kim Ms. Park’s relative, told the newsmagazine Sisa Journal this month. “Once she gets bullheaded, no one can budge her. ” | 1 |
KINSTON, N. C. — Just before Christmas, in the soup kitchen that serves this small town built on tobacco, textiles and hogs, the chef and cooking show star Vivian Howard finished stirring a pot of pork and sweet potato stew and turned to a local television reporter. How does it feel, the reporter asked, to know that she had saved her hometown? “If I had saved Kinston,“ she replied, “we wouldn’t need a food bank, and all these people wouldn’t be waiting for lunch. ” Ms. Howard, 38, has been called many things. Her mother calls her the life of the party. Her father calls her Big Time, a nickname from her childhood. A few of the 80 people she employs call her a control freak. But “hometown hero” may be the label that makes her most uncomfortable. “Saving a town was not what I was trying to do,” she said. “I’m just a storyteller. A storyteller who cooks. ” Still, Ms. Howard, the girl who spent her childhood plotting an escape from this rural eastern North Carolina county, has become an unlikely engine in its economic and cultural revival. Twelve years ago, when her family talked her into coming home to open a restaurant, she thought that somehow she had failed. Now, Ms. Howard is five seasons into “A Chef’s Life,” her popular public television show. Her restaurant, Chef the Farmer, attracts talent from the best professional kitchens in the South traveling food celebrities drop by to learn about the region. New restaurants, galleries and a brewery have come to town. The lady who taught her how to make biscuits can charge tourists $100 for a private lesson. At first glance, the show seems an unlikely hit: a about running a restaurant, managing a family and how best to cook regional specialties like cabbage collards or flounder caught from the nearby Atlantic, or seasoning meat coaxed from the jowls and tails of pigs. Guests include the guy at the fish store, the neighbors who make collard kraut, and the farmer who sells the restaurant its vegetables. But to many of the show’s three million fans, and to the guests who travel hundreds of miles to eat at her restaurant, Ms. Howard is a rural Princess Leia. In the wake of an election that laid bare the nation’s political, cultural and economic divisions, her life has a particular resonance with the kind of people who see her story as theirs. “What I came to realize was that much of rural America feels forgotten and misunderstood and, frankly, hopeless,” Ms. Howard said. “Urban folks are afraid of rural folks, and rural folks are afraid of urban folks. On our show, we try to bridge the gap. ” She and her team paid for the first season, which aired in 2013, with a crowdsourcing campaign and a little money from organizations like the North Carolina Pork Council, Blue Cross Blue Shield and a group of civic leaders. The show was something of a Hail Mary pass for a region trying to find something to replace tobacco production and factory work. “I like to call it more like ‘Waiting for Guffman,’” said Ben Knight, 40, Ms. Howard’s husband and the restaurant’s manager, who enjoys his own celebrity status among fans. The show caught on, winning a Peabody Award and a daytime Emmy. Sponsorship is so robust that they can afford to pay some of the local residents who appear as guests. On about any weekend night, most of the 220 diners who land a seat at her restaurant will be from somewhere else. Her parents, John and Scarlett, are regulars. After they eat, they’ll take a spin through the parking to count the license plates. “It’s the darn craziest thing I have ever seen,” John Howard said. “People will drive 300 miles for a meal. ” (As one of the state’s largest commodity hog producers, he also can’t believe the price his daughter pays for local, pork.) On a recent night, Sarah Reichard, 35, arrived for dinner with her husband, Mitch MacDougall, 34. The vacationing Maryland couple had brought a copy of Ms. Howard’s new book, “Deep Run Roots,” neatly annotated, with sticky notes marking their favorite recipes. At 564 pages, the book is both an important catalog of the unique cooking style of coastal North Carolina and a record of the emotional journey of a young woman who grew up feeling disenfranchised and ashamed of her people. Ms. Reichard, who was raised in a small Pennsylvania town, trembled as she spoke with Ms. Howard. “She talks about things I feel all the time,” she said. “I hate where I’m from, too. ” From as early as she can remember, Ms. Howard had wanted to get out of Deep Run, the slip of a community near Kinston where she was born. She was in boarding school by 14, then headed to North Carolina State, where she dreamed of becoming a journalist. She moved to New York, burned out at an advertising agency, and stumbled into a waitressing job at Voyage, a globally influenced restaurant in the West Village. There, she fell in love with a Mr. Knight, 40, an artist who paints large abstract works with glossy acrylics. She attended the Institute of Culinary Education, interned at Wylie Dufresne’s and cooked on the line at Vongerichten’s Spice Market. The couple were selling soup from their Harlem apartment when her asked them to come home to Kinston and open a restaurant in the building he had bought in the faded downtown district. They moved in 2005, happy to be out of New York, living and in a little house on the river that her father calls his nap shack, and finding their way in the community. Still, the economic reality was grim. Hurricane Floyd had ravaged the region six years earlier. The tobacco warehouses and shirt factories had long been shut down, and the DuPont polyester plant was a shadow of its former self. “Everyone here had an excuse for why they hadn’t left yet,” Ms. Howard said. “I was like, ‘I should be ashamed of this place, too. ’” In what seemed to many a foolish move, they opened Chef the Farmer. At first, they served fancy city food. She remembers the day her sister pointed out that three of the four desserts had vegetables in them, and that didn’t mean carrot cake. “I was cooking down to people,” Ms. Howard said. “I didn’t feel like these people had anything to teach me. ” She decided to embrace the local dishes she had grown up eating. She could elevate the wild muscadine grapes, the butter beans and the “tom thumbs” — pork sausages whose casings are made from pig appendixes. In the process, she elevated herself. She came to consider the people in her town as guides to a stronger, simpler way of living. Buoyed by the increased interest in Southern cooking and a few good mentions in the regional press, she persuaded the documentary filmmaker Cynthia Hill to make a TV show. Ms. Hill had grown up seven miles away from Ms. Howard, and she understood the desire to leave a place and then come home again. “Initially, I think she was just trying to save herself,” Ms. Hill said. “In the process, she is saving a lot of people. ” The show has started a sort of renaissance in the town, where a local investor has opened a boutique hotel and the Mother Earth brewing company and taproom. Storefronts are being refurbished. The couple has opened an oyster bar and burger joint called the Boiler Room across the alley, and are planning a bakery. “I don’t think she realized this was all going to happen, but right now she’s the hometown girl that made good and came back, which gives her some cachet,” said Bill Smith, a chef and Southern food authority who grew up in the area. Mr. Smith appeared on a recent holiday special, helping Ms. Howard and her neighbors kill a pig and make corned ham from it. Not everyone, however, is entirely enamored of the food. Grayson Haver Currin, until recently a longtime editor at Indy Week, an alternative paper published in the Hill triangle, thinks chefs like Sean Brock in Charleston, S. C. and Ashley Christensen in Raleigh do a better job interpreting the traditional Southern culinary canon for modern eaters. “That said, in Kinston it’s kind of that food like that exists,” Mr. Currin said. “The story of that family and what they’ve accomplished in postindustrial America is fascinating. But it’s a slow process and it’s a limited process. No matter how many $ restaurants you put in that town, you can’t change the economics and racial realities. ” The average annual income in Lenoir County, which has about 58, 000 people, is $20, 191. In Kinston, the county’s most populous community, almost 70 percent of the residents are black, while most of its elected leadership is white. At the fish store and the Piggly Wiggly, black customers didn’t seem to know about Ms. Howard’s show or her restaurant. The managers, who were white, did. The region’s troubles only got worse in October, when floodwaters brought on by Hurricane Matthew devastated the community. Four died, bridges were washed away, and roads were closed for weeks. Four of the six hotels in the town flooded, and more than 3, 200 people applied for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Ms. Howard was on her book tour when the hurricane hit Kinston. Her marketing plan was to tour 24 cities in a food truck. For $50, people got a book and a simple supper, like a bowl of eastern North Carolina fish stew and eggs, built from chunks of fish layered with potatoes and onions and flavored with onions, tomato paste and chile flakes. All but one event sold out. Fans lined up to tell Ms. Howard about their mothers who, like hers, suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. Ms. Howard’s young twins are sometimes on the show, which led to a parade of parents eager to discuss their own twins. Chelsie and Jono Brymer, a young couple from Trenton, Mich. drove to Chicago just to see her. They, too, had moved back home, to a struggling former steel town, to open a little French cafe called Promenade Artisan Foods. “We watched the show and realized we were not the only ones who ask ourselves if we were crazy to do it,” Ms. Brymer said. By the time she returned home, Ms. Howard was exhausted. From the road, she had organized a statewide fish stew for flood victims that raised more than $30, 000. She had shaken hands with so many strangers that she felt like a politician. She had seen her twins, Florence and Theodore, maybe four times during the tour. Ms. Howard vowed to stay home more, tending both to the children and to the restaurant in a more balanced way. There would be no more with her face on them, and less energy spent on expanding her line of sauces and rubs. And Ms. Howard is changing the show, now shooting its fifth season. It will still be set in eastern North Carolina, but it will shift the focus to the people in her life who cook food from other cultures. “There’s only one of me,” she said, “and I have to decide what I want to do. ” Recipe: Eastern North Carolina Fish Stew | 1 |
JERUSALEM — Parts of the port city of Haifa in northern Israel were ablaze on Thursday as wildfires raged through the country for a third day, devouring forests, damaging homes and prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. Asked how long Haifa was likely to be battling the blazes, Mayor Yona Yahav told reporters, “This is a question that has to be referred to God. ” Israeli officials said the fires had been fanned by unusually strong winds and made worse by a dry atmosphere, but they also said they suspected that many of them had been caused by arson and negligence. Dozens of people have been slightly affected by smoke inhalation, but no serious injuries or fatalities have been reported. Gilad Erdan, Israel’s public security minister, told Army Radio that the professional assessment was that almost half the fires were the result of arson. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed the fires to “natural and unnatural” causes and said that “any fire caused by arson or incitement to arson is terrorism in every sense of the word, and we will treat it as such. ” Arab leaders in Israel protested the widespread allegations that Palestinian nationalists were behind many of the fires, saying their land was burning, too, and they condemned what they viewed as unfair accusations against Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up about a fifth of the population. Ahmad Tibi, a veteran Arab lawmaker in the Israeli Parliament, wrote on Twitter: “I called Yona Yahav. Our homes are open to the evacuees. Sad and painful. Let’s join hands to overcome the fire and let’s also douse the flames of incitement. ” Mr. Netanyahu spoke on Thursday with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who promised to send two huge firefighting aircraft. Firefighting planes and teams from Cyprus and Greece had already arrived, and the Israeli police and Foreign Ministry said that more help was on the way from Croatia, Italy and Turkey. The Palestinian Authority also sent some fire engines to tackle the fires. The Israeli emergency services are more prepared and better equipped than they were in 2010, when a fierce fire raged through the Carmel Forest area near Haifa. More than 40 people, most of them officer cadets from the prison service, were killed in that blaze when their bus was engulfed in flames as they were on their way to evacuate a prison. That episode counted as Israel’s worst natural disaster. The government of Mr. Netanyahu, who assumed office in 2009, was accused of being woefully unprepared. It was the first time that Israel, which often provides doctors and aid workers for disasters abroad, had to rely on international help. Israel has since added firefighting planes, but they do not have the capacity of larger aircraft like those that Russia was expected to send, nor can they operate at night. The police and emergency services have been going door to door evacuating homes, schools, two prisons, neighborhoods and, in some cases, whole communities. Noy Parati, a student at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, described scenes of panic, with people pushing one another out of the way to evacuate. “As soon as they tell me where to go, I will leave,” Ms. Parati told Israeli television, adding, “Everyone is trying to escape. ” Yael Hamer, a resident of the Romema neighborhood of Haifa, said people were leaving on foot and by car. “My house was filled with smoke,” she told reporters by phone from her car, with the sirens of fire engines and ambulances audible in the background. “And the smell,” she added, “it was impossible to stay there. ” Local authorities in Haifa said they had set up gathering points and temporary shelters in community centers, in an auditorium and in a stadium. The police reported heavy traffic on highways around the city, and the train service to and from the city was suspended. By nightfall, about a quarter of Haifa’s population of 280, 000 had been instructed to evacuate. The Israeli military said that it had deployed two battalions from its Home Front Command to assist evacuation efforts, and that it had called up reservists to help fight the fires. Several homes have been destroyed in recent days in the town of Zikhron Yaaqov, south of Haifa, and in Nataf, a village in the hills outside Jerusalem. Flames have also threatened Talmon, a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. And on Thursday night the police reported a fire near Shuafat, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem. The first major fire began in the forest surrounding Neve Shalom, known in Arabic as Wahat or Oasis of Peace, a small cooperative community about halfway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where Israeli Jews and Arabs live together. Despite the suspicion of arson in many cases, the Israeli authorities were cautious in assigning blame. But some Israeli news organizations were labeling the wave of fires an “arson intifada,” alluding to a Palestinian uprising. Mr. Erdan, the public security minister, noted that Jewish extremists had been charged with arson attacks in the past, including one last year in the West Bank village of Duma that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents. Mr. Erdan has instructed the police to focus efforts on locating incitement to arson on social networks. By Thursday night, Mr. Erdan said, the fires had been brought under control, though there were fears that the weather conditions could whip up the flames again. Some Palestinians were celebrating the fires on social media, posting congratulatory messages on Facebook. “Enjoy the burning of your homes, you Zionists,” one wrote. Others described the fires as divine retribution for legislation being advanced in Israel, with Mr. Netanyahu’s backing, to ban or restrict the use of loudspeakers by mosques and other houses of worship across Israel. Ayman Odeh, another Arab member of the Israeli Parliament, noted that several Arab cities in northern Israel, such as Umm had also been affected by the fires. | 1 |
THE ALBINO MINE, Venezuela — The 12th time Reinaldo Balocha got malaria, he hardly rested at all. With the fever still rattling his body, he threw a pick ax over his shoulder and got back to work — smashing stones in an illegal gold mine. As a computer technician from a big city, Mr. Balocha was for the mines, his soft hands used to working keyboards, not the earth. But Venezuela’s economy collapsed on so many levels that inflation had obliterated his salary, along with his hopes of preserving a life. So, like tens of thousands of other people from across the country, Mr. Balocha came to these open, swampy mines scattered across the jungle, looking for a future. Here, waiters, office workers, taxi drivers, college graduates and even civil servants on vacation from their government jobs are out panning for gold, all under the watchful eyes of an armed group that taxes them and threatens to tie them to posts if they disobey. It is a society turned upside down, a place where educated people abandon jobs in the city for dangerous, backbreaking work in muddy pits, desperate to make ends meet. And it comes with a steep price: Malaria, long driven to the fringes of the country, is festering in the mines and back with a vengeance. Venezuela was the first nation in the world to be certified by the World Health Organization for eradicating malaria in its most populated areas, beating the United States and other developed countries to that milestone in 1961. It was a huge accomplishment for a small nation, one that helped pave Venezuela’s development as an oil power and fueled hopes that a model to stamp out malaria across the globe was at hand. Since then, the world has dedicated enormous amounts of time and money to beating back the disease, with deaths plummeting by 60 percent in places with malaria in recent years, according to the W. H. O. But in Venezuela, the clock is running backward. The country’s economic turmoil has brought malaria back, sweeping the disease out of the remote jungle areas where it quietly persisted and spreading it around the nation at levels not seen in Venezuela for 75 years, medical experts say. It all starts with the mines. With the economy in tatters, at least 70, 000 people from all walks of life have been streaming into this mining region over the past year, said Jorge Moreno, a leading mosquito expert in Venezuela. As they hunt for gold in watery pits, the perfect breeding ground for the mosquitoes that spread the disease, they are catching malaria by the tens of thousands. Then, with the disease in their blood, they return home to Venezuela’s cities. But because of the economic collapse, there is often no medicine and little fumigation to prevent mosquitoes there from biting them and passing malaria to others, sickening tens of thousands more people and leaving entire towns desperate for help. The economic breakdown has “triggered a great migration in Venezuela, and right behind it is the spread of malaria,” said Dr. Moreno, a researcher at a laboratory in the mining region. “With this breakdown comes a disease that is cooked in the same pot. ” Once out of the mines, malaria spreads quickly. Five hours away in Ciudad Guayana, a rusting former industrial boomtown where many are now jobless and have taken to wildcatting in the mines, a crowd of 300 people packed the waiting room of a clinic in May. All had symptoms of the disease: fevers, icy chills and uncontrollable tremors. There were no lights because the government had cut power to save electricity. There were no medicines because the Health Ministry had not delivered any. Health workers administered blood tests with their bare hands because they were out of gloves. Maribel Supero clutched her son as he trembled, unable to speak. José Castro held his daughter as she screamed. Griselda Bello, who works at the clinic, waved her hands helplessly and told yet another patient to hold on a bit longer. The pills had run out. There was nothing she could do. “Come back tomorrow at 10 a. m.,” she said. “My God,” the patient said. “Someone might die by then. ” “Indeed, they might,” she said. In the nearby town of Pozo Verde, residents said malaria had swept in after miners began returning home sick, the government fumigators having vanished two years ago. Now, the public high school has become an incubating ground of its own: A quarter of its 400 students have contracted malaria since November. “You would think we would do something — a cordon, a quarantine,” said Arebalo Enríquez, the principal of the school, who contracted malaria, as did his wife, mother and seven other members of his family. Officially, the spread of malaria in Venezuela has become a state secret. The government has not published epidemiological reports on the disease in the past year, and it says there is no crisis. But the most recent internal figures, obtained by The New York Times from Venezuelan doctors involved in compiling it, confirms a surge is underway. In the first six months of the year, malaria cases rose 72 percent, to a total of 125, 000, according to the figures. The disease cut a wide path through the country, with cases present in more than half of its 23 states. And among the malaria strains present here is Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most fatal form of the disease. “It is a situation of national shame,” said Dr. José Oletta, a former Venezuelan health minister who lives in the capital, Caracas, where malaria cases are now appearing, too. “I was seeing this kind of thing when I was a medical student a ago. It hurts me. The disease had disappeared. ” In El Dique, a rural town where malaria was largely unknown until two years ago, Juana García, 66, sat outside her home, newly widowed since her husband fell ill with the disease and died. She hardly spoke or moved from her chair. “She will keep fighting,” said her daughter Ana María Padrón. Inside Ms. Padrón’s adobe home, her two sons were fighting malaria, too. Almost like clockwork, their fevers began in the morning: at 8 a. m. for Omar, who is 8 at 11 for Aristides, who is 7. The family has found no medicine. The boys have only painkillers. “We pray,” their mother said. The illegal mines spill out over dozens of miles, leaving a pockmarked stretch of earth where the jungle gives way to countless craters and scars. Some are no more than tiny pools where two men sift the mud with pans, like a scene from the California goldfields more than a century ago. Others drain wide marshes with tangled networks of tubes and pumps. In another spot, hundreds of wildcatters had dug out a gaping maw of red and white soil. It sinks 15 stories deep and runs the length of a football field. They call it Cuatro Muertos, or Four Dead Men. It was not supposed to be this way. The gold reserves were once controlled by a Canadian company before President Hugo Chávez expropriated them and pledged to use their profits to fund his revolution. But the expropriation followed the pattern of mismanagement and neglect that many others did during the Chávez era. The state eventually abandoned the territory around the mine, and the potentially lucrative profits. Wildcatters have moved in, and so have the armed groups that now call themselves the law here. But at least there is food. As the country convulses from food shortages and riots, as hungry mobs ransack grocery stores, restaurants and bakeries, the mining town of Las Claritas, only a short drive from the mines, lives in a state of relative plenty. Restaurants offer full menus. Street markets are packed with fruit. Pickups drive by loaded with pumpkins. In a country where soap is in short supply, a dozen brands are on sale in a grocery store, where seven models of televisions are also available. Miners dish out fat wads of their gold earnings in cash, which run through a machine. The promise of a different Venezuela — one where there is ample food and work that pays enough — led Yudani González to abandon a program to become a preschool teacher in Ciudad Bolívar, the provincial capital, where unemployment is rampant. Instead, she headed to a ramshackle jungle camp, where she cooks for miners with one hand and cares for her two young children with the other. “Here, you can get ahead,” Ms. González said, washing her daughter in a plastic bucket on the counter as she cooked. Danneris Flores, a government employee moonlighting as a mining camp cook, sat nearby. She is an administrative assistant in a health clinic, but Venezuela’s currency has tumbled so far that her salary amounts to only about $1 a day at the current street value. So she asked for a vacation — and used it to work for a couple of weeks at the mines. Her who works for the state oil company, Pdvsa, does the same thing. In a short stint at the mines, Ms. Flores said she could earn twice her monthly wages. She counted the days until she would be home to see her three children, whom she had left after “closing my eyes and making my heart small. ” “I never imagined that I would work in a mine,” she said to Ms. González as they served a meal. “Before, people thought of going to school. ” A miner walked in to greet the women and said he had recently watched someone collapse and die of malaria on her way to a market. Ms. González said she had come down with it four times herself. Her she said, has had it three times. “They charge you two grams of gold for medicine,” she said. “You pay what they ask. ” Not everyone can find medication, even with gold earnings. José Yoel Castillo stumbled to the doorstep of the malaria clinic in Las Claritas, carried on the shoulders of two relatives as he convulsed and was unable to speak. He had been making a living in the town of Caicara del Orinoco, driving passengers on the back of a motorcycle. But an armed gang took the vehicle, and Mr. Castillo could not afford a new one. So he came to the mines. He quickly found work and money — even malaria medication the first time he became ill. But when the symptoms came a second time, he could not find treatment anywhere. “Some people can just keep working through it,” said his Alejandro López. “But others can’t. ” Even with money in their pockets, the miners know the dangers of going back home. Josué Guevara, 20, gave up last November on his university studies in industrial engineering in a city about 10 hours away. He once pictured himself as a manager at the aluminum company, Alcasa. But his family members who worked there could barely afford food, he said. “Now I have other goals,” he said, standing at the edge of the Cuatro Muertos mines, where he lives and works today. Using gasoline and other chemicals to extract the gold, Mr. Guevara earned 500, 000 bolívars — around $500 at exchange rates, about 33 times the country’s minimum wage — during a lucky stretch. But when he got malaria this spring, he did what many miners do: He returned to his hometown to recover, bringing the disease with him. “Everything has its risks,” he said. On the other side of the vast pit, Pedro Pérez, 38, sat in a structure made of tree poles and tarp where he sleeps with 10 other miners. He tested positive for malaria twice in March. The third time he fell ill, he did not bother to get tested. “I was lying here and I felt the same symptoms,” he said. He, too, went back home — to the provincial capital, Ciudad Bolívar, where his mother eventually caught malaria, as well. “It’s coming from us,” Mr. Pérez said. Mr. Pérez remembered his life before he came to the mines last fall: He was a supervisor at a metal refinery, he said. He owned a house and a 2005 Ford Focus. He and his wife, a lawyer, once jetted off on getaways to Isla Margarita, a tropical island off the north coast of Venezuela. Yet even before he lost his job last year and was unable to find another, Venezuela’s plummeting currency had whittled his salary down to about $26 a month. He eventually left home for the mine. “I am still not used to washing myself every day in a river of dirty water,” he said. “I thought I had a good life. ” A few weeks ago, his wife came to Las Claritas to buy the food and soap she could not find in Ciudad Bolívar. The couple spent three nights together in a miner’s hostel. After she left, Mr. Pérez felt the strains on their marriage. “‘I know it’s hard for you,’ I tell her, ‘but we have to accept this new reality,’” he said. Back in Las Claritas, at a table in a dark brothel that smelled of alcohol, sat Angélica, a young woman with long black hair whose parents do not know she has turned to prostitution to make her living. She left the eastern city of Maturín three months ago when riots erupted because food had gone scarce. “Before, you waited in line for hours, but you got something,” said Angélica, who did not give her last name, ashamed of her work. “But now there is nothing there. ” Today she earns the equivalent of $40 when a miner wants to spend the night with her. More often, the money comes in increments of $8, when a customer wants to have sex and leave a short time later. At times, she said, it may be a stranger who is trembling with fever, unable to perform because of malaria. Other times, it is the owner of one of the Chinese grocery stores. The men come from all corners of the country. “The most difficult part of this life is being with someone who you do not love,” she said. Venezuela rose only after malaria declined. It was the 1920s and another resource had set off a bonanza — the black gold of oil, discovered in massive supply. But a vast malaria hot zone, then of Venezuela, stood between the country and its riches. The deadly scenes were later immortalized in “Dead Homes,” a 1955 Venezuelan novel about the rural epidemics of malaria and the waves of migration to the country’s oil fields. Freeing the country of malaria became pivotal to Venezuela’s development, said Dr. Oletta, the former health minister. “Only once malaria was gone, roads could come, industry,” he said. “This was a sick country, and when it got well, things changed. ” That transformative effort was led by Dr. Arnoldo Gabaldón, the former health minister who began one of the world’s first efforts to eradicate malaria and who became a national hero during his age. Teams across the Venezuelan countryside built irrigation ditches to drain pools of standing water, distributed quinine and constructed cinder block homes in rural areas so that mosquitoes had fewer places to breed. Dr. Gabaldón founded a research center in the city of Maracay, outside of Caracas and itself a malaria zone at the time, to broaden the mission and train officials from Latin America and Africa. But it was his use of insecticides — initially DDT, then other substances — that began to turn the tide. The walls of nearly every rural home in the country were sprayed, a technique that killed mosquitoes when they landed to rest. Fumigators would leave an envelope showing the date they would return. By 1949, malaria deaths had fallen drastically: to nine per 100, 000 people from 300. By the time Mr. Chávez assumed the presidency 50 years later and began to carry out his vision for Venezuela, the regimented system of Dr. Gabaldón had long faded, though malaria still appeared to be confined to a few rural areas. But the restructuring of the economy under Mr. Chávez and his followers, including a growing dependence on oil revenue and a system of currency controls restricting American dollars, would eventually change that. In 2014 and 2015, as oil prices collapsed and the government scrambled for money to pay for goods, services and imports, there were long shortages of chloroquine and primaquine, two drugs used for Plasmodium vivax, the most prevalent malaria parasite in the Americas. By 2016, doctors said there were shortages of nearly all drugs, most notably a drug cocktail for the deadly falciparum strain that costs just several dollars for a full round of treatment. Though debilitating and even fatal, malaria is easily treatable with the proper medication. Dr. Leopoldo Villegas, an international malaria expert in Bangkok, said the government also relied on outdated methods like outdoor fogging with insecticides, which had unproven effects on adult mosquitoes that transmit malaria. And because it was not publishing epidemiological reports of new malaria cases or deaths, it was unclear how much medicine was needed each year. “This is an emergency, this is an outbreak, and it’s not being dealt with by the government this way,” Dr. Villegas said, adding that the Venezuelan government had repeatedly denied the extent of malaria’s resurgence to international organizations that could help prevent its spread. Gustavo Bretas, a Brazilian malaria expert, said that Venezuela once trained people throughout the region in malaria prevention. But Venezuela’s inability to contain its own outbreak means that it now plays the opposite role: It poses a threat to the countries around it, particularly Brazil, where there are also illegal gold mines. “It’s starting to spill over into neighboring countries,” he said, adding that the lack of government statistics made the extent of the problem hard to assess. Venezuela’s Health Ministry did not respond to requests for an interview, including a letter delivered to its offices. Oscar Noya now works in Dr. Gabaldón’s old laboratory in Caracas under a picture of his mentor in a suit and bow tie. On a recent day, malaria patients once again sat on the steps, most having arrived from the mines. Fifteen had come on a recent morning 12 of them tested positive for the disease. Dr. Noya tries to make do without many vital drugs, like artesunate, listed by the W. H. O. as an essential medicine for the treatment of severe cases of falciparum malaria. He has only three vials of it left. He needs six to treat a single patient with a serious case. One recent night, a gang entered one of his malaria laboratories and stole the computers, one of about 20 attacks this year against the Tropical Medical Institute where he works, Dr. Noya said. He wonders if the groups are aligned with the government. “We believe this is no more than intimidation because we’re not quiet and we won’t be quiet,” he said, referring to public advocacy about malaria and the spread of other diseases. Dr. Noya put away his vials of artesunate as more patients gathered outside. He looked up with an air of desperation. “Dr. Gabaldón would have died of a heart attack if he’d seen what is happening,” he said. Despite the constant churn of workers from across Venezuela, there is a clear order to the mines. It is enforced by an armed group known as the Union. One of the Union’s bosses came to the mines years ago to work as a dentist. He still does. But the squads of patrolmen on motorbikes who dominate this place are the real source of his wealth and power. He sports gold chains, two gold teeth — and brass knuckles made of gold. After the government abandoned them, the mines soon grew again, this time at an unruly pace as wildcatters plowed into the forest, creating pools of stagnant water and a population of easy prey for the mosquitoes that breed in them, paving the way for the explosion of malaria. Sitting on his patio, the boss, who declined to be named because he could be arrested by the government, took pride in what he said was the Union’s ability to fill in for the vacuum left by the state. Yes, he acknowledged, the punishments the group meted out could be gruesome, like shooting off a man’s hand when he stole, or tying others to posts at the entrance of town with a sign detailing the offense committed. But he argued that the discipline kept crime in the camps low and allowed miners to go about their business in peace — another aspect of life that has steadily eroded in Venezuela’s dangerous cities. “To get justice from the police is a joke,” he said. “You have to get your own justice. ” Eduardo Medina agreed. A former pharmacist, he said he had left the drugstore where he worked in the state of Zulia a year ago to start mining because he saw the economic crisis spread and law and order slip away. “At any time, you might go out and someone would put a pistol in your face for your phone, or knife your mother,” Mr. Medina said in his tent. “Crime is under control here. They charge us, but they solve the problems, too. ” But the appearance of calm is deceiving. Storms rage in other places where rivals vie for control of the mines. In March, at least 17 miners were killed in what the authorities believed was one such dispute. Mr. Medina, on a break, looked down into the pit where his fellow miners labored. “At any moment, you can be killed in Zulia,” he said. “But you can be killed here, too. ” For all the challenges of keeping order, the boss said, malaria was even harder. “On malaria, we are screwed,” he said. The task of monitoring the disease seems to have been delegated to people like a state health employee named Miguel Martínez, who sat at a lonely post a short walk from a brothel near the mines, examining blood samples from miners. Under his microscope, a dye had stained the malaria parasite a dark purple. The log beside him showed that half of the patients who had visited him that day had tested positive for malaria. Like many health workers in this country, Mr. Martínez was exasperated. “Just as there are no rice and beans in this country, there are no medicines,” he said. Evening approached at the mine, the time when the Anopheles mosquito begins to feed. Dusk settled over a clapboard Pentecostal church, where parishioners speak in tongues, and past a circus tent promising alcohol and a strip tease. Under a tarp, five men hammered away at a vein of quartz, which they would grind down and sift for gold. Others waded up to their shoulders in pools laden with heavy metals like mercury, angling tubes to pump the mud. Tropical birds flew in the distance. “Is the malaria really coming from the miners?” asked Aníbal Flores, 28, a miner who sleeps in a hammock between two poles beside the mine. “But where else can we go to make money? The city? There is no food there. ” Lately, many Venezuelans have taken matters into their own hands. Five hours away in the newly infected town of El Dique, residents were collecting 100 bolívars from each household to hire a fumigator to come spray their homes. In the mine, where malaria tests are sometimes unavailable, miners said they had developed an exam of their own: Drink two bottles of beer. If a sharp pain is felt afterward in the liver, where the parasites reside, then the patient has malaria, the test goes. Health officials said the measure was futile. Still, Mr. Balocha, the former computer technician who works in the Albino Mine, lives by it. Miners call it an “artisanal test. ” He was sick once again, waiting for medicine at a fence on the edge of a clinic. He recalled the words of his uncle, who phoned him a year ago when Mr. Balocha found his salary as a computer technician to be worthless in the city of Valencia. “There is money here,” said the uncle, who was mining then. “You have to know how to find it. ” Mr. Balocha started as a “palero,” a stone breaker, getting the smallest cut of the take. But it was still more than what his salary bought in the city after inflation had whittled it away, he said. He recalled the first time he got malaria, too, the “chills like you were lying down between two blocks of ice. ” “The first time you get malaria is the ugliest,” Mr. Balocha said. “You can’t control the tremors. You feel like you will die. You feel like you are a zombie. ” But he would become a millionaire here, he joked, and one day he would head to Europe — with a Latin American woman, he added — far from the mines, the malaria and the Union. He sighed, looking up at the sky. “In the mine, happiness is only temporary,” he said. | 1 |
The terrorist attack that killed 49 and wounded 53 in Orlando, Fla. was the largest mass killing of gay people in American history, but before Sunday that grim distinction was held by a largely forgotten arson at a New Orleans bar in 1973 that killed 32 people at a time of pernicious stigma. Churches refused to bury the victims’ remains. Their deaths were mostly ignored and sometimes mocked by politicians and the media. No one was ever charged. A joke made the rounds in workplaces and was repeated on the radio: “Where will they bury the queers? In fruit jars!” Outpourings of grief from politicians and everyday people have followed the Orlando shooting, but for those who remember the fire in the New Orleans bar, the UpStairs Lounge, its lonely memory has loomed large over conversations about the carnage this week at the Pulse nightclub. Mike Moreau, 72, who lost several friends in the fire, said he was struck by all the differences between then and now, but also by the familiarity of tragedy’s dull ache. “What happened to us had to be kept so private,” said Mr. Moreau. “The public didn’t want to know about it, and if they heard about it they didn’t care — ‘Thank God, they’re gone, they deserved it. ’” “To see the outpouring of love and support that these poor families have gotten is fantastic,” he added about the Orlando massacre. “They are hurting the same way we hurt, but at least they know that the world supports them and understands their grief. ” Mr. Moreau was with friends at a nearby bar on June 24, 1973, when an arsonist doused the stairs of the UpStairs Lounge with lighter fluid, set it aflame and rang the doorbell. When someone answered the door, a fireball burst into the room. One group of patrons fled out a back exit, but another was trapped across the room, caught between the flames and windows fitted with metal bars. When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they found a pile of charred bodies, some embracing and others pressed against the windows. Congregants from the New Orleans chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church, an L. G. B. T. group, were meeting there after services. The Rev. Bill Larson was among the dead. His charred body was left slumped against the window bars in full view of for hours. He was one of many who died without ever coming out to their families, and his mother would not deal with his remains, said Robert L. Camina, who directed a documentary, UpStairs Inferno, about the blaze. “His mother refused to collect his ashes because she was too embarrassed that she had a gay son,” Mr. Camina said. “And that is just one example. There are three people who were never identified at all. Why? Somebody has to miss them. ” Those three were buried in unmarked graves in a potter’s field along with a fourth person, Ferris LeBlanc, whose family did not know his fate until last year, Mr. Camina said. “They dug a hole in the ground and put a bag in it and covered it back up,” Mr. Moreau said. Public figures were unsupportive. The mayor, Moon Landrieu, did not cancel his vacation. Forty years later, a son of his, the current mayor, Mitch Landrieu, declared a day of public mourning for the fire’s victims on its anniversary. “L. G. B. T. people have a place at the table now that they did not have then,” said Clayton who wrote a book about the arson that was published in 2014. The fire was an open wound for the gay community in New Orleans for years. No one was charged with the attack, and a man viewed by many as the primary suspect was never arrested. He committed suicide a year after the blaze. “There was never any sense of justice,” said Sebastian Rey, the president of the L. G. B. T. Community Center of New Orleans. Survivors had to deny any connection to the fire, including the loss of loved ones, because they could lose their jobs or apartments if bosses and landlords suspected they were gay. Mr. Rey said people who lived through that period did not talk about it for decades. As time passed, the tragedy became “a rumor” to new generations of L. G. B. T. people, he said. Johnny Townsend, who interviewed survivors in the late ’80s and finally published their accounts in 2014, said the 40th anniversary commemoration gave it a kind of public attention it had not had before. “People now feel more of a sense of their own history,” he said. For Mr. Moreau, the outpouring of support for the victims in Orlando has been an “uplifting” sign of progress, he said. ”In Orlando, those poor people know at least that the whole world is behind them,” he said. “Nobody cared about us. ” | 1 |
Did you know that the White House is currently coordinating with Homeland Security to make preparations for a possible solar storm that could bring an end to civilization as we know it? An Executive Order published on October 13, by the Obama administration shows an increasing concern among White House officials about “solar flares, solar energetic particles and geomagnetic disturbances,” following a solar event which generated a Category G2 geomagnetic storm on October 8. This action could likely mean that we have an imminent solar threat in our near future. A solar discharge of great magnitude could mean entire countries could be without electricity, civil unrest and countless lives lost. If federal officials are preparing for this sort of disaster, we have enough reason to arm ourselves with the knowledge of what we might face.
Prepare for any disaster step-by-step What are CMEs? Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are violent explosions of plasma originating from the Sun’s corona, out of which energized particles and powerful magnetic domains emerge as fast as 3,000 kilometers per second. A CME has an associated shock wave and electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that can travel toward the Earth and interrupt satellites and power grids around the planet. There are currently no public disclosures of CMEs being detected, but there is a significant geomagnetic storm event beginning, combined with the Executive Order previously mentioned, gives cause for concern about the possibility of a CME striking our planet in the near future.
A recent report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center predicts a Category G2 geomagnetic storm from October 24 – 26. An aurora borealis is projected to be seen in the skies above New York to Wisconsin to Washington state, and interruption to satellites and power lines are expected.
It is possible that this particular storm is not the result of a CME, but in order to be prepared, one must first know what disasters may lie ahead and plan accordingly.
Here are 5 catastrophic consequences of a major CME hitting the Earth and changing life as we know it: Satellite Disruption If there was a high-magnitude impact of solar energy and particles, we would see an immediate response on low-Earth orbiting weather, communications, and military satellites. Some satellites could be crippled for up to a decade . The first sign that a major CME is about to strike will be a loss of connection with or permanent failure of a portion of low-Earth orbiting satellites and their associated infrastructure. The shock wave, in combination with an EMP, would likely cause significant disruption of GPS signals, possibly creating long-term failures across the global navigation satellite system. This would have disastrous implications for commercial airplanes and ships, many of which rely on GPS guidance systems for landing and docking, and a failure of timing on either of these systems could put countless lives at risk. Seismic stations, computer network synchronization and many electric power grids across the world rely on GPS clocks. Geomagnetic disturbances associated with CMEs are known to disrupt GPS clocks through interference of high frequency radio signals in both air and ground transmission. Here is some more information on EMPs.
EMP Primer Smart Technology Will Mean Nothing After an EMP Event What Will Happen to the Nuclear Power Plants Following an EMP? Protect Your Vehicle From an EMP Build Your Own Faraday Cage Out of an Ammo Can Power Grid Failure A large-scale geomagnetic storm generated by interactions between Earth’s magnetic field and magnetic domains originating from the Sun could cause geomagnetically induced current (GIC), where transformers and power lines can experience a large flux in power from changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. The transformers and associated infrastructure may overheat and the power grid across more than half of the U.S. and many other industrialized countries could fail and cause a widespread blackout scenario if there was a large enough solar event. A study by Metatech corporation shows that a GIC with comparable magnitude to that of the 1921 geomagnetic storm would be projected to destroy more than 300 extra high voltage transformers and adjacent power lines across the U.S., leaving approximately 150 million people without power. The study highlights the risk to the power grid saying, “In 1921, a geomagnetic disturbance of approximately 5000 nT/min, ten times the magnitude of the 1989 storm, is believed to have occurred. A storm of this magnitude today would cause widespread damage to the electric grid of unprecedented proportions.”
This means that all streetlights and stores could lose power without warning. Hospitals could lose power, causing failure of equipment and countless lives could be lost. Computers, cell phones, electric cars and anything else that requires a charge would die and be rendered unusable for the duration of the power grid failure. Credit card transactions and ATM machines will not work. A prolonged failure of even one-third of the grid could potentially require at least ten years for the repair and replacement of fried transformers, capacitors and power lines across the country. The end result of such a sudden and extreme loss of electricity would result in a cataclysmic loss of life, with projected human casualties at almost 100 million as a result from one major geomagnetic disturbance.
Hurricanes &Tornadoes Hurricanes and tornadoes are thought to be closely associated with solar activity, according to Dr. Vladimir I. Merkulov, a Russian physicist who is well-known for his research into gravitational waves in the atmosphere and in vortex chambers. Merkulov has developed the Electro-gravitational Dynamic Concept of Hurricanes and Tornadoes based from observations of the physical structure of vacuum domains originating from the Sun. In his book, Amazing Hydromechanics , he says that tornadoes and hurricanes are caused by increased solar activity, including CMEs, from which vacuum domains emerge that have both electrical and magnetic properties. According to Merkulov, this means that a large CME event could be closely associated with an inestimable increase in the occurrence of tornadoes and hurricanes. While satellite communications fail and the power grid shuts down, residents of the Midwest may be dealing with multiple tornado strikes and coastal areas could have a hurricane fast-approaching the shoreline. Many of them may not realize the immediate threat that is heading toward them due to failing emergency communications being disrupted. Nearby hospitals may be unable to help those who are injured due to the failure of large portions of the power grid.
Economic Collapse The economic collapse that would result from this event would create a poverty never before seen in North America. Losing electricity would mean that ATM machines will not work and banks will be closed. Losing access to electronic currency will cripple many who have become reliant on credit cards and other forms of digital currency. Grocery store shelves will be left entirely empty and supply trucks would likely be unable to resupply stores. If there are gas stations able to process transactions, gas supply will be severely limited. There is no reason to expect that the Federal Reserve Note will survive such a collapse; stored precious metals might become an alternative form of currency and bartering may become a primary means of exchange. Here are six ways to prepare for this type of disaster.
Social Upheaval When people starve and are unable to get what they need for survival, you can expect that a certain amount of them will end up looting homes or stores . Those who do not live near a river or stream may entirely lose access to clean water, which could likely mean that millions of people would be forced to relocate within days of the initial event. Having firearms for self-defense will be necessary amidst the social upheaval resulting from a CME and the associated events mentioned above. There is no reason to expect that police and military will have the desire nor capability to help those who may fall victim to looters; everyone will have their own family and loved ones to look after.
Knowing the risks to life and property that may lie ahead is only a part of the battle. Each of the likely future scenarios mentioned above should be planned for in conjunction with the others.
This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition
Originally published October 28th, 2016 The Single Most Important Thing You Need To Know About Solar A Solar Storm Would Leave Us Precious Little Time to Prepare Scientists Believe if Solar Storms Hit Earth, We Could Be… Experts Warn Congress: Attack On Power Grid Could Lead to… News: Solar Activity Higher as NASA Claims No Danger | 0 |
Trump just made Jeff Immelt describe the time Trump hit a : “I actually said I was the best golfer of all the rich people” pic. twitter. Thursday during President Donald Trump’s meeting with many of the top manufacturing companies, General Electric Co. CEO Jeff Immelt described the time he witnessed the president hit a . Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
When Republicans in Kentucky seized total control of the state government last year, Damon Thayer, the majority leader in the State Senate, began asking around for advice from counterparts in other capitals where the party already dominated both the legislative and executive branches. How should we handle all this power? he wanted to know. One answer impressed him, Mr. Thayer said, from a senior Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin: “Move quickly. ” Kentucky Republicans have done just that, swiftly passing laws to roll back the powers of labor unions and restrict access to abortion. But they are only getting started, Mr. Thayer said in an interview: They also plan to make sweeping changes to the education and public pension systems this year. And they have plenty of company. While Republicans in Washington appear flummoxed by the complexities of rule, struggling with issues from repealing the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to paying for President Trump’s promised wall on the Mexican border, rising party leaders in the states seem far more at ease and assertive. Republicans have control in 25 states now, holding both the governorship and the entire legislature, and Republican lawmakers are acting with lightning speed to enact longstanding conservative priorities. In states from New England to the Midwest and across the South, conservative lawmakers have introduced or enacted legislation to erode union powers and abortion rights, loosen gun regulations, expand programs and slash taxes and spending. State Senator Scott L. Fitzgerald of Wisconsin, the Republican majority leader, said conservatives in the states had taken the party’s national victories in November as a directive to “shake up” government. “That has been amped up as a result of Donald Trump being elected president,” he said. “There’s a higher expectation now. ” If Republicans in the states have taken Mr. Trump as an inspiration, in some respects they are also largely unburdened by his personality and his political whims. Republicans in Congress are plainly struggling to overcome deep internal disagreements and to balance traditional conservative goals with Mr. Trump’s distinctive priorities. But for Republicans in state capitals, these are comparatively remote considerations. Some Democrats fear that while their own party is consumed nationally with fighting Mr. Trump, leaders and activists may be too distracted to throw up effective roadblocks to the ideological agenda that Republicans are ramming through at the state level. “Progressives cannot afford to forget about what’s happening in our backyards,” said Nick Rathod, executive director of State Innovation Exchange, a liberal group focused on state legislatures. “Some of it is even more egregious than what is currently happening in Washington, D. C. ” Republicans have gained power rapidly in the states since the 2008 presidential election, winning 33 governorships and in many instances entrenching themselves in power through legislative redistricting. Riding to office on a wave of discontent with the Obama administration, headstrong governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio embarked on a ferocious quest to transform their states, repeatedly battling powerful unions and popular backlash. Sidelining Democratic lawmakers and grinding down liberal interest groups, these Republicans may have helped pave the way for Mr. Trump’s victories in a string of traditionally blue Midwestern states last year. Acting fastest at the moment, though, are four states where Republicans won total control of the government only in November. In addition to Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire became states with the election of Republican governors, and Republicans in Iowa snatched away the State Senate, where Democrats had held their last grip on power. In all four states, Republicans are racing to strip back the influence of labor unions, a key Democratic constituency. In Missouri, where union membership has waned, Gov. Eric Greitens, a telegenic former member of the Navy SEALs, signed a “right to work” bill into law on Monday, denying unions the power to require that workers at companies they represent pay dues or their equivalent as a condition of employment. In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin signed a similar measure in January, along with the repeal of a law that kept wages high on public construction projects. And in New Hampshire, State Senator Jeb Bradley, the Republican majority leader, said legislation was a top priority. In Iowa, Republican leaders announced this past week that they would pursue sweeping changes to the collective bargaining rights of public employees. State Senator Bill Dix, the new Republican majority leader, said his party had campaigned on such changes — which would cut deeply into unions’ negotiating power — and intended to make good on its commitments. He said Republicans would also seek to change state laws governing health care and to enshrine in the State Constitution the right to bear arms. “Iowans expect us to take action,” Mr. Dix said. His counterpart in New Hampshire, Mr. Bradley, a former member of Congress, echoed that language, but cautioned in an interview that Republicans had to move deliberately and not just fast. “We can’t just start bonfires that we can’t put out,” he warned. “But we can certainly move forward with a conservative agenda that’s a reasonable conservative agenda. ” Democrats and labor unions, which in the past have been able to thwart conservative legislation with the help of a supportive governor or a bloc of allies in the legislature, describe the onslaught in newly Republican states as overwhelming. “They’re killing us here in the state of Missouri,” said John Stiffler, executive of the St. Louis Building Construction Trades Council. Some unions in the state, shut out of power, are attempting to put the law up for a direct vote in a 2018 referendum. For the moment, Mr. Stiffler said, union leaders are seeking to meet with Mr. Greitens in the hope of finding a compromise on other policies, like legislation. “We’re trying to find a way to get even a small audience with him,” Mr. Stiffler said of Mr. Greitens. The Republican agenda in the states goes well beyond limiting unions. Party leaders in Kentucky, New Hampshire and Missouri have signaled that they plan to expand and charter school programs and, in some instances, to pursue tort reform and to place new regulations on voting. Beleaguered Democrats see each policy as devised to undercut one of their core political constituencies: teachers, trial lawyers, minority voters or young people. In several states that the party has controlled for a longer span, Republican governors have also announced aggressive plans to overhaul the size and functions of government, including a Wisconsin proposal, backed by Gov. Scott Walker, and a large program of tax cuts in Florida, championed by Gov. Rick Scott. Both men were first elected in 2010. Republicans in a number of states are also pushing a deeply conservative social agenda. In New Hampshire, Mr. Bradley had long been pushing a bill to let people carry concealed guns without a permit repeatedly, it passed both legislative houses only to be vetoed by Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat. “We had no chance of overriding her veto,” lamented the Mr. Bradley, but Ms. Hassan was elected to the Senate in November. The gun bill cleared the legislature again on Thursday, and the new Republican governor, Chris Sununu, has “every intention of signing it,” David Abrams, a spokesman of his, said. In Kentucky last month, Mr. Bevin, 50, an activist with close ties to the Tea Party, signed a set of new restrictions on abortion, banning the procedure after 20 weeks and requiring that every woman who seeks an abortion undergo an ultrasound first. Iowa Republicans have advanced a bill to defund Planned Parenthood Missouri legislators have filed a barrage of bills, including one that would ban the procedure entirely, in defiance of the Supreme Court. In a handful of states including Missouri and Texas, lawmakers are considering legislation that would designate public restrooms and locker rooms as . And as Mr. Trump attempts to crack down on “sanctuary cities” at the national level, lawmakers in states like Texas and Tennessee have proposed measures to force municipalities to enforce federal immigration law more assertively. Democrats and their allies, including groups like Planned Parenthood, often have little recourse in these states but to rally popular outcry and organize for the next election, or to challenge policies in court. They have succeeded from time to time, including in North Carolina last year, ousting a Republican governor, Pat McCrory, who signed legislation gutting protections for gay and transgender people. In 2013, Virginia voters broke a Republican monopoly by electing a Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, who campaigned in part against abortion restrictions passed by a legislature. And in Louisiana, voters elected a Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, in 2015, to succeed the unpopular Bobby Jindal, who pursued a agenda and briefly ran for president. Mr. McAuliffe, one of a growing number of Democrats who have called on the national party to devote more attention to state elections, said Democrats should recognize the role governors play in heading off the kind of conservative legislation they find deeply offensive. Mr. McAuliffe, who has used his veto pen 71 times, said Virginia Republicans had pushed “nuttier, more socially divisive legislation than even North Carolina. ” “This isn’t scare tactics — this is actually happening,” Mr. McAuliffe said. “If you had a Republican governor, he would have had to sign them, and think where we would be today. ” In Iowa, a Democratic state senator, Janet Petersen, said the zeal of the new Republican majority had broken a mood of passivity among Democrats. On the Planned Parenthood issue alone, Ms. Petersen said her office had received about 1, 500 emails from alarmed constituents. “If there’s one positive thing to come out of this horrible legislation,” she said, “it’s that complacency is gone. ” | 1 |
Patty Sanchez, 51, used to eat 13,000 calories a day and weigh more than 320 kilograms as she tried to satisfy boyfriend's fantasies
Patty weighed more than 320 kilograms when she split from her feeder boyfriend, who was constantly encouraging and enabling her weight gain.
Patty Sanchez has gone from 320 kilograms to 215 kilograms after years of constant eating with the encouragement of her ex-boyfriend and online fat fetishists.
Having purposefully consumed up to 13,000 calories per day for years on end, it is a minor miracle in itself that Patty has made it to 51 and is in position to change her lifestyle.
After splitting from her boyfriend of ten years, Patty soon realized that she had become very isolated and vulnerable due to her size.
The mother-of-four has spoken out about the positive effect weight loss has had on both her personal and family life, also allowing her to undertake a wide range of everyday tasks previously impossible to her.
"I was tremendous – and I was dying a slow death.I realized that the feeding relationship I was in and the squashing was benefiting others, but it wasn’t for me. The weight loss had a lot to do with my break up with my ex – I was being served every meal daily, and when we broke up I had to take care of myself.I never feared death before – it was something I never thought about when I was getting bigger and bigger. But when I reached my lowest and couldn’t walk to the bathroom without getting winded I was worried I wouldn’t be there for my kids and grand kids. My struggles didn’t fully surface until I was single and had no one to help me and couldn’t cook, bathe, or leave the house – it was very lonely,” she said in an interview. Today, with the help of her sons, Patty eats 3,000 calories a day and is more mobile.
She said: “I stay away from fast food and eat more vegetables, fruits and poultry. Now I can do things that people take for granted that I couldn’t do - like walk, bathe, and paint my toenails which I couldn't reach for years."
“My children are very proud of me for changing my life around - we have a better relationship now," she added.
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An absolutely astonishing Security Council (SC) report circulating in the Kremlin today details an extended telephonic conversation held Thursday between President Putin and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey wherein America’s top law enforcement officer asked Russia’s leader “Is Anthony Weiner yours?”, to which Putin replied, “You should ask Aleksandr Poteyev”—and that led, less than 24 hours after this call ended, to Hillary Clinton being placed, once again, under FBI investigation. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes in this report are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.]
According to this report, Director Comey’s call to President Putin was in regards to the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) this past Tuesday advising all Federation security and intelligence organizations to cease all contact and cooperation with the FBI—and that we detailed in our report titled Russia Breaks All Contact With Hillary Clinton’s “Ministry Of Terror”—Once Called The FBI.
With “many/numerous” joint terrorism and international criminal investigations currently ongoing between FIS agencies and the FBI, this report continues, Director Comey expressed his concerns to President Putin that the ending of them “would/could” cause “dangers/alarms” to both the Federation and United States—to which President Putin agreed, and in a bid to ease Russian-US war tensions publically stated after this call ended that “Russia is not going to attack anyone, that’s ridiculous”.
Though not the “main/central” focus of their conversation, this report notes, President Putin did become “annoyed/perturbed” when Director Comey asked him about former US Congressman Anthony Weiner (aka Carlos Danger) while seeming to allege that he was in some way a Russian spy—and that President Putin bluntly replied to by reminding Director Comey that the correct person to ask that question to was former Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) officer Aleksandr Poteyev, whose location could be found by asking the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
SVR officer Poteyev, this report details, was the “overseer/director” of a Federation “honeypot” intelligence operation operating in the United States whose mission was to “discover/unmask” high ranking American elite politicians, bankers, businessmen, etc., preying upon young Russian girls brought to that country to perform pedophile sex acts.
Once these sexually deviant elite Americans who preyed upon these young Russian girl children were identified by the SVR, this report explains, they were put under electronic surveillance—and once being notified of this, many of them volunteered to assist the Federation in “other meaningful ways”.
This highly successful SVR operation was, however, destroyed, this report continues, when SVR officer Poteyev turned against the Federation and became an operative for the American CIA—who this past July, immediately after FBI Director Comey announced Hillary Clinton would face no charges for her crimes, was suddenly declared dead (without any evidence) by the CIA, but that the SVR knows is not the truth.
Master SVR intelligence officer Anna Kushchyenko (in the US known as Anna Chapman) just prior to her and other SVR “operatives/specialists” being betrayed to the CIA by Poteyev, this report continues, had identified US Congressman Anthony Weiner as being a pedophile and targeted him for “extreme/radical” electronic surveillance—but whose mission was ended on 27 June 2010 with her arrest by US authorities.
The SVR’s “extreme/radical” electronic surveillance of Congressman Weiner was justified, this report explains, due not only to his being a sexual deviant, but, also, because his wife, Huma Abedin, was the top aide to then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—whom the Federation has long noted is an “existential threat” to the entire world.
This report doesn’t mention in its unclassified portions if the SVR continued their electronic surveillance of Congressman Weiner, but does allude to the CIA picking up this investigation where intelligence officer Anna Kushchyenko left off—and as evidenced by the CIA’s outing him as a sexual deviant 11 months later in May 2011.
To why the CIA turned the SVR’s Congressman Weiner surveillance operation against Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin, this report further notes, was due to Secretary Clinton, in 2011, ordering the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi (and the destruction of Libya)—who was a major CIA asset and had allowed, since 2004, this US spy agency to use his country to interrogate (actually torture) high value Islamic terror leaders.
Within 24 hours of President Putin directing FBI Director Comey to look for answers about Congressman Weiner’s association with Russia by asking Aleksandr Poteyev (really the CIA), this report continues, Director Comey notified the US Congress that his investigation into Hillary Clinton was being re-opened—and was due to the “mysterious/magical” appearance of tens-of-thousands of secret Hillary Clinton emails discovered on the computer of former Congressman Weiner, and that led Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein to state that a “real bombshell” had been discovered otherwise the FBI wouldn’t have dared begin this whole sordid process again.
To how the Obama regimes FBI, CIA and Department of Justice (DoJ) will untangle the Hillary Clinton catastrophe they’ve ensnared themselves, and the American people, into this report doesn’t even venture an opinion on—but it does conclude by noting that the chaos enveloping America right now includes not only their presidential election, but Attorney General Loretta Lynch stunningly pleading the 5th Amendment in a letter to the US Congress this week over the payment of $1 billion in cash to Iran, and a terrifying new US Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure set to go into effect on 1 December that will legalize the ability of the US government to hack into computers in any jurisdiction, even in foreign nations.
Leading any ordinary American, one would think, to ask of themselves the same thing Donald Trump has been asking: “Why not vote for me, what the hell do you have to lose?”—after all, with Hillary Clinton having already been caught on tape talking about rigging one election, whose to say she isn’t about to do it again?
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Thu, 27 Oct 2016 15:56 UTC © Brian Snyder / Reuters John Podesta WikiLeaks has released a 20th batch of emails from the account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair. The issues discussed include Bill Clinton's past, Benghazi, the email server scandal and even alien life. The whistleblowing site has promised to release 50,000 messages from Podesta in the lead up to the US presidential election on November 8. A total of 34,197 communications have been released to date. Bill's past Bill Clinton's controversial past was evidently of concern to his wife's campaign team, which discussed how to handle questions on allegations of sexual assault against him. Preparation for what the media might throw at her included the questions: "Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?" and "How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did?" The mail was sent by Ron Klain, a member of Clinton's debate preparation team, on January 12, 2016. Several days previous Paula Jones, one of Bill Clinton's accusers, gave an interview calling Hillary Clinton a"liar" and "two-faced" for trying to discredit her husband's accusers. Let's hope the Democratic party is not suicidal A July 2015 email from Clinton adviser Neera Tanden to Podesta discusses a CNN poll which she guesses will show, "Bernie doing pretty well w Hillary and doing as well against Jeb or close to it." "Can you imagine what Republicans would do with him if he were the nominee?" Podesta replies, referring to Sanders. "Well, let's see what the poll actually says. Let's hope the Democratic party is not suicidal," Tanden says. "Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?" she asks. "And has that person been drawn and quartered?" "Like whole thing is f*cking insane," she adds. Downplaying Benghazi An October 2015 email chain between staffers discusses upcoming paid media ads about Benghazi and Clinton's email scandal. The group debates whether the ads should target Iowa and New Hampshire or be a national buy. "I know the boss wants a national cable buy to reach the inside the beltway types, press and donors," Jennifer Palmieri says. "But press will hate this." Oren Shur replies, "If the objective is purely to undermine the Benghazi hearings, I think these spots will certainly help do that. But if the objective is to connect emails-Benghazi and conflate the two in voters' minds (which consultants feel is an imperative here), I'm not sure we know whether we can credibly do that." The campaign appears to have decided to do a national ad on the subject. Small tweaks A March 2016 email chain discussing Clinton's inaccurate statement about the late Nancy Reagan starting a national conversation about AIDS, when she did the opposite, reveals Clinton's unwillingness to admit mistakes, even when she is proven to be wrong. The subject of the meeting is described as "the difference between our contiguous universe nonviolent ETI and the celestials in our own universe." The team go back on forth on Clinton's statement about the issue. "YESTERDAY I MADE A MISTAKE IN SPEAKING ABOUT NANCY REAGAN'S record on HIV AND AIDS," it begins. "I think the chances of her OK-ing this statement with that top are slim," Megan Rooney says. "Here is a revised draft of a statement. It does include the words 'I made a mistake' in the first line," Rooney says. "We need a strategy for getting her to approve this. I don't know if that means someone who is traveling with her (Maya?) making the case... or something else." A later draft was then sent, changing it to, "I said something inaccurate when speaking about the Reagan's' record on HIV and AIDS." "The Secretary approved the statement, with small tweaks," Rooney says. Extraterrestrial disclosure Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, known for his correspondence with Podesta regarding extraterrestrials, emails Podesta regarding the "Phoenix Lights" incident in 1997, in which thousands of people reported sightings of hovering lights in the sky. Mitchell "was on the phone just as they were happening over Phoenix with an eyewitness describing on March 13, 1997. This incentives about disclosure, while other reports like Roswell disincentives," according to the mail from April 2015. The subject of extraterrestrial disclosure is "now more important than ever" according to another mail sent on Mitchell's behalf a month later. "It is also imperative that after your talk with Edgar, he then speak directly with President Obama via Skype for historical purposes, about the same issue, while the President is still in office," Podesta is told. | 0 |
EXCLUSIVE! Russia make major UFO DISCLOSURE: ETs are REAL! # alina_dragomir 0
Various UFO conspiracy ideas have flourished on the internet. UFO conspiracy theories argue that evidence of unidentified flying objects and extraterrestrial visitors is being suppressed by various governments, and politicians in every country, most notably the officials of Washington DC.
In Soviet times, the Ministry of Defense was working on a secret project aimed at creating a superhuman with paranormal abilities. Under this project, a group of scientists managed to get in touch with a foreign(read alien) civilization. The head of this top-secret project shared some details with reporters for the first time.
“Along with the briefcase with nuclear codes, the president of the country is given a special ‘top secret’ folder. This folder in its entirety contains information about aliens who visited our planet,”
Along with this, you are given a report of the absolutely secret special service that exercises control over aliens on the territory of our country.
"I will not tell you how many of them are among us because it may cause panic,” Said Anatolyevich Medvedev.
The important documents released a couple of years ago by Wikileaks, offered hints about aliens and extraterrestrial presence – Is it coincidental that recently, NASA, who have for along time been accused of hiding alien life, have accepted that we are not alone in the universe. Tags | 0 |
Democrat pollster Doug Schoen, who advised President Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign and worked on Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid, has withdrawn his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for the presidency following the renewal of the FBI investigation into Clinton and her her top aide Huma Abedin. Schoen said he fears a constitutional crisis should Clinton be elected and sworn into office while under investigation
Schoen made the announcement on the Fox News Channel Sunday night where he is a contributor. Video of the announcement was posted to Twitter.
(Transcribed by Kristinn Taylor.)
Shoen, “â€I’ve been a supporter of Secretary Clinton.â€
Host Harris Faulkner, “We all know, yeah!â€
Schoen, “You do know. But, and the but is a big deal, at least to me. Given that this investigation is gonna go on for many months after the election.â€
Faulkner, “No matter who wins.â€
Schoen, “No matter who wins. But if the secretary of State (Clinton) wins we will have a president under criminal investigation with Huma Abedin under investigation, the secretary of State–the president-elect–should she win under investigation. Harris, under these circumstances I am actively reassessing my support. I’m not a Trump‌â€
Faulkner, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You’re not gonna vote for Hillary Clinton?â€
Schoen, “Harris, I’m deeply concerned that we will have a constitutional crisis if she’s elected. I want to learn more this week see what we see. But as of today I am not a supporter of the secretary of State for the next‌â€
Faulkner, speaks over Schoen, “How long have you known the Clintons, sir?â€
Schoen, “I’ve known the Clintons since 1994.â€
Faulkner, “Wow.â€
Schoen was on a panel with fellow Democrat pollster Pat Caddell and former Republican Congressman John LeBoutillier.
Schoen’s bio reads in part:
Douglas E. Schoen has been one of the most influential Democratic campaign consultants for over thirty years. A founding partner and principle strategist for Penn, Schoen & Berland, he is widely recognized as one of the co-inventors of overnight polling.
Schoen was named Pollster of the Year in 1996 by the American Association of Political Consultants for his contributions to the President Bill Clinton reelection campaign.
His political clients include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Indiana Governor Evan Bayh, and his corporate clients include AOL Time Warner, Procter & Gamble and AT&T. Internationally, he has worked for the heads of states of over 15 countries, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and three Israeli Prime Ministers…â€
Source
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The head of the NCAAP has come out in stark opposition to President Donald J. Trump’s coming investigation into voter fraud, claiming it is “racist. ”[In an interview on CNN, Cornell William Brooks, president and CEO of the NAACP, insisted that his organization would “resist” the president’s investigation into fraud during the 2016 election. “The President has claimed millions of fraudulent ballots were cast. The only place you will find millions of fraudulent ballots are right beside that fake birth certificate for Barack Obama, inside the imagination of President Trump. They don’t exist,” Brooks said on Thursday. Instead of vote fraud, Brooks insisted that there was “unrelenting voter suppression” of the minority vote in 2016. “We have seen our rights denied as Americans. Particularly seniors, Latinos and younger people,” Brooks exclaimed. “So, if the President insists upon conducting an investigation into voter fraud as a pretext for voter suppression, the NAACP, along with millions of Americans of every human heritage, will resist. We will push back. ” Brooks recently jumped to his Twitter account to attack the President’s investigation, calling it a figment of Trump’s imagination. 1) Only place you’ll find millions of fraudulent ballots are beside B. Obama’s fake birth certificate — inside #POTUS ’s imagination. @NAACP pic. twitter. — Cornell Wm. Brooks (@CornellWBrooks) January 26, 2017, In a formal statement, Brooks called vote fraud a “myth” and insisted that voter suppression is a fact. He wrote: Today, President Donald Trump called for the federal government to spend resources investigating alleged “voter fraud” in the 2016 elections. Unable to accept the fact that he lost the popular vote by some 2. 8 million votes, President Trump has repeated his naked and reckless claim that 3 to 5 million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election by “illegal immigrants. ” However, this notion of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election, or any other American election cycle for that matter, is false and dangerous. On CNN Brooks added that he would suggest the president change the direction of his investigation or they will have to resist it. “If the President goes down this road, we must resist, and we must resist massively,” Brooks claimed. The claims Brooks made fly in the face of the evidence, according to longtime vote fraud investigator John Fund. In a piece published by Fox News, Fund and the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky say that Trump’s investigation is a long overdue look at the problem of vote fraud in the U. S. Fund and von Spakovsky reveal that the Obama administration spent its entire eight years trying to quash investigations into vote fraud and also refused to allow the states to fix their voter rolls to eliminate dead voters and voters registered in multiple jurisdictions. The authors further point out that our electoral system is currently set up entirely on the honor system, expecting that all voters will be telling the truth by affirming they are both registered and will only vote once. Fund also notes that voter ID cards are perfectly acceptable and that, “All industrialized democracies … require voters to prove their identity before voting. ” “Our honor system for voting doesn’t work,” Fund concluded. “We don’t know how big of a problem voter fraud really is because no systematic effort has ever been made to investigate it. But the public doesn’t think it’s as insignificant as the media insists. ” Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
By Covert Geopolitics
We have been very, very suspicious of Donald Trump since he began his political run.
Many believed he was an outsider who was our “only hope” to tame the US federal government beast. But it has become very clear he is not.
First, Wikileaks showed that Killary herself actually approved Trump to be her competitor. According to an email sent from an assistant at the Clinton campaign, Hillary was aware that Trump was going to run before the political process was fully underway.
Clinton advised the mainstream media to push his legitimacy as a “pied piper” candidate because she realized, after looking at the poll numbers, that she wouldn’t stand a chance at winning the presidency against any of the establishment republicans without making them “pied pipers” – it just so happened that Donald was the easiest to play the role considering his long history of friendship with the Clintons.
In addition, the mainstream media was more than complicit in creating a narrative that the 2016 presidential elections were about Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump from the get go.
But, barely reported in the media, was that after the 3rd presidential debate, Clinton and Trump went out for a night on the town together… and where they went is of great interest.
They went to an annual Jesuit function which is usually full of New World Order types.
THE JESUITS One of the more interesting things that occurred right at the end of the Jubilee year in early October, was that the Jesuits installed a new Superior General, with the date to commence being actually at midnight on the end of Jubilee.
We found this interesting because there is plenty of evidence that the Jesuits are at least one major arm of what you can call the illuminati.
In fact, the Jesuits were founded in Spain by what various reports call “crypto Jews” – those who are Jewish but pretending to be Catholic. Certainly at that time in Spain it was safer not to be a Jew.
Even Wikipedia, which wouldn’t recognize a conspiracy if it were directly presented by its participants has this to say about the Jesuits:
… In the first 30 years of the existence of the Society of Jesus there were many Jesuit conversos (Catholic-convert Jews) including the second Father General Diego Lainez … The original founder Ignatius … said that he, “would take it as a special grace from our Lord to come from Jewish lineage.”
At the beginning of the Al Smith dinner party after Cardinal Dolan was introduced, a joke was even made by a speaker that “everyone in attendance is doing their part in supporting their charitable efforts and that it couldn’t be done without the support of many of the other devoted “Catholics” on stage like Henry Kissinger, Howard Rubenstein, and Mort Zuckerman” – all of whom are obviously Jewish so this remark was naturally met with a lot of laughter…
In fact, an extraordinary amount of controversy swirls around Jesuits. They are said to constitute the “Black Church” and thus adhere to the same Satanic religion as the world’s elite bankers supposedly hold.
The leader of the Jesuit order is commonly recognized in conspiratorial circles as the “Black Pope” whose signature staff is a crooked cross. Historically, the Jesuit Order has been seen as one that shirks no crime in expanding the power of the Church.
Lest this sound entirely outrageous, one must note that the Jesuits are, for instance, the inventors of concentration camps, which they established in Paraguay in order to incarcerate and then torture the native indians of the area.
But the litany of attributed Jesuit evil is even darker than that according to those who believe in the order’s continued malicious pursuit. The supposed founder of the Bavarian-based Illuminati, Adam Weishaupt, was a Jesuit.
In fact, the order is reputed to have been deeply involved in the Illuminati’s initial expansion, and chances are it is still deeply involved.
One more thing that highlights the evil of the Jesuits is their extreme oath of induction which all superiors must take in order to be elevated to the higher rungs of the organization. This is taken from the book Subterranean Rome by Carlos Didier, translated from the French, and published in New York in 1843 and reads in part,
“…promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants’ heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus…”
One of the most poignant quotes regarding the malevolence of the Jesuits comes from Marquis de LaFayette 1757-1834; who was a French statesman and general who served in the American Continental Army under the command of General George Washington during the American Revolutionary War.
His quote is as follows:
“It is my opinion that if the liberties of this country – the United States of America – are destroyed, it will be by the subtlety of the Roman Catholic Jesuit priests, for they are the most crafty, dangerous enemies to civil and religious liberty. They have instigated MOST of the wars of Europe.”
THE BIG BASH When evaluating Jesuit behavior and influence, please keep in mind that both Donald Trump and Hillary’s VP, Tim Kaine, are Jesuit educated. And it should be of GREAT interest, therefore, that practically on the eve of the US election, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton partied the night away at a Jesuit function that included such prominent Jesuit-trained attendees as Henry Kissinger.
Not only did the two not look like sworn enemies… they looked like two star crossed lovers going to their first prom.
We have long held to our stance that Killary will be the next President of the US. The amount of vote rigging, murders and shenanigans to even get her to where she is so far has been tremendous… and it won’t stop.
That said, if by some fluke, and the Diebold machines malfunction or people in the US wake up slightly and Donald Trump gets elected… it is pretty clear they are on the same team and, as we’ve said previously, nothing major will change.
So, if you were hoping that this election could change things in the US… get over that hope right now. It might change things, but only for the much, much worse.
This charade is being played right in front of everyone’s eyes and most do not understand what is happening or why jokes like the “Catholic” joke is actually funny to these elite people.
They are laughing at the peasants’ stupidity and lack of understanding, not because the men mentioned are Jews… anyone with half a brain knows that.
… The groundwork for global governance has been laid, don’t let them blindside you as they attempt to carry out their nefarious plot. Donald Trump even stated at the dinner, “We’ve got to come together, not only as a nation, but as a world community.”
https://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2016/10/25/rigged-election-hillary-trump-caught-partying-like-bffs-kissinger-jesuit-gala.html+https://youtu.be/rP45LHZ_kIM
Above image – the chief staff of EU paying homage to their emperor, the Jesuit pope.
These people are called Magis because they can do magic, and the basic tenet why these Magicians are so very successful is that most people want to be fooled.
***
Aside from the fiat monetary scam and bloodsoaked petrodollar, another significant source of funds for the Nazionist Khazarian Mafia is the “healthcare” industry which registered a whopping $3.09 trillion in 2014 , and is projected to soar to $3.57 trillion in 2017, in the US alone. We believe that this is just a conservative figure.
We can all help the revolution by avoiding all Khazarian pharmaceutical drugs, defeat any viral attack and scaremongering, like the Zika virus, easily by knowing how to build our own comprehensive antiviral system. Find more about how we can kill three birds with one stone, right here .
Source: Covert Geopolitics
Related: The Jesuits: Priesthood of Absolute Evil The Rothschild’s Royal Papal Knights Are Jesuit Controlled The Jesuits Have Chosen Their New Black Pope Ultra-secret Plot Behind Hillary Exposed: Yes, The Jesuits Will Be The Power Behind The Throne The Revolutionary War: How America Became A Jesuit Enclave Revisionist History; The Jesuits Founded America! As Told By The Victors Illuminati, Jesuits, Obama & Government Connections The Jesuits: Historians Expose Conspiracy to Rule the World Obama’s Jesuit Connections Surface Former Jesuit Priest Exposes How the Vatican Created Islam CERN Watch: Jesuit Connection Confirmed! David Icke on the Jesuit Order — Exposing the Elite The Diabolical History of The Society of Jesus (aka The Jesuits) Knight of Malta: Controlled by the Diabolical Society of Jesus (aka Jesuits) | 0 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Contending that her “life isn’t at risk at all,” military officials in Afghanistan have asked that the United States reject the asylum case of Capt. Niloofar Rahmani, the first female pilot in the Afghan Air Force. On Thursday, Captain Rahmani revealed that she had applied for asylum this summer, saying she felt unsafe in Afghanistan, where she and her family have received death threats. For the last 15 months, she has been training at air bases in Arkansas, Florida and Texas. Captain Rahmani said that her Afghan male colleagues in the air force treated her with contempt and that she felt at risk. “Things are not changing” for the better in Afghanistan, Captain Rahmani said in an interview on Friday. “Things are getting worse and worse. ” Gen. Mohammad Radmanish, a Defense Ministry spokesman, disputed her claims of being in danger. “I am sure she lied by saying she was threatened, just to win the asylum case,” General Radmanish said on Sunday. “It is baseless that she claimed her life was at risk while serving in the Afghan Air Force. ” “Since Captain Rahmani’s claim is new, we expect her to change her mind and return to her own country and continue serving as a pilot,” the general said. “We request from our American friends and government to reject her asylum case and send her back, because knowing the truth, Captain Rahmani’s life isn’t at risk at all. ” The American government has celebrated Captain Rahmani as an example of its success in advancing women’s rights in Afghanistan. In 2015 the State Department honored her with its annual Women of Courage award, and Michelle Obama praised her courage. In Afghanistan, few supported her decision, and there were worries that her asylum request would affect the process of training Afghan pilots outside the country. “Captain Rahmani’s claim that she was harassed in the workplace is not true, because in the air force all the pilots and staff are and highly trained people,” said Col. Ayan Khan, a helicopter pilot in the Afghan Air Force. “How can they harass their female colleague who serves along them?” | 1 |
Posted by Madeline | Oct 29, 2016 | 2016 , Daily Blog | 0 | Thanks Barbora!
First Contact Film!
ABOUT FILM
FIRST CONTACT is a unique documentary, narrated by Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe winning actor JAMES WOODS, that tells the true story of Darryl Anka’s UFO encounters that led him to channel an extraterrestrial being known as BASHAR, who delivers messages to prepare Earth for contact with another civilization.
The film not only explores the potential positive impact of ET contact on our society, but also demystifies channeling, the medium through which Darryl is able to communicate with the inter-dimensional being.
FIRST CONTACT will not only astound viewers with starting eyewitness accounts and scientific evidence, but the film also explores many of the questions we’ve been asking for millennia: Why are we here? What’s the nature of existence? Where are we headed?
Bashar answers these questions via channeling and, accompanied by state-of- the-art graphics, explains how the universe works and how each person creates the reality they experience.
Over the past three decades, thousands of individuals around the globe have listened to Bashar’s messages and have had the opportunity to apply these principles in their lives and create the reality that they desire.
FIRST CONTACT proposes that we are not alone and that Truth is Stranger Than Fiction. Share: Rate: | 0 |
in: Multimedia , Politics I know the debate was a couple of weeks ago, but I just came across this video that certainly makes a good case for the fact that someone may have been feeding her answers, statistics, and information. If she can’t even ad lib a televised debate against Donald Trump, how are negotiations with foreign powers going to go when someone takes away her tablet or other telepromptish device? Not only did Trump win the last debate , he won it without reading the answers and information that someone else was feeding him. Really, with Hillary Clinton, is there any type of dishonesty that seems too far-fetched? See for yourself and let me know in the comments what you think. Article first posted at DaisyLuther.com Submit your review | 0 |
Friend from university is an arse now 31-10-16 A MAN who bumped into an old university friend has discovered that he is now a total dickhead. Julian Cook lost contact with former housemate Martin Bishop for over eight years ago, during which time Bishop has become a money-obsessed macho twat who thinks he is the bollocks. Office worker Cook said: “Instead of talking about old times he kept asking me what sort of car I have. “Then he blathered on about ‘taking home serious Ks’ from ‘folio development resales’, assuming I knew what that meant because otherwise I would not be a proper man. “The worst bit was when he told me about some fringe political group he’s into called Libertarian England. No, actually it was when he said ‘pussy alert’ when a woman walked past. “He probably just works and socialises with dipshits, but I wouldn’t rule out one of those injuries that turns you into a psychopath. Maybe he fell off a raft at a team-building weekend and hit his head on the riverbed. “We parted on friendly terms but now he wants me to join his ‘weights oriented gym’ and go to a lapdancing club, which is odd because he used to be into Star Trek Generations .”
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Region: Asian-Pacific region The Free Trade Zone Agreement between the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) came into effect on October 5, 2016. It was signed by the heads of the governments of the SRV and all the EAEU Member States – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Russia in May 2015, but it could only come into effect after its ratification by the Parliaments of the countries listed above. The EAEU has been trading actively with Vietnam for many years. Over the period from 2010 to 2014, the trade volume increased by more than 60%, exceeding $4 billion. The establishment of the free trade zone is a logical step in this cooperation. According to the Eurasian Commission’s forecasts, it may lead to more than a twofold growth in trade turnover by 2020, and Russia will enjoy no less than 80% thereof. The total population of the EAEU is 183 million people and the total GDP exceeds $2 trillion. Privileged access to such an extensive market is surely a boon to Vietnam’s economy. The EAEU also stands to make gains: SRV’s population exceeds 95 million people and its GDP amounts to $192 billion. According to data gathered in recent years, the country’s economy is rapidly developing. Thus, the Free Trade Zone Agreement is advantageous for both parties. According to the document, most goods from both the SRV and the EAEU are subject to complete or partial exemption from import duty for the next ten years. This should lead to a reduction in their cost and rapid trade development. In addition, the Agreement also focuses on intellectual property protection, cooperation in e-commerce and in public procurement. It also covers competition protection. Alongside imports and exports, the Free Trade Zone Agreement will facilitate mutual investment. Vietnam’s leadership sees a lot of potential in the trade partnership with both the EAEU and Russia in particular. According to data as of 2016, Russian-Vietnamese trade turnover amounted to $3.7 billion. Owing to the establishment of Free Trade Zone, it is expected to exceed $10 billion by 2020. Alongside the provisions that are common to all the Members States, the Free Trade Zone Agreement primarily included sections related only to the SRV and Russia. They specify additional terms and conditions, which facilitate trade, investment, and the movement of individuals between the two countries. After the Agreement was signed, the Russian-Vietnamese “Intergovernmental Protocol on supporting motor vehicle production in the territory of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” came into effect. This document was signed in March 2016 by Vietnam’s Minister of Industry and Trade Vũ Huy Hoàng during a visit to Russia. D. Manturov, the Russian Minister of Industry and Trade, signed the Protocol on behalf of Russia. According to the document, joint ventures will be established in the SRV between Vietnamese firms and Russian companies such as the GAZ Group, KamAZ, Sollers, which will produce various types of automotive vehicles. Concluding the Free Trade Zone Agreement with Vietnam is beneficial to the EAEU and Russia in particular. However, its significance is greater than simply gaining a good trade partner. It may be posited that the Russian economy has reached a new level: Russia has not had such agreements with countries outside the former Soviet Union before. Furthermore, this is the beginning of the large-scale promotion of the EAEU and Russia in the Asia-Pacific Region. Since the EAEU’s inception in 2015, it has been trying to establish trade relations with countries in the Asia-Pacific Region. It is well-known that Vietnam is an important member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which unites a number of states in the Asia-Pacific Region. It is quite probable that the free trade zone with Vietnam is a step towards establishing free trade zone will all other Member States of the ASEAN. Many ASEAN Members are favourably disposed towards this idea. Negotiations are being held with Indonesia, the Kingdom of Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Furthermore, the possibility of establishing free trade zones with non-ASEAN states in the Asia-Pacific Region, such as India, China, and New Zealand is under consideration. Thus, it can be said that the EAEU’s position in the Asia-Pacific Region is gradually strengthening. This was also confirmed by Mongolia’s statement in November 2016 on its desire to join the EAEU. At first glance, it may seem that the EAEU’s presence in the Asia-Pacific Region will lead to the competition with China, now one of the major players in the region amid the weakening position of the USA. In fact, the growing influence of the EAEU is more profitable for China. It is well known that the opposition between China and the USA currently dominates the Asia-Pacific Region. America’s economic and political influence in the region has weakened considerably in recent years, but it is still great. America is trying to maintain its power as much as it can and win over as many countries as possible. For example, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was signed in February 2016. The TPP includes Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the USA, and Vietnam. All these states are united by a free trade zone and a number of common rules. It is undoubtedly difficult to compete with such a union as about 30% of global trade is undertaken by TPP Member States. Moreover, negotiations are under way regarding the creation of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). The USA hopes to attract the European Union’s involvement. The probability that these negotiations will be successful is small: the project is too disadvantageous for Europe. However, if this happens, major and rich unions may appear on both sides of Eurasia, which will account for about 80% of the global trade. What’s more, the USA will control each of them. Therefore, the TPP and T-TIP member states may considerably reduce the trade volume with the rest of the world, including the People’s Republic of China, which is currently the largest trade partner for most of them. In addition, one of China’s major projects, which it is laying high hopes – the New Silk Road – will be exposed to risk. It should connect Europe and Asia and become a free trade zone itself in the future. This scenario is surely unacceptable for both China and many other countries in Eurasia and the Asia-Pacific Region. In order to successfully compete with the TPP and T-TIP, the EAEU states and the states of the Asia-Pacific Region should put great effort into mutual integration. This integration would allow Russia, China, India, ASEAN and Central Asia to be more confident in the face of competition. However, many states that do not wish to cooperate with the USA have fears about a powerful and expansive China. This is an obstacle to regional unification. Perhaps, the emergence of a third power, such as the EAEU, will be a solution to the situation and will help establish a successful partnership. Dmitry Bokarev, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “ New Eastern Outlook. ”
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President Trump’s old office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan sits unoccupied now, unofficial storage space for the gathering trove of memorabilia that his two oldest sons say they hope will eventually be turned over to their father’s presidential library. But just one flight down, in Eric and Donald Trump Jr. ’s cramped offices, their father is — in the seven copies of a recent issue of Golf Digest with his photo and the headline “ ” on the cover stacked on Eric’s desk in his visage looping endlessly on CNN (yes, they watch CNN) in the cardboard cutout of the president watching from behind a stash of blueprints in the corner. This is the conundrum facing the two brothers as they assume control of the empire their father built: How do they move forward, and navigate the ethical shoals, at a business predicated entirely on the brand of the man they have vowed to distance themselves from? “His DNA will always be in the company in a big way,” Eric said, during nearly five hours of interviews over two days last week at Trump Tower. “His DNA built the company. His DNA also built us. We’re extensions of him in so many ways. ” Both he and Don Jr. insist that they do not need their father’s input to run the company — the apprentices have become the boss. And even as questions remain about potential conflicts of interest, they say, unapologetically, that they plan to forge ahead with expanding the Trump Organization’s footprint, both in the United States and abroad. On Saturday, in fact, they will cut ribbon at their company’s newest branded property, billed as a “magnificent golf course” in the booming United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, before hundreds of Emirati power brokers. A week later they will head to Vancouver, British Columbia, for another opening celebration, of the latest Trump International Hotel and Tower, one of a dozen major international projects still underway, from the Dominican Republic to India. Back home in the United States, they are planning to open a new boutique hotel chain, Scion, in perhaps 30 cities. With the aggressive push forward, though, comes the persistent thrum of ethical qualm. Just last week, news that Eric had traveled to the Dominican Republic to restart a stalled project there prompted controversy, given the Trump Organization’s pledge of no new overseas deals. The Washington Post reported that when Eric visited Uruguay on business in January, the trip cost taxpayers nearly $100, 000 in hotel bills for the required Secret Service agents and for embassy staff members. Also echoing through the office at Trump Tower was the over the decision by Nordstrom and several other retailers to stop selling their sister Ivanka’s clothing line. Don Jr. called that “disgusting,” and both brothers said their father was right to take Nordstrom and other retailers to task publicly in Ivanka’s defense. “He’s Papa Bear,” Eric said. Despite pressure to do so, President Trump has not sold any of his assets, which include a stake in a office buildings, more than a dozen golf courses and at least 15 hotels that the company owns or manages. Instead, he has signed over control of operations of his privately held company to the two sons and Allen Weisselberg, a trusted lieutenant at the Trump Organization, with an agreement not to discuss company business. The arrangement and the president’s decision to not release his taxes have brought widespread criticism from liberal groups and even the federal government’s top ethics watchdog, Walter M. Shaub Jr. the director of the Office of Government Ethics. President Trump has continued to frequent his commercial properties, including over the weekend in Florida, bringing them global media attention and potential new customers. But the brothers say they are convinced that they and their father have taken sufficient steps to create a management structure that will allow them to avoid creating the kind of appearance of conflict of interest that plagued Hillary Clinton as secretary of state while her husband continued to operate the Clinton Foundation. The measures they have taken, they say, have included explicit instructions to their domestic and international business partners not to reach out to anyone in the United States government for help. The brothers’ expressions tightened and their voices rose when they were asked, in separate interviews, about suggestions that their father was using the presidency as a way to enhance the family’s profits. “Who in their right mind would try to enrich themselves by spending a fortune to run against 17 seasoned politicians on the Republican side, to then go up against the Clinton machine, Wall Street, Hollywood, P. C. culture?” Don Jr. asked. “To use that as the way to enrich yourself is laughable. ” The family, he added, would face heat whatever it did. If the Trump Organization sold its assets, there would be allegations of impropriety, as foreign investors would most likely be involved. If it liquidated and put the cash into the bank, he said, his father would be accused of artificially inflating interest rates for personal gain. For critics, though, particularly Democrats in Congress, the continuation of the global operations of the Trump Organization — even if President Trump is not directly involved — is fraught with problems, with even some Republican observers questioning whether the brothers can steer clear of trouble, regardless of their intentions. Even with no new foreign deals, the company is in a position to get tax breaks and other business inducements from state and local officials. While such incentives are hardly unusual for growing businesses, with this family business they will unavoidably raise questions of whether different players involved might be seeking special White House favors. “People are going to offer them sweetheart deals,” said Peter Schweizer, the conservative author whose book “Clinton Cash” argued, among other things, that Mrs. Clinton had used her position as secretary of state to favor donors to the foundation. “It is just the way it works, as it comes down to the fact that people want access to national leaders in the country, and unfortunately in the past, be it Billy Carter, Neil Bush or Roger Clinton, relatives become vehicles to accomplishing that,” Mr. Schweizer added, referring to relatives in past administrations who drew scrutiny because of their business activities. The two oldest brothers have worked in various roles at the Trump Organization for much of their adult lives, but without their father’s daily presence — and with the departure of Ivanka from the company offices — their responsibilities have grown. Eric Trump, 33, oversees construction and says he, not his father, is now the named officer on hundreds of Trump companies. Don Jr. 39, is in charge of commercial leasing, as well as many of the remaining companies. And while they share a certain look, their personalities are distinct. Don Jr. the Trump child with the clearest memory of the divorce that split up his family, is the most publicly confident, and the most politically conservative. Eric appears more cautious, more worried about how what he says will be perceived. Yet neither is particularly shy. “There has never been a Trump that is introverted,” Eric said, laughing. What is it like — after a lifetime as the sons of Donald Trump, and now business executives in their own right, and even in a reality television show — to be the sons of the president of the United States? “It’s bigger, it’s bigger,” Eric said, struggling for the right word, then turning to a superlative, a habit inherited from his father. “This is really the biggest thing in the world. ” For all the talk of its global reach, the Trump Organization still has a family feel to it. The small offices assigned to Eric, Ivanka and Don Jr. are lined up in a row, with Ivanka’s, like her father’s, sitting unused since she left the company and moved to Washington with her husband, Jared Kushner, who is serving as a senior White House adviser. During the recent snowstorm in New York — with schools closed for the day — Don Jr. who has five children, had his daughter in the office, sharing breakfast sent up from a restaurant downstairs. Trump Tower, by and large, seems back to normal since the building’s most famous resident moved to Washington, though Secret Service agents are still stationed in the Trump Organization lobby and elsewhere. Just days before his inauguration in January, Mr. Trump announced plans to resign from hundreds of entities he controls and place his assets in a trust. The move drew sharp criticism from ethics lawyers, who said the move was window dressing because Mr. Trump, as sole beneficiary of the trust, still owns the assets, benefits financially from any money they might make and will quite likely get updates, Eric said, roughly every quarter on the financial health of the company. Still, President Trump assigned control of the trust to Don Jr. and Mr. Weisselberg, with Eric as the sole member of what he described as an advisory council. The three men have to vote unanimously, Eric said, to make decisions regarding new deals and other major business decisions. To Don Jr. everything the company does these days seems to breed controversy. Much of it he says is unwarranted. For instance, people have questioned why corporate records in Delaware do not show that the president has resigned from his companies registered there. Eric says that he has, but that it can take more than a year for records there to be updated. And the brothers expressed irritation that their presence at their father’s announcement of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court vacancy provoked media reports that they were not honoring the agreement to stay clear of White House matters. In fact, they said, they were in Washington to visit the new Trump hotel in the Old Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue and stopped by to say hello to their father and share in the historic moment. Don Jr. said he knew his father was busy, and had called him only once since his inauguration. Eric said he talked to his father “a few” times a week. But he insisted he knew which lines not to cross. “In the next four years, do I ever expect him to say: ‘Hey, how’s Turnberry? How’s the new green? How’s the new 10th tee? ’” Eric said. In a case like this, he said, he would probably say, “Dad, it’s great” and “The property looks awesome. ” He continued: “Am I ever going to say: ‘Listen. Hey, we have a tax issue’? No, no, no. There’s a difference. ” Recently the brothers stripped most of the photographs of their father and even his signature from the Trump Organization’s marketing material. And the new Scion hotel chain, which the company will brand and manage, does not feature the Trump name. Eric said they were hoping to locate Scion, offering a alternative to their Trump International Hotel brand, in large to midsize “trendy” cities like Austin, Tex. Charlotte, N. C. and Nashville. One of the first Scion locations, Eric said, could be Dallas, where the brothers and their executive team are evaluating possible sites. They are in talks with a possible partner, Mukemmel Sarimsakci, a developer based in Texas who had previously considered projects with the Trump Organization in Iraq and Turkey, where he was born. Though the company runs the risk of becoming entangled with foreign partners on projects in the United States, and might have to deal with the suspicion that it got tax breaks and other incentives from local governments because of its ties to the White House, company officials say they decided not to stop domestic expansion because it is creating jobs for Americans. The Trump Organization said it had dropped a host of proposed projects overseas, including Trump Office Buenos Aires in Argentina Trump Towers Rio and Trump Hotel Rio de Janeiro, both in Brazil Trump International Hotel Tower Baku in Azerbaijan Trump Tower Batumi in Georgia and Trump Riverwalk in Pune, India. Other deals still in the conceptual stage — including a possible office building in Dubai and towers in Australia, China, Israel and Vietnam — have also been shelved. “I was the first person to raise my hand and say you should not do certain deals, as I understood the optics, as you can’t build the tallest building in Tel Aviv and try to negotiate peace in the Middle East,” Eric said. He estimated that the company had canceled a billion dollars’ worth of deals — although this estimate could not be confirmed independently. Still, the company will continue to see through the dozen projects that the brothers say were underway before Inauguration Day and so do not qualify as new. They include two resorts in Indonesia Trump Tower Mumbai and a Trump tower in Gurgaon, also in India Trump Tower Punta del Este in Uruguay and a second golf club in Dubai, as well as the Dominican Republic resort, which was started in 2007 but stalled during the financial crisis. “That doesn’t mean the deal doesn’t continue to exist,” Eric said, amid the criticism last week that the project was a “new deal. ” Another Trump property in the ethical spotlight lately is the oceanside estate turned private club in Palm Beach, Fla. that the president is styling as his winter White House. Mr. Trump arrived there again on Friday for a golfing visit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. “There should be no intermingling of White House and business operations,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, who is troubled whether the president hosts the Japanese prime minister for free — at a commercial operation — or charges him, which would mean a foreign government official is paying Mr. Trump’s family. “There should be no intermingling of his private moneys with public affairs. ” Eric dismissed the questions as meaningless, comparing to the Crawford, Tex. ranch of former President George W. Bush. He said his father was without peer when it came to forging friendships on the golf course, and his eyes grew wide as he talked about the family resort’s potentially becoming a place where world alliances are struck. To the Trump family, that mixing of business and officialdom — at least when it comes to their father’s visits — is just fine. “If he could do that with Putin, if he could do that with some of these horrible actors around the world who only want to compromise us as a country, and he can make them friends and they can have trust in one another, he just did something that not many presidents have been able to do,” Eric said. | 1 |
THIS Is Why Most Analysts’ Gold & Silver Price Forecasts Are Wrong Posted on Home » Silver » Silver News » THIS Is Why Most Analysts’ Gold & Silver Price Forecasts Are Wrong
What Has Been The Real Driver Of The Gold & Silver Price?
From SRSRocco :
Precious metals investors are being misled by most analysts’ price forecasts because they do not understand the critical underlying fundamental value mechanism. Furthermore, there seems to be a great deal of animosity from the short-term trading analysts who view many in the precious metals community as pandering hype and conspiracies.
One of these analysts is Avi Gilburt of the Elliottwavetrader site. He criticizes the “Gold bugs” in a few of his more recent articles, Who Do You Allow Yourself To Be Manipulated , Did Your Mother Write An Article On Gold , and Damn Manipulators .
Feel free to check out these articles as Avi Gilburt condemns those precious metals analysts who continue to regurgitate the “manipulation” theme over and over. On the other hand, Avi truly believes the value of the metals, and other commodities are based upon looking at the “tea leaves” or studying “goat entrails” as it pertains to the Elliott Wave theory .
Most certainly, he will defend the Elliott Wave theory to the death. While I admire that sort of conviction, Avi Gilburt is just as guilty in his forecasting of the “value” of gold and silver just as much as the precious metals community that he constantly criticizes.
That being said, there is a difference between the two camps, in my opinion. While I am frustrated with the precious metals community in their lack of understanding of the true value of gold and silver, the short-term trading analysts such as Avi Gilburt and Dan Norcini are quite vicious in their critiques.
This is also true for CPM Group’s Jeff Christian. I heard from a source that when Jeff Christian was a part of a precious metals round table, when the question was posed to the group to the number of individuals who believed the metals were being manipulated, he blurted out, “Anyone in this group that follows my work, YOU BETTER NOT RAISE YOUR HAND.” Now, that isn’t the exact remark… but close enough.
The subject of precious metals manipulation is quite complex, so I’d rather not get into it in this article. However, I will show where the precious metals community and the short-term trading analysts are incorrect in their approach for forecasting the value of gold and silver. What Has Been The Real Driver Of The Gold & Silver Price
Even though I have discussed this in prior articles, new information confirms my analysis. While most economists, traders and the those in the precious metals community believe that “Supply & Demand” have been the leading factor in determining the value of gold or silver , it’s not, rather it has always been the “ENERGY FACTOR.”
Here is an updated chart showing the relationship between the price of silver and oil since 1900:
As you can see, the price of silver and oil remained flat (on the chart) until 1971. Actually, the price of oil and silver stayed below $2.00 (except for a few years) from 1900-1970. When President Nixon dropped the Gold-Dollar peg in 1971, this significantly changed the value of the precious metals and oil.
Even though the movement of the oil and silver price are not exactly related, we can definitely see a high degree of correlation. Thus, as the price of oil skyrocketed in the 1970’s, so did the price of silver. Moreover, the same thing took place in 2000-2016.
Does Avi Gilburt have a chart showing this to his members? I doubt it. Of course, the short-term price movements of silver and oil are not as precise as the longer term valuations shown in the chart above, but we can clearly see that the forces of “Supply & Demand” are less of factor than the changing value of oil.
This is also true for gold. This chart shows the price of gold versus oil since 1940:
Again, we can clearly see that the price of gold and oil remained flat-lined until 1971. As the oil price shot up in the 1970’s, so did the gold price. When the oil price declined and stayed low in the 1980’s and 90’s, so did the value of gold. However, as the price of oil surged to $112 in 2012 from $20 in 1999, so did the value of gold. Gold jumped from $279 in 2000 to $1669 in 2012.
There’s no coincidence that the value of oil and gold jumped 500+% from 2000-2012. While the silver price jumped seven times from $4.95 in 2000, to $35 in 2012, its current price is 3.5 times higher than 2000 and gold is 4.5 times higher.
Which means, there are more factors in determining the gold and silver price than just the metals relationship with the oil price. That being said, supply and demand factors play a “ROLE” in impacting the price of gold and silver… BUT ONLY AS A MINOR PART compared to the overriding oil price dynamics.
What I am saying here is this… the value of gold and silver has been, and will continue to be tied to the oil price dynamics, however, supply and demand factors are contributor… BUT TO A MUCH LESSER DEGREE. Gold & Silver Bullion Are Beginning To Disconnect To The Value Of Oil
Something interesting has happened recently in the price movement of gold and silver… they seem to be now disconnecting from the value of oil. If we take a look at the two gold and silver charts below, we can see that as the price of oil has remained flat in 2015-2016, the gold and silver price has turned higher, especially the gold price:
While the gold price has jumped up higher than the silver price (in relative terms), they are both moving up as the oil price remains flat. To understand why this is happening, I have to explain two KEY FUNCTIONS; Market Sentiment The Coming Oil Price Crash
Short-term trading analysts suggest that “Market Sentiment” plays a role in determining the price of a commodity, stock or bond. While I would agree with them to a small degree, they are correct for the wrong reason.
Let me explain this as it pertains to the value of gold and silver. At the beginning of the year, the stock market crashed 2,000 points quickly, so investors moved into gold and silver in a big way, especially the institutional investors who bought the Gold ETFs. So, the “Knee-Jerk” reaction by most traders and investors is that market sentiment turned around and the movement of funds into gold and silver pushed up their price.
Again, I agree with that on principle, but for a very different reason. “Market Sentiment”, as it is used as a tool for determining the price of gold and silver, is only working to the extent that it is “WAKING UP INVESTORS TO THE TRUE FUNDAMENTAL VALUE”, but just for a brief period of time.
You have to think of precious metals market sentiment similar to when a spouse believes their partner might be having an affair. When something very suspicions happens, the spouse gets very angry and the partner tries to calm them down by giving a reason (excuse) why is not true. So, in a few days, the spouse believes the partner and everything calms down.
This type of “UP & DOWN” sentiment continues in the relationship causing a great deal of volatility in the marriage. However, one day, the spouse finally catches the partner in the act and the TRUTH finally comes out. Then there is no more lies, deceit, excuses or manipulation of the facts to keep the spouse believing that everything is fine. The spouse has now taken the RED PILL, so to speak, and cannot unlearn what they now know.
This is a perfect example of what is taking place as it pertains to “MARKET SENTIMENT” in the precious metals market. When investors start to get fearful or extremely worried about the Stock & Bond markets, they rush into the precious metals… for a brief period of time.
When the Fed and Central Banks pump Trillions of Dollars of liquidity into the financial system, they bring calm back into the markets easing investors fear and worry. Thus, gold and silver demand declines.
Unfortunately, this is a game that is hiding the truth. So, when investors finally realize the Stock and Bond Market are the biggest Ponzi Schemes in history, the MAD RUSH into the metals will begin.
Now, the reason the Stock and Bond Market are nothing more than HOT AIR and the typical Ponzi Scheme, can be seen in this chart by Louis Arnoux:
The value of U.S. GDP per head, in Oil & Gold all went up together until 1970. While U.S. GDP has continued higher and higher, we can clearly see that the gold and oil (red & blue color) trend lines behaved much different;y. I would advise watching my Thermodynamic Collapse Interview with Dr. Louis Arnoux to explain the details:
However, the only way for real wealth to be generated, it has to coincide with the value of gold and oil. Unfortunately, the value of gold and oil in GDP per head for each American crashed (2012), while stated GDP continued to record territory.
Thus, the real GDP value reported by the U.S. Government is highly inflated. This is based on understanding the “Thermodynamic Oil Collapse” and its impact on the entire global economy. According to Louis Arnoux and the Hills Group work, the price of oil will continue to crash to a MAXIMUM PRICE of $12 by 2020.
This is due to their calculation of the “Remaining Value” of oil in a barrel. You have to think about it like an automobile. When the car is brand new, the value is say, $30,000. However, after 15 years, the car is only worth $5,000. The economic value of that car has been “DEPLETED. ” While it still works, the 15 year-old car does not contain the same “embedded” energy as a brand new car…. so the value is much less.
The Hills Group ETP oil model has calculated that the value of a barrel of oil is behaving similar to a used car. The costs of producing a barrel of oil is so high now, when we consider the entire Oil Industry & Support Systems”, there won’t be much value left to the Globalized Industrial World in five years.
I will be writing more on this going forward as gold and silver investors will benefit the most as the Thermodynamic Oil Collapse goes over the cliff. Why Will The Value Of Gold & Silver Surge When Most Everything Else Implodes
While the oil price has been the leading driver in the value of Gold & Silver for more than a century, it is beginning to disconnect. Why? Because the gold and silver price have been valued as “commodities”, rather than as “high-quality stores of value.”
I will be writing an article showing this more in detail, however total Global Assets are estimated to be $373 trillion, according to a report by Savills World Research. The majority of those assets are real estate…. mostly residential real estate.
As the price of oil continues lower and lower, it will destroy the value of most Stocks, Bonds and Real Estate. These assets only derive their value from burning more energy each year. However, the cost to produce a barrel of oil has become so high now, there isn’t much value left over to support the $373 trillion in global assets.
Which means, the collapse in the price of oil, will be the FACTOR that finally wakes up the world that they have been investing in the wrong assets. It will be the MOTHER OF ALL MARKET SENTIMENT moves.
I gather Avi Gilburt will discard this article as just another complete waste of time, but he is undoubtedly blind to the oil-energy dynamics. So, I would bet my bottom Silver Dollar that Avi will continue to read the tea leaves and goat entrails of the Elliott Wave Theory right up until the point the system disintegrates. And maybe he should, because when the PHAT LADY SINGS, he will have to find some other occupation. Buy 90% Junk Silver Coins at SD Bullion As Low As $2.19/oz Over Spot! | 0 |
OK you Russians! No more gentle American diplomacy! No more Mr. Nice Guy! So thundered US Secretary of State John Kerry last week.
Right on cue, the usually overwrought US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, blasted the Russians as ‘barbaric’ for their bombing campaign in Syria. She made no mention of the US using B-52 and B-1 heavy bombers as well as killer drones in Afghanistan. The lapdog US and British media were quick to run anguished pictures of Syrian babies but we saw narry a picture of an injured Afghan child.
Noble Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, ducked and left Washington’s growing anti-Russian jihad to his aides while he flew off to Israel for the state funeral of the Shimon Peres, by now sainted by media as Israel’s ‘man of peace.’ In fact, Peres was the father of Israel’s nuclear weapons programs.
Under Peres’ auspices, Israel secretly offered nuclear warheads and then Jericho missiles to the embattled South African apartheid government. This was ironic because Israel has been insisting that Iran – which does not have nuclear weapons – will proliferate them around the globe.
Back in Washington, just about everyone is now ignoring lame duck Obama and doing their own thing. Recently, the Pentagon, which has no use for Obama, likely sabotaged joint US-Russians plan to end the bloody Syrian civil war by bombing a Syrian Army camp and killing close to 100 Syrian troops. ‘Ooops, sorry, a mistake’ explained the Pentagon.
More Russian warplanes are on the way to Syria. Ominously, Moscow just warned the US not to attack Russian military forces. Hillary Clinton’s supporters keep urging a so-called US-imposed ‘no fly zone’ in Syria, which is code for the US Air Force blowing Syria’s and Russia’s warplanes out of the skies and going after command control of Syria’s anti-aircraft systems. Which could be code for World War III.
Part of the reason for this intensified bellicosity is that Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, are making important if bloody progress in their siege of rebel-held sections of Aleppo.
At the same time, Turkey is decreasing its five-year old support for Syria’s rebels, including the al-Qaida allied Nusra Front (new relabled Jabhat Fateh al-Sham). The Saudis and Gulf emirates, who are financing much of the civil war, are hard up for cash. All sides in this bitter five-year old conflict are exhausted and war-weary. Once lovely Syria lies in ruins. For the extreme Sunni insurgents their best hope is direct US military intervention. They are waiting for the hawkish Hillary Clinton.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed this week that Washington is protecting the Nusra Front as its ‘Plan B’ for Syria. He also asserted that the US will install Nusra in Damascus in the event that President Assad’s government falls. But the majority of Syrians and all its minorities would be bitterly opposed to being ruled by fanatical Wahabi Islamists.
This writer believes the US has long aided ISIS and still sees it as a potent weapon against the Assad government. Why else would it take the US and its Arab and Kurdish foot soldiers so long to move against ISIS strongholds at Raqqa and Mosul– which are, as this writer knows, only a taxi-ride away? ISIS is a rag-tag bunch of 20-something amateur Rambos, not the Wehrmacht.
One likely answer is that imperial Washington is totally confused over whom to support and how to do it. The bewildering fracas between Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, Arabs, Yazidis, assorted Christians, ISIS wildmen, egged on the US, Israel, Turkey, Russia, France, Britain, Lebanon, Jordan, the oil Arabs is just too much for Washington’s ill-educated, or often downright dim policy makers.
This writer has long believed that certain elements in Washington helped create ISIS as a potentially useful tool against non-obedient Mideast regimes, notably Syria and Libya. Israel, which whispers a lot into Washington’s ears, did the same thing by encouraging the growth of Hezbollah and Hamas as enemies of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Today, they are Israel’s toughest enemies, not the utterly corrupt regimes that run the Arab world.
The bright idea to overthrow Syria’s recognized government goes back to that Father of Disasters, George W. Bush. He planned to attack Syria with Israel. Bush was restrained when no suitable Syrian opposition group could be found to install in power. The Sunni opposition was mainly Muslim Brotherhood, a name that spooked Washington. So Washington waited until 2011 to ‘regime change’ disobedient Syria. | 0 |
JERUSALEM — Many Israelis are buoyed by signs that President Trump will be a friend to Israel. But the recent wave of toppled tombstones and threats against Jewish centers in the United States has at least as many worrying that his rise may also not be good for Jews. “Jews in America, that’s supposed to work,” said Einat Wilf, a former member of the Knesset for the Labor Party. “To have these instances, is that an aberration? Or has the American president unleashed forces — willingly, unwillingly, consciously, unconsciously — but maybe he has unleashed forces that will challenge the place of Jews in America?” Israelis have grown used to rising nationalism in Europe that has fed . But many have looked to the United States, home to the largest number of Jews outside Israel, as a relative refuge from not another front for it. Few here suggest that has permanently changed (though the Labor Party leader, Isaac Herzog, recently said Israel should prepare for a wave of American immigrants). But worry spans left and right, even if they disagree on exactly how much to blame Mr. Trump, who is seen here as growing more confusing by the day. What to make of a president who, on the same day, denounced the attacks but also suggested — in remarks widely covered here — that they might have been carried out by his own enemies? There is the Mr. Trump whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described in their meeting in February: “There is no greater supporter of the Jewish people and the Jewish state than President Donald Trump,” he said, citing personal ties of decades and agreement on many policies, including the perils of Iran and of Islamic extremism. There is also the Mr. Trump in the photograph on the front page of Israel’s leading newspaper. “Living in Fear in His Country,” read the headline in the newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, previewing a special section to Friday’s weekend supplement on “the new America” with “swastikas, desecration of tombstones, curses and threats. ” Reuven and Negina Abrahamov, grocery owners outside Tel Aviv, are Trump supporters and disturbed by what they see in United States. “It’s a combination of racism and violence, and I’m not sure it’s directly related to Trump,” said Mr. Abrahamov, 43. “This could be just what America is. ” “Of course it’s related to Trump,” Ms. Abrahamov, 40, answered. “Now that Trump came into power, all he does is support Israel. And I do not think Trump is someone who plays a double game. He just goes with his truth the whole way. ” “But in this case, his truth screws over Jews, and it also might screw over Israel,” she said. It is causing a particular quandary for Mr. Netanyahu, who is charged with guiding the relationship, always deep and complicated, with Israel’s closest ally. “The unenviable challenge facing the Israeli government is how to express its visceral horror over the resurgence of in the U. S. without becoming a pawn in America’s partisan debate or jeopardizing its critical working relationship with the administration,” said Shalom Lipner, a former Israeli official and now a nonresident senior fellow with the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. At a time of weakness for Mr. Netanyahu, amid several corruption investigations, he has found both political renewal and common cause with Mr. Trump. Many who share Mr. Netanyahu’s politics thought that, finally, Israel had an American president who was an unconditional friend. Mr. Trump initially promised to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, long a dream of many Israelis but opposed by Palestinians as a de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem after the 1967 war. And Mr. Trump at first remained conspicuously silent as Mr. Netanyahu announced thousands of new Israeli settler units in the occupied West Bank and pushed through a contentious law granting retroactive legality to thousands of Israeli houses built on Palestinian property. But the president has distanced himself somewhat since then, raising questions about whether he would ultimately toe a more traditional American line on critical Israeli issues. The embassy move has been postponed at a minimum. At a news conference during their meeting, Mr. Trump publicly asked Mr. Netanyahu to “hold back on the settlements. ” At that same news conference, other apparent divisions rose: Mr. Trump pointedly refused to denounce sentiment among some of his supporters — and the next day he similarly refused, as he berated a religious Jewish reporter who asked a question about it. In turn, the prime minister faced much criticism here for being reluctant to take his own public stand against in the United States — apparently not wishing to anger Mr. Trump, or perhaps willing to give a pass, of sorts, to a sympathetic conservative. Mr. Netanyahu did, however, speak out on Wednesday, after Mr. Trump used the opening of his speech in Congress to denounce the attacks and threats. “ certainly has not disappeared. But there is much we can do to fight back,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a videotaped address, praising Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who has also spoken out against the attacks. Still, this has been a jarring time for Israelis of all political beliefs. Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and head of the Jewish Agency, said he did not blame Mr. Trump for the attacks, even if, he said, the president is “clearly a reflection” of rising nationalism generally. And while Mr. Sharansky said he was also troubled by the White House’s failure to mention Jews in its statement this year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, he repeated his contention that was not solely a problem of the right. “We saw a lot of this feelings in the last 15 to 20 years,” he said. “And a lot of people were trying to separate it from the of the right. In fact, this difference is erasing itself. ” Joni 61, moved here nearly 40 years ago from the United States and does not recall as a problem, she said. Now vandals have toppled graves in the cemetery in St. Louis where her grandparents and many other members of her family are buried. “It validates that there should be an Israel, if these things can happen in the States,” she said. Otherwise, she described her emotions as “very complicated. ” She has maintained her American passport and cast her ballot for Hillary Clinton. Yet she hopes Mr. Trump will fulfill his promises to broker a deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians. “However,” she added, “I am still shocked by what he says every day. ” | 1 |
Posted by Madeline | Oct 30, 2016 | 2016 , Daily Blog | 0 | Published on Oct 29, 2016 Universal Child Hosted by Joanna L Ross KCOR Digital Radio Network Season 1 Episode 24
I hope you enjoy the show and please tune in every Saturday morning at 10:00 PST that’s 1:00pm EST http://kcorradio.com
Joanna L. Ross from Universal Unity and I have some amazing BIG news and I wanted to share it with you first!
http://universalunity.ca/private-sess… ~ Universal Energy Initiations & Healing Sessions
We are heading to SEDONA! 11/11 GATEWAY First Contact Symposium ~ SEDONA The 11/11 gateway we will be in Sedona, Arizona for a special 2 event Universal Gathering. The first USA ‘First Contact Symposium’ and how fitting we kick it all off in Sedona. http://universalunity.ca/sedona
November 11th ~ Friday evening, we will do a meditation & discussion aligning us for November 12th, Saturday as we hop on board for a 4.5 hour discussion, channel, and gathering of like-souled family members as we dive into; lightship experiences, preparing for future conscious contact, enhancing communication with spirit and our teams, ascension for humanity and Gaia, and we will even have our usual ‘after event lightship gazing in the desert’ This proves to be a ‘can’t miss’ event as we have tried a venture there before and timing was not right, but this event literally took a day to book & get confirmation, so the Universe is truly aligned for us on this one. I sensed a huge jubilation from my team, so we are so excited to bring our passion, energy, and wisdom for a personal healing, personal engagement and entanglement for a Sedona Special ‘First Contact’ Event.
Be sure to get your tickets soon, as there is a limited number available. This event will be held in the highly sought after, and well known ‘Sedona Creative Life Center’ and has been such a pleasure dealing with them. Our event and information will also be advertised through their center to all of their clients and visitors, and it will be up on the ‘calendar of events’ so be sure to get your seat while it lasts. This will be the first event of this kind as we combine spirit, ET’s and Celestial family energy, ascension, Arch Angel energy in one event. Sedona Creative Life Centre http://www.sedonacreativelife.com * There is ample information on the Sedona Creative Life Centre website for travel, shuttle, and more information, as they really make these events much easier to put on. Book your travel arrangements early to avoid disappointment as this fall of 2016 proves to be one that shifts humanity in a whole new way, and we will be immersing ourselves in it during the 11/11 gateway. I will also have my two books available and even do a few minutes of book signing. So FUN!
Here is our link to have a look at the fun! We have options for purchase; Friday, Saturday, or both days as a package rate.
http://universalunity.ca/sedona
I am feeling so blessed, grateful, and truly aligned with my highest and best, as this event seemed so fluid and fun to put together. I know that there are a myriad of beings on every level helping us make this happen ~ I am truly grateful to share and inspire in this energy for a heightened and expanded human experience upon our shifting Gaia. Share: | 0 |
"We all need to look ourselves in the mirror," says Christie
Trenton, NJ - After the great "purge" of NJ Governor Chris Christie and his cronies from Donald Trump's presidential transition team, Christie has started his new career as an Uber driver.
Originally Christie hoped for the vice presidential nod, and then a cabinet position. But after being purged by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, from Trump's inner circle, Christie thought he would serve America and the Trump administration best by becoming an Uber driver.
Christie purchased the Uber Medallion for $300,000 from the Port Authority of NY & NJ, in a reported deal to forget about Bridgegate, "like it never happened." Christie denied the reciprocal deal, but held up his Uber Medallion for all to see.
"Here is my ticket to freedom!" he reportedly said.
Meanwhile, Christie's wife, Mary Pat, has listed the NJ Governor's mansion on Airbnb for rentals of up to "one year".
Insiders state that Christie is "livid" that he will not be a part of the Trump cabinet but hopes that a cabinet member will need his Uber driving services or at least stay overnight at his mansion.
Having put Kushner's father in jail as an overly zealous prosecutor who targeted Democrats solely to advance his political career, Christie did himself no favors, says one insider.
Mary Pat Christie rolled her eyes at the reporters, stating, "He's got 22 percent approval rating, the embarrassing Bridgegate scandal, and his idol Bruce Springsteen thinks he is pathetic. What more? Just leave us alone. We need to make a living too, and Chris is already coming home every night and crying himself to sleep."
On his first trip out, Christie drove his green Pinto over a curb into the sunset, and his car was completely filled with junk, including pictures of himself hugging President Obama, Time Magazine covers about elephants, toilet bowl plungers, a sleeping bag, pillows, and multiple bags of laundry.
Christie ignored reporters' questions and looked at himself in the rear view mirror of the car as he put on his cabbie cap. He sped off the wrong way down a one-way street, just missing a motorcyclist, while giving the NY Times reporter behind him the middle finger.
[email protected] Make Mike Peril's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
ORLANDO, Fla. — For years, sports teams have tried to defray the costs of their new stadiums by asking fans to pay thousands for personal seat licenses that entitle them to buy season tickets. Flávio Augusto da Silva is taking the concept further. In what may be the first deal of its kind, Mr. da Silva, the majority owner of Orlando City of Major League Soccer, is asking investors from Brazil, China and elsewhere to pay $500, 000 each for a stake in the stadium he is building near downtown Orlando. In return, the foreign investors receive annual dividends, two season tickets and something even more valuable: a green card that allows them, their spouses and sometimes even their children to live and work in the United States. The visa offer is legal, and it uses a federal program, known as that is under renewed scrutiny in Congress. Created in 1990, the program was intended to help pay for infrastructure projects in rural areas and poor urban neighborhoods. After bank lending dried up in the last recession, developers turned to the program to finance hotels, condominiums and other projects from Manhattan to Miami. As a result, the number of visas awarded grew to almost 9, 000 last year, from fewer than 100 in 2003. Mr. da Silva, though, is building a $156 million stadium, not a building or a shopping mall, and he is marketing to foreigners not because lending is tight, but because lawmakers in Florida would not provide subsidies for the stadium in the Parramore neighborhood of Orlando. “For us, it was a business decision,” said Mr. da Silva, who expects to raise about half the construction cost through the program. “There was already demand from people who want to move to the U. S. have a green card and have a good opportunity to participate in the growth of the club. ” Orlando City’s use of the visa program, which was criticized by a leading Republican in March as “riddled with corruption and national security vulnerabilities,” is a new approach for sports teams looking for ways to pay for stadiums without financial support from local communities, where officials are under pressure from voters opposed to using public money to help wealthy owners. financing helped pay for infrastructure work connected to Barclays Center in Brooklyn, but not for the arena itself. Developers previously tried to use the program to finance projects in California, Florida and elsewhere, but they hit roadblocks, including the unpredictable pace of getting investors approved for projects that often have to be opened on specific timelines. The Orlando project features a stadium, scheduled to open for the 2017 seasons of both Orlando City S. C. and the Orlando Pride, the women’s team that Mr. da Silva owns with his partner Phil Rawlins. Originally, the city and county agreed to subsidize the project. But when state lawmakers balked at approving a sales tax rebate, Mr. da Silva turned to the program, something Orlando’s mayor, Buddy Dyer, cheered. The team’s solution “ended up being a for everybody,” Mr. Dyer said in his office near the 10. building site, where the skeleton of the stadium is taking shape. “What I tell other mayors is that I’m the happiest mayor in America, and I go through the whole litany, including soccer. ” Mr. da Silva knew about the program because he obtained his own green card in 2009 by investing in a project in Vermont. While the strongest demand for visas is from China, Mr. da Silva, who made a fortune — his net worth was $444 million in 2014, according to Forbes Brasil — building a chain of schools in his native Brazil, decided to single out his countrymen. Brazilians are and some even follow Orlando City, whose games are broadcast in Brazil and who are led by Kaká, a World Cup winner for Brazil and a former world player of the year. Mr. da Silva’s sales pitch has benefited from several years of political and economic turmoil in Brazil, where some of the country’s elite are rushing to move money offshore. The club said it had already attracted 30 investors, bringing in $15 million, or 10 percent of the project’s cost. Mr. Rawlins, the team’s founder and president, said about $5 million in new commitments is secured each month. “I don’t know why people haven’t taken more advantage of it, because it’s a perfect thing when you’re building a stadium,” Mr. Rawlins said of the visa program. “The program is really about economic development. ” Mark Abbott, deputy commissioner of M. L. S. said the league had reviewed the financing proposal and found it “innovative. ” “The league doesn’t permit this type of financing for clubs,” Mr. Abbott said, “but for stadium projects, we thought it was appropriate. ” In addition to their stakes in the company that runs the stadium, investors in the project receive two club seats for 10 seasons. (The investors have no control over the team itself, which is part of a separate company.) But Mr. da Silva and others did not dispute that the visas were the real draw. Using the program, though, can be complicated because the construction site must be in an area with high unemployment. To qualify, boundaries are sometimes gerrymandered to create an economically challenged (but essentially manufactured) neighborhood. Developers also must spend millions of their own money to start the construction because it can take months and even years for the government to approve each visa. Visa applicants must pass a background check and prove that the project is viable and will create at least 10 jobs for each visa issued. The visas can be made permanent after a probationary period. Some financial advisers recommend that foreigners who are considering putting $500, 000 into a real estate project choose a hotel, mall or other more certain venture — anything but a sports stadium, whose main tenant could have unpredictable results. “When these guys win games and championships, great, but if they’re not, that cash flow could change,” said Michael Gibson, who helps foreigners invest in projects. “Why invest in that when you can invest in something steadier?” It is unclear how long other sports franchise owners will have the program as a financing option. It is facing new questions on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are trying to close loopholes that allowed money to be steered from projects in needy areas toward wealthier districts. Some projects have turned into boondoggles, producing little or no economic benefit. In other cases, foreign investors have accused developers of misspending their money and not paying promised returns. For now, opponents of the program have been unable to get the votes to overhaul or eliminate it, so other teams may be able to follow the path Orlando City has blazed. In M. L. S. alone, a group led by David Beckham, the former soccer star from England, has been trying to assemble a plan for a stadium in Miami, and the owners of teams in New York, Los Angeles and Washington are in various stages of the same process. | 1 |
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Filmmaker Michael Moore made an appearance on the Clinton News Network to clarify an audio clip from his Trumpland documentary that has gone viral, in which he sounds like he’s defending Trump supporters and explaining why The Donald will be the next president. | 0 |
Right to Clean Water & The Fight Against Eminent Domain Images come from the great video coverage of TYT, Democracy Now!, and Unicorn Riot By Jamie Poulos / filmsforaction.org
The 3.8 billion dollar Dakota Access Pipeline project that has been the subject of controversy, encapsulates some of the main social problems facing society at this time: A justice system that b enefits corporate interests, often at the expense of true progress. Police increasingly being m ilitarized and civil liberties being eroded to protect the powerful! In addition to these issues, you have the determined continuation of a failed energy policy. Pipeline and oil projects are being given the green light without proper assessment of ecological, cultural, and social costs. The protesters want to protect our water, their land, and the sacred heritage sites of the Native Americans.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence ( ODNI ), predicts that by 2040 water demand will surpass supply by 40% . This will obviously affect the poorest most. The project has been halted next to the Missouri River and if allowed to continue the drinking water of the area will be threatened. Of course the most disenfranchised groups will suffer the most, mainly the Native Americans. The protesters make up a diverse group , comprising many indigenous peoples, environmentalist, and local farmers.They believe in the justice of their cause, so much so, that they endure extreme encounters from local police force. Dogs, rubber bullets, tear gas, and unfair arrest have been used to intimidate and deter protests. A militarized local police force has not only arrested hundreds of people on false accusations, but have used their position of authority to humiliate those they detain . Daughter of an indigenous leader was targeted, thrown into prison, and forced to sleep naked . Others arrested, were put into dog kennels and numbered . One farmer was arrested on her own land! Technically, according to the Treaty of 1851 , the contested land is actually belonging to the Native Americans. By proclaiming eminent domain the pipeline company has taken over property belonging to other people, including local farmers. Many can not afford to fight the legal battles needed to keep the construction of the pipeline off their own property! When directly asked about the aggressive police force used against peaceful protesters, President Obama placed responsibility on both sides. The aggressive and highly militarized responses of police has been well documented over the past months. This isn’t a two sided story as far as social justice is concerned. However, in the Pay to Play global system of today, there is another side. CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, Kelcy Warren, has donated heavily to politicians, local government, and various oversight boards. Could this be one reason their project is receiving the amount and extent of local protection? The oil and gas industry has spent a total of 88 MILLION dollars lobbying this year alone! Why? Subsidies and favorable legislation. While fact and science are not on the industries’ side, money is. The Huffington Post recently wrote an article placing Standing Rock into the larger framework of what is happening nationwide. Since the Keystone XL controversy, government agencies have been approving project after project without completing the necessary environmental risk analysis. Advocates of the pipeline emphasize the unlikelihood of any leak or spill occurring. Yet, oil spills and pipeline explosions happen often and go under or unreported. Think Progress published an article stating that over 300 oil spills went unreported within a two year period. Tens of t housands of gallons of oil are allowed to spill without it receiving any attention. James Sutton, from The Hill Talk , notes that from May to June 2016 over 20 oil spills in the US alone went unreported . There are many who criticize the current regulation system which places to much trust in companies. Oil companies are responsible for estimating how much oil has spilled and are then fined per gallon. Needless to say, the damage is often much more than they are readily willing to admit. Another argument often used in favor of this project and others like it, is job creation. The only logical step is to create an energy policy that would force investment into renewable energy . In the documentary Before the Flood we are shown a Tesla Gigafactory. Elon Musk claims 100 such mega battery factories could well remove our reliance on fossil fuels. The industry of oil and coal isn’t about creating jobs; it is all about socializing risks and privatizing profits. Not only do certain industries add to the problems of global warming, but they actively deter alternatives . The documentary Who Killed the Electric Car , is a great example of this. By demanding a strict policy forcing a shift to sustainable energy we would be creating far more jobs and slashing the cost of energy. The Green New Deal proposed by Jill Stein is a good starting point for political dialogue. Scientist across disciplines and from all over the World have warned that we are moving closer and closer to a point of no return. We have the technology to reverse this. Do we have the will? We need a major shift in consciousness to begin to solve the pressing issues of our time. This begins with the individual. It need not be a daunting task: One Step | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Trump’s aggressive moves on security and immigration drew strong responses both domestically and internationally. Tensions with Mexico are particularly high. Its president, Enrique Peña Nieto, above, canceled a meeting with Mr. Trump, and the two feuded — largely over Twitter — as reports emerged that Mr. Trump could consider a 20 percent tax on imports to pay for a border wall. Mexico said its 50 consulates in the United States would work to protect the rights of Mexican immigrants, while America’s sanctuary cities, including New York, Boston and Los Angeles, vowed to resist immigration enforcement. _____ 2. Mr. Trump told Republican leaders at a policy retreat in Philadelphia that this Congress would be the busiest “in decades, maybe ever. ” His adviser Steve Bannon deepened tensions with the news media, saying it had been humiliated by election missteps and should “keep its mouth shut. ” He added: “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. ” This may not come as a surprise: Sales of dystopian novels, most notably George Orwell’s “1984,” are spiking. Our literary critic offers a reappraisal. The Times is tracking Mr. Trump’s full agenda, and covering many more aspects of his administration. You can also sign up for our daily politics newsletter here. _____ 3. Vice President Mike Pence will speak at the March for Life on the National Mall on Friday. Organizers have ramped up attendance efforts, not wanting to be embarrassed by a poorer turnout than the women’s marches last weekend. And health clinics across the developing world are bracing for cuts because of Mr. Trump’s revival of a policy prohibiting foreign aid to groups that discuss abortion, a rule that often curtails broader health services. Above, a woman who suffered complications from a botched abortion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. _____ 4. The Doomsday Clock has moved nearer to midnight than it’s been in more than 60 years. Devised by the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it’s meant to convey “how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making. ” It debuted in 1947. Two of the group’s scientists cited alarm over Mr. Trump’s positions on nuclear weapons and climate change. _____ 5. In China, hundreds of millions of people are traveling from industrial regions to their hometowns to celebrate the start of Lunar New Year on Saturday. Some cities have restricted the use of fireworks over pollution concerns. _____ 6. For the first time, biologists have succeeded in growing human stem cells in pig embryos. The advance brings scientists closer to developing human organs in animals for later transplant. Since the organ would be made of a patient’s own cells, there would be little risk of immune rejection. _____ 7. Tributes to Mary Tyler Moore, the iconic actress who died on Wednesday at 80, continue to pour in. The TV journalist Jane Pauley, above, said the character of the single, news producer Mary Richards was a role model and more. She even mimicked her fashion and home décor choices. The show “made a woman in the newsroom seem normal,” wrote Ms. Pauley, the anchor of “Sunday Morning” on CBS. _____ 8. Serena and a resurgent Venus Williams will face each other in the final of the Australian Open on Saturday. It’s the first time they’re playing against each other in a Grand Slam final since Wimbledon in 2009, above. If Serena wins, she would set an record with a 23rd Grand Slam singles title. And a surprisingly strong Roger Federer defeated Stan Wawrinka to advance to the men’s final. He’ll seek his first major title since Wimbledon in 2012 on Sunday. _____ 9. years after the movie “Trainspotting” gave the world a glimpse into the underbelly of Edinburgh, the characters are back. “T2 Trainspotting” — with the same director and several of the same stars, including Ewan McGregor, above center — checks in with the unmoored but compelling characters as they face middle age. It’s being released this week in Britain and reaches the U. S. in March. We rounded up the early reviews. _____ 10. Finally, whatever your politics, your fears, or your troubles, a gift: the Great National Cute Animal of 2017. Over the past two days, American zoos and aquariums have dominated the conversation on Twitter with photo after photo of adorable animals. And the world cracked a smile. Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA) director Michael Hayden did his best in 2016 to elect Hillary Clinton. Worse, Hayden made the inflammatory and frightening claim on CNN at the time that Donald Trump was a “clear and present danger” to the country. [Given his background, those words carried weight and contributed to the climate of fear and division that burdens our democracy today, including within the intelligence agencies. Hayden also signed a letter last August urging Americans to vote against Donald Trump. Anything Hayden says about politics today must therefore be interpreted in that context. He is hardly a disinterested observer, and clearly resents the fact that the American people ignored his unsolicited advice. Now, Hayden tells the Business Insider that Breitbart News has an “illegitimate worldview. ” He was apparently objecting to Breitbart News’ story last week documenting mainstream media reports that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance at Trump Tower and of people connected to the Trump campaign, and that it had disseminated the products of that surveillance. Hayden admitted that he had not examined those media reports themselves. Nevertheless, he attacked Breitbart, Drudge and others: The retired Air Force general said too that “there’s an amazing consistency” on numerous subjects between the information disseminated by Russian media outlets and that of conservative American sources like the Drudge Report, radio and television host Sean Hannity, and Breitbart. “You have a Breitbart News story essentially launching the Starfleet of the federal government about one of the most horrible political scandals in American history, if true,” Hayden said, adding that it was “very troubling” the president seeming to value Breitbart reports over data compiled by intelligence agencies. “Breitbart doesn’t do any creative journalism — it just moves the parts around,” Hayden continued. “And I haven’t done this personally, but I’ve heard others say, when you dig into the Breitbart sources, the articles don’t really say that. ” … “They have a worldview, and they are playing with it,” he said. “I think it’s an illegitimate worldview, and I think it’s a worldview. It’s a worldview in which preexisting visions seem to be being used to distort the fact pattern that exists. ” The proper address for Hayden’s complaints is the mainstream media, and possibly the Obama administration. Regardless, the views he considers “illegitimate” are enjoyed by the 45 million unique visitors who read our website every month. The fact that Hayden and other disgruntled members of the Washington establishment still refuse to acknowledge the basic validity of a different perspective outside the Beltway and the mainstream media is precisely why Trump won in November. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
We all remember the lies that led the US into the Iraq war.
But after years of media indoctrination, it’s easy to forget the other lie that helped rally the country around the illegal invasion of Iraq.
John McCain : There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.
David Letterman : Oh, is that right?
John McCain : If that should be the case, that’s when some tough decisions are gonna have to be made.
Source: McCain and the Anthrax Scare [0:12 – 0:26] (Higher quality clip?)
“When Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in 1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount – this is just about the amount of a teaspoon – less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope.
“Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material.”
Source: Colin Powell’s Presentation to the UN on Iraq WMD [26:37 – 27:45]
Although it is difficult to remember at this point, the anthrax scare of late 2001 was widely seen as a follow-up to the 9/11 attacks, and a sign of things to come at the dawn of the so-called War on Terror. Beginning in late September and continuing for several weeks, multiple anthrax-laced letters were mailed to various media offices and the offices of two US Senators, killing five and injuring 17.
It did not take long, however, for the neocons in the Bush administration to start insinuating that the anthrax scare was tied to their two favourite boogeymen: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
In his book, “ The 2001 Anthrax Deception ,” Dr. Graeme MacQueen describes this as “the double perpetrator hypothesis,” an attempt to blame the attacks on both Al Qaeda and Iraq. He writes:
“What I call the ‘Double Perpetrator hypothesis’ held that Bin Laden’s group sent the anthrax spores through the mail but that the group had a state sponsor that had supplied the spores, namely Iraq.”
This hypothesis, insinuated by key government officials and parroted by the press, had the added benefit of explaining how the anthrax spores used in the attack could have been weaponized so efficiently.
MACQUEEN1 –“Well the young woman who opened Senator Daschle’s mail…Afghanistan and Iraq” [0:16 – 2:02]
The story of Iraqi collusion with Al Qaeda sounded credible enough to an American public that had no familiarity with the Muslim world and was still reeling in shock from the attacks of 9/11. The only problem with that story is that it was a complete lie.
When key government scientists came out to denounce the claim that the anthrax contained traces of bentonite, a signature of the Iraqi anthrax program, the Bush administration sought to distance itself from any direct connection between Saddam and the attacks.
As filmmaker Robbie Martin explains in his documentary, American Anthrax , however, that connection was reinforced to the public by way of a complicit corporate media.
Martin points to disgraced ex-New York Times journalist and Iraqi WMD pusher Judy Miller as a particularly egregious example of how the media laid the groundwork for the campaign to tie Iraq to the anthrax letters.
As we now know, of course, the anthrax attacks were a false flag event.
By early 2002 it was confirmed that the anthrax had sourced to the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, a key facility within America’s own bioweapons program. Soon suspicion fell on Steven Hatfill, a “person of interest” identified by the FBI who eventually won a $4.6 million lawsuit against the Department of Justice for falsely accusing him of his participation in the attacks and illegally leaking his identity to the press. The blame for the attacks was then pinned on Bruce Ivins, a researcher at Fort Detrick who conveniently died before the FBI could identify him or try him in court. The National Academy of Sciences and the Government Accountability Office have both cast doubt on the FBI’s scientific investigation of the attacks, however, and a whistleblower within the FBI’s own investigation has revealed that the Bureau is sitting on evidence that would exonerate Ivins.
Whoever the perpetrator may have been–even accepting that Ivins was the attacker–it is a fact that the attacks were a false flag, using crudely forged letters to convince the American public that they were written by Al Qaeda agents. And that false flag was aided by the government officials and corporate media talking heads who were happy to propagate this false story in the lead up to war in Iraq.
The legacy of that war remains with us today. The middle east, including Iraq itself, remains in chaos, a direct result of the illegal invasion and occupation of that country. An invasion and occupation that was sold to the public on the back of brazen lies and outright fabrications.
The blood of a million dead Iraqis stains the hands of those who lied the public into that war, and those who aided and abetted those liars.
Meanwhile, the anthrax attacks themselves remain a case study in how a false flag event can be used to whip the public into hysteria and be led into supporting illegal wars of aggression. | 0 |
Look at what is happening now across the European continent! Europe is being occupied by invading hoards of millions of Muslims as we speak, demanding more mosques to be built with state money (tax payer money), chanting Allahu Akbar in the streets, teaching Muslim prayers in schools, banning Christmas street lights and more!
Some of these migrants even took it to a step further, now posing as “children”. Some stupid Europeans actually believe them and adopted them as their own children. 20-30 even up to 40 year old men! Imagine adopting a 30 year old man as your “child”…
Despite having nationalist political parties surging across the continent, there has been no major victory!!! The nationalists do NOT own a single country in Europe! France is still under socialist Hollande, Austria, Netherlands, Italy, Greece everyone is still under socialist/liberal leadership.
Despite having the UK historically exiting the EU with their famous Brexit vote, the UK is still under “principled conservative” leadership, you know that conservatism similar to Paul Ryan (open borders). The country fell on Theresa May’s hands after Boris Johnson who helped Nigel Farage make Brexit happen cucked-out and refused to take the leadership. Theresa May is super similar to David Cameron, the former Prime Minister who resigned after Brexit. Both David and Theresa are like Jeb! Bush or Paul Ryan clones. Same “principled conservative” rhetoric but with open borders.
Europe is basically lost and no one can do anything about it at this point. Even a classic revolution is impossible at this point. There’s no spirit, we don’t have a strong leader here in Europe like they do in America, with Donald Trump, our European nationalist leaders are all weak, soft cucks. The people are too materialistic, they chase money, music, movies, games like nothing else matters.
Here’s the average European daily conversation in BOTH West AND East Europe: “Look at my new car! Do you like it?? You wanker, who cares about Muslim immigration, check out my new Iphone 7! And have you heard that new Beyonce song which tells whites to fuck themselves? Wow its so awesome! By the way I’m going to Ibiza next week! Bloody hell mate, let’s play my new FIFA 17 PS4 game before you go, it has awesome graphics mate! It’s better than PES 17!!!” This is no exaggeration and this is exactly how European people behave these days. All Europeans, UK, France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Austria, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, even Russia, EVERYONE! Total cuckoldry!
Some people like to think that East Europe is somewhat purer and holier than the West but it’s not anymore. Especially Americans have this idea that Eastern Europe is not as tainted as the West. Its the same thing, the eternal chase of entertainment.
The question is what’s next? How would Christians survive as minorities among these peaceful people? Perhaps we should pack our bags and start a new white flight to Russia. As long as Putin is in power we know he is gonna protect the rights of European Christian people and ensure their survival. Lets hope and pray he would allow us to invade his country. While Russia is no different in those terms, at least they have a leader who watches over them and protects them while they have fun. Another option would be to pack our bags and move to America if Trump wins and IF Trump would allow us to go there…. because we do know he’s very anti-immigration. Should Hillary “win” (steal the election) may God help us all because WW3 is upon us.
So here’s a bunch of new Muslim challenges Europe is now facing:
GERMANY – Children Forced to learn Muslim prayers and shout Allahu Akbar
Pupils at a primary school were forced to chant “Allahu Akhbar” and “there is no God but Allah”, an appalled father has claimed.
The father of the pupil at the girl’s primary school in German ski resort Garmisch-Partenkirchen discovered that his daughter had been forced to learn the Islamic prayer when he discovered a handout she had been given.
He claimed she had been “forced” by teachers to memorise the Islamic chants and forwarded the handout to Austrian news service unsertirol24.
The handout read: “Oh Allah, how perfect you are and praise be to you. Blessed is your name, and exalted is your majesty. There is no God but you.”
It had been given to the girl during a lesson in “ethics” at the Bavarian school.
ITALY – Thousands of Muslims Pray in the Streets of Rome near Colosseum, Shout Allahu Akbar, Demand more Mosques
Thousands of Muslims gathered in protest outside Rome’s Colosseum Friday after Italian authorities shut down a number of so-called “garage mosques” to avoid young people becoming radicalized.
The Muslim community of Rome chose the iconic Colosseum, a worldwide symbol of Christian persecution and martyrdom, to stage their demonstration against the alleged shutting down by police of illegal places of Muslim worship in the city.
Many Roman citizens were visibly disturbed by the protest, noting that in its propaganda videos, the Islamic State has repeatedly employed images of the Colosseum when threatening to conquer Rome and the “Crusaders.”
Two months ago, Italian police set up a high-security perimeter around the Colosseum, after the Islamic State issued a new threat to “conquer” Rome in its latest video.
UNITED KINGDOM – British press wants more 40-year-old migrant “children” posing as 16-year-old
Won’t you take pity on this poor, innocent little child?
This image of a “16-year-old” migrant crying – which is currently plastered on the front page of The Guardian – is nothing short of laughable.
“A 16-year-old from Ethiopia cries while he awaits registration at a processing centre in the makeshift refugee camp near Calais,” the photo’s caption reads. The image is placed under a headline reading: “Councils resist pressure to take children from Calais.”
The “child migrant” is clearly in his 40’s, yet their editors evidently believe their readers are so incredibly stupid they’ll actually believe they’re looking at a 16-year-old boy.
This comes amid a recent report where grown men pose as children in the UK , get adopted by British families then threaten to “love” them in exchange for their care. Some were even caught drawing ISIS flags on 1st grade coloring books.
SWEDEN – Christmas Street Lights BANNED to Avoid Offending Muslim Migrants
Towns across Sweden have banned Christmas street lights in the name of “security,” but the real reason is almost certainly because the country has completely capitulated to Islam after importing countless Muslim migrants over the last two years.
According to an SVT report, The Swedish Transport Administration (Trafikverket) will not allow municipalities to erect Christmas street lights on light poles that the authority manages, meaning that many towns will have no festival lights at all on major streets.
Despite there being no safety issue with the street lights for decades, this new rule has been instituted right after record numbers of Muslim migrants flooded into the country – just a coincidence I’m sure.
In reality, the Christmas lights ban is almost certainly an effort to avoid offending Muslim migrants who are causing chaos in cities like Malmo, where the firebombing of cars and businesses in or near Muslim ghetto ‘no-go areas’ is becoming a routine occurrence.
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What Is At Stake In The Election
Paul Craig Roberts
Here Are The Presstitutes Who Control American’s Minds: http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2016/10/26/1010359-65-us-journalists-at-a-private-dinner-with-hillary-clintons-team-and-john-podesta/
I just heard an NPR presstitute delare that Texas, a traditional sure thing
for Republicans was up for grabs in the presidential election. Little wonder if this report on Zero Hedge is correct. Apparently, the voting machines are already at work stealing the election for Killary.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/texas-rigged-first-reports-voting-machines-switching-votes-hillary-texas
From my long experience in journalism, I know the American public is not very sharp. Nevertheless, it is difficult for me to believe that Americans, whose jobs, careers, and the same for their children and grandchildren, have been sold out by the elites who Hillary represents would actually vote for her. It makes no sense. If this were the case, how did Trump get the Republican nomination despite the vicious presstitute campaign against him?
It seems obvious that the majority of Americans who have been suffering terribly at the hands of the One Percent who own Hillary lock, stock, and barrel, will not vote for the people who have ruined their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren.
Furthermore, if Trump’s election is as impossible as the presstitutes tell us—Hillary’s win is 93% certain according to the latest presstitute pronouncement—the vicious 24/7 attacks on Trump would be pointless. Wouldn’t they? Why the constant, frenetic, vicious attacks on a person who has no chance?
There are reports that a company associated with Hillary backer George Soros is supplying the voting machines to 16 states, including states that determine election outcomes. I do not know that these reports are correct. However, I do know for a fact that the oligarchic interests that rule America are opposed to Trump being elected President for the simple reason that they are unsure that they would be able to control him.
It is hard to believe that dispossessed Americans will vote for Hillary, the representative of those who have dispossessed them, when Trump says he will re-empower the dispossessed. Hillary has denigrated ordinary Americans who, she says, she is so removed from by her wealth that she doesn’t even know who they are. Clearly, Hillary, paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs for three 20-minute speeches, is not a representative of the people. She represents the One Percent whose policies have flushed the prospects of ordinary Americans down the toilet.
What is really disturbing is the pretense by the presstitute scum that Trump’s lewd admiration for female charms is deemed more important than the prospect of nuclear war. At no time during the presidential primaries or during the current presidential campaign has it been mentioned that Russia is being assaulted daily by propaganda, threatened by military buildups, and being convinced that the United States and its European vassals are planning an attack.
A threatened Russia, made insecure by inexplicable hostility and Western propaganda, is a danger manufactured by the neoconservative supporters of Hillary Clinton.
If the American people are really so unbelievably stupid that they think lewd remarks about women are more important than avoiding nuclear war, the American people are too stupid to exist. They will deserve the mushroom clouds that will wipe them and everyone else off the face of the earth.
Donald Trump is the only candidate in the primaries and the general election who has said that he sees no point in conflict with Russia when Putin has shown nothing but desire to work things out to mutual advantage.
In contrast, Hillary has declared the thrice-elected president of Russia to be “the new Hitler” and has threatened Russia with military action. Hillary talks openly about regime change in Russia.
Surely, in a free media at least one person in the print and TV media would raise this most important of all points. But where have you seen it?
Only in my columns and a few others in the alternative media.
In other words, we are about to have an election in which the important issue has played no role. And yet allegedly we are the exceptional, indispensable people, a people’s democracy protected by a free press.
In truth, this mythical description of America is merely a cloak for the rule of the Oligarchs. And the Oligarchs are risking life on earth for their continual supremacy.
The post What Is At Stake In The Election — Paul Craig Roberts appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org . | 0 |
pirate clip art free printable | Illustration of Pirate Skull ...(image by ) The Pirate Party of Iceland, the one nation that jailed its crooked bankers, is poised to win the election, less than 4 years after forming.
Their motto is: " "We are not here to gain power. We are here to distribute power."
I think this formulation can serve the Progressive Movement in the US, as it approaches mainstream status and is the most popular political movement in the nation, with 67% approving of the term progressive, over 55% supporting Sanders, and a robust majority supporting progressive programs like gun and immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, etc.
And this formulation also deals with the issue of Bigness, which many think incompatible with democracy and human rights. What if the purpose of bigness (ie winning elections) is NOT to consolidate power in new hands but to change the system by using this status to distribute power. - Advertisement -
Progressives are commonly accused by the right of being for Big Government, for thinking that government power is the solution to all problems. This Pirate formulation disrupts that claim, by showing a way to use the consolidation of power in order not to create a stronger state but to redistribute power and thus lessen the power of the state and powerful corporations and other institutions, public and private.
This formulation comes out of the anarchist tradition of decentralized power. The Pirate party has allied libertarians of both the right and left to take power, in order to distribute it from the banks and their servants back to the people themselves. Anarchism, we understand, is self-government, which means decentralized power. - Advertisement -
The success of the Pirate party shows how anarchists and libertarians of all kinds can come together to form a coalition Big enough to win but committed to breaking up the concentration of power, mostly in the hands of the financial institutions and their corrupt public servants.
The way to get beyond the "Iron Law of Oligarchy," which over 100 years ago German sociologist Robet Michels, which states " states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations." is to use consolidation of power (bigness) in the service of decentralizing power, pushing it back to the people and smaller communities.
Therefore, the goal of Progressives is NOT to gain power that is the means: the goal is to replace the old hierarchical system with a system of decentralized power, a model of self-government. | 0 |
LeGarrette Blount has become the latest in a line of New England Patriots to decline the invitation from the White House for their Super Bowl LI victory. [On Thursday, during an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show, Blount said he didn’t feel welcome at the White House, and wouldn’t attend. “I will NOT be going to the White House. I don’t feel welcome in that house. I’ll leave it at that. ” — @LG_Blount, — Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) February 9, 2017, The decision not to attend adds Blount’s name to a list that already includes Martellus Bennett, Devin McCourty, Donta Hightower, and Chris Long. Though, not all players have declined for political reasons. Running back James White has not yet decided whether or not he will make the trip to DC. Wide receivers Chris Hogan and Malcolm Mitchell announced on ESPN that they will attend the White House ceremony. Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter: @themightygwinn | 1 |
from Rogue Money :
The Wolf’s sense of smell has been in confusion of late trying to figure out which way the winds blow. Are free markets about to make a come back, or have they been with us all along, once you fully factor in the effects of “cognitive dissonance” over the past couple decades? Meaning “cognitive dissonance” is also a part of the free market equation, and the markets have just been factoring them in appropriately.
One thing is for sure, the biggest bubble in world history is starting to get “thin in the skin,” as in ready to pop. Which bubble, you ask? The western debt markets. Putting that aside for the moment, the good news of late is that nationalism is on the rise in the USA with a Trump victory, but it ain’t the only thing on the rise. “Yields” are as well folks. It would appear a debt funeral is “dead” ahead, along with an associated paper wake. In a rather timely fashion the professor Ken Schortgen Jr., just provided a top down analysis to a western paper funeral, with historical theories that are now becoming reality.
Before getting into the meat and potatoes of this installment, I have to throw out a theory from an installment written over two years ago. A theory that will fit nicely, and one that states that the markets are actually free. “Free,” just like the international man Doug Casey has said. I know what you may be thinking, that with a supposed honest market filled with “informed” investors that the prior couple of sentences are totally incorrect, especially with respect to the hard asset markets. Incorrect except for one major thing. If free markets are truly free, and additionally allow for the “stupid/cognitive-dissonant” people to freely participate, then I suppose you have to factor in the unpredictability of “stupidity/cognitive-dissonance.”
At least for a while, as it appears responsibility and intelligence may be taking hold in some corners. Witness the public’s uprising in the recent US election, but that same election has released a dose of “election victory cognitive dissonance.” The more things change, the more things stay the same!
The time frames for “stupidity/cognitive-dissonance” (SCD) being an overdeveloped defining factor in free markets are typically limited. Decades apparently mark the political free market’s limits regarding the afore mentioned ‘SCD’. Again, witness the recent election. And the winds seem to be telling one Wolf Gray that we are about to see how Economic Mother Nature presides over the current limits to the time frame that will define the “Fiat King Dollar’s” life span. A life span fueled of late by the last fumes in the gas tank, the typical fumes of cognitive dissonance, plus a dose of stupidity. An ‘SCD’ that I am afraid to say may have just got a boost by the recent election.
The Wolf’s and the Wolfpack’s sense of smell is somewhat confused and would seem to be alone on this bottom up view, so ‘I/we’ could use your guidance. To wit, those happy Trump voters that seem to think the US economic life boats are coming to their immediate aid are about to see a delay to their ‘pocket-book’ rescue, thanks to the ravages that will come with rising debt “Yields.” These rising “Yield” signs say the market is about to let each of us know, “it doesn’t suffer fools gladly.” WG
Yield! The funeral cometh ! And, sorry folks it can’t be Trumped. There are limits to man’s abilities to forestall “nature” economic and or otherwise.
News that…….Yields?
First please note the recent top down analysis of the overall business economic landscape by the professor, with reference to Dr. Jim Willie’s theories and analysis.
https://www.roguemoney.net/stories/2016/11/20/bond-markets-and-dollar-stength-screaming-for-a-savior-to-usher-in-a-currency-reset
The above link leads us nicely to some of the “ground up” business/economic evidence to be witnessed in real time. That being said, no news beat would be complete without a rehash of the undeniable trends that continue asserting themselves…. | 0 |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gov. Robert Bentley engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with his chief adviser, then used intimidation tactics and deployed state law enforcement officials in an effort to cover it up, according to a bruising report released Friday in support of the effort to impeach him. The report also claims that the governor tried to pin nonexistent crimes on a top law enforcement official. The release of the report by a special counsel to the state House Judiciary Committee is almost certain to further imperil Mr. Bentley, an avuncular physician and former Sunday school teacher. Mr. Bentley, a Republican, has vowed to fight to keep his office despite a steady drip of embarrassing and sometimes salacious details that have fueled a scandal that has embarrassed this conservative state and all but consumed its political culture for the last year. Despite mounting calls from members of his own party that he step down, the governor won a significant battle Friday afternoon when a local judge granted a temporary restraining order Mr. Bentley had sought. The order effectively blocks impeachment hearings that were set to begin Monday in the Legislature, which is dominated by Mr. Bentley’s own party. In many other ways, it was a very bad week for the governor. On Wednesday, the Alabama Ethics Commission found probable cause that he had violated ethics and campaign laws, and referred the case to a local district attorney for possible criminal prosecution. A separate inquiry, already underway, is being led by a special prosecutor appointed by Alabama’s attorney general. This week, both Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh and House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, both Republicans, called on the Mr. Bentley to resign. State Representative Corey Harbison, another Republican, said that he was worried about the possible violation of laws, but also the distraction the scandal has caused, and its damage to the state’s reputation. “It is a terrible black eye for the state,” said Mr. Harbison, who has called for Mr. Bentley’s ouster. When Mr. Bentley was sworn in as governor in 2011, it seemed almost impossible to conceive of a politician with less potential for drama. He was and long married and had earned wide respect as a dermatologist in his hometown, Tuscaloosa. Whatever Mr. Bentley’s fate, it is unlikely to shake the dominant Republican Party here. The state is simply too conservative to see mass defections to the Democrats. And he has not been viewed as a particularly powerful governor. Before 9 a. m. Friday — hours before the release of the report — Mr. Bentley appeared on the Capitol steps minutes after his office alerted reporters that he would be speaking. The governor spoke of how he had put his fate in the hands of a higher power, mentioning the word “God” nine times in under seven minutes. He said he had done nothing illegal, and he apologized directly to the people of Alabama: “There’s no doubt I have let you down,” he said. He also warned there were more “embarrassing details” to come. Headline writers have taken to referring to Mr. Bentley as the “Love Gov,” over the accusation that he had engaged in an affair with his former senior political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason — an accusation both Mr. Bentley and Ms. Mason deny. For months now, residents have had to endure a leaked audio recording of Mr. Bentley in conversation with a woman — said to be Ms. Mason — in which he describes embracing her and placing his hands on her breasts. The governor could also be heard saying, “If we’re going to do what we did the other day, we’re going to have to start locking the door. ” The report issued Friday involved interviewing 20 witnesses and 10, 000 pages of documents. In the report, Jack Sharman, the special counsel, noted that Mr. Bentley and his associates, including Ms. Mason, refused to cooperate. The governor, Mr. Sharman said, refused to turn over all state documents investigators requested, while his campaign committee turned over no documents. “The Committee may consider the Governor’s as an independent ground for impeachment,” the report stated. The report also notes that in Alabama, a gubernatorial impeachment investigation is not a criminal one, and that impeachable offenses “may include but are not limited to crimes. ” The report described a chief executive racked with “increasing obsession and paranoia,” but one who also did little to hide his relationship with Ms. Mason from his inner circle. When his wife was able to make the clandestine recordings of Mr. Bentley speaking “provocatively” to Ms. Mason, the report states, “Governor Bentley’s loyalty shifted from the State of Alabama to himself. ” Mr. Bentley worried the recordings would become public, the report stated, and embroiled law enforcement officers in the drama, directing them, among other things, to investigate who might have copies” and to identify potential crimes which they could be charged. He also encouraged “an atmosphere of intimidation” to ensure that no one spoke of it, the report stated. Ms. Mason, meanwhile, exercised “extraordinary policy authority while receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from Governor Bentley’s campaign account and from an apparently lawful but shadowy nonprofit,” it stated. The speculation about an affair came to light in March 2016, after the governor fired Spencer Collier, the head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Mr. Bentley said he had fired Mr. Collier after a review uncovered “possible misuse of state money” at the agency. The Alabama attorney general’s office opened an investigation, only to close it in October, noting that “no witness had established a credible basis for the initiation of a criminal inquiry in the first place. ” Soon after his firing, Mr. Collier held a news conference in which he accused Mr. Bentley of having an affair with Ms. Mason, whom he described as Alabama’s “de facto governor. ” The report accuses Mr. Bentley of “prematurely and publicly” accusing Mr. Collier of criminal misconduct, with the “likely” purpose of demonizing him. It also noted that Mr. Collier has since been cleared of wrongdoing. It is unclear when a new impeachment timetable will be established. Lawyers said that Greg Griffin, the circuit court judge who issued the restraining order, could issue an order laying out an impeachment process that would address the governor’s concern that he was not granted proper due process. If the State House, which would take up the matter first, votes to impeach, Mr. Bentley will be temporarily removed from office while the Senate deliberates his ultimate fate. If Mr. Bentley is charged and convicted by the Montgomery County district attorney, he will face a to prison sentence and a fine of up to $20, 000 for each of the four potential violations. This year, Mr. Bentley sparked concerns among some lawmakers when he appointed Luther Strange, a former state attorney general, to the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, who left to become President Trump’s attorney general. Mr. Strange had been overseeing an investigation of Mr. Bentley, and his successor has appointed a special prosecutor to take over the investigation. But Mr. Harbison, the Republican state representative, said that the appointment could give the perception that Mr. Bentley was trying to derail the inquiry. Today, Mr. Bentley’s private life appears to be as complicated as his public one. His wife filed for divorce in August 2015. Ms. Mason resigned last year. Her husband remains the director of the Governor’s Office of and Volunteer Service, and the couple traveled with Mr. Bentley to Washington, for Mr. Trump’s inauguration in January. Ms. Mason could not be reached for comment. Her lawyers said in a court filing last year that she had “done nothing wrong, either civilly or criminally. ” | 1 |
Rand Paul returns $620,000 to U.S. Treasury 'I promised Kentuckians I would stand for smaller, more efficient government' Published: 12 mins ago
(Global Dispatch) Following in the footsteps of his father, former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, U.S. Senator Rand Paul announced recently that he saved more than $620,000 from his official FY 2016 operating budget, bringing the total amount Dr. Paul has returned to the taxpayers to over $3,000,000 since taking office in January 2011.
“It’s easy to picture Washington’s out-of-control spending as a massive, untamable beast,” said Dr. Paul. “So I determined to show change is possible by starting in the area under my control, while working everywhere else I could to stop ‘business as usual.’
“I promised Kentuckians I would stand for smaller, more efficient government, balanced budgets, and spending restraint. I’m proud my staff and I have kept that pledge while operating one of the most active federal offices.” | 0 |
Mittwoch, 9. November 2016 So ein Ärger! Obama hat über Nacht sämtliche Atomcodes verloren Washington (dpo) - Wie konnte das nur passieren? Barack Obama soll in der Nacht zum heutigen Mittwoch seinen Atomkoffer verloren haben. Das gab der scheidende Präsident nach den ersten Hochrechnungen zur Wahl bekannt. Er glaube auch nicht, dass dieser innerhalb der nächsten vier Jahre wieder auftauchen werde. In dem Koffer befinden sich unter anderem die streng geheimen Atomcodes, auf die ausschließlich der Präsident Zugriff hat. Obama erklärte sein Missgeschick so: "Ich schaute gerade gespannt die ersten Prognosen zur Wahl, als ich plötzlich zu meinem Entsetzen bemerkte, dass der Koffer weg war. Was bin ich nur für ein Schussel!" Er habe zwar sofort das komplette Weiße Haus abgesucht, aber die Codes blieben verschwunden. "So ein Ärger. Naja, nützt ja nichts. Aber die Codes wurden in der Vergangenheit ja ohnehin nicht benötigt, deshalb ist der Verlust nun nicht ganz so tragisch. Mein Nachfolger wird auch ohne Atomkoffer auskommen. Vielleicht fällt mir ja in vier Jahren wieder ein, wo ich das Ding hingepackt habe." Nicht hinter dem Sofa, nicht unter dem Schreibtisch und auch nicht von Bo im Garten vergraben... Der Atomkoffer ist und bleibt verschwunden. Zeit für eine noch intensivere Suche hat Obama, der in zwei Monaten das Weiße Haus räumen muss, eigenen Angaben zufolge leider nicht. "Ich muss ja noch Schönheitsreparaturen für die Übergabe durchführen. Gerade bin ich dabei, alle Räume pink zu streichen." Es sollte nicht das einzige Missgeschick des Präsidenten bleiben: Nur kurz nach offizieller Bekanntgabe von Trump als Wahlsieger trat ein peinlich berührter Obama erneut vor die Mikrofone und teilte mit, dass er "blöderweise" jetzt auch noch ein Glas mit hochaggressiven Termiten fallen hat lassen, die das Weiße Haus bis zur offiziellen Übergabe womöglich schwer beschädigen werden. | 0 |
Alice Hemmer’s favorite part of Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” doesn’t involve the road trips, encounters with prostitutes in Mexico or wild parties in Manhattan. Alice, who is 5 and lives in a Chicago suburb, likes the part when Sal Paradise eats ice cream and apple pie whenever he feels hungry. She hasn’t actually read Kerouac’s classic. (Alice is a precocious reader, but not that precocious.) Instead, her father read her a heavily abridged and sanitized illustrated version of “On the Road” designed for to children. “She didn’t love it,” said her father, Kurt Hemmer, an English professor at Harper College and scholar of the Beat Generation, who noted that even some college students failed to appreciate the novel’s subtle spiritual message. “To really grasp it, you need to be a bit more mature. ” “On the Road,” with its recurring references to sex, drugs and domestic violence, might not seem like an ideal bedtime story for a child. But that’s precisely the point of KinderGuides, a new series of books that aims to make challenging adult literary classics accessible to very young readers. Along with “On the Road,” KinderGuides recently published picture book versions of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” and Truman Capote’s melancholy novella “Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ” (It skipped over the awkward question of whether Holly Golightly is a prostitute.) In one of its most ambitious and bizarre efforts, it released a cheerful take on Arthur C. Clarke’s opaque, science fiction novel, “2001: A Space Odyssey,” an allegory about the evolution of human consciousness that many adult readers find impenetrable. With their bright illustrations and breezy language — “Sal is ready for an adventure!” pretty much typifies the tone of “On the Road” — the books almost seem like parodies, or the perfect gag gift for the hipster parent who has everything. But the creators of the series, the graphic designer Melissa Medina and her partner, the writer Fredrik Colting, insist they aren’t joking. They’re already working on the next four titles in the series — versions of Paulo Coelho’s novel “The Alchemist,” Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” J. D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (minus the rape charges, Ku Klux Klan rallies and racial slurs). “The goal of all of this is to get them really psyched about these books now, so that they’ll want to read the originals later,” Ms. Medina said. Though the premise of their project may strike some as absurd — does a first grader really need to be introduced to Kerouac or Capote? — kiddie lit has become a surprisingly lucrative and crowded niche. Anxious parents who played Mozart for their babies in utero and showed them Baby Einstein educational videos have snapped up children’s books that promise to turn their offspring into tiny literature lovers. BabyLit, an imprint that publishes board books for babies based on “Anna Karenina,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Don Quixote” and other classics, has sold more than 1. 5 million copies of its 24 titles. Next fall, the company will introduce a series of picture books based on classic novels geared toward older children, which will include more of the plot, starting with “ ” and “Pride and Prejudice. ” “It’s a more educational approach than just Spot the dog,” said Suzanne Gibbs Taylor, the creator of the BabyLit series. Another popular series, Cozy Classics, which was created by the twin brothers Jack and Holman Wang, reduces great works of literature to stories, illustrated with photos of handmade felt figurines. (Their rendition of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” can be rattled off in a single breath: “ ! . ”) Their titles, which include “Jane Eyre,” “Emma” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” are designed for babies and toddlers, but include some arch visual jokes directed at the parents, like a felt figurine of Miss Havisham flailing about in flames in “Great Expectations. ” Even with the adorable fuzzy figures, the books can be overwhelming. “My daughter started crying hysterically 3 pages into it,” one reader wrote of her in an Amazon review of “ . ” Another reviewer questioned whether a toddler is ready for “Jane Eyre,” and called the Cozy Classics version “weird, dark and not the most appropriate for kids who are reading board books. ” Holman Wang said he and his brother wanted to preserve the sometimes grim and complex tone of the originals, rather than conforming to the “fluffy bunny aesthetic” of most contemporary picture books. “It’s not about saying, ‘My has read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’” he said. “We try not to cheaply capitalize on these stories by sanitizing them and losing the themes. ” Some educators are skeptical of efforts to complex literary works to small children, especially when there’s such a rich body of classic children’s literature. “It’s ludicrous to take great works that are clearly for adults and reduce them for children,” said Monica Edinger, a teacher at the Dalton School in Manhattan, who dismissed KinderGuides as a disingenuous attempt to exploit parents’ insecurities. Still, some parents counter that children can absorb the bigger themes, like the idea of resilience in “The Old Man and the Sea” or adventurousness in “On the Road. ” Brent Almond, a graphic designer and parenting blogger who lives in Maryland, said his son, Jon, had responded enthusiastically to some of the books. “A lot of these books are melancholy or outright depressing, but it’s been cool to see how he reacts to them,” Mr. Almond said. Jon likes the book based on “2001” the best, because “it’s in space and it’s kind of creepy,” Mr. Almond said. (Jon didn’t seem especially bothered by one of the more chilling scenes, when the ship’s computer, Hal, turns on the astronauts and sends one of them out of the spaceship to his death, Mr. Almond said. ) Ms. Medina and Mr. Colting got the idea for KinderGuides about a year ago, when they were visiting her family in Kansas. Mr. Colting was reading “The Old Man and the Sea,” and Ms. Medina’s niece asked him what it was about. He realized the story was easy to summarize, and saw a market opportunity. Mr. Colting, a native of Sweden, already had a background in publishing, albeit a somewhat checkered one. In 2009, he was sued by the Salinger estate for publishing an unauthorized sequel to “The Catcher in the Rye. ” He settled the lawsuit and withdrew copies from North America. Despite that earlier legal entanglement, Mr. Colting had no qualms about repurposing famous novels as picture books, including “The Catcher in the Rye. ” He argues that because they function as study guides as well as entertainment, the KinderGuides books don’t infringe on copyrighted works. Some copyright experts dispute that logic. “If you are literally taking a book and trying to translate it for children, taking what makes it literature and copying that, that sounds like infringement,” said Rebecca Tushnet, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. This year, Mr. Colting and Ms. Medina started an independent publishing company out of their home in Los Angeles, and began making a list of beloved classics to recast. After choosing their first few titles, they read the original works and highlighted the central themes and characters, and consulted study guides like CliffsNotes and SparkNotes. Mr. Colting wrote the text, and Ms. Medina created storyboards pairing the texts with sketches or descriptions of images. They hired a different illustrator for each book, and printed 20, 000 copies in total for the first four titles. They aim to publish 50 books, though not every classic novel seems feasible. James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” for instance, was considered but ultimately rejected. “We couldn’t in good faith do it,” Mr. Colting said, “because we haven’t read it. ” | 1 |
President Donald Trump said he thinks that President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser Susan Rice committed a crime when she reportedly unmasked American citizens involved with his campaign. [“I think it’s going to be the biggest story,” Mr. Trump said to the New York Times. “It’s such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time. ” Trump’s remarks are his first public statement on the subject since reports claimed Rice was responsible. Trump didn’t reveal any new details to the New York Times but said he would explain himself “at the right time. ” | 1 |
Americans who lost loved ones to illegal alien crime cheered Donald Trump’s inauguration, telling Breitbart News they hope he begins construction of the U. S. border wall quickly. [“It’s incredible,” said one woman whose brother was killed by an illegal alien. “It’s unreal. I’m so happy, so happy, and excited and can’t wait for him to become our president tomorrow. ” Asked by Breitbart News’ Washington political editor Matt Boyle what she wants to see done on Day One of Trump’s presidency, she said: “Build that wall! Build that wall, stop illegal immigration. Keep American families from being killed by illegal immigrants. ” Dan Golvach, whose son, Spencer, was killed by a illegal alien, told Trump to stick to his guns. “Keep being yourself,” Golvach said. “No other candidates that were in this race reached out to us. He did. He treated us like family. He knows us by name. ” “We’ve all seen him when the cameras aren’t on,” he continued. “And he’s sincere. He’s a great man. Full of energy. And I think that if anybody can turn this country around, the way it needs to be, it’s Donald Trump. ” WATCH: Agnes Gibboney, a legal immigrant whose son Ronald da Silva was murdered in 2002 by an illegal alien, said Trump’s promises to enforce immigration meant a great deal. “It means a lot. Not only to me, so I wouldn’t lose another loved one, but to everybody in this country,” she said. “We need to secure our borders, enforce our laws. We need to do what’s right. ” | 1 |
Although around 500 people excitedly gathered at Union Pub Tuesday morning in Washington, D. C. in anticipation of the live airing of a Senate hearing featuring former FBI Director James Comey, many left disappointed. [At least 50 people were in line before the bar opened at 9:30 a. m. for the 10:00 a. m. Senate intelligence hearing, including unemployed former government officials. A woman standing in line at Union Pub said she looked forward to hearing “Comey tell the truth. ” But after roughly hours, people shuffled out, calling it “underwhelming. ” “It’s what I expected, it’s underwhelming, nothing explosive has been revealed so far. James Comey is pragmatic, he’s a Washingtonian who still has a lot of his future career ahead of him. He does not want to create unnecessary conflict,” said one man, who wished not to be named. “The investigation is not a public matter. It is a legal, technical, and professional matter. But people here in DC are turning it into the Super Bowl,” said another man, who also did not want to be named. An office manager at a university named Derek said he was happy that Comey called the President a “liar” but said he wanted some evidence. “I want there to be tapes,” he said. Another man who wished to remain anonymous said he was “hoping to hear more damning testimony, more smoking guns,” but that Comey “phrased things carefully to be accurate. ” One man with a computer wallpaper that said “Impeach Trump” refused to talk to Breitbart. Several people said they hoped more would come out of a closed hearing later in the day, where Comey can discuss classified information. “What we got out of this hearing was an affirmation of what we already knew. Any juicy bombshells will come out of the closed door meetings,” he said. A man named Ben, who is currently unemployed but used to work at the State Department, said that the “best hope” for Trump getting impeached would be the Democrats winning the House, since he doesn’t see Republicans going along with it. But one man, Christopher, who worked at Trader Joe’s, said he was happy with Comey’s performance, despite him not opining on whether there was any obstruction of justice. “Comey was in control, got his message out. He knows it’s not to say whether it’s obstruction. He did what he set out to do,” he said. Another said he came just to “enjoy Comey’s testimony. ” “He’s a rock of integrity,” Tom, a computer science major, said. “He’s willingly testified against and for both sides. ” Another man, Alex, who works in environmental relations for a utility, did not hide his anger. “My take can’t be quoted in a family friendly publication. It shows how everything is — a bunch of senior Republicans abase themselves in a grotesque manner as they run flack for a man they’re covering for him and abasing themselves even though this is national security,” he said. Paul, an Army veteran and Ph. D. student, said there was “something for everyone here. ” “This is just confirmation bias both sides will find stuff that benefits them,” he said. There was only one person, a government affairs intern named Alex, who identified himself as a Republican in the elite DC watering hole. He called the hearing “same old, same old. ” “The only person who effectively pressed Comey was Marco Rubio. I’m not a Trump fanatic, but if he does well, it’s good for the country. We have an issue in this country of unprecedented division,” he said. | 1 |
TIME magazine features former Breitbart Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon as “The Great Manipulator” in Donald Trump’s administration. [The cover story, authored by David Von Drehle, describes how Bannon considers himself a honey badger tearing down the establishment. Over a piece of old nature footage, a clever narrator commented on a beast known as a honey badger. Through bee stings, snakebites and other degradations, the animal never stops killing and eating. “Honey Badger don’t give a shit,” the narrator summed up. Bannon adopted the phrase as a motto. Official Washington and its counterparts around the globe are struggling to understand just how much the honey badgers are now running the show. There is no doubt the badgers are starving for change and don’t care if they get stung by swarms of pundits, incumbents, lobbyists and donors — not to mention foreign leaders and denizens of Davos. In fact, they seem to like it. Describing Bannon as a “manipulator” is part of a growing false narrative set by the left that Trump is not in control of his own administration. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman described the “Steve White House” while the left is demanding the impeachment of “President Bannon. ” Bannon has worked closely with the president to implement his agenda despite efforts from the Washington establishment to bend the Trump administration to abandon campaign promises that got him elected. | 1 |
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A high school parade in Taiwan in which students dressed as Nazi soldiers and carried swastika banners has created a storm of criticism in one of Asia’s most open societies. Hsinchu High School in Hsinchu City held the parade, which focused on Adolf Hitler, as part of the school’s anniversary celebrations on Friday. The parade also featured cardboard tanks. The students chose the theme, according to local news reports. Photographs of the event spread quickly online, creating a backlash, with the unofficial diplomatic missions of Israel and Germany issuing letters of protest. The episode resulted in the resignation of the school’s principal, Cheng this week. Mr. Cheng said that he took responsibility, adding that the primary issue was “our education’s problem,” according to local news reports. “It wasn’t necessarily a problem created by the children. ” Taiwanese textbooks, like those in other Asian countries, focus on fighting in Asia during World War II, resulting in lower awareness of events in Europe. In addition to the Israeli and German missions’ responses, the Chabad Taipei Jewish Center also issued a statement expressing regret about “the use of Nazi imagery and logos by students in Taiwan, as it reopens historical wounds suffered by the Jewish people. ” Ross Feingold, chairman of the center, said that many people in Taiwan were unaware that there were more than 1, 000 Jews living among them, many of them residents with businesses or investments on the island. “Certainly it’s not meant to be an act of ” Mr. Feingold said. “Holocaust education is extremely limited here. ” The parade in Hsinchu is not the first incident in which Nazi references have offended Jews and other groups in Taiwan. In 1999, an advertisement for DBK space heaters in Taiwan featured a smiling Hitler with the caption, “Declare war on the cold front!” The next year, a restaurant with a concentration camp theme opened, closing weeks after it became a source of outrage. In 2001, the governing Democratic Progressive Party created a television advertisement contrasting Hitler with John F. Kennedy and other leaders, which the party modified after protests from the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei and others. Officials at the school, which is private but receives subsidies from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, have said they will show their students movies such as “Schindler’s List” to better educate them on the atrocities of the Holocaust. “A showing of a movie is not a sustainable program,” Mr. Feingold said. “What is more sustainable is reaching out to the Jewish community that lives here in Taiwan, many of whom have relatives who died in or survived the Holocaust. ” | 1 |
Record numbers say no to proposed handgun ban
Steve
A new poll released by Gallup has found that a record amount of Americans are opposed to gun control measures .
The survey found that 76 percent of respondents, over three quarters, believe that a ban on civilian ownership of handguns should not be made law.
The findings represent a four-point increase on the same survey from last year, in addition to an all-time high for the past three decades.
The poll also found that almost two thirds, 61 percent, are “against” a ban on semi-automatic rifles, or “assault weapons”as the corporate media refers to them.
That figure represents a full ten-point increase on previous findings, and is an all time record high since polling began on the issue 20 years ago.
Just 27 percent, less than a third, say they support a ban on handgun ownership, while only 36 percent, support a semi-automatic ban. an eight-point decline on previous findings.
In addition, gun sales have been hitting record highs for months on end.
In a summary of the new poll, Gallup seemed surprised, by the findings, describing waning support for a gun ban as a “paradox”:
Perhaps paradoxically, opposition toward a ban has increased against a backdrop of multiple mass shootings and terrorist attacks in which the perpetrators used assault rifles. These guns were used in high-profile incidents, including the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, California, and Orlando, and the mass shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut.
The findings reveal just how out of step Hillary Clinton’s position on gun control is with the majority of Americans.
Hillary is a staunch gun control proponent. Wikileaks releases have revealed that Hillary plans to implement strict gun control measures by executive order.
Clinton purportedly plans to open gun manufacturers to lawsuits by crime victims, a move that critics say would do nothing to reduce crime, but would bankrupt–and eventually end–gun manufacturing in the United States. This article was posted: Thursday, October 27, 2016 at 10:30 am Share this article | 0 |
Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos — and anything else that strikes them as intriguing. You can listen to this playlist on Spotify here. Like this Playlist? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes. com, and sign up for our Louder newsletter (coming soon!) here. The electronic musician who calls himself Burial deals in blurry, melancholy, ominous implications. His first release since 2013 is a pair of tracks that are never far from dissolving into entropy. “Young Death” can be glimpsed from the farthest fringe of dance music most of it has fairly steady but nearly subliminal beats, though they are submerged deep in the mix. Much closer to the foreground are crackly sounds — a storm? a burning city? — and voices singing words that would be soothing if they didn’t sound so utterly lost: “Don’t fear,” “Don’t cry,” “I will always be there for you. ” The beat is absorbed by the static, to be replaced by one that’s slower and even less supportive. “I’ll be there, promise I’ll be,” a voice offers before the haze swallows it, too. “Nightmarket” is an even more shadowy, attenuated travelogue. Its passages of blippy arpeggios are separated by lengthy stretches with echoes of wind chimes, distant keening voices, screams, whispers and stray spoken words — “Come with me,” “the frontier,” “over here!” — that only lead deeper into the void. JON PARELES The title of Laura Marling’s ravishing new song isn’t meant as a descriptor, but rather a note of anguish — like the word “water” as rasped by someone crawling across a desert. “Oh my hopeless wanderer,” she sings at the start of the track, tracing an upward arpeggio in a minor key. “You can’t come in, you don’t live here anymore. ” Still, Ms. Marling toys with aspects of seduction in the song’s arrangement, which leans heavy on a sinuous electric bass, and in the video, which she directed herself. Inspired by a series of dreams she had while making her new album — “Semper Femina,” due out in March — it’s a vision of human bodies as sculptural forms, and also an argument for physical intimacy as just another mode of performance. NATE CHINEN If you are the sort of person who expends much energy stressing about the fact that rapper du jour Lil Yachty had not, until recently, listened to the music of the Notorious B. I. G. then little in this freestyle — on the Beats 1 radio show of his longtime antagonist Ebro Darden — will change your mind. Rather than concede to the beat — Craig Mack’s “Flava In Ya Ear,” the remix of which featured B. I. G. — and perform a flow that recalled the original, in an act of homage, Yachty goes rogue, rapping in elongated sentences that stretch past the ordinary beat boundaries. It’s not quite virtuoso, but it’s intriguing — the sound of a rapper following the beat in his head, not his earphones: I’m in a Benz and I’m getting a BentleyI’m reading texts from last night, she said ‘I love how you bent me’I just bought a Benz and it said ‘please take me’You wanna buy it but you can’t, so you’re rentingYou take it back in six months, if there’s no denting JON CARAMANICA “Arkansas,” by the rising Texas country singer Troy Cartwright, is wonderfully patient. On this song, from his recent EP, “Don’t Fade,” he muses about the stability of a relationship (“Is this love or is this convenience? ”) and, after a couple of minutes, comes to no conclusions. And yet his voice is remarkably free of anxiety — he’ll wait as long as it takes, play it as it lays. That’s clearest when he’s not singing at all: the at the song’s end that’s just melancholy, stretched out ambient notes with cricket noises screaming for attention in the background. J. C. You won’t hear Paul Simon’s voice until after the mark on “Stranger,” a hypnotic new track featuring elements of his recent songs “The Werewolf” and “The Clock. ” Made by Nico Segal and Nate Fox of the Social Experiment — a Chicago group best known for its affiliation with Chance the Rapper — it’s a remix and but also an imaginative new creation. Those first two minutes involve some sharp, brooding horn playing by Mr. Segal, who until recently went by the name Donnie Trumpet. The production on the track is dreamy but also clearly drawn, so that Mr. Simon’s voice, when it does surface, practically crackles in the mix. N. C. “When and where did we go cold?” Oliver Sim of the xx wonders in “On Hold,” the single previewing the xx’s album “I See You,” due Jan. 13. It’s a familiar sentiment for the xx, an English band known for introspection and dialogues of estrangement sung by Mr. Sim and Romy Madley Croft. But now the band is visible by daylight, and they even smile now and then. The video clip for “On Hold” is set under the cloudless blue skies of Marfa, Tex. the town known for Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation, a Minimalist monument. When Mr. Sim and Ms. Madley Croft aren’t trading recriminations and regrets (via landlines) the video shows glimpses of life, including a romance between a football player and a cheerleader. Meanwhile, the song presents the xx as no longer rigorously minimalistic. A dance beat periodically surges in the mix, echoing what Jamie xx has been doing as a solo act and club D. J. meanwhile, a sample from Hall Oates’s “I Can’t Go for That” suggests that the xx isn’t entirely isolated from pop after all. J. P. The new album by the cornetist and composer Taylor Ho Bynum is “Enter the PlusTet,” a rich textural odyssey featuring a orchestra. It’s a grand statement, but hardly the only thing Mr. Bynum has been working on. A couple of months ago, at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, he introduced a smaller band he calls Rank Sentimentalist, whose ranks include the electric bassist Stomu Takeishi and the cellist Marika Hughes. This video captures the opening song in the set: a hallucinatory cover of “Black Lake,” by Björk. Stick with the clip for the full minutes, and you’ll begin to understand how improvisers like Mr. Bynum can turn a brief scrap of melody into something as churning and vast as an oceanic swell. N. C. Jamire Williams is a drummer with a capacity for groove, which has served him well as a sideman. He also has his own band, Erimaj — but on “ EFFECTUAL,” he pares down almost entirely to solo drum kit, creating a series of poetic experiments in rhythm and tonal color. The album, produced by Carlos Niño, recalls jazz precursors like Max Roach as well as loops and West African folk drumming. And while there isn’t much in the way of melody, the closing track, “Collaborate With God,” features some atmospheric keyboard work by Chassol, the French soundtrack composer who can also be heard on Frank Ocean’s recent visual album, “Endless. ” N. C. A technological collapse is just the entry point to a personal one in “A Lost Machine,” from a Grandaddy album due in March. The music unites fragility and majesty, placing Jason Lytle’s high, quavery voice atop a piano hymn that swells into a vastly reverberant processional, like Neil Young leading Pink Floyd. The lyrics start out by sketching a landscape, where wandering people desperately seek shelter in a “canyon land” littered with old, obsolete gadgets. But that’s their problem: Halfway through, Mr. Lytle turns his voice into a chorale and laments: “Everything about us is a lost about we is a forgotten dream. ” A broken world can’t compare to a broken heart. J. P. | 1 |
The Poynter Institute, the group helping Facebook determine whether certain news stories are “disputed,” has determined it is worth considering the possibility that “fake news” stories did not significantly impact the 2016 presidential election after all. [Poynter’s Chief Media Writer James Warren was reporting on a study concluding that while “fake news” stories favoring Donald Trump far surpassed those in favor of Hillary Clinton, such stories didn’t significantly affect the outcome of the election. “Did fake news help elect Trump? Not likely, according to new research,” was the title of the Poynter article. In response to the study, Warren concluded: The paper is worth consideration especially given overriding press assumptions about the potency of ideologically driven news coverage. The study, titled, “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” was by economists Matthew Gentzkow of Stanford University and Hunt Allcott of New York University. The paper utilized web browsing data, a database of fake news stories, and a online survey about news trends. Warren reported on the survey results: In sum, they conclude that the role of social media was overstated, with television remaining by far the primary vehicle for consuming political news. Just 14 percent of Americans deemed social media the primary source of their campaign news, according to their research. In addition, while fake news that favored Trump far exceeded that favoring Clinton, few Americans actually recalled the specifics of the stories and fewer believed them. “For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake article would need to have had the same persuasive effect as 36 television campaign ads,” they conclude. Poynter further quoted from the survey itself: “In summary, our data suggest that social media were not the most important source of election news, and even the most widely circulated fake news stories were seen by only a small fraction of Americans. For fake news to have changed the outcome of the election, a single fake news story would need to have convinced about 0. 7 percent of Clinton voters and who saw it to shift their votes to Trump, a persuasion rate equivalent to seeing 36 television campaign ads. ” Poynter’s reportage on the matter is particularly significant since the journalism nonprofit has partnered with Facebook with the specific goal of combatting “fake news. ” This after numerous politicians and pundits have claimed that alleged fake news helped sway the election. The International Network (IFCN) which is a project of the Poynter Institute, drafted a code of five principles for news websites to accept, and Facebook last month explained it will work with “ organizations” that are signatories to the code of principles. Facebook says that if the “fact checking organizations” determine that a certain story is fake, it will get flagged as disputed and, according to the Facebook announcement, “there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why. Stories that have been disputed may also appear lower in News Feed. ” Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With additional research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Portugal’s education minister was robbed at knife point. So was the chief of security for the opening ceremony as he left Olympic Stadium. A police officer was killed when his vehicle was sprayed with gunfire, and an Olympics bus carrying journalists was attacked by people throwing rocks. Even before the armed robbery this weekend of four American swimmers, including the gold medalist Ryan Lochte, a series of crimes had drawn attention to Brazil’s shortcomings in providing security for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. But for many in this city, a bigger question remains: What will happen after the Games? To thwart crime around the Olympics, Brazil has mobilized a security juggernaut in Rio twice the size of the one used for the London Games in 2012. Mindful of Rio’s reputation for violent crime, the Brazilians have deployed 85, 000 security personnel. This show of force includes 23, 000 soldiers patrolling the city, some in military vehicles, along with helicopters and warships looming around the city’s most popular beaches. “The city has never felt so safe,” said Gilberto Dias, 50, a hot dog vendor who described how plainclothes officers had sprung to action one morning last week after two muggers accosted a tourist in the upscale Copacabana neighborhood. “They just materialized out of nowhere, which is something I’ve never seen before. ” But even before the Games began, Rio was facing a surge in lawlessness in recent months that had rattled residents and alarmed the authorities. With the economy in turmoil, assaults and robberies on the street jumped by 42 percent in May, with 10, 000 robberies that month. And after years of declining homicides, the number of murders increased by more than 7 percent during the first half of the year, with over 1, 500 people killed. As dread persists over street violence and gun battles rage in Rio’s favelas, some Brazilians worry about what will happen in the aftermath of the Games, when the soldiers are withdrawn and the city is left on its own to grapple with a financial crisis. “The assault on the American athlete is what happens to us in Rio every day,” said Marcello Brito, 51, an architect, referring to Mr. Lochte. Rio’s finances were so bad before the Games that it had declared a “state of calamity. ” Budgets had been gutted, with police officers and firefighters protesting delays in receiving pay by holding signs at the airport telling visitors, “Welcome to hell. ” The federal government responded with an $850 million bailout package to help the state of Rio de Janeiro stay afloat, pay salaries and keep essential services running during the Olympics. But the crisis in Rio’s finances, which are heavily dependent on global oil prices, remains, and the security lapses threaten to undermine ambitions for a resurgence in the city’s fortunes. The authorities invested billions of dollars in sports venues, transit systems and pacification projects in poor urban areas, arguing that the Olympics would serve as a linchpin in overhauling the city. In the weeks before the Games, Mayor Eduardo Paes even contended that Rio would be “the safest city in the world. ” Many residents have welcomed the increased security. “It’s nice to see soldiers patrolling the streets, at least where I live,” said Cassius Almada, 39, a high school math teacher who lives in Copacabana. “It could be a lot worse. ” But those living beyond the necklace of upscale seafront neighborhoods say the increased security has had little effect in communities that have long been troubled by violence. Maria do Rosário Silva Santos, 54, who was visiting Rio from Brasília, the nation’s capital, said she had been stunned to see young men — not police officers — toting guns casually in Acari, a neighborhood in north Rio, where she was staying during the Games. “It was shocking to see,” she said. “As far as I can tell, nothing has changed. ” Some security experts emphasized that considerable risks persisted around the city, especially in favelas, the poor areas that generally emerged as squatter settlements and that are still controlled by drug gangs. Because of Rio’s financial crisis, plans fell apart to establish a network of policing outposts in Maré, one large area of favelas. Julita Lemgruber, the director of the Center for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship at Candido Mendes University in Rio, said it was naïve to expect a drastic drop in crime during the Games. “The government thought a snap of their fingers would bring peace to a city that has lived through so much violence in the past few years,” she said. “It doesn’t do any good to have this show of thousands of extra police unless you tell every Olympic athlete to walk the street with a policeman by his side. ” The Olympics, she said, had actually increased bloodshed — but only in the vast favelas, where the police have been battling militias and drug gangs. In Complexo do Alemão, a large group of favelas, a of gun battles since the start of the Olympics has left at least two residents dead and two police officials wounded. “Police forces are invading the favelas every day and killing people, which is outrageous,” Ms. Lemgruber said. “How can anyone hope to bring peace by spreading violence?” Heder Martins de Oliveira, the vice president of Brazil’s National Association of Police Officers, said that the killing of the officer in Rio last week pointed to the risks that security forces faced daily in the city. Referring to the wave of armed assaults during the Games, he said, “The situation would be even worse, an international disgrace, if dedicated police weren’t doing their job at this time. ” “Of course, there’s more attention to these episodes because they’re taking place when the world is looking at Rio,” Mr. Martins de Oliveira said. “But this is a dilemma that Rio faces on a daily basis. ” The police have also been involved in violent episodes blemishing the Olympics. Over the weekend, an federal police official opened fire in the direction of a man he was brawling with at Rio Scenarium, a downtown nightclub. It was not clear whether anyone was seriously injured. Amid the surge in lawlessness, many residents have found a measure of solace on social media, where they commiserate about their experiences and document each episode of crime in hopes of spurring the authorities to action. Among dozens of Facebook groups focused on crime is “Where I was robbed,” a map containing dots that form a road map of brutalization and despair. “Hello, hello, authorities!” one Facebook user, Eliane Cattapan, wrote recently. “With the arrival of all the tourists, I’m much more afraid of the rise in street crime than terrorism. ” | 1 |
Страна: Саудовская Аравия Как отмечает в своей статье американский политический активист Калеб Маупин, ни для кого не является секретом, что пока Вашингтон продолжает рассуждать о «правах человека» и «демократии», он продолжает совершенно открыто поддерживать самые реакционные ближневосточные державы. В частности Саудовскую Аравию, Катар и Объединенные Арабские Эмираты, где господствуют средневековые нравы, а о таком понятии, как «права человека» даже и не слышали. Более того, аравийские монархии продолжают поддерживать террористические группы по всему Ближнему Востоку, большинство из которых придерживаются ваххабитских взглядов в религиозных вопросах. Автор отмечает, что недавно избранный будущий президент США Дональд Трапм, который в ходе избирательной кампании не раз и не два критиковал Эр-Рияд, должен ответить для самого себя на вопрос: готов ли он положить конец «ваххабитскому беспределу», кардинально изменив тем самым политику Вашингтона? И если такая решимость у Трампа все-таки имеется, ему придется искать сотрудничества с так часто демонизируемой на Западе Москвой, а также и с Тегераном, о котором он в ходе своей кампании отзывался не слишком-то любезно. Именно Москва и Иран на сегодняшний день стоят на передовой войны с радикальным экстремизмом, и без взаимодействия с этими державами едва ли как-то можно изменить ситуацию на Ближнем Востоке. С полной версией статьи вы можете ознакомиться здесь . Популярные статьи | 0 |
FBI Getting Warmer: Pay-to-Play October 31, 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton looks at her mobile phone as she leaves her house to attend Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner at the Washington convention center in Washington, U.S.,
Five FBI field offices in mayor cities are looking deeping into the Clinton Foundation, Allegations of Pay-to-Play.
Federal agencies in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Little Rock, Ark., are investigating the Clinton Foundation regarding pay-to-play financial and political corruption . The Wall Street Journal reported the update on Sunday mirroring information provided by a former senior law enforcement official. The FBI field offices are coordinating with the U. S. Attorneys working in those cities. FBI agents in Miami are also joining the probe,. The Clinton Foundation has numerous programs operating in Haiti, the Caribbean, Latin America and South America. | 0 |
The baseball gods spend six months twisting the sport into a knotty lump. No one knows quite how to untangle it, and then the final week zips by. All those possibilities, resolved just like that. The season rushes to the end. “Rushes to the end,” Baltimore Orioles Manager Buck Showalter said, musing in his office at Yankee Stadium before this weekend’s critical series. “That sounds like a great name for a book. ” Now we can close the volume on the 2016 regular season. The Orioles survived to live another day, earning a date in Toronto on Tuesday for the American League game against the Blue Jays. The Mets will host the National League game the next night, against the San Francisco Giants at Citi Field. The Orioles and the Blue Jays both won on Sunday to finish with identical records, . The Blue Jays won the teams’ season series to earn the right to host the game, which was also how the Mets did it. The Mets and the Giants both finished but the Mets won the season series. The A. L. winner will face the Texas Rangers, who went in a division series opener on Thursday. The Boston Red Sox will visit Cleveland that day to start their series with the Indians. The N. L. series begin Friday in Chicago and Washington, with the Cubs ( ) facing the winner and the Nationals hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers. Before we get there, though, the appetizers will be delicious. The Orioles lost the A. L. Championship Series in 2014. The Blue Jays lost it last year. Neither of the teams, rivals in the A. L. East, has won a pennant in decades, and both are trying to do it with brute force. The Orioles led the majors in homers this season, with 253, and the Blue Jays had 221 — the next highest total in the playoff field. The N. L. game features a dream pitchers’ duel: the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard against the Giants’ Madison Bumgarner. In Syndergaard’s last postseason appearance — Game 3 of last fall’s World Series against Kansas City — he announced his presence with a fastball to the backstop, then earned the Mets’ only victory. In Bumgarner’s last October game, he twirled five shutout innings on the road on two days’ rest to close out the Royals in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series. The Royals are missing from the stage this time, slumping to a . 500 record after their two trips to the World Series. Also absent: the St. Louis Cardinals, bystanders to the party after a streak of five postseason visits. The Cardinals were alive at the start of play on Sunday but needed a victory and a loss by the Giants to force a tiebreaker game with San Francisco. The Cardinals beat Pittsburgh, but the Giants did not comply. They thumped the Dodgers, sweeping their final series after a ghastly second half had threatened their playoff hopes. The Detroit Tigers also started the day needing help to keep playing. Their path to the wild card would have been complicated had they survived Sunday, the Tigers would then have had to make up a game rained out last week. Instead, the Tigers made it easy on themselves. They got seven strong innings from their ace, Justin Verlander, but lost by in Atlanta when Justin Upton took a called third strike to end it with the tying run on first base. The game finished with fans doing one last tomahawk chop chant, summoning the glory days of Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux. All returned to Turner Field as the Braves closed the park after only 20 seasons, bound for a new home in suburban Cobb County next spring. The stadium had a brief and unfulfilling legacy. The Braves were a certified powerhouse when it opened, but they played only two World Series games within its walls, losing both to the Yankees in 1999. Three other teams — the 1997 Marlins, the 1998 Padres and the 2001 Diamondbacks — won the N. L. pennant on the Braves’ ground. The Braves were one of eight teams with 90 losses this season, but no team came within nine games of the Minnesota Twins, who managed a victory Sunday over Chris Sale, the ace of the Chicago White Sox, to finish . It was the worst record for the franchise since 1949, when it was the Washington Senators. After the game, White Sox Manager Robin Ventura announced he would not return next season. Ventura, the popular former third baseman, led Chicago to a winning record as a rookie manager in 2012, but four losing seasons followed. “It’s not like they’re going to be building a statue out on the concourse,” he told reporters in Chicago, in his trademark deadpan, when asked what his legacy would be. “You do what you can, and that’s all you can really do. ” There were other goodbyes around the game. Boston’s David Ortiz played his final game, and the Red Sox announced that they would retire his No. 34. The Yankees held a ceremony to honor Mark Teixeira, their first baseman for the last eight years, who is retiring after 14 seasons. The Phillies also saluted first baseman Ryan Howard, whose option they will decline after the season. Howard was the last link to the Phillies’ most recent championship, in 2008. He finished his final season in Philadelphia with a . 196 average, the precise average Mike Schmidt produced as a rookie in 1973. Schmidt and Howard combined for 930 homers and led the Phillies to their only two titles. Ortiz, Teixeira and Howard all went hitless, though Ortiz will get more swings in the playoffs. Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers for the last 67 seasons, had a more elegant . Scully, 88, finished his career at the home of the Dodgers’ rivals, who dedicated a plaque in the visiting broadcast booth at ATT Park to commemorate his final game. Willie Mays dropped in for the occasion. Scully grew up in New York and rooted for the Giants as a boy, sharing the story in his closing remarks after the game. “You and I have been friends for a long time,” Scully told his audience. “But I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve ever needed me, and I’ll miss our time together more than I can say. ” | 1 |
In parts one and two of our guided tour of the Deep State, we looked at two anchors of the Federal Triangle in downtown DC, the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency. And while Virgil looks forward to continuing his tour of the Triangle and other nodes of the Deep State, sometimes breaking news breaks in, and so we should pause to consider the latest. [On March 10, from his podium at the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, was asked about the Deep State. The question: Does the White House believe in a “Deep State” that is actively working to undermine the president? And here’s Spicer’s answer: I think that there’s no question when you have eight years of one party in office, there are people who stay in government — and continue to espouse the agenda of the previous administration. So I don’t think it should come as any surprise there are people that burrowed into government during eight years of the last administration and may have believed in that agenda and want to continue to seek it. I don’t think that should come as a surprise. In other words, Spicer’s answer to the answer to the question was “Yes. ” So now there can be no doubt that the concept of the Deep State will be discussed for a long time to come. And yet if Virgil might be permitted to quibble with Spicer, he would say that the Deep State is a lot deeper than just the past eight years — we’ll come back to that point. But first, let’s hear from other voices on the issue of whether or not there’s a Deep State. As we can see, it’s gaining a critical mass of recognition, at least on the right. And that’s good, because, as they say, forewarned is forearmed. On March 5, former House speaker Newt Gingrich made himself clear — as he always does: There is an active Deep State opposition to a populist disruptive reformer. Many [in the government] believe it is their duty to break the law and lie. For Trump to succeed, there will have to be profound overhaul of the bureaucracy. A few days later, Rep. Mike Kelly ( ) didn’t use the actual words “Deep State,” but his point was the same when he described the situation in Powertown: “The same people were there, and they don’t think the new owners or the new managers should be running the ship. ” And then Kelly added this point about former president Barack Obama: He’s only there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to run a shadow government that is totally going to upset the new agenda. So is the 44th president setting up a permanent campaign against the 45th president? Obama denies any such intention he says that he and his family are remaining in Washington so that his youngest daughter, Sasha, can finish high school. Of course, that explanation doesn’t quite tell us why former White House consigliere Valerie Jarrett has moved into the Obamas’ home in the swanky Kalorama neighborhood, just a couple miles north of the White House. In fact, the real goal of the relocation, according to The Daily Mail, is to “oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment. ” Meanwhile, others in Congress, too, are eyeing closely the shadowy armada arrayed against the new administration. In the words of Rep. Thomas Massie ( ) “I think it’s really the Deep State vs. the president, the duly elected president. ” And on March 9, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, was even more direct: Deep State Obama holdovers embedded like barnacles in the federal bureaucracy are on destroying President Trump. It’s time for the Trump administration to purge these saboteurs. Interestingly, by coincidence, or perhaps not, the very next day President Trump’s Justice Department ordered the firing of 46 US Attorneys, all Obama holdovers. Still, some in the Main Stream Media, even now, choose to deny that there is any such thing as a Deep State. One such is David Ignatius, veteran columnist for The Washington Post, who wrote on March 7 that what we’re seeing is simply the collision of President Trump and the properly established legal system: Some [Trump] supporters claim he’s facing a secret coup from an intelligence and foreign policy establishment that constitutes a despotic “deep state. ” But really, Trump is confronting the orderly process we call the “rule of law. ” Virgil thinks that it’s rich, indeed, for Ignatius to insist that there’s nothing going on except the proper rule of law. Why? Because it was Ignatius’ own reporting, back on January 12, that demonstrated the power of the Deep State. That was the report that revealed that on December 29, Michael Flynn, named as Trump’s national security adviser in the new administration, had been intercepted talking on the phone to the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. And from that first report, events tumbled, and as we all know, Flynn resigned from his White House post on February 13. And yet a few days after that Ignatius story ran on January 12, Virgil wondered aloud how he got the information about a private phone call: “Now how did Ignatius know that?” That is, how did Ignatius learn about the conversation? Continuing, Virgil wrote back then, “The Postman won’t say, other than that he got his information from a ‘senior US government official. ’” Virgil then pointed out that even if was legal to record the call — yes, it’s smart to surveil Russians — it’s not legal to leak such information to the media, especially if it involves an American citizen. “Such disclosures aren’t legal,” Virgil added with a sigh, “but once again, nobody in Washington, DC, seems to care. ” So we can see: In the Flynn case, the power of the Deep State wasn’t at all about the “rule of law. ” It was about just the opposite. Others, too, take the Ignatius line — even if their denials are weirdly weak and . Here, for example is a March 9 headline in Politico, the bible of the Beltway: “The Deep State Is a Figment of Steve Bannon’s Imagination. ” The author, Loren DeJonge Schulman, starts out by firing both barrels at Bannon and anyone else who might have suspicions about the Deep State: Here’s a handy rule for assessing the credibility of what you’re reading about national security in the Trump era: If somebody uses the term “Deep State,” you can be pretty sure they have no idea what they’re talking about. Got that? Nothing to see here: So if you hear Spicer, Gingrich, Kelly, Massie, Hannity — or, of course, ol’ Virgil — nattering on about the Deep State, well, have a dunce cap handy. So who’s the author of this don’ piece? We can see from her bio that Loren DeJonge Schulman, who now works at a in DC, has an extensive background in the politics of the Democratic Party and the Deep State, both. So maybe it’s not so surprising that Schulman wouldn’t want anyone nosing around too much in Deep State matters. After all, nobody likes being snooped on, right? In fact, Virgil is reminded of the 1999 Brad Pitt movie, Fight Club, featuring these lines: Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! That was Hollywood’s way of expressing the most basic wisdom of any secret enterprise: Keep it secret! So Virgil was surprised to see how Schulman chose to end her denial piece. After nearly 2000 words of mercilessly mocking the idea that there was any such thing as a Deep State, Schulman closed by . . . outing herself as a Deep Stater: So the next time you hear someone using the term Deep State, send them a copy of this article. Ask them to stop using it. Tell them the term betrays their ignorance, and obscures and misleads far more than it illuminates. And if that doesn’t work, well, we Deep Staters will take matters into our own hands. [emphasis added] One supposes that Schulman would say that her final words were just her way of being funny: What an arch sense of humor she has! And no doubt she got some yuks from her pals in Cleveland Park, Crystal City, and Chevy Chase. Meanwhile, other Americans, curious about how they are being governed, might wonder what’s so funny about being threatened by a Beltway apparatchik. Yes, an attempt at humor, however ominous, is one possible explanation for Schulman’s close. Another possibility is that she is, in fact, proud to be a Deep Stater, and that her pride shines right through her feigned irony. That is, she is eager to signal to her friends and colleagues in the Deep State that she is truly one of them, even as she laughs it off. | 1 |
On a chilly morning in November, Lt. Donzel Cleare of the New York Police Department stood in front of a classroom at Liberation Diploma Plus High School in Coney Island and asked a simple question: “How many of you guys feel that I work for you?” Before him, in desks arranged around three sides of the room, sat roughly 15 students, mostly male, with a group of girls gathered together on one side. Most of them were black or Hispanic, and because Liberation is a transfer school, virtually all of them had dropped out or fallen behind at other schools. Not a single student raised a hand. A few actually laughed. They were there at the beginning of a monthslong course, conceived by Liberation’s founding principal, April Leong, as an experiment in bridging the gap between New York City’s police and young people from a poor, minority community in Brooklyn. An elective class called the Junior Citizens Police Academy, it met weekly and was made up of students selected by Ms. Leong, in some cases because they had expressed negative feelings about the police. It is a common sentiment in the neighborhood around Liberation. The 60th Precinct, which includes Coney Island, has nine public housing projects, some with feuds between their residents. Last year there were 23 shootings in the precinct. This year, as of Aug. 28, there were nine — half as many as there were by this time last year, though it is unclear why the total is down. A number of Liberation’s students have had friends or family members killed. Some have watched fathers, brothers or friends go to prison. Others have themselves been incarcerated. Two years ago, Manuel Ocampo, an student, was shot in the head and killed by a retired police officer. The police said that Mr. Ocampo had a gun and was trying to rob the former officer and steal his car. The shooting was determined to be and the former officer was not charged. The week before he died, Mr. Ocampo had given a short speech at school, thanking his mother and Ms. Leong for helping him to turn his life around. Ms. Leong keeps a photograph of him on the wall next to her desk. It is no surprise that many of Ms. Leong’s students are suspicious of and hostile to the police. They are mostly resigned to the idea that officers will never be held accountable for what the students see as mistreatment of black people. Lieutenant Cleare, the commanding officer of the housing bureau’s community affairs unit, said later that he knew what the students’ response would be before he even asked the question, but he saw it as a way to get them talking. “It was very important when I came in there to let them voice their true feelings and opinions and concerns,” he said. “I didn’t want them to feel that this was going to be a brainwashing session. ” But the skepticism he faced from the students was especially about the idea that community residents should help the police stop crime. “That’s not going to happen,” a young man named Jahkhil said at the end of the first class. (He, like most of the other students, is being identified by only his given name at the school’s request, so that the details of their lives don’t affect their future opportunities.) “It’s just a rule — you just don’t snitch,” he said. “You can’t snitch. ” The consequences for those who do are clear. “You going to be looked at a certain type of way,” he added, “and certain people are going to want to kill you. ” As politicians, police officials, civil rights activists and others talk about how to change relationships between the police and poor minority communities, there has been little discussion of what role schools might play. The city’s Education Department has made some modest efforts. In May, more than 300 elementary schools received visits from officers from their local precincts, who read to students or led physical education classes or other activities. But there was little preparation, and the program was not aimed at neighborhoods where mistrust of the police is most pervasive. On July 14, after the shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, and then of five police officers in Dallas, New York City’s schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña, sent a letter to principals, teachers and other department staff members asking for lesson plans to address topics of civil rights, guns and violence. She also asked for suggestions about how schools could develop relationships with local police precincts. But few if any schools have attempted a program as intense as the one at Liberation. Ms. Leong and Lieutenant Cleare plan to repeat the class this year, with more field trips and activities. Over the course, they intend to have the students tour the 60th Precinct’s station house and the new headquarters of the local housing police unit, Police Service Area 1. Liberation occupies a former Catholic school building on the corner of West 19th Street and Mermaid Avenue. Its enrollment varies throughout the year but hovers around 200 students. More than half of the students are black, and close to a third are Hispanic. Eighty percent qualify for free lunch. At their former schools, these students slipped through the cracks. Ms. Leong’s goal is to not let that happen again. For her students, not graduating from high school means facing grim life prospects. According to the Brookings Institution, a research organization based in Washington, black men born in the late 1970s who did not graduate from high school had a nearly 70 percent chance of being imprisoned by their . That was higher than their chances of being employed. For both male and female students, not completing high school means a high likelihood of a lifetime of poverty. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2014, black high school dropouts age 25 and older had a median weekly income of $440. Female high school dropouts of all races fared even worse, with a median weekly income of $409. Some observers have identified what they call a “ pipeline,” in which young black and Hispanic men are funneled into the criminal justice system by punitive school disciplinary standards. When Ms. Leong heard last year that a drug addict had fatally shot a police officer in East Harlem, her first thought was about school. She wondered what New York City schools the man, Tyrone Howard, had attended and what chances were missed to put him on a better path in life. Her approach is shaped by her own background. She was born in Brooklyn to a mother and a father. She did well academically but was pregnant by the time she graduated from high school. She often tells students about how she took her infant son to her orientation at Baruch College because she didn’t have a babysitter. When she saw other students staring at her and whispering, she wanted to leave and never come back — just as they might feel out of place when they get to college, she tells them. But her adviser in a program for students encouraged her, and she stayed, graduating and ultimately becoming a teacher and then an administrator. She started Liberation in 2007. The son she had at 18 went to Yale, and her younger son is now a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Lieutenant Cleare, 47, who is black, grew up in Rosedale, a suburban section of southeast Queens. Like the students at Liberation, he said, he and his friends didn’t like the police officers in their neighborhood, most of whom were white. “They would be using the they would be slamming you up against walls,” he said. He went to York College in Queens, where he was the captain of the basketball team. After York, even though friends and cousins who had become police officers tried to persuade him to join the force, he took a job as a high school drug counselor. He finally became an officer when he was 29. He has spent 14 of his 18 years on the force doing youth development and community outreach. At Liberation, he approached the students as something of a father figure. But if the divide between black communities and the police is often characterized as a confrontation between black and blue, Lieutenant Cleare was clearly speaking from the blue side. “When there’s shooting around your way — ’cause there’s shootings all the time — when people are running away from the gunfire, who’s running toward the gunfire?” he asked. “Cops,” the students said. “Does it happen in a white neighborhood?” No, the students conceded. He acknowledged that not all officers were model public servants. “I’m going to say that to you right now: There’s a bunch of idiots out there,” Lieutenant Cleare said the first day. But over the months he did not engage in deep discussions about misconduct or police brutality, and as the students sometimes pointed out, he tended to put the onus for improving the relationship on them. He compared getting stopped by the police to being robbed at gunpoint and asked why people did not respond to commands from an officer as they would to orders coming from any other person with a gun. “Your most important priority when you get into an interaction with the Police Department is to leave the same way you came,” he said. “Just like the robber comes to you and says, ‘Yo, run that,’” — he demonstrated demanding someone’s money — “your whole goal is to walk away safe and sound. ” But instead, he said, people often talked back to the police. Lieutenant Cleare explained: “You think — and this is what’s crazy — on one hand, you think, Oh, it’s just a cop. There’s a certain level of trust. That’s why you can disrespect that officer, because you feel, at the end of the day, ‘You just a cop — you got that badge and gun, but you’re really not going to use it. ’” The students were not buying it. “Talking is different than touching somebody,” Bobby, 19, objected. “I can say whatever I want, ’cause it’s only my mouth — freedom of speech — but you can’t touch me. ” Another student, Shanell, said, “You’re saying because they have guns, because they have badges, we can just be disrespected!” “No!” Lieutenant Cleare said, throwing up his hands in frustration. At times, their views of the world seemed unbridgeable. Lieutenant Cleare said residents of Coney Island did not do enough to stop crime, because they refused to talk to the police. “You basically want people to start snitching,” Bobby said. “Define what a snitch is, Bobby,” Lieutenant Cleare responded. “Someone not intimidated to communicate — that’s what Ms. Leong told us,” Shanell said, sounding dubious. “Once we snitch, who come in guns blazing for us?” Lieutenant Cleare encouraged them to take the first step and be friendly to the scared rookie officer on the street. In a class in January, he said most officers would be dumbfounded if the students said a simple “Good morning” or “Be safe, officer. ” He went on, “How am I supposed to know that you’re a good guy unless you show me?” Bobby wondered why things couldn’t run the other way. “How about if you show me something, I show you something?” he asked. “How we always got to show you something and you can’t show us anything?” Bobby was a star of Liberation’s basketball team and the unofficial ringleader of the policing class. The other students listened closely to him, and he delighted in making them erupt in laughter. He lived in a nearby housing project and was the youngest of 10 children, one of eight brothers. He transferred to the school from Abraham Lincoln High School in fall 2014, when he should have been a senior. He broke his ankle in the winter of his sophomore year and skipped most of the rest of the year, he said. Bobby said he was uneasy around the police in part because he had seen one of his older brothers arrested inside their apartment when he was around 8. “I see one cop with a gun to his head, and one cop having him lay down with his knee in his back,” he recalled. “I thought I was about to see him die right in front of me or something — it was crazy. ” His brother went to prison for five years, though Bobby wasn’t sure what the charges were. “I think for robbery and assault,” he said. That experience, he said, was one reason he would never inform on someone to the police. “If you tell on somebody,” he said in January, “they got a whole family that they probably had to provide for in a situation where, in the streets, it’s hard. ” And yet his own family had been victimized by violent crime. His eldest brother, then 29, was shot and killed the previous school year. Bobby had been willing to give Lieutenant Cleare a chance partly because he trusted Ms. Leong so much. She had supported him after the killing. According to the police, his brother was visiting a female friend on Staten Island when her former boyfriend showed up they argued and the man shot him. Ms. Leong and two other staff members went to the funeral. Bobby said he had gone a little crazy for a while, thinking about tracking the man down and shooting him with his brother’s gun, but his surviving brothers talked him out of it. The man was arrested and indicted on a count of murder, among other charges. He is currently on Rikers Island and awaiting trial. But Bobby said he would have preferred that the man hadn’t been arrested. He would have preferred that he be dead. At Liberation, violence never seemed to be far away. In the cousin of one student was murdered in East New York, Brooklyn. The next day, another man was found dead behind one of the Coney Island projects, in what some suspected was retaliation. The week after the killings, Lieutenant Cleare talked in class about his own youth and how close he came to getting into serious trouble. At one point when he was a teenager, he said, he bought a gun to try to settle a dispute and hid it in the back seat of his aunt’s car, which sat in the driveway but was never used. Then his stepfather found it. Jahkhil, 19, who is slight, with tendrils of hair framing his face, laughed. “You got snitched,” he said. “I came home,” Lieutenant Cleare said, “and I heard my mother on the phone: ‘All I know is that the bullets are the size of C batteries! ’” “If I had ended up using that,” he added, “I wouldn’t be here today. ” One day in February, another young man, skinny and tattooed, said that the class was helping him understand why the police did certain things, but that he didn’t think his views would ever fundamentally change. He said he resented the police because his father had gone to prison for eight years, starting when he was 10. “My birthday was like the day before he got locked up,” he said. “Imagine, 10 years old, birthday — you think you’re about to get presents, everything. ” He said he had been close to his father when he was younger, but now they did not understand each other, and he had seen him only once since he was released from prison last year. Before coming to Liberation he attended Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, from which he should have graduated in 2015. (Asked why he fell behind, he smiled and said, “They had too many girls over there. ”) Still, he said he was confident he would graduate in June, as long as he could pass the algebra Regents exam that month. But just four days later, he was arrested along with a younger boy and charged with robbery. According to a criminal complaint, he pointed a BB gun at several young people and took two cellphones. The police arrested them on a bus, nine blocks west of the school. His first day back at Liberation, a little over two weeks later, the policing class met but Lieutenant Cleare couldn’t make it, so Ms. Leong talked to the students about a coming field trip to Baruch College. After class, she approached the young man, who hung his head and looked embarrassed. In a voice barely above a whisper, he said that he hadn’t wanted to come to school that day, but he had pushed himself. “I’m just trying to stay focused,” he said. Ms. Leong asked gently, “You want to speak to Cleare?” The young man nodded. She dialed her phone and handed it to him. He spoke quietly for several minutes, explaining his version of the story, and listened to Lieutenant Cleare, who told him it was important that he find a good lawyer and take responsibility for his actions. Ms. Leong said later that she worried the student would become discouraged and drop out. He was already 20, so he had little time left to graduate before he aged out of the public school system at 21. In March, Detective Joseph Agosto, a firearms instructor at the Police Academy, came to the class with the department’s firearms simulator. The law enforcement equivalent of a video game, it lets participants act out various policing scenarios. The instructor gives the details of a 911 call to which the police are responding. Then the scene is projected on a screen. The participants — usually police recruits — can talk to the characters and give commands. They can use pepper spray or a baton. Or they can shoot a gun or a Taser. If they hit a character in the right spot, the character will fall. Detective Agosto told the class that his responsibility was to train police officers to avoid getting shot. He said the Supreme Court had set a standard known as objective reasonableness for deciding whether an officer was justified in using force. He said it meant that an officer did not have to be right to shoot, but only to respond reasonably. Vinnette Carrasquillo, 20, was about to graduate that month, six and a half years after starting high school she had missed a year and a half while she was pregnant and after her daughter was born. She said she had heard that police officers were trained to shoot to kill and asked if that was true. “That’s a complete fallacy,” Detective Agosto said, “but that’s what people want you to hear. ” As it turned out, when the students took their turns at the simulator, they were more than ready to use lethal force. In one scenario, two students shot a mentally disturbed woman in an alley who was brandishing a pair of scissors. In another, Jahkhil and Jonathan, a classmate, responded to a call about a burglar alarm going off at a warehouse and found a man inside standing behind a table, with one of his hands hidden. Jonathan pointed his gun. They ordered the man to put his hands up. He argued with them instead. When he lifted one of his hands holding a metal object, Jahkhil and Jonathan opened fire, and the man fell. Only afterward did they see that the object was a staple gun. The class hooted, and Jahkhil burst into tense laughter. “You’re laughing, right, because what did you just do?” Detective Agosto said. “Killed him,” Jahkhil said. “You shot a guy with a staple gun,” Detective Agosto said. Why would someone do that, the students asked. “There’s a phenomenon called suicide by cop — it happens all the time,” Detective Agosto said. One scenario involved a shooting at a minimart, which led to a firefight with the perpetrator. In another situation, two students were told they were responding to a call about a domestic dispute. “Is there kids in the house?” asked Alisha, one of the students. She had transferred to Liberation from Lincoln in the fall, not because she was behind, she said, but because she wanted to be in a smaller school. Like Vinnette, she was about to graduate. Looking in the window of the house, Alisha, 18, and her partner, Malik, 19, saw a man with his back turned leaning over a couch, and a woman screaming in terror. When they called out, the man turned around. In his hands was a shotgun, which was pointed right at them. Malik froze, but Alisha sprang into action. She fired 10 rounds, missing once or twice, then hitting him in the elbow and the torso. She fired a couple of rounds after he fell. When she went back to her seat, her hands were shaking, and after a minute tears started streaming down her face. Ms. Leong rubbed her shoulder, and Detective Agosto asked why she was emotional. “Because that’s a common situation, personally,” she said. “You have to think of it this way,” Detective Agosto said. “You may have shot this guy. But what did I do? I also saved his wife. ” After the students ran through five scenarios, Detective Agosto’s partner, Officer Steven Malone, made an observation. Of the five scenarios, he said, only the conflict at the minimart had to end with the police firing their guns. “You shot everybody,” he said. Vinnette nodded. “Then we sit here: ‘Cops are killing everybody,’” she said. Lieutenant Cleare asked how the students who had fired their weapons felt. Alisha said she felt sympathy with officers. Bobby, who sat in the back and was unusually quiet, said, “I understood, like, why they do what they do. ” “You all human,” said Jahkhil, “just like us. ” A young woman in the policing class, who asked to be identified by only her middle name, Marie, began missing class in February. Marie, 20, was in her third year at Liberation and close to graduating, but she had recently been kicked out of her mother’s apartment and had lost custody of her son to the city’s Administration for Children’s Services. At one point, she sent Ms. Leong a text message saying she had to leave school because she’d had little to eat in the past two days and didn’t feel well. Pointing to her own background, Ms. Leong urges students to recognize the disadvantages they face at home but not to use them as an excuse. Instead of offering Marie sympathy, Ms. Leong noted that she could have asked for food from the school’s pantry, which is stocked with pasta and other staples for students who do not have enough to eat at home. “She said, ‘I don’t want to keep asking,’” Ms. Leong said later. “I said, ‘That’s your choice. ’” Although Ms. Leong is tough on students, she is not punitive, even when they curse at her or other staff members. She said that some teachers wanted her to be more harsh. But when students are accustomed to being hurt by the people closest to them, she said, a suspension often has little impact. “They say it out loud — ‘So what? ’” Ms. Leong said. “‘My mother just kicked me out. Kick me out, too? Go right ahead. ’” Ms. Leong said it was usually more effective to talk with students than to suspend them. “Taking ownership and apologizing and ‘what am I going to do different’ is different for them, and I think they learn to respect that,” she said. As the year went on, Lieutenant Cleare continued to emphasize that students could change their relationship with the police by extending some basic courtesy. And he offered his own friendship. He cheered on the basketball team at its championship game in February, and in May he challenged the players to a game at the Coney Island Y. M. C. A. against him and a group of fellow officers. The students won both games. He attended graduation in June, and in August he helped Ms. Leong organize what she called a unity barbecue at the school for current students and recent graduates, their families and officers from the 60th Precinct and PSA 1. If the goal of the Junior Citizens Police Academy was to change the dynamic between the students and the police, it did not work miracles or magically erase a legacy of distrust. Many of the students remained wary of the police and still believed that many officers were racist. But they had developed, in many cases for the first time, a close relationship with a police officer, as well as some respect for the challenges of policing and the risks officers take to protect the public. Bobby and Jahkhil both became interested in law enforcement as a career, which in turn sharpened their interest in college as a necessary step on that path. Often, what Lieutenant Cleare said in class discussions mattered less than that he was there at all. Jonathan, 19, who grew up in Coney Island with Bobby and, like him, transferred to Liberation from Lincoln, said the basketball game against the officers had affected his feelings about the police more than anything in the class had. “I could tell they had love for the game, like I do,” he said. He added that even though he never confided in Lieutenant Cleare about something deeply personal, he now felt that he could. Lieutenant Cleare said the class had affected him, too. “It actually just gave me more insight to the struggle that our kids face — the real struggle that they have being in an urban community,” he said. Even though he works with students often, he explained, he rarely has the chance to build close relationships with them. “This class enabled me to develop those bonds, where they were comfortable enough to talk to me about issues and be real,” he said. Lieutenant Cleare said he was considering going back to work in schools as a counselor when he is eligible to retire from the department in two years. The school year ended in June. Alisha, Bobby, Marie and Vinnette graduated. Jonathan, who had finished all his credits but had not passed the global history Regents test, failed the exam in June and then again in August and is now back at Liberation, studying to retake it in January. The student who was arrested in February did not drop out, and he attended every meeting of the policing class. Ms. Leong made him one of her interns, which meant that he worked for her after school and helped host community events, and he went to summer school. She expects him to graduate in December. His court case is in preliminary and evidentiary hearings. By the time of the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, the students had scattered. Ms. Leong said she had spoken with some of them, and they wondered whether the officers in those encounters had received sufficient training. She said of the students’ reaction: “Their thing was, This is why more of us should think about going into law enforcement, because we need to change who is in law enforcement, so that they wouldn’t be racist or have stereotypes in their heads or be so afraid to deal with us that you’re ready to shoot us. ” She hopes that offering the class again this year will keep alive the conversations about policing and racial justice that were stirred up by recent events. Too often, she said, her students become angry but don’t think they can change anything, so they move on. “That level of empowerment or voice just seems out of their reach,” she said. Ms. Leong wants to convince her students that they have a voice. She plans to ask some of the students from the previous class to speak to a group of high school principals to encourage them to consider organizing similar programs. And in the future, she hopes to raise money to take the students to other cities to talk to young people there about what they learned. Bobby, who started taking classes last month at Borough of Manhattan Community College, said the shootings of Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile made him angry. He said he still believed that the majority of police officers, at least outside New York City, were racist. But before the class, he said, he would have condemned all police officers as a group. “There just would have been no respect,” he said. Now his perspective had shifted somewhat. “I got respect for those who have respect for me,” he said. “That’s how I feel now. ” | 1 |
In the shadow of Bellevue Hospital Center, cast by a luminescent moon early Sunday, the only hint of the chaos that had erupted on the other side of Manhattan hours earlier was a trim woman in gray sweatpants and a shirt who limped out onto First Avenue. This was Helena Ayeh. She said doctors told her that she was the last bomb victim there to be released. Just after 4 a. m. she told the story of what happened to her. On Saturday night, she was walking through the metal gate outside her apartment building on the south side of West 23rd Street, where she has lived for 11 years. She carried a bag with some bottles of wine inside. Without warning, an explosion lifted her off her feet. The blast, which injured 29 people, appeared to be an intentional act, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said, though the authorities did not believe it was linked to international terrorism. “It was the biggest blast I ever would imagine lights flashing, glass shattering,” Ms. Ayeh recalled. “It happened so fast I was thrown up and landed down. I didn’t know where it had come from. ” She could not guess how high or how far she was thrown. But the concrete she landed on was littered with shards of glass, including from her shattered wine bottles. She reached a hand to her face. “I realized there was blood streaming down my face, and I couldn’t see out of my eye,” Ms. Ayeh said. “I said, ‘Help! Help!’ when I saw the blood. ” Around her, the air was filled with the shrieks of bystanders and the sirens of emergency vehicles. Someone shouted to her that an ambulance was near the end of the block. With blood pouring from the wound to her right eye, she struggled on injured legs toward it until emergency medical workers met her. “The ambulance, they literally picked me up off the ground,” Ms. Ayeh said. At Bellevue, she received multiple stitches to a cut at the edge of her right eye. Beneath her glasses, it was red and swollen. Her injured legs were also treated. “They patched me up,” she said, a weary smile on her face. Ms. Ayeh later said in a interview: “I consider myself very, very lucky I’m not blind. I’m very blessed, I think. ” Just before a taxi stopped and took her away on Sunday morning, she reflected on the Dumpster under which officials said the bomb had been placed. She knew it well. “It’s been there forever,” she said. “I really didn’t think about it. ” | 1 |
North Korea said it conducted its fifth underground nuclear test on Friday. Since the first test, almost a decade ago, the size of the resulting earthquakes from the country’s test site have increased, indicating that the devices are becoming increasingly powerful. The device detonated on Friday looks to have had a force equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT, according to the South’s Defense Ministry. In contrast, the last device tested by the North, in January, had a force equivalent of six kilotons of TNT, the South’s intelligence agency said. The aboveground Trinity Test in New Mexico in July 1945, which ushered in the nuclear age, had a yield of 20 kilotons. But power is not the only measure of a device’s lethality. The weapon must also have a way to be delivered. South Korean, American and Japanese officials want to determine whether the North Koreans are capable of building a miniaturized nuclear device that can be mounted on a ballistic missile and successfully detonated at a target hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the launch site. In the past decade, South Korean and American experts have said that the North appears to be closer to achieving that goal. Here is a timeline of how North Korea built up the capability of its nuclear weapons. The earthquake magnitudes are from the United States Geological Survey, which differ from those measured by the South Korean authorities. They may also be slightly revised from numbers reported immediately after the events. Magnitude of Earthquake: 4. 3 Device: United States officials said at the time that the weapon used plutonium and had a yield of less than one kiloton. Missiles: Three months before the nuclear test, North Korea fired a barrage of missiles into the Sea of Japan, including a Taepodong 2 intercontinental missile designed to be capable of reaching Alaska. The Taepodong 2 test was a failure, with the missile falling into the sea before its first stage burned out. Magnitude of Earthquake: 4. 7 Device: Chinese scientists estimated that this bomb had a yield of 2. 35 kilotons. Missiles: A failed satellite launch using a Taepodong 2 missile in April 2009 sent its payload into the Pacific Ocean. On July 4, 2009, North Korea launched three missiles into the sea, with none apparently flying more than 300 miles. Magnitude of Earthquake: 5. 1 Device: North Korea said this bomb, stronger than the first two tests, was miniaturized. After the launch, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency estimated with “moderate confidence” that North Korea had learned how to make a miniaturized nuclear weapon capable of being delivered by a ballistic missile. But the report said the weapon’s “reliability will be low. ” Military officials in the United States and South Korea publicly expressed doubt that North Korea had actually developed such a warhead. Missiles: In May 2013, North Korea launched three missiles into the Sea of Japan. Magnitude of Earthquake: 5. 1 Device: North Korea claimed this device was a hydrogen bomb. In May, American and South Korean intelligence officials concluded that North Korea was now able to mount nuclear warheads on and missiles that would be capable of hitting Japan and South Korea. Missiles: In April, North Korea launched a missile from a submarine. Magnitude of Earthquake: 5. 3 Device: South Korean officials said this was North Korea’s most powerful device to date. Missiles: In June, North Korea successfully launched an ballistic missile into high altitude after five consecutive failures. The missile may be capable of reaching American forces based on Guam, in the Pacific Ocean. | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. A man sleeping in the doorway of a bar in the industrial town of Linden, N. J. turned out to be the suspect in the bombing in Manhattan on Saturday night. He opened fire on officers, was shot multiple times and then was taken into custody, ending a huge manhunt that involved the first use of the nation’s Wireless Emergency Alerts as an electronic wanted poster: “WANTED: Ahmad Khan Rahami, male. See media for pic. Call if see. ” _____ 2. The authorities linked Mr. Rahami, a naturalized U. S. citizen from Afghanistan, to a second bomb planted in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which did not explode. Above, extra security on Monday. Officials also believe Mr. Rahami is connected to a bombing earlier Saturday on the Jersey Shore and a backpack full of pipe bombs found in Elizabeth, N. J. late Sunday. Friends say Mr. Rahami, a Muslim, had become more religious recently. _____ 3. The presidential candidates staked out competing claims on national security, seeking to persuade voters of their ability to ward off terrorist attacks on U. S. soil. Donald Trump called for police profiling of people from the Muslim world, while Hillary Clinton urged Americans to show “courage and vigilance,” and not to demonize Muslims or Americans of foreign origin. Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Trump was not undermining militant groups with his stance but rather playing into their hands, making him a “recruiting sergeant for the terrorists. ” _____ 4. The U. S. acknowledged its second friendly fire case in days. An American airstrike hit a police post in Southern Afghanistan rather than the Taliban fighters attacking it, leaving at least seven officers dead in a war that has endured for 15 years. Above, the site of a recent car bombing in Kabul. Two days ago, the U. S. admitted that an airstrike in Syria had killed government soldiers rather than Islamic State fighters. The U. S. maintains hope that a partial in Syria will endure, but the Syrian military declared that it was over and began bombardments in parts of the northern city of Aleppo. A Syrian Red Crescent aid convoy trying to deliver desperately needed aid there was attacked. _____ 5. Prosecutors in the Bridgegate case came out with a striking point of agreement with the defense. In opening statements, the prosecutors said that Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey knew that lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge were being closed to punish a rebellious local mayor, knowledge Mr. Christie has denied. Two former members of his administration are on trial in the case, including Bridget Anne Kelly, above. _____ 6. U. S. federal regulators officially endorsed the concept of cars as potentially safer than traffic. They issued guidelines that aimed to help channel the nascent industry in a way that balances the commercial interests of companies like Tesla, Google and Uber with public safety. Researchers who specialize in the technology that guides cars are the first to concede the limitations of their science at the moment. “Knowing what I know about computer vision, I wouldn’t take my hands off the steering wheel,” one expert said. _____ 7. Nine Emmys for “The People v. O. J. Simpson” prompted Marcia Clark, above right with the actress who played her, to claim vindication. Miss the awards show? It had ups (the much trolled and hacked actress Leslie Jones inviting the show’s accountants to guard her Twitter account) and downs (the shadow of two murder victims hanging over the many awards for “O. J. ”) Here’s our collection of the best and worst moments. And this is the week that new TV series launch and old friends return. Our experts have recommendations for every night of the week, including “Pitch” on Thursday (9 p. m. Fox) about a screwball pitcher poised to be the first woman to play Major League Baseball. _____ 8. Arctic sea ice shrank to its level on record as of Saturday, just behind the mark set in 2012. Measures to mitigate global warming are proliferating. JetBlue, seeking to get ahead of looming restrictions on greenhouse gas pollution by airlines, said it would buy more than 330 million gallons of renewable fuel over 10 years. _____ 9. “ ” fans chanted. Tim Tebow had his first workout as a minor league baseball player in Port St. Lucie, Fla. “It was one of the hardest decisions of my life to choose football over baseball,” he said. Our sportswriter says Tebow has some work to do — like reining in his throwing arm, which at one point sent a ball catapulting over his partner’s head. “Defensively,” our sportswriter says, “he looks at times like a quarterback trying to play the outfield. ” _____ 10. One of our stories today is an essay by a college senior on campus culture that encourages drinking to blackout. She describes a pattern of alcohol overdose encouraged by organized drinking games, like the frat house cuff and chug — being handcuffed to a partner until the two of you empty a fifth. She blamed the stress of competition, a poor job market and loan debt. “At the end of the day, for a lot of students, forgetting will always be the best option,” she writes. _____ 11. Finally, archaeologists have begun to uncover the outlines of the vast ancient empire of Angkor in what is now Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Using a technology known as lidar, they shot pulses of light at the ground from lasers mounted on helicopters, which revealed subtle gradations in the landscape. “The vegetation was obscuring these parts of Angkor and other monumental sites,” one archaeologist said. Buddhist priests blessed the sensors before the readings were taken. _____ 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 the Weekend Briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
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A top confidant to Hillary Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta suggested the person who told the former secretary of state she could use a private email should be “drawn and quartered,” according to a leaked email chain.
“Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?” Neera Tanden, of the Center for American Progress, asked Podesta in a July 2015 email . The email was one of thousands released by WikiLeaks from Podesta’s hacked Gmail account.
“And has that person been drawn and quartered?” Tanden added. “Like whole thing is f*cking insane.”
Clinton has said former Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested she use a private email, just as he did, while serving as the U.S.’s top diplomat. Clinton also said she used a private email server for “convenience” and it was done in accordance with State Department guidelines. Though, she did say it was a “mistake” for her to use a private server.
Powell, however, criticized Clinton for trying to bring him into the email issue.
“Sad thing,” Powell wrote to a friend in a hacked email. “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.”
“I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton’s [ sic ] party to get their attention. She keeps tripping into these ‘character’ minefields,” Powell wrote, adding he tried to meet with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills to settle the issue.
This report, by Michael Bastasch, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation. | 0 |
ACLU Threatens War Against President Trump The ACLU has a message for Donald Trump. They are not impressed with many of Trump's campaign promises, and threaten the new president-elect with court if he tries to implement them.
The ACLU has a message for Donald Trump.
NEW YORK — In response to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union , had the following statement:
“For nearly 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all, no matter who is president. Our role is no different today.
“President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation’s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.
“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers, and millions of card-carrying supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.
“One thing is certain: we will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency and when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor. | 0 |
Shaped like a torpedo and about as swift, squids are underwater predators. Together with their nimble brethren, the octopus and cuttlefish, they make for an agile invertebrate armada. But that was not always the case. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancestors of the tentacled trio were slow, heavily armored creatures, like the ammonites and the belemnites. Alastair Tanner, a doctoral student at University of Bristol in England, wanted to better understand why those cephalopods lost their shells. But though both ammonites and the belemnites have left behind rich fossil records, their descendants have not. So Mr. Tanner conducted a genetic analysis of 26 present day cephalopods, including the vampire squid, the golden cuttlefish and the southern octopus. With the molecular clock technique, which allowed him to use DNA to map out the evolutionary history of the cephalopods, he found that today’s cuttlefish, squids and octopuses began to appear 160 to 100 million years ago, during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution. Mr. Tanner published his findings last week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. During the revolution, underwater life underwent a rapid change, including a burst in fish diversity. Some predators became better suited for crushing shellfish, while some smaller fish became faster and more agile. “There’s a continual arms race between the prey and the predators,” said Mr. Tanner. “The shells are getting smaller, and the squids are getting faster. ” The evolutionary pressures favored being nimble over being armored, and cephalopods started to lose their shells, according to Mr. Tanner. The adaptation allowed them to outcompete their shelled relatives for fast food, and they were able to better evade predators. They were also able to keep up with competitors seeking the same prey. Today most cephalopods are squishy and . The biggest exception is the nautilus. But though there are more than 2, 500 fossilized species of nautilus, today only a handful of species exist. Squid and octopus species number around 300 each, and there are around 120 species of cuttlefish. The differences in number, compared with the nautilus, indicates the advantages that these cephalopods may have gained over their shelled relatives, according to Mr. Tanner. “It became a much more successful strategy to be a really high metabolism, very rapid moving animal,” Mr. Tanner said, “and they evolved into these really quite amazing things we see today. ” | 1 |
Mary Tyler Moore, who died on Wednesday at 80, had a career in show business. But she is most remembered for two indelible sitcom roles: Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and later, Mary Richards on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show. ” [ Read Mary Tyler Moore’s obituary | 5 great episodes to stream ] Ms. Moore first appeared in The New York Times in 1962, during the first season of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” which ran from 1961 to 1966. A reporter interviewed her during a brief trip to New York to CBS executives and affiliates. (“When they saw Mary, there was quite a bit of applause and a few whistles,” a network spokesman said.) By 1965 the show was a hit and Ms. Moore was a star. The writer Joanne Stang called her the “virtually uncontested popularity queen of weekly television,” marveling that Ms. Moore “has made housewifery a highly palatable pastime. ” “I guess they simply like me,” Ms. Moore said in the article. At the time she was preparing to try to leverage her TV success into a film career, having recently signed a contract with Universal. But she was similarly about her prospects. “If I don’t have the chemistry for the big screen, I guess I’ll look for something else to do when the ‘Van Dyke Show’ goes off,” she said. Ms. Moore did appear in films like “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?” and “Change of Habit,” but it was another television show that became her defining role. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which Ms. Moore produced with her Grant Tinker, debuted in 1970, arriving in an era whose social mores were signified by the groaner headline The Times used to introduce it and other new series: “Out of the Kitchen, Ladies. ” Early coverage was similarly dismissive: “Mary Tyler Moore is caught in a preposterous item about life as an ‘associate producer’ in a TV newsroom,” Jack Gould wrote in The Times in a preview of the 1970 TV season. In his brief review of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” Mr. Gould complained that the star was saddled with “one set of bizarre happenings at a TV station’s newsroom and another in her living accommodations. ” But within a few years, The Times had reconsidered its stance. “Consistently tight writing and good acting have made this situation comedy the best of its kind in the history of American television,” Dan Menaker wrote in 1973. The following year, The Times was revealing “Why 30 Million Are Mad About Mary. ” (The answer: She is “beautiful and sexy, but not threatening. ”) As the show wrapped up its run, during which it had broken ground in prime time with its depiction of a single professional woman, an Associated Press article in The Times noted that the show “laid to rest the myth that audiences would not accept a situation comedy involving a woman, unless she was married and burned dinner at least one night a week. ” “I’m just part of it,” Ms. Moore said in the article. “But it really has affected a lot of people, all to the good. ” Ms. Moore’s career never again reached the heights of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” but she stayed busy branching out into musicals and additional, series, and playing against plucky type in TV movies and films like “Ordinary People” and “Flirting With Disaster. ” In the twilight of her career, as the lifetime achievement awards started rolling in, she embraced her signature role in lighthearted reunion specials and in the occasional interview. In 2012, Neil Genzlinger, a television critic for The Times, watched the series finale of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” with the actress, who apologized in advance for a watery eye that had been plaguing her. “As we finished,” Mr. Genzlinger wrote, “Ms. Moore reached for the tissue box. ‘Now I am crying,’ she said. ‘It’s not just a bad eye. ’” | 1 |
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — When Donald J. Trump rang in the new year this weekend, he did it in opulence, joined by the actor Sylvester Stallone, the gossip page fixture Fabio and a crowd of wealthy developers reveling under the swaying palm trees at Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach. President George W. Bush had his ranch in Crawford, Tex. His father had a compound in Kennebunkport, Me. President Obama has taken frequent vacations in Hawaii, staying at a private home. But Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, where he has spent the past two weeks away from his home in New York City, is likely to eclipse them all as the 45th president’s winter White House. And that was always the intention of Marjorie Meriweather Post, the cereal heiress and the property’s original owner, who left to the federal government when she died in 1973, hoping it would serve as a home for presidents. But the government had no interest in her plan, and Mr. Trump later bought the property for less than $10 million, turning it into a club where membership costs six figures. Mr. Trump’s arrival was greeted with sneers by the Palm Beach elite, and he opened up ’s membership to Jews and who had been excluded from other establishments. He was also the first club owner on the island to admit an openly gay couple. Since Mr. Trump’s victory in November, has been stuffed with guests attracted by an amenity unique to this club: the chance to rub shoulders with the next president. “It’s like going to Disneyland and knowing Mickey Mouse will be there all day long,” said Jeff Greene, a developer and unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Senate from Florida in 2010, who is a member and was a Hillary Clinton supporter. Instead of hosting major corporate executives and potential cabinet secretaries for interviews inside a boxy transition office at Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Trump has been seated at an ornately designed couch, upholstered in pale fabric laced with gold, beneath a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a scene resembling a mansion in “Sunset Boulevard” or “Citizen Kane,” two of Mr. Trump’s favorite movies. At night, the couches are moved out and tables are added to accommodate the evening cocktail crowd, among whom Mr. Trump moves from one table to the next, the most powerful greeter in the world. At the annual New Year’s Eve party on Saturday night, a white menu included “Mr. Trump’s wedge salad,” a wild mushroom and Swiss chard ravioli and a “breakfast buffet. ” Those in attendance drifted in under a striped awning, the men dressed in tuxedos, the women in ball gowns, many with their hair swept high. Guests stepped onto a red carpet as they entered the club and wandered over to a poolside cocktail party. Mr. Trump later delivered remarks, according to a guest, who said he thanked his family and the club members for their support over the years. Howie Carr, a conservative radio host who was supportive of Mr. Trump, roamed the crowd, with Mr. Carr posting on Twitter that his daughter asked Mr. Trump if she could be an intern in the White House. Mr. Trump’s two adult sons, Eric and Donald Jr. posed for photographs. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were also there. Like most aspects of Mr. Trump’s business interests, the party generated controversy as tickets to it were made available to club members and guests for a little more than $500. Mr. Trump’s aides rejected the questions. Mr. Trump returned to New York on Sunday night. But the club will remain an escape for him. His contentious Twitter posts belie his relative calm when he is at compared with when he is isolated inside Trump Tower. Mr. Trump’s combative public persona — often on display during his campaign — mostly dissolves behind the walls of his castle. “ is an environment he can control,” said the historian Douglas Brinkley, who last week attended a lunch with a longtime club member, Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media. “I watched him hold court — he was so comfortable in his own skin, and so relaxed. ” Mr. Ruddy has hosted Mr. Carr and Laura Ingraham, another conservative radio host who supported Mr. Trump, at the club and has introduced Mr. Trump to a range of news media figures, politicians and donors. He described the as “seeking the Donald Trump: totally at ease, very positive, very gregarious. ” Mr. Trump appears to feed off contact with the people at the club. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, he queried dinner guests about whether he should appoint Rudolph W. Giuliani or Mitt Romney as his secretary of state (he ended up picking neither). During this trip, he has heaped praise on his ultimate choice for the job, Rex W. Tillerson, the head of Exxon Mobil. (Mr. Trump has called him “Mr. Exxon. ”) He talks about the work he has done to find a solution for the problems at the Department of Veteran Affairs, which included a recent meeting with a number of executives at . Mr. Trump told a New York Times reporter that he intended to make Brian Burns, the businessman son of a confidante of Joseph P. Kennedy, the ambassador to Ireland. Isaac Perlmutter, the reclusive head of Marvel Entertainment, is a member who helped Mr. Trump put that meeting together. Mr. Trump has also held with Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and a club member, and hosted prominent figures like Carlos Slim, the billionaire who is Mexico’s richest man. Mr. Trump his wife, Melania and their son, Barron, inhabit a residential area of the club. His adult children and their families usually stay in nearby cabanas on the property. Mr. Trump frequently dines on the patio, a central point of action, where at night a singer plays with a small band, sometimes belting out requests from Mr. Trump and other guests. (“My Way,” a song popularized by Frank Sinatra, was one recent choice.) A violinist sometimes moves among tables, plucking tunes like the theme from “Fiddler on the Roof. ” Mr. Trump has given the cadre of White House reporters who now cover him some access to the club, but grudgingly so — he once again eluded the reporters covering him on Saturday, slipping away without any warning to play golf at another of his clubs nearby in Jupiter. And outside the confines of old grievances flare up. On the golf course, Mr. Trump spotted Harry Hurt, a biographer who wrote critically of Mr. Trump years ago, preparing to play a round with David H. Koch, a billionaire conservative donor. Mr. Trump ordered club officials to remove Mr. Hurt from the property, according to a Facebook post by Mr. Hurt. Over the years, Mr. Trump has also been perpetually at loggerheads with Palm Beach officials. He has filed lawsuits attempting to keep noisy planes from flying over and there have been disputes over the height of his oversize flagpole on the grounds. With its owner’s coming new job, the club has had some changes. Guests now go through an elaborate security screen to gain access to the main entrance. Secret Service agents are now sprinkled throughout the property, at night blending into the shrubbery along the grounds. Robin Bernstein, a club member for nearly 25 years, said that some club members might express frustration, but that most thought it was important “that we keep Donald and his family safe. ” Attendees seem to see a benefit so far in having the around, and expect it will continue. “The loser in this game is Camp David,” said Mr. Brinkley, referring to the longtime presidential retreat in Maryland. “Once you’re at and it’s so opulent and the idea of suddenly inserting yourself into Camp David’s Maryland mountains environment seems unlikely. ” | 1 |
Friday during an interview on the BBC with host Victoria Derbyshire, transgender advocate Caitlyn Jenner said she was considering running for office to promote LGBT issues from within the Republican Party. When asked about going into politics, Jenner said, “I have been asked that question quite a bit, to be honest with you over the next year I’m looking into it. I want to know, and I have to be very smart about this — where can I do a better job for my community, in bringing the Republican Party around when it comes to all LGBT issues? Is it from the outside? Kind of working on the outside and in the perimeter and working with everybody to get the Republicans to change their thinking? Or is it better off being on the inside and actually running for a Congress or Senate seat or whatever it may be? Can I do more good there? And those are the things that I am evaluating. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
The Failure of Democracy
How The Oligarchs Plan To Steal The Election By Paul Craig Roberts
I am now convinced that the Oligarchy that rules America intends to steal the presidential election. In the past, the oligarchs have not cared which candidate won as the oligarchs owned both. But they do not own Trump.
Most likely you are unaware of what Trump is telling people as the media does not report it. A person who speaks like this:
is not endeared to the oligarchs.
Who are the oligarchs?
Wall Street and the mega-banks too big to fail and their agent the Federal Reserve, a federal agency that put 5 banks ahead of millions of troubled American homeowners who the federal reserve allowed to be flushed down the toilet. In order to save the mega-banks balance sheets from their irresponsible behavior, the Fed has denied retirees any interest income on their savings for eight years, forcing the elderly to draw down their savings, leaving their heirs, who have been displaced from employment by corporate jobs offshoring, penniless.
The military/security complex which has spent trillions of our taxpayer dollars on 15 years of gratuitous wars based entirely on lies in order to enrich themselves and their power.
The neoconservartives whose crazed ideology of US world hegemony thrusts the American people into military conflict with Russia and China.
The US global corporations that sent American jobs to China and India and elsewhere in order to enrich the One Percent with higher profits from lower labor costs.
Agribusiness (Monsanto et.al.), corporations that poison the soil, the water, the oceans, and our food with their GMOs, hebicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers, while killing the bees that pollinate the crops.
The extractive industriesenergy, mining, fracking, and timberthat maximize their profits by destroying the environment and the water supply.
The Israel Lobby that controls US Middle East policy and is committing genocide against the Palestinians just as the US committed genocide against native Americans. Israel is using the US to eliminate sovereign countries that stand in Israells way.
What convinces me that the Oligarchy intends to steal the election is the vast difference between the presstitutes reporting and the facts on the ground.
According to the presstitutes, Hillary is so far ahead that there is no point in Trump supporters bothering to vote. Hillary has won the election before the vote. Hillary has been declared a 93% sure winner.
I am yet to see one Hillary yard sign, but Trump signs are everywhere. Reports I receive are that Hillarys public appearances are unattended but Trumps are so heavily attended that people have to be turned away. This is a report from a woman in Florida:
Trump has pulled huge numbers all over FL while campaigning here this week. I only see Trump signs and stickers in my wide travels. I dined at a Mexican restaurant last night. Two women my age sitting behind me were talking about how they had tried to see Trump when he came to Tallahassee. They left work early, arriving at the venue at 4:00 for a 6:00 rally. The place was already over capacity so they were turned away. It turned out that there were so many people there by 2:00 that the doors had to be opened to them. The women said that the crowds present were a mix of races and ages.
I know the person who gave me this report and have no doubt whatsoever as to its veracity.
I also receive from readers similiar reports from around the country.
This is how the theft of the election is supposed to work: The media concentrated in a few corporate hands has gone all out to convince not only Americans but also the world, that Donald Trump is such an unacceptable candidate that he has lost the election before the vote.
By controllng the explanation, when the election is stolen those who challenge the stolen election are without a foundartion in the media. All media reports will say that it was a run away victory for Hillary over the misogynist immigrant-hating Trump.
And liberal, progressive opinion will be relieved and off guard as Hillary takes us into nuclear war.
That the Oligarchy intends to steal the election from the American people is verified by the officially reported behavior of the voting machines in early voting in Texas. The NPR presstitutes have declared that Hillary is such a favorite that even Republican Texas is up for grabs in the election.
If this is the case, why was it necessary for the voting machines to be programmed to change Trump votes to Hillary votes? Those voters who noted that they voted Trump but were recorded Hillary complained. The election officials, claiming a glitch (which only went one way), changed to paper ballots. But who will count them? No glitches caused Hillary votes to go to Trump, only Trump votes to go to Hillary.
The most brilliant movie of our time was The Matrix. This movie captured the life of Americans manipulated by a false reality, only in the real America there is insufficient awareness and no Neo, except possibly Donald Trump, to challenge the system. Americans of all stripesacademics, scholars, journalists, Republicans, Democrats, right-wing, left-wing, US Representatives, US Senators, Presidents, corporate moguls and brainwashed Americans and foreignerslive in a false reality.
In the United States today a critical presidential election is in process in which not a single important issue is addressed by Hillary and the presstitutes. This is total failure. Democracy, once the hope of the world, has totally failed in the United States of America. Trump is correct. The American people must restore the accountability of government to the people.
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 . | 0 |
Donald J. Trump explicitly acknowledged for the first time during Sunday’s debate that he used a $916 million loss that he reported on his 1995 income tax returns to avoid paying personal federal income taxes for years. Mr. Trump’s response — “Of course I do. Of course I do” — was the fullest the wealthy developer had provided since The New York Times reported that he had declared the loss, and that the tax deduction could have been large enough to allow him to avoid federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Previously he had declined to comment on the documents, issuing a statement that neither challenged nor confirmed the $916 million loss. Asked directly during the debate if he would say how many years he had avoided paying federal income taxes, Mr. Trump responded, “No. ” But at the same time, he asserted that he paid “hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes,” calling it a “simple” thing. “I pay tax, and I pay federal tax, too,” he said. Unless Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, releases his tax records, it is impossible to determine exactly how he has handled his taxes and what he has paid over the years. If he does not make his taxes public, he will be the first presidential candidate in four decades not to do so. Though the issue has been overshadowed in recent days by a recording of Mr. Trump’s lewd comments about women, his refusal to release his tax returns — and the possibility that he had not paid federal income taxes for years — has emerged as a central issue in the campaign. During the debate, Mr. Trump appeared to shed some light on his approach to taxes, saying that he knew more about the tax code than any other presidential candidate in history. “I have a . A lot of it is depreciation, which is a wonderful charge,” he said. “I love depreciation. ” But as Mr. Trump explained his own tax situation, he tried to make the case that his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, was among those responsible for the tax code that enabled him to get benefits. “She has given it to us,” he said. Mr. Trump also went on to invoke Mrs. Clinton’s wealthy allies. “Many of her friends took bigger deductions,” he said. “Warren Buffett took a massive deduction. ” Mrs. Clinton, though, contended that Mr. Trump provided an example of what needed to change in the tax code — saying he was among the people who “paid zero in taxes, zero for our vets, zero for our military, zero for health and education. That is wrong. ” She proposed a tax on people who make more than $5 million, calling it the “Buffett rule. ” In Mr. Trump’s case, what is clear is that he derived remarkable tax benefits from the financial ruin he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his foray into the airline business and his purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. “Simply put, the organization is in dire financial straits,” New Jersey casino regulators concluded after reviewing his business balance sheet woes in 1990. The 1995 tax documents, which were anonymously mailed to a New York Times reporter, were the first page of a New York State resident income tax return, the first page of a New Jersey nonresident tax return and the first page of a Connecticut nonresident tax return. They did not include any pages from Mr. Trump’s 1995 federal return. Mr. Trump was correct when he said he benefited from a provision that had been used by other wealthy families. Known as net operating loss, it allows an array of deductions, business expenses, real estate depreciation, losses from the sale of business assets and even operating losses to flow from the balance sheets of those partnerships, limited liability companies and S corporations onto the personal tax returns of people like Mr. Trump. In turn, those losses can be used to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income. With a $916 million net operating loss in 1995, Mr. Trump could have avoided paying more than $50 million a year in taxable income over 18 years. Mr. Trump appears to have embraced other elements of the tax code. In 1991, he lobbied federal lawmakers to relax tax rules that he claimed had strangled the real estate industry. And in less than two years, as part of a budget deal, Congress passed a set of provisions sought by developers that could have helped Mr. Trump avoid large tax bills linked to his enormous debt racked up by the early 1990s, while also allowing him to spin other real estate losses into valuable offsets on his future earnings in licensing, television and other ventures. One provision allowed real estate investors with highly leveraged properties to accept forgiveness of their bank loans without paying taxes on the money, in exchange for giving up other tax benefits. Another allowed them to apply some real estate losses against other kinds of income. While details of Mr. Trump’s income taxes and any deductions are scarce, limited details are contained in government filings that have been unearthed during his campaign. For example, Mr. Trump paid more than $71, 000 in federal income taxes on about $218, 000 of taxable income earned from 1975 to 1977, according to a 1981 report assessing his fitness for a casino license. During the next two years, 1978 and 1979, he paid no taxes, the report said. Mr. Trump also avoided paying any federal income taxes in 1984, tax court records show. With his Atlantic City casinos in financial trouble in 1991 and 1993, casino commission reports show that he claimed losses that would have allowed him to avoid paying income taxes in those years. Voters in recent polls have shown interest in Mr. Trump’s taxes. A CBS York Times poll last month showed that 59 percent of respondents said it was necessary for him to release his tax returns. Mr. Trump has said he will not release his taxes while he is facing an audit from the Internal Revenue Service. “I pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, but, but as soon as my routine audit is finished I’ll release my returns,” he said. “I’ll be very proud to. ” | 1 |
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Last night the Chicago Cubs eked out a thrilling game 7 victory in the World Series against the Cleveland Indians and ended a championship drought that had lasted for 108 years. This is a historic moment to be sure, but there will be no smiling and cheering in Chicago: Fans of the Cubs are still too sad over the death of Princess Diana to do any celebrating.
“I honestly never thought I’d see the Cubs bring home the trophy, but everyone here is still too swept up with grief over Lady Di to really enjoy themselves right now,” said Cubbies superfan Raymon Lindley, who was among the thousands of fans who gathered outside Wrigley Field following last night’s edge-of-your-seat game to light candles in memory of the late Princess Of Wales. “It would be macabre to celebrate the win in light of what happened to Princess Diana on that fateful August night in 1997.”
Theo Epstein, the curse-breaking president of baseball operations for the Cubs, has shipped the World Series trophy overseas to Britain, where it is to be laid on the grave of the People’s Princess. While the people of Chicago are undoubtedly proud of their Cubs, no parade has been planned, as the general feeling of the city is that it would be too gratuitous at this time.
“I just called my 91-year-old grandfather, who waited his whole life to see the Cubs win the World Series,” said longtime season-ticket holder Karen Hunter. “We spent the entire call crying about Princess Diana together. She was so young.”
“I would give a thousand Cubs World Series wins if Lady Di could be alive for one more day,” Hunter added.
History has been made, and the Cubs finally have their much-sought-after championship, but fans clearly still have a long way to go before they’re comfortable celebrating the historic achievement. Aside from the occasional outburst of “Candle In The Wind” by groups of bereft fans, Wrigleyville will remain a quiet and mournful place until the Cubs faithful are ready to party with their victorious hometown heroes. And it’s anyone’s guess as to when that will be. | 0 |
The Starbucks Coffee brand has taken a major hit since the company’s announcement that it would hire 10, 000 Muslim “refugees” in response to President Donald Trump’s temporary travel moratorium in January. [Starbucks was one of those early to criticize President Trump for putting a temporary hold on immigration from a list of seven countries flagged by the Obama administration. In response, the coffee house giant pledged to hire 10, 000 Muslim refugees over five years in protest against Trump’s order. But since the company issued its statement its brand name has lost its luster with customers. Perception levels of the Starbucks brand name fell by an incredible since its January announcement, according to a YouGov survey, as reported by Yahoo Finance. The survey measures how potential customers feel about a company’s brand and asks if they have “heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative. ” In the week before the company’s January refugees announcement, 30% of respondents said they would consider spending money at Starbucks. But after the statement that number fell to 24 percent, the survey discovered. The company’s announcement immediately sparked a #BoycottStarbucks movement on Twitter and brought condemnation from coast to coast. Not long after Starbucks issued its refugee statement, many Americans began to wonder why Starbucks is slighting the hiring of Americans — especially U. S. military veterans — in favor of refugees. Ultimately, on the heels of its refugees announcement, the company felt enough pressure to issue a second statement to explain to America’s military veterans that the company doesn’t actually hate them. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
Most recent environmental concerns regarding pollution have been largely focused on water and land pollution. Though these are undeniably major concerns facing our planet, there has been a tendency... | 0 |
In May 2015, Norm Macdonald appeared on the episode of “Late Show With David Letterman. ” He did about six minutes of comedy, and then choked up when recalling the first time he saw Mr. Letterman perform. Finally, unsuccessfully fighting back tears, he turned toward the host’s desk and told him, “I love you. ” It was a jarring moment from the Mr. Macdonald, and it represented a few more seconds of sincerity than you get in the 240 pages of “Based on a True Story,” his often very funny but always very fabulist “memoir. ” The book is most direct, and most convincingly about the job of comedy. “ comedy is a shabby business, made up of shabby fellows like me who cross the country, stay at shabby hotels, and tell jokes they no longer find funny,” he writes in the introduction. Later he describes the dependable range of reaction from audiences: “They either hate you or they don’t completely hate you. ” Mr. Macdonald has always been a comic’s comic, best loved for his which has shades of Steven Wright’s concise wordplay and Andy Kaufman’s extended pranks. Those who aren’t comedy nerds know him best from his stint as the host of “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live,” from 1994 to 1997. In “Based on a True Story,” Mr. Macdonald lists the “Top 25 Weekend Update Jokes of All Time (in no particular order),” starting with one from Chevy Chase’s tenure as host and then 24 from his own. There’s only one joke included about the O. J. Simpson trial. Mr. Macdonald feasted on the Simpson case during his time as anchor. (A compilation of the brief setups and punch lines on YouTube runs to more than 26 minutes.) When Mr. Macdonald was dismissed from that segment, the move was widely thought to have been orchestrated by the NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer, a friend of Mr. Simpson’s. (Mr. Ohlmeyer denied that his friendship with Mr. Simpson was behind the decision.) So it’s belated inside baseball for Mr. Macdonald to take on Mr. Ohlmeyer in this memoir. But it’s scathing and funny, too. In the comedian’s wicked reimagining, Mr. Ohlmeyer was upset when the O. J. jokes stopped, leaving him without material for teasing his buddy. “I’d give him the business about this whole thing,” Mr. Macdonald has his fictional version of Mr. Ohlmeyer say. “Lay a couple of zingers on him from your Update segment. Boy, old O. J. would see red, I’m here to tell you. And the more steamed he got, the funnier it struck me. ” A memoir in the sense that it’s roughly organized by the timeline of Mr. Macdonald’s life and career, this book is absurd fiction in many of its details, even the most basic ones. “I was a hick, born to the barren, rocky soil of the Ottawa Valley, where the richest man in town was the barber,” Mr. Macdonald writes. He actually was born and raised in Quebec City. Likewise, he may have had an intense crush on Sarah Silverman during their time on “Saturday Night Live” together, but he most probably didn’t have Colin Quinn help him arrange a hit on the life of Dave Attell, a fellow comedian and rival suitor. The book is also structured around a fictional (or partly real, who’s to say) road trip to Las Vegas undertaken by Mr. Macdonald and a friend. Mr. Macdonald has spoken about his gambling problems, though the book mostly presents them as just more outlandish material. (His best bit on the subject: “I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything. ”) Mr. Macdonald’s work has a philosophy behind it, which is expressed in the book this way: “A joke should catch people by surprise it should never pander. Applause is voluntary, but laughter is involuntary. ” Some of what’s here won’t be a surprise to fans. The book recycles pieces of Mr. Macdonald’s like his claim that he was in “great shape” as an infant. At 1 year old, he writes: “I even looked good for my age. Strangers would always approach me, smiling, and they’d say, ‘Look at you, little boy, what are you, zero? ’” We’re also treated to the “moth joke,” a Dostoyevskian setup for a gag. (It reads more smoothly than the version once shakily delivered on air to Conan O’Brien.) The book doesn’t stray far from and “Saturday Night Live,” and why would it? Mr. Macdonald’s one big starring film vehicle, “Dirty Work” (1998) was called “leaden, attempted comedy” in The New York Times. Other roles have included an uncredited bartender in “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. ” Fans will know going in but others should be forewarned that Mr. Macdonald’s punch lines, cartoonish as they are, are often built on grim foundations: prison rape drug deals gone very bad a young boy whose dying wish is to kill a baby seal. It’s easy to believe that Mr. Macdonald is unusually funny while also understanding the limits of his career outside of clubs. He’s an oddball by nature who also seems to have genuinely cultivated a disregard for conventional success. This memoir’s evasive clowning is in keeping with all that. Some might hate it, but most won’t completely hate it. | 1 |
The U. S. trade deficit shrank by nearly 10 percent in February, hinting that the economy may be growing at a faster pace than many economists expect. [The deficit fell to a seasonally adjusted $43. 6 billion, lower than the $44. 6 billion economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal had expected. Exports rose 0. 2 percent to $192. 9 billion in February while imports declined 1. 8 percent to $236. 4 billion, the Department of Commerce said Tuesday. The Trump administration has made the reduction of the trade deficit one of its central economic goals, describing our persistently large trade deficits as both an economic and security risk. February’s decline makes that goal easier to achieve. Exports were boosted by improving economic conditions around the globe, as well as a rise in the value of several major currencies against the dollar. A weaker dollar makes goods less expensive for foreign buyers. Exports of goods hit their highest level on record, after adjusting for inflation. Exports of services also rose. Overall, exports are 7. 2 percent higher than they were a year ago. Imports declined as U. S. consumers imported fewer consumer goods such as cell phones and autos from abroad. A lower trade deficit is a boost to the economy and may raise gross domestic product. More importantly, it likely means growth will be even stronger in the spring as manufacturers and service providers kick into higher gear and hire more workers to meet rising global demand. Trade deficits are not necessarily a sign of a weak economy. In a economy, a large trade deficit can develop as rising wealth pulls in more imports. But when the economy is not growing fast, it can be an economic drag. Spending on exports subtracts from demand in the U. S. economy, benefitting foreign workers instead of Americans in need of good jobs. This can have big impacts on areas of the country where manufacturing is particularly important. Research has shown that the deindustrialization of the American Rust Belt is at least partly attributable to trade imbalances with China, for example. | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton clashed on terrorism, jobs, race relations and, above all, basic issues of honesty and trustworthiness during their first presidential debate. If you missed it, let us help you catch up with a few highlights and our rigorous fact checks of the candidates’ assertions. And watch clips from the debate above. _____ 2. Houston suffered through a mass shooting. The authorities said that a heavily armed man wearing a uniform emblazoned with a Nazi symbol opened fire at random in a residential area near a mall. He injured nine people, two of them seriously, before the police shot and killed him. Officials said he was a lawyer and had experienced troubles at his firm. In Washington State, a Turkish immigrant confessed to killing of five people at a shopping mall on Friday. His motive remains unknown. _____ 3. Nationally, there was good news and bad news. The good news: Millions of Americans have climbed out of poverty, driven partly by widespread moves to increase the minimum wage. The bad: F. B. I. figures showed homicides skyrocketing 10. 8 percent from 2014 to 2015, the largest rise since 1968. But most of the country was far safer. The killing was largely limited to a few neighborhoods in cities like Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington and Milwaukee, all plagued by gun violence among young males. _____ 4. Syrian and allied Russian forces intensively bombed areas of the tormented northern Syrian city of Aleppo for the fourth day straight, ignoring accusations of war crimes and “barbarism” at the United Nations. Hundreds of people have been killed there since Thursday. Efforts to revive a have been abandoned. _____ 5. How often do sports teams appear to make decisions based on their player’s welfare? Chris Bosh, one of the N. B. A. ’s top players, says the blood clots that cut his last two seasons short shouldn’t stop him from playing this year, but the Miami Heat’s president, Pat Riley, said Bosh’s career with the team “is probably over. ” They’ll have to pay him some $76 million over the next three seasons, but will get the chance to raise the team’s spending cap. _____ 6. Why is the fashion world obsessed with RuPaul’s “Drag Race,” a platform for those hoping to be “America’s next drag superstar”? Sure, there’s affirmation and visibility for the . But there’s also drama, courage and sometimes unbelievably great looks. “I’ve seen every episode,” said the designer Marc Jacobs, who has also served as a judge. “It makes me laugh, it makes me cry. ” _____ 7. The admitted mastermind of the Bridgegate scheme testified for the first time about how he came up with the idea to create a catastrophic traffic jam in New Jersey to punish a Democratic mayor for refusing to endorse Gov. Chris Christie’s bid. David Wildstein, a Christie ally, also testified about how many top Christie operatives he told. He said his exchanges with a Christie aide made it clear the mayor “needed to fully understand that life would be more difficult for him in the second Christie term than it had been in the first. ” _____ 8. Man wants a moment of that the child may say his first word. is never ‘war’ is never ‘death.’ So wrote the Colombian poet Maruja Vieira years ago, hoping for this day. A signing ceremony brought an official end to the war with the Marxist insurgency known as the FARC, the last major war in the Americas. _____ 9. President Obama welcomed hundreds of Native American leaders to his annual Tribal Nations Conference, a gathering he pioneered. Protests continue in North Dakota over a pipeline that Native Americans object to, and which his administration has partly paused. Above, Mr. Obama was presented with a traditional blanket and hat. _____ 10. Finally, multiple generations of made up many of the thousands upon thousands of people who have visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in its opening days. For some, the import resonated as a bookend of the final days of President Obama’s final term, and as a marker for an unfinished fight for racial equality. “The timing is prophetic — you can’t visit here and not think about what’s going on today, and the sense of history and struggle,” said a Maryland pastor. _____ 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 the Weekend Briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
When Google acquired YouTube in 2006 for $1. 65 billion, it was considered a pricey gamble, one made with the belief that an online service known for pirated videos and vapid content could appeal to major advertisers. The bet paid off. YouTube is now one of the pillars of Google’s advertising business and the most valuable video platform on the internet. In recent years, advertisers, unable to ignore its massive audience, flocked to YouTube to reach younger people who have started to shun traditional broadcast television. But the technology underpinning YouTube’s advertising business has come under intense scrutiny in recent days, with ATT, Johnson Johnson and other marketers announcing that they would pull their ads from the service. Their reason: The automated system in which ads are bought and placed online has too often resulted in brands appearing next to offensive material on YouTube such as hate speech. On Thursday, the service Lyft became the latest example, removing their ads after they appeared next to videos from a racist skinhead group. “This is beyond offensive,” a Lyft spokesman, Scott Coriell, said. “As soon as we learned of it, we pulled our advertising on YouTube. ” The pullback from advertisers strikes to the core of YouTube’s appeal. Unlike television, with specific programming during which brands choose to run their advertising, YouTube mirrors the internet’s sprawl, specializing in niche content that may not appeal to a mainstream audience but attracts engaged viewers. This provides YouTube with an enormous audience watching one billion hours of videos a day, perfect for new ad technology that minutely slices and dices an audience so that companies can target specific viewers. That technology, known as programmatic advertising, allows advertisers to lay out the general parameters of what kind of person they want to reach — say, a young man under 25 — and trust that their ad will find that person, no matter where he might be on the internet. This approach plays to the strengths of tech giants like Google and Facebook, allowing advertisers to use automation and data to cheaply and efficiently reach their own audiences, funneling money through a complicated system of agencies and networks. But more than 400 hours of content are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and while Google has noted that it prevents ads from running near inappropriate material “in the vast majority of cases,” it has proved unable to totally police that amount of content in real time. And that has advertisers increasingly concerned. “The simple truth is that the same tech that allows the posting of a recipe, the joyous video of a child or the exposure of an excessive act from law enforcement allows the creation, posting or sharing of the video of a murder,” Rob Norman, the chief digital officer of GroupM, the media buying arm of WPP, wrote this week in Campaign, a trade publication. Marketers have seen programmatic advertising as a groundbreaking development in media — a technologically efficient way to leverage the expanse of the internet so that, for example, Pampers can reach a new mom on a local blog or an instructional video about how to deal with a newborn’s baby acne. This has opened up the whole of the internet to brands, which typically opt to remove their ads after they have appeared on unsavory sites, rather than restrict the ads to a list of preapproved locations. That is a radical departure. Not long ago, brands like Procter Gamble were in fact funding TV shows such as “Gilmore Girls,” “7th Heaven” and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” because they wanted more platforms for “family friendly” content. The main concern for advertisers on the web used to be appearing next to pornography, a fear that still ranks high for some, but now seems almost quaint considering the increasing amount of content tied to terrorism, violence and hate speech. It’s not limited to YouTube — automated advertising has landed airline ads on news stories about plane crashes, enabled counterfeit clothing companies to flourish on Facebook and even put money in the hands of Russian cybercriminals. Most recently, it has contributed to the proliferation of fake news and conspiracy theories. “I distinctly remember doing presentations years and years ago, and there was some stat at the time that there were a million websites and I thought that was ” said Eric Franchi, of Undertone, an ad technology company. “Now to 2017, and Google’s display network alone has two million sites. It’s a lot harder to maintain brand safety today than what it was because of the sheer number of sites coming into these exchanges every day. ” That sheer scale, coupled with its reliance on algorithms rather than humans to filter out the objectionable content after it appears, has been Google’s main defense. More than two million websites are a part of its display advertising network — the equivalent of one for every resident of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. “What we do is, we match ads and the content, but because we source the ads from everywhere, every once in a while somebody gets underneath the algorithm and they put in something that doesn’t match. We’ve had to tighten our policies and actually increase our manual review time, and so I think we’re going to be O. K.,” Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said in an interview on Thursday with Fox Business Network. While brands have expressed concern about showing up next to unsavory photos and videos uploaded to digital platforms by users — like pornography on Snapchat — the situation with YouTube is particularly jarring. YouTube splits advertising revenue with its users, meaning advertisers risk directly funding creators of hateful, misogynistic or content. The model has minted stars, some of whom gain cultlike followings for edgy and inappropriate content. Last month, the platform cut business ties with its biggest star, Felix Kjellberg, known to his 54 million subscribers as PewDiePie, after The Wall Street Journal reported on crude jokes and Nazi imagery in his comedy videos. He was part of YouTube’s premium advertising product called Google Preferred — a category of popular, “brand safe” videos on YouTube. The latest black eye came from the far less visible trenches of the platform, as The Times of London reported on ads from prominent brands and the British government appearing on YouTube videos posted by extremist groups. Google has pledged that YouTube will tighten safeguards against ads showing up alongside “hateful, offensive and derogatory content” while reviewing guidelines for what type of content is allowable on the platform. “While we recognize that no system will be 100 percent perfect, we believe these major steps will further safeguard our advertisers’ brands, and we are committed to being vigilant and continuing to improve over time,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, said in a statement on Thursday. There’s a lot at stake for YouTube and Alphabet. Search advertising is not growing as fast as it once did, and television ad budgets are still larger than total spending on digital advertising. YouTube and Facebook have made no secret of their desire for television advertising funds. Internet ad revenue in the United States, which is growing quickly, reached about $60 billion in 2015 while television accounted for about $66 billion, according to a study from IAB and PwC. James Dix, a senior media analyst at Wedbush Securities, estimates that YouTube accounted for revenue of about $13 billion, or roughly 20 percent of all advertising revenue on Google’s internet properties in 2016. Alphabet does not disclose YouTube revenue. “If this company is going to look for new growth at scale, it has to pull money from television,” Mr. Dix said. “Period. ” | 1 |
Food mixology: When eaten together, these foods can boost health
Isabelle Z. Tags: nutrients , food pairings , turmeric (NaturalNews) If you are making a conscious effort to eat nutritious food, you are already stacking the odds in your favor when it comes to your health and well-being. However, eating all the organic fruits and vegetables in the world is not going to do much for you if your body is not prepared to absorb the nutrients they contain.To be clear, eating a diet that is rich in organic produce, whole grains, and a reasonable amount of healthy fats is always preferable to a diet full of fried food, sugar and processed foods. However, if you want to maximize the benefits of your smart eating choices, you should try some of these food pairings to enhance nutrient absorption and give your health a boost. Milk and honey Your grandmother might have offered you a glass of warm milk with honey when you struggled to fall asleep as a child, and this tried-and-true combination has stood the test of time for good reason: it is a very effective pairing for your health. An amino acid found in milk known as tryptophan is used by the brain to make melatonin and serotonin, while the carbohydrates in honey can help with the uptake of tryptophan. Turmeric and black pepper The active ingredient in turmeric, curcumin, has anti-inflammatory properties, but it tends to be poorly absorbed by the body. Interestingly, the piperine found in black pepper can help boost its absorption significantly, which is why many supplements contain both ingredients. Try cooking a dish that contains generous amounts of turmeric , like curry, and add a sprinkling of black pepper. A tiny pinch of pepper can enhance your absorption of curcumin by more than 2,000 percent! Green tea and lemon If you are drinking green tea for its extraordinary antioxidant content, you might want to start adding some organic lemon juice to your cup. That's because Purdue University researchers have discovered that mixing green tea with lemon juice can significantly boost the amount of antioxidants that are available for your body to absorb. The catechins in green tea can help protect your body against cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Olive oil and tomatoes These two Mediterranean diet staples go hand in hand, and it's easy to see why. Tomatoes contain antioxidants that can protect your body from disease, and adding a small amount of healthy fat to carotenoid-rich foods like tomatoes can increase its absorption. Try making a simple salad of chopped tomatoes drizzled in extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar to reap the benefits. The lycopene in tomatoes is also better absorbed when they are heated first, so take this one step further and make a tomato sauce or pizza sauce by cooking tomatoes and adding olive oil and www.herbs.news "="" target="_blank">www.herbs.news">fresh herbs like oregano. Beans and cauliflower People who follow plant-based diets often rely on beans to get iron, but this type of iron is not as easily absorbed by the human body as iron that comes from meat sources. You can increase your body's absorption of the iron from beans by consuming a food that is rich in vitamin C at the same time, and cauliflower fits the bill quite nicely. Pair cauliflower with green beans or garbanzos to give your body an iron boost. You can also try other iron and vitamin C pairings , like strawberries with oatmeal.While all of these foods are quite healthy on their own, if you are looking to increase your intake of certain nutrients, make sure you are opting for food pairings and preparation methods that will boost absorption so you can reap the most benefits. Sources: | 0 |
Georg Soros the good oil . http://mailstar.net/soros.html Sometimes for truth you have to sacrifice something in order to show non bias , it certainly puts the wind up the mad left raddicals paid by Soros . So the democrats dont think voting is rigged eh???? How do they explain this then ?? Clinton Eugene “Clint” Curtis is an American attorney, computer programmer and ex-employee of NASA and ExxonMobil, who also exposed election hacking. He is notable chiefly for making a series of whistleblower allegations about his former employer and about Republican Congressman Tom Feeney, including an allegation that in 2000, Feeney and Yang Enterprises requested Curtis’s assistance in a scheme to steal votes by inserting fraudulent code into touch screen voting systems. Remember this is the Democrats at the hearing . He tells the members how he was hired by Congressman Tom Feeney in 2000 to build a prototype software package that would secretly rig an election to sway the result 51/49 to a specified side. Now this shows Donald Trump is not only not bias but just wants an honest election and no vote rigging http://www.activistpost.com/2016/03/watch-computer-programmer-testifies-under-oath-he-coded-computers-to-rig-elections.html One might ask who are Yang enterprises ??? Field will like this . There was a reason they did not want to know who they were . http://www.yangenterprises.com/ YEI is a GSA Advantage member, offering Information Technology solutions (GS-35F-0896N), Professional Engineering Services (GS-10F-0107Y), Logistics Worldwide (GS-10F-0135Y), and Facilities Maintenance and Management Services (GS-21F-090AA).YEI receives the Marshall Space Flight Center Small Business Subcontractor Excellence Award.YEI awarded State of Florida IT Consulting Services contract.http://www.dms.myflorida.com/business_operations/state_purchasing/vendor_information/state_contracts_and_agreements/state_term_contracts/information_technology_it_consulting_services/contractors/t_z/contractors_yang_enterprises_inc Name: Li-Woan (Lee) Yang Title: President/CEO Looks like they are all in on it , no wonder its always 50/50 no matter how many people in every western country which is impossible given the differnt cultures . The video is the ultimate smoking gun against the liars who know full well its all rigged . And for the Democrats to be claiming its nottrue is an outrageous lie , they had the inquiry . | 0 |
By Amanda Froelich [Recently], tensions between law enforcement workers and peaceful protestors with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe escalated. A series of standoffs resulted in “protectors” being... | 0 |
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 08:47 UTC © Francois Lenoir/Reuters Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel German Chancellor Angela Merkel launched a broadside at internet media giants, accusing them of "narrowing perspective," and demanding they disclose their privately-developed algorithms. Merkel previously blamed social media for anti-immigrant sentiment and the rise of the far right. Comment: Obviously it has nothing to do with your immigration policy. Only right wing racists would ever have a problem with that. Right comrades? "The algorithms must be made public, so that one can inform oneself as an interested citizen on questions like: what influences my behavior on the internet and that of others? " said Merkel during a media conference in Berlin on Tuesday. Comment: What we have here is a confluence of stupid. Take a politician who doesn't understand technology, give them a microphone, and listen as they embarrass themselves with hyperbolic pronouncements and decrees. "These algorithms, when they are not transparen t, can lead to a distortion of our perception, they narrow our breadth of information. " Google uses an algorithm to decide which search results are first shown to a user, while Facebook arranges the order of the news feed, and decides to include certain posts from a user's liked pages and friends, at the expense of others. Both sites also promote links to news articles, often based on a user's own media interests . These algorithms are at the core of the intellectual property of any social media or search website, and comprise some of the most highly-protected trade secrets in the world, potentially worth billions. No internet giant has ever revealed its inner workings. Merkel did not specifically name Facebook, Google or Twitter, but implied that the large platforms are creating "bubbles" of self-reinforcing views, and squeezing out smaller news providers. Comment: Hypocrite says what? The rule with politicians is: ALWAYS INVERT. What Merkel means to say is that: large platforms allow people to get a more concise summary of news from smaller providers, which is squeezing out the larger state propaganda news agencies. "The big internet platforms, via their algorithms, have become an eye of a needle which diverse media must pass through to reach users ," warned Merkel. "This is a development that we need to pay careful attention to." Comment: See what we mean. What she is saying here is: "People shouldn't be able to choose what they want to read, we should make sure that what they read is what we (the state) wants them to read. " Can't have all willy-nilly preference reading, now can we. The internet giants themselves have argued that the so-called social media bubble is largely a myth, and that online users have a wider access to differing views than under a pre-internet model, where most news would be acquired from just a handful of newspapers and one or two TV channels. German establishment raises 'Sword of Damocles' over social media attack on social media by Merkel and her Grand Coalition government , and while the German politician advocates diversity of views, she has previously accused it of perpetrating opinions t hat are most at odds with those of the establishment and traditional media . Comment: Her agenda is showing. Last month, Merkel accused AfD, the recently-established anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim party, which receives overwhelmingly negative coverage in most newspapers, of "spreading their lies" through social media, as it achieves breakthroughs in regional elections around the country. Comment: Couldn't be because of popular support? What functioning brain buys this horsehockey? This is the same kind of thinking that leads tot he belief in magical spells. What, these "right-wing" parties have learned the 14 words to magically turn anyone into a racist? A year ago, at the height of the refugee influx into the country, Merkel, who was first elected in 2005, was caught on a hot mic personally pressing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to clamp down on anti-migrant posts during a UN session in New York. A fortnight ago, the leader of Merkel's parliamentary CDU faction, Volker Kauder, said that social media should be fined €50,000 for failing to remove "hate speech," saying that a "Sword of Damocles" has to hang over social media. Kauder also called for warnings, similar to those on cigarette packs or before entering pornographic websites, to be given to those about to go on social media. Justice Minister Heiko Maas - who said that there had been a 77 percent increase in hate crimes following the arrival of 900,000 asylum seekers - has given internet media companies until February next year to comply with EU directives on xenophobia and racism , or face legal action. Comment: You see the language game? Immigrant = asylum seeker = refugee. But those words are not the same, they are all different things. Xenophobia is the fear of foreigners, and racism is the belief that certain ethnicities have inescapable inherent traits. These words are not cognates, nor are they even within the same semantic continuum. They are bombarding you with a bunch of negative words hoping they'll stick. Why? What do they want you to think? And do you really want to think it? | 0 |
It is tradition, following the election of the president of the United States, that his official portrait, that of the Vice President, and those of cabinet members in various agencies are installed, replacing the portraits of the outgoing administration. [But at the State Department and at embassies around the world that apparently has yet to take place, more than four months after President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were inaugurated. Although it is unknown why this is the case, officials at the State Department have confirmed to Breitbart News that the walls are bare for now — including no portrait in place of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. A spokesperson told Breitbart News on Tuesday: The State Department has not yet received the official portraits for the President and Vice President. As soon as the White House official portraits of the President and Vice President are available, the State Department Bureau of Administration will distribute the White House portraits and the official portrait of the Secretary of State to all offices as well as all posts abroad. But a report from Fox News in March reveals some of the bureaucratic issues that could be stalling portrait installations. “A dispute at a Florida VA medical facility could foretell the coming of widespread bureaucratic battles when thousands of copies of President Trump’s official portrait are sent out to be displayed in federal facilities around the nation,” Fox reported. “The portraits, in addition to ones of Vice President Mike Pence and various cabinet officials, will replace those of their predecessors, as dictated by tradition,” Fox reported. “But to some in the politically polarized bureaucracy, the prospect of President Trump’s likeness watching over them is already causing problems. ” Rep. Brian Mast ( ) hung unofficial portraits of Trump and VA Administrator Dr. David Shulkin in a VA medical center in his West Palm Beach district and they were almost instantly taken down. “I insisted that I would like to see them hung,” Mast told Fox News in an email. “The information desk called for a maintenance person who was seen helping me hang it. ” Fox reported that it is up to the General Services Administration’s publishing office to pass around the portraits and the agency had not said when the official portraits would go out — back in March. “Mast, a U. S. Army veteran who lost both legs to an IED in Afghanistan, felt strongly that the frames already emptied of portraits of President Obama and former VA Secretary Robert McDonald should be occupied immediately and brought his own photos of Trump and VA Administrator Shulkin,” Fox reported. | 1 |
Police arrested a gang of five Hispanic suspects for the brutal murders of two teenagers whose bodies were found alongside a rural Colorado road, reports say. [On March 12, the bodies of Natalie Partida, 16, and Derek Greer, 15, were found on the shoulder of Old Pueblo Road near Fountain, Colorado, a town immediately south of Colorado Springs. By March 24, five Hispanics, at least one with gang tattoos, were arrested for the murders. The first arrest occurred on March 19 when the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrest of Gustavo Marquez, 19, for the murders of the two Coronado High School students. Gustavo, who has a long record of violence, was charged with kidnapping, assault, assault, and child abuse charges. Days later, police also arrested Diego Chacon, 18, Joseph Arthur Rodriquez, 18, Marco Antonio 20, and Alexandra Marie Romero, 20, for the crime. All were booked on various charges such as kidnapping, robbery, and child abuse. Police have still not released specific details of the condition of the murdered teens’ bodies or if either of the victims was sexually assaulted. There has also been no confirmation of the immigration status of the suspects. “Since the investigation is still ongoing, I don’t want to give away some of the tactics we used, the investigative tools that assisted us, only because there still may be additional arrests forthcoming,” El Paso County Sheriff’s spokesperson Jacqueline Kirby told CBS Denver. All five suspects are expected to appear in court next week. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
November 6, 2016 210 The attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Nevada has some eerie similarities to the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968. Share on Facebook
1968 was a grim year in American history. The Tet Offensive in Vietnam made many people who were never part of the anti-war movement, question why America had entered a deadly war of attrition. In April of that same year, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead.
Into this fray stepped Robert Kennedy, a man whose intelligence, charm, charisma and modern policies came close to putting ice over the fire that was late 1960s America. He consciously stood as an anti-war Democratic in a primary which pitted him against the party’s pro-war establishment led by Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson’s vice president. Although the lesser known Eugene McCarthy also stood as an anti-war candidate, it was Kennedy whose personal fame and personal draw, turned heads and inspired voters more than any other.
But it was not to be. In an America drowning in blood both at home and in the jungles of Vietnam, Robert Kennedy was the victim of an assassination. In the summer of 1968, Kennedy had just won the crucial California primary and was addressing his supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Just after he walked away from the podium, he was shot dead by the Palestinian gunman Sirhan Sirhan.
The images of Robert Kennedy slouched dead on the floor become an iconic reminder that the 1960s for all of its counter-cultural optimism, was politically speaking, a very dark time for America.
Hours ago, Donald Trump, a man who like Kennedy, challenged the pro-war establishment of his party and of Washington itself, was seemingly the victim of an attempted assassination plot. Although certain facts have yet to be revealed, what we do know is that a man making threatening gestures who is said to have had a gun was tackled by Trump’s supporters. Seconds later, security hurried Trump off state and arrested the would-be assassin.
In spite of poor reporting from the ground, there are actually more facts at hand than there are mysteries.
Donald Trump has been vilified and dehumanized by the western mainstream media. His supporters are described as pigs, as the great unwashed, as the talentless, heartless and the stupid. He himself is described as much worse. Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters ‘deplorable’. In a country more ill at ease with itself than at any time since the Vietnam era, these words are very dangerous indeed.
Many sociologists postulate that the reason large sectors of the German population remained aloof and indifferent to the crimes of the fascist regime of the 1930s and 1940s, was because the victims of Hitlerism were purposefully constructed to be less than human by the state. Therefore a dead Russian, dead German Jew or dead Pole was somehow less of an issue than the death of a Hitler loving Teutonic man.
The techniques applied to dehumanising Trump and his supporters are eerily similar. That is why, should any physical harm come to Donald Trump, the mainstream media have blood on their hands as much as any would be assassin.
Two other things became clear. Donald Trump’s supporters warned him to leave for his own safety, they restrained the criminal, putting themselves in danger. It is fair to say, many of the brave men and women at the rally in Nevada were willing to give their lives for the man they support. This demonstrates that Trump’s supporters are not the savages that the mainstream media class them as. They are decent people who are angry at the path their country has taken and they feel a loyalty and fraternal bond with a man who speaks to them rather than at them, above them or around them.
Hillary Clinton and her supporters in the media have put Donald Trump’s life in danger and the look on Trump’s face as he was hurried away by security, showed me a man who loves life, a man who deplores violence and a man who would not want to leave his family behind. I was tragically reminded of the scenes of Gaddafi’s assassination when he begged his executioners, ‘what have I done to you’.
This is not a man who wants war, this is a man who wants to live in a world of peace, with all its joys, its profundities, its frivolities and its rough edges.
I am reminded of the words spoken by Marc Antony at the end of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
“This was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators save only he did that they did in envy of great Caesar; He only, in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world ‘This was a man!”
One could say the same of Trump.
Update : The authorities have still not said whether the man in question had a gun or not, but the fact he has been released demonstrates either incompetence in terms of the investigation or that he was a hooligan rather than a would be murderer. Photos of the man emerged and as initial witnesses reported, he clearly looked deranged.
The media has turned this election into a potentially deeply violent affair. All ready they are making the hooligan look like the victim rather than the assailant. This may well not end after the 8th of November. | 0 |
In my timeline it was Michael Barage, Rump and Billary Mandella Mail with questions or comments about this site. "Godlike Productions" & "GLP" are registered trademarks of Zero Point Ltd. Godlike™ Website Design Copyright © 1999 - 2015 Godlikeproductions.com Page generated in 0.004s (8 queries) | 0 |
(REUTERS) — A teenager who attacked a Jewish teacher in France with a machete was sentenced to seven years in jail on Thursday by a French juvenile court, judicial sources said. [The was convicted at a trial for slightly wounding the teacher who was wearing a traditional Jewish skullcap, or yarmulke, while walking to school in January 2016 in the southern city of Marseille. Prosecutor Brice Robin said shortly after the attack that the teenager, who has not been identified because of his age, said he had acted in the name of the Islamic State militant group. The teenager, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish origin, was 15 at the time of the attack. He was charged with attempted murder in connection with a terrorist attack, with the aggravating factor of . (Read more from Reuters here) | 1 |
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Nov 5, 2016
With the Wikileaks release of thousands of emails belonging to John Podesta, very little is known in US society about Podesta himself. While he’s maintained a low profile, John Podesta is actually considered one of Washington’s biggest players, and one of the most powerful corporate lobbyists in the world.
In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin explores John Podesta’s political rise, his vast network of corporate connections and his think tank “Center for American Progress.” Learn why the Podestas and the Clintons are a match made in ruling class heaven. | 0 |
Friday 18 November 2016 by Alex Webster Mannequin Challenge goes completely unnoticed at Southern Rail Workers who appeared to be frozen in time have aroused no curiosity whatsoever at Southern Rail HQ. Customer Service Manager Simon Williams, who always seems to be available at short notice, told our reporter, “Everyone in the department was stock still, and I wandered amount them filming with my smartphone. “I was amazed at their ability to remain totally motionless and unfocused on other stimuli. I even filmed the maintenance people outside, tools in hand, completely immobile. “After filming for a record-breaking twenty-five minutes, I realised I’d forgotten to actually send out the email telling people to prepare for the Mannequin Challenge. “I was the only person in the building doing any activity, even if it was just dicking around because of a YouTube craze. “I’ve never felt so alone; it was like waiting for something I knew wasn’t going to arrive, if you can imagine such a thing.” In the past few weeks, the Internet craze known as the Mannequin Challenge has hit offices and gyms across the UK. Participants must strike a pose in the manner of shop mannequins and then be filmed, giving the impression that a fleeting moment has somehow been captured on film. Why this is considered a challenge or even a good thing is still under debate. Mr Williams continued, “I’ve seen many videos of our passengers standing motionless on cold station platforms, but curiously that was before anyone had conceived of the Mannequin Challenge. Strange.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently | 0 |
VATICAN CITY — For a while, Senator Bernie Sanders’s Roman holiday seemed less than it was cracked up to be. Immediately after his campaign announced that he would leave the United States for a “ meeting” at the Vatican, questions arose about the wisdom of the trip. The critical New York primary was just days away. One official of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, which hosted the conference Mr. Sanders would attend, even suggested he had fished for the invitation. Most critically, there seemed to be little chance that Mr. Sanders would meet the Vatican resident whose name he frequently invokes. Pope Francis, it turned out, would not be visiting the conference of the academy, an think tank of the Vatican. Politically, a trip to Rome without a meeting with Francis would have been a blunder, Costas Panagopoulos, a political science professor at Fordham University who is teaching at Yale, had said on Friday. “The point is to make sure you are going to get an audience with the pope,” he said. “Anything short of an actual visit will probably be a mistake. ” Mr. Sanders continued to hold out hope. “I certainly would be delighted and proud if I had the opportunity to meet with him,” he said before leaving New York. He also had two things going for him: his host, Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, an Argentine who is the chancellor of the academy and happens to be close to Francis, and his hotel room, also close to the pope. Mr. Sanders was to stay in a room at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where Francis keeps his residence. “So it won’t be difficult to find the pope,” the bishop said last week, seeming to hint at something. On Thursday, the day before the conference, a Vatican spokesman appeared to end all speculation, saying, “There won’t be a meeting with the Holy Father. ” Bishop Sánchez Sorondo dismissed the statement as “Roman gossip. ” But final word, it seemed, came Friday afternoon in the form of a handwritten letter from the pope apologizing to conference attendees for his absence. “I will keep them all in my prayers and good wishes, and send them my heartfelt thanks for their participation,” he wrote. “May the Lord bless you. Fraternally, Franciscus. ” Around 5:30 p. m. Friday, the conference’s business ended and Mr. Sanders made an appointment for dinner at the Casa Santa Marta with his foreign policy adviser, Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and a fellow conference participant. Mr. Sanders and his wife, Jane, sat with Mr. Sachs and his wife, Sonia, for a soup and buffet dinner, where they were joined by Bishop Sánchez Sorondo and Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Honduras, the pope’s man and one of the Vatican’s top power players. “It was a conversation,” Mr. Sachs said. “It was about issues of the church and its history, about Honduras and foreign policy. ” But the most important words occurred in the middle of dinner, when a personal secretary for Francis arrived with the news Mr. Sanders had been hoping for, Mr. Sachs said. If Mr. Sanders were in the foyer of the Casa Santa Marta at 6 a. m. the next day, he would be able to speak briefly with Francis as the pope headed to the airport for his Saturday trip to Greece, where the pope would be addressing the migrant crisis. So early Saturday morning, Mr. Sanders stood in the marble foyer, which looks out onto a large cobblestone drive just inside the Vatican walls. Joining him were his wife, Mr. Sachs and his wife and Bishop Sánchez Sorondo, the senator’s de facto Vatican fixer. The pope, speaking to reporters on his plane later in the day, described the meeting. “This morning when I was leaving, Senator Sanders was there,” he said, adding, “He knew I was leaving at that time, and he had the courtesy to greet me. ” No photos of the encounter were permitted, but Mr. Sachs said the senator was delighted all the same. He was beaming as he left the guesthouse, and celebrated the informal audience with a victory lap of sorts in St. Peter’s Basilica along with Mr. Sachs and the bishop, passing Bernini’s Baldacchino, a monumental bronze canopy over the papal altar, and Michelangelo’s Pietà. Aware that his every statement is parsed for deeper meaning, Francis said he was simply being polite, not political. “I shook his hand and nothing more,” he said. “If someone thinks that greeting someone means getting involved in politics,” he added, laughing, “I recommend that he find a psychiatrist!” But the candidate was excited to talk about his coveted souvenir. “I conveyed to him my great admiration for the extraordinary work that he is doing all over the world in demanding that morality be part of our economy,” Mr. Sanders told reporters aboard the plane as it rushed him back to the campaign in New York. | 1 |
While ordinary Americans nationwide work on Thursday morning, the political class and media elite in Washington, D. C. plan to party as early as 9 a. m. in bars across the city to celebrate the congressional testimony of fired former FBI Director James Comey. [Throughout the nation’s capital, various restaurants and bars plan to open early to help Washingtonians imbibe adult beverages while cheering Comey on. The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing is set to begin at 10 a. m. Breitbart News has compiled a map and list of the local establishments partaking in the “Comey Crawl. ” 520 Florida Ave. NW, The bar’s “Comey Hearing Covfefe” event will feature $5 Vodka shots and $10 “FBI” sandwiches — fried chicken breast, bacon and iceburg lettuce on a toasted bun with fries. All five TVs will feature the hearing with sound. “Grab your friends, grab a drink and let’s COVFEFE!” says the bar’s Facebook event page. Opens at 9:30 a. m. Thursday we are opening early for our Comey Hearing Covfefe! pic. twitter. — Shaw’s Tavern (@ShawsTavern) June 6, 2017, 709 D St. NW, Grab a breakfast sandwich next door, then come “watch it all go down,” advertises The Partisan, another bar located in Northwest, D. C. As for specialty cocktails, it plans to offer $6 “The Last Word” and “Drop the Bomb” libations. Opens at 10 a. m. 201 Massachusetts Ave. NE, Probably the most celebratory event of all, this bar will be serving rounds on the house every time President Trump tweets about the hearing. Opens at 9:30 a. m. TOMORROW: We open at 9:30AM buying a round of drinks for the house every time @realDonaldTrump Tweets about the #ComeyHearing! #ThisTown pic. twitter. — Union Pub (@UnionPub) June 7, 2017, This ”special” will run til Comey’s testimony is over, or 4pm, whichever is earlier. #ThisTown #CapitolHill #OnlyInDC #ComeyHearing https: . — Union Pub (@UnionPub) June 7, 2017, 2106 Vermont Ave. NW, Covfefe cocktail anyone? This pub is offering free wifi — for those in D. C. who need to work — or pretend to work — Thursday morning. Opens at 10 a. m. 229 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, And for those who want to party sooner, Cap Lounge will be open the earliest at 9 a. m. We will open at 9AM on Thursday for #ComeyHearing. — Capitol Lounge (@CapLounge) June 5, 2017, Map was created using Google Maps | 1 |
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23 октября в Нижнем Новгороде прошла операция, в ходе которой были застрелены двое подозреваемых в терроризме, еще один был задержан. По данным СМИ, в машине предполагаемых преступников была найдена взрывчатка. Ответственность за подготовка теракта взяло на себя "Исламское государство" (запрещено в России).
"Международный терроризм превратился в реальную угрозу для всего мира. И конечно для России. И игнорировать эту угрозу недопустимо. Несколько дней назад в Нижнем Новгороде сотрудники спецслужб в ходе задержания ликвидировали в результате совершенного на них нападения двоих вооружённых боевиков. Преступление, совершенное в Нижнем Новгороде, ответственность за которое взяла на себя ИГИЛ, стало очередной попыткой международного терроризма дестабилизировать ситуацию в России", - говорится в комментарии Дмитрия Савельева, поступившем в редакцию Pravda.Ru.
"В августе террористы разместили в интернете призыв начать «священную войну» против России. Вскоре после этой угрозы двое боевиков напали в Подмосковье на пост ДПС, а в Казани был арестован сторонник ИГИЛ, планировавший взрыв на одном из заводов города. Всё это - хроника жёсткой реальности сегодняшнего дня", - полагает политик.
"Однако факты говорят сами за себя - российские спецслужбы оперативно пресекают деятельность террористов, великолепно справляясь с необходимостью удержать ситуацию под контролем", - отметил депутат.
"Но очень важно понимать - сегодня всем необходимо мобилизоваться и сплотиться перед лицом общей угрозы. Граждане страны обязательно должны проявлять бдительность, чтобы российская земля горела под ногами преступников. А задача Государственной Думы - обеспечить соответствие законодательства имеющимся вызовам. На мой взгляд, необходимо поощрить гражданскую инициативу по информированию спецслужб о готовящемся преступлении, надо, чтобы вознаграждение проинформировавшему лицу было предусмотрено законом. И главное - это добиться того, чтобы каждый, кто пытается посягнуть на покой россиян, сознавал неотвратимость наказания за это", - подчеркнул Дмитрий Савельев. Поделиться: | 0 |
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