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WASHINGTON, D. C. — White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed during Tuesday’s briefing that the White House is seeking input and “meeting with potential people” after reporters asked him if his role would be changing. [Reporters asked Spicer about speculations of change in the White House “press shop,” and inquired as to possible changes in his role during the afternoon press briefing. He was asked if it’s true that his role is changing and “what’s in store?” Spicer responded, “I’m right here. ” He added, “You can keep taking your selfies,” an apparent reference to a tweet from two reporters in the room. Spicer’s favorite gals are here, for his swan song? @AprilDRyan pic. twitter. — Tara Palmeri (@tarapalmeri) June 20, 2017, Spicer said: It’s no secret we’ve had a couple vacancies, including our Communications Director — he’s been gone for a while … [We’ve] been seeking input from individuals as far as ideas they may have. We’ve been meeting with potential people that may be of service to this administration. I don’t think that should come as any surprise. But we’re always looking for ways to do a better job of articulating the President’s message and his agenda. Spicer added that when they have an announcement regarding personnel, the administration will let the press know. Another reporter later commented: You’re probably wearing more than one hat at the moment” before asking about “a great deal of unrest … about a lack of press briefings, a lack of communication with you directly outside of say, the office … unpack the idea behind fewer on camera briefings? Spicer replied that the White House press team has respect for what reporters do. He added that the White House press team is very available and that the briefing is just one avenue to be available to the press. He asserted that data reflects that the President has had a significant level of interaction with the press when compared to previous administrations. Spicer said the press staff has been available almost . He went on to say that the press will always advocate for more availability. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
Next Prev Swipe left/right This video of a woman stuck in a freezer raises more questions than it answers How on earth do you get into a situation like this? Our guess is that it probably involved alcohol. (NSFW language) | 0 |
LONDON — London’s bridges will slowly fill with light as the tide rises. Luminous colors will wash across their surfaces. Beams will shoot out from each bridge, pierce the sky and then drop, connecting with a beam on a neighboring bridge to trace the path of the Thames. The bridges’s underbellies will glow gently the banks will offer floating stages for performances waterfalls will create a screen for projections a weave of projected light planes will hover over the surface of the Thames, creating a ghostly river of light. These are some of the ideas put forward for what is being called the permanent public art project that any city has yet undertaken. “Illuminated River” is a hugely ambitious, £20 million ($24. 8 million) plan to light the span of the Thames River from the Albert Bridge in the west to Tower Bridge in the east. (The money will come from private and philanthropic sources, with $12. 6 million already contributed by the Rothschild and the Arcadia foundations.) It aims to transform this part of the Thames into a glowing river of light and spectacle, and is part of the city’s ambition to match other international metropoles with a vibrant nighttime economy. The light project will also draw tourists to the bridges and banks of the Thames, which traces a loose S shape through central London, and has 17 bridges along its trajectory. The river is now “a black snake” through the city at night, Hannah Rothschild, the chairwoman of the Illuminated River Foundation, said at a preview on Monday of a exhibition of the final proposals. With this project, she added, the transformation will be dramatic: “Light, energy, beauty, commerce, at the flick of a switch,” she said, adding that it was also a meeting point for art, design and technology. The six finalists were chosen from 105 entries, including architects, designers, engineers and artists of all stripes from all over the world. The winning team will be announced on Dec. 8, and the organizers hope that the project will be started by 2018. Here is a flavor of what they propose for the Thames. The architect David Adjaye, whose National Museum of African American History and Culture recently opened in Washington, has assembled a list of international artists for the proposal: Doug Aitken, Jeremy Deller, Cai Glenn Ligon, Chris Ofili and Philippe Parreno among them. Each was assigned a bridge, resulting in a cornucopia of spectacular light designs that treats each bridge as an individual artwork. The city’s bridges “have always been conceived of purely as infrastructure between north and south, but they actually encapsulate history and ideas about trade, labor, gender and race,” Mr. Adjaye said. “We really tried to match the narrative of each bridge with each artist’s practice. I decided not to try for a unified vision one of the great things about London is that it’s a medieval mosaic city. These are different artistic and architectural languages that come together to create a whole. ” Amanda Levete’s London architecture firm, AL_A, has collaborated with the filmmaker Asif Kapadia and the writer Simon Stephens as well as a team of engineers and sound designers to come up with a subtle project that ties the lighting of the bridges to the natural rhythms of the tides. “The idea that you can have an impact on the perception of the city without constructing anything was fascinating to me,” Ms. Levete said. “For us, the essence of the project is to tell a story about the river and how central it is to people’s lives. In the end, it’s a very simple narrative: the tides are a physical manifestation of the shape of the earth and the landmass of the U. K. and we want to reveal this through light. “The tidal range of the Thames is around 9 meters, the height of a building, which is very unusual for a river in a city,” she continued. “We want to illuminate the shoreline as the tide goes out, inviting the public to appropriate that space at low tide. At high tide, the lighting shifts to illuminate the elevation of the bridges and show their structure. “In the space of two hours, you see the tidal change we want to remind people that their lives play out not in minutes and hours, but in the context of centuries, and the forces of nature,” she said. Light beams play tag in the design by these New architects, who count the city’s elevated High Line and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles among their projects. Collaborating with the lighting designer Jennifer Tipton, they have created a proposal that includes curtains of falling water as screens for projections, and floating platforms along the riverbanks for performance. “We came up with the idea of concentrating on the performance of the lighting,” said Elizabeth Diller, a founding partner. “It starts when the sun goes down as it sets, the bridges start to fill with light, from the embankments towards the center. The moment that a particular degree of darkness arrives, it triggers the ‘night kiss,’ a vertical light pointed at the sky. This happens in tiny increments because the rotation of the earth means the moment of darkness is about 20 seconds apart from bridge to bridge. There is a pause, then soft white light comes up on each bridge, like a blossom. ” “We’re imagining the moment of the beams going up a bit like the chiming of Big Ben a moment of urban consciousness,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to pay attention to the transition between day and night, and to evoke a collectivity that is missing in our urban lifestyle. ” This lighting firm, working with the artist Federico Pietrella, proposes subtle washes of light over the bridges and along their underbellies, with lights triggered by sunset and sunrise. Different styles of lampposts from around the world would be partly submerged in the water, symbolizing London as a place for international exchange. “When you walk along the river, you can see that every borough has its own aesthetic, which is very different to a more homogeneously designed city like Paris,” said Joseph Frey, one of the partners of the firm. “Our first intention is to clean up the light pollution along the Thames path buildings are lit very differently depending on where you are, and we would try to persuade the stakeholders that it’s a question of contrast there is no point spending a lot of energy and money to light the river if it’s not visually readable. “There is approximately a minute of light difference, when the sun rises or sets, between the outermost bridges we wanted to show the natural rhythms of the day, which of course are totally different in winter or summer,” he said. Sam Jacob, a architect, and Simon Heijdens, a Dutch artist, have a poetic proposal that embodies the title of “Illuminated River”: a shimmering river of light hovering just above the surface of the Thames, created from light planes that are generated by data readings of the river’s depth, flow and surface tension. “It was hard to think what you could possibly do on that scale that would respect the variety and detail of the London riverscape and withstand the scale of the city,” Mr. Jacobs said. “London is a strange city, it has never been planned and doesn’t have an urban principle, but the river is the one unifying factor. ” Mr. Heijdens added: “It’s such a narrative surface: where you are, what time it is, what the weather is like. But most of that is lost at night when the Thames becomes a black hole. So we created a dimensional weave of light from flows of data from the river that are measured by a small unit on each bridge, and powered by the tides. ” The New York light artist Leo Villareal, who created the “Bay Lights” installation on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, has worked with a team of London architects on a straightforward proposal that transforms the river bridges into light sculptures, washed by soft colors that one writer described as turning the Thames into “a giant linear lava lamp. ” “We wanted to create something cohesive to unify the bridges and create a ribbon of light,” Mr. Villareal said. “We also wanted to create a better atmosphere around the Thames, where there is a lot of commercial lighting, so we have proposals for tuning that light. We would replace much of the current bridge lighting with LED light, which makes it more energy efficient and adds dynamism through light and color. “I sometimes make monochromatic pieces, but here it felt appropriate to use color,” he continued. “An important element of the project is that it references the light and atmosphere of paintings of the bridges by artists like Turner and Monet. ” He added: “Lighting the undersides of the bridges is also important working with structure and finding a way to augment what exists is at the heart of this. These kinds of public art gestures are a gift and can be transformative they have the power to bring people together. ” | 1 |
Sweden’s health minister has promised more support for gender identity clinics as it emerged that the number of children claiming to be in the wrong body has risen 100 per cent each year. [Louise Frisén, child psychiatrist at the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, told Aftonbladet that in 2016, the gender investigation team saw 197 children who were interested in ‘transitioning’ to becoming the opposite sex. “There’s a 100 per cent increase in numbers each year, and the people we’re seeing are younger and younger and more and more children are coming at very young ages,” she said, adding that “the increase is identical on the adult side of things, too,” she said. Chief of Karolinska University Hospital’s gender identity team, Cecilia Dhejne, said the rise in children unhappy with having been born male or female reflects “greater openness” in Swedish society, but warned that resources are overstretched. “The problem in Sweden is that there’s a long wait for young people, both for initiating an investigation into their gender identity and then also for the different parts of treatment across the country after that. ” “It is worrying” said the sexologist, cautioning that “having to wait in a queue can worsen the mental health of transgender people”. “It’s sad on an individual level when people feel bad about themselves, and on a wider level it’s much better that young people are able to get started with their lives so they can contribute to society,” said Ms. Dhejne. Sweden’s Public Health Minister Gabriel Wikström said: “It is totally unacceptable that there are deficiencies in care for transgender people at every stage of treatment. ” He told Aftonbladet the government had appointed a commission to investigate waiting times and gaps in care across the country, the results of which will be ready by October. “I believe [municipalities in Sweden] do the best they can with the resources they have, but unfortunately I think society has failed to do enough to listen to transgender people. As a result, we were not aware of the problems now being faced by that group. ” In recent years, left wing activists along with global media enterprises like National Geographic have worked hard to promote the concept of ‘transgender children’ but there is increasing evidence that gender ideology puts minors’ mental health at risk. There is also mounting evidence that children are too young to choose their gender. In June, the American College of Pediatricians released an open letter asserting that trans children are psychologically confused. “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse,” it read. | 1 |
OULU, Finland — No one would confuse this frigid corner of northern Finland with Silicon Valley. Notched in low pine forests just 100 miles below the Arctic Circle, Oulu seems more likely to achieve dominance at herding reindeer than at nurturing technology . But this city has roots as a hub for wireless communications, and keen aspirations in innovation. It also has thousands of skilled engineers in need of work. Many were laid off by Nokia, the Finnish company once synonymous with mobile telephones and more recently at risk of fading into oblivion. While entrepreneurs are eager to put these people to work, the rules of Finland’s generous social safety net effectively discourage this. Jobless people generally cannot earn additional income while collecting unemployment benefits or they risk losing that assistance. For workers from Nokia, simply collecting a guaranteed unemployment check often presents a better financial proposition than taking a leap with a in Finland, where a shaky technology industry is trying to find its footing again. Now, the Finnish government is exploring how to change that calculus, initiating an experiment in a form of social welfare: universal basic income. Early next year, the government plans to randomly select roughly 2, 000 unemployed people — from coders to construction workers. It will give them benefits automatically, absent bureaucratic hassle and minus penalties for amassing extra income. The government is eager to see what happens next. Will more people pursue jobs or start businesses? How many will stop working and squander their money on vodka? Will those liberated from the entanglements of the unemployment system use their freedom to gain education, setting themselves up for promising new careers? These areas of inquiry extend beyond economic policy, into the realm of human nature. The answers — to be determined over a trial — could shape social welfare policy far beyond Nordic terrain. In communities around the world, officials are exploring basic income as a way to lessen the vulnerabilities of working people exposed to the vagaries of global trade and automation. While basic income is still an emerging idea, one far from being deployed on a large scale, the growing experimentation underscores the deep need to find effective means to alleviate the perils of globalization. The search has gained an extraordinary sense of urgency as a wave of reactionary populism sweeps the globe, casting the elite establishment as the main beneficiary of economic forces that have hurt the working masses. Americans’ election of Donald J. Trump, who has vowed to radically constrain trade, and the stunning vote in Britain to abandon the European Union, have resounded as emergency sirens for global leaders. They must either update capitalism to share the spoils more equitably, or risk watching angry mobs dismantle the institutions that have underpinned economic policy since the end of World War II. Universal basic income is a catchall phrase that describes a range of proposals, but they generally share one feature: All people in society get a regular check from the government — regardless of their income or whether they work. These funds are supposed to guarantee food and shelter, enabling people to pursue their own betterment while contributing to society. A Silicon Valley incubator, Y Combinator, is preparing a pilot project in Oakland, Calif. in which 100 families will receive unconditional cash grants ranging from $1, 000 to $2, 000 a month. Voters in Switzerland recently rejected a scheme, but the French Senate approved a trial. Experiments are being readied in Canada and the Netherlands. The Indian government has been studying basic income as a means of alleviating poverty. “The last two years, there’s been an explosion of interest in basic income,” says Guy Standing, a research associate with the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and a of the Basic Income Earth Network, an institution created to promote the idea. “The elites realize that the inequalities are becoming politically dangerous. ” For generations, policy makers have sought the magic formula for full employment, with nearly everyone who wants a job able to find one. Traditional unemployment insurance schemes were devised in an age when the cyclical nature of factory life was dominant. Workers who were idled in lean times could pay their bills using unemployment benefits while awaiting the inevitable return of flush ones. Universal basic income is gaining consideration in part as an acknowledgment that the labor market has changed so fundamentally that full employment may amount to a fantasy. Factories have been refashioned into office spaces. Robots are replacing workers, while the gig economy turns jobs into contract positions. Basic income is intended to be permanent, built for an age in which demand for labor may be perpetually slack. Whatever happens — say everyone becomes a Uber driver, or Uber drivers are replaced by cars — everyone can count on sustenance. Strikingly, basic income is being championed across the ideological spectrum. Utopian dreamers envision it as an emancipation from the meaninglessness of work. People stuck in jobs at restaurants could abandon laboring over the fryolator in favor of growing organic vegetables and reading to their children. Labor advocates embrace basic income as a means of increasing bargaining power, enabling workers to eschew wages while holding out for better. Libertarians see it as a means of shrinking government by consolidating social service programs. Liberals envision it as a way to remove the stigma of public assistance: Instead of standing in line at the grocery store bearing food stamps while suffering the judgment of other shoppers — Shouldn’t she be buying spinach instead of frozen pizza? — poor people would get the same check as everyone else. The technology world has seized on basic income as the response to automation and its threat of joblessness. If everyone’s needs are being met, then society can embrace robots and liberation from drudge work. Yet the expensive price tag attached to anything that is truly universal makes it a political nonstarter in many countries — especially in the United States, where Mr. Trump just appointed a labor secretary who is critical of simply raising the minimum wage. If every American were to receive just $10, 000 a year, the tab would be roughly $3 trillion a year, roughly eight times what the United States now spends on social service programs. The government might just as well commit to handing out unicorns. Beyond arithmetic, basic income confronts fundamental disagreements about human reality. If people are released from fears that — absent work — they risk finding themselves sleeping outdoors, will they devolve into freeloaders? “Some people think basic income will solve every problem under the sun, and some people think it’s from the hand of Satan and will destroy our work ethic,” says Olli Kangas, who oversees research at Kela, a Finnish government agency that administers many social welfare programs. “I’m hoping we can create some knowledge on this issue. ” Half a millennium ago, Thomas More’s seminal novel, “Utopia,” included the suggestion that public assistance might be a better way to deter thieves than a death sentence. More than two centuries later, the American revolutionary agitator Thomas Paine proposed creating a national pool of money distributed to every adult. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. promoted basic income. The libertarian economist Milton Friedman embraced a variant: negative income taxes that would put cash in the pockets of the poor. Yet with the exception of a few experiments, basic income has been confined to the margins of policy conversations. Until now. Finland’s concerns are pragmatic. The government has no interest in freeing wage earners to write poetry. It is eager to generate more jobs. The global financial crisis and its aftermath played out against a wrenching economic refashioning here. The growth of tablets and smartphones assailed a major industry, commercial paper manufacturing. A crisis in neighboring Russia diminished trade. Over the last decade, Finland’s economy has grown not at all. For workers, the shock has been cushioned by a comprehensive social welfare system. In the five years after suffering a job loss, a Finnish family of four that is eligible for housing assistance receives average benefits equal to 73 percent of previous wages, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That is nearly triple the level in the United States. But the social safety net also appears to be impeding the reinvigoration of the economy by discouraging unemployed people from working part time. “It always should be worth taking the job rather than staying home and taking the benefits,” says Finland’s minister for social affairs and health, Pirkko Mattila. “We have to take the risk to do this experiment. ” Oulu, a city of nearly 200, 000 people on the Nordic Sea, stands as a potentially fertile testing ground. In centuries past, inhabitants occupied themselves shipping salmon and tar upriver to Russia while trying not to freeze to death. More recently, the city has evolved into a center for wireless communications. Three years ago, Microsoft purchased Nokia’s handset business, raising local hopes of a revival. But last year, Microsoft went on to shutter the operation. Local Nokia jobs have been halved, falling to 2, 500 from 5, 000. Oulu’s unemployment rate now sits above 16 percent, more than double the national average. City leaders portray this as an opportunity to start over, describing a future centered on companies like Asmo Solutions. With its office in a the company checks the boxes for requisite elements of a modern . Coders stare into laptops while leaning against beanbag chairs arrayed across red shag carpeting. The founder, Asmo Saloranta, 35, wears a silver hoop earring, his blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. He used to be chief executive now he is chief visionary. He has designed a phone charger that draws power only when a phone is connected. Oulu is an ideal place to start a technology business, he says: “There are highly talented tech people. ” But hiring them is maddeningly complicated. Mr. Saloranta has his eyes on a former Nokia employee who is masterly at developing prototypes. He only needs him part time. He could pay 2, 000 euros a month (about $2, 090). Yet this potential hire is bringing home more than that via his unemployment benefits. “It’s more profitable for him to just wait at home for some ideal job,” Mr. Saloranta complains. Basic income would fix this, he says: “It would activate many more unemployed people. ” This is a part of the debate that often gets missed. Monthly checks for everyone may look like socialism, but proponents advance it as a way to invigorate capitalism. From Italy to India, companies that would like to leave behind unprofitable enterprises in favor of fresh pursuits hold back because of the expense and reputational damage of firing people. Basic income could be the tool that makes restructuring palatable. With basic income in place, companies might be more inclined to take a risk on hiring more aggressively — adding vigor to the local economy — knowing they have the freedom to be ruthless in cutting loose those workers who prove disappointing. “It does make it easier to have labor flexibility,” says Karl Widerquist, a philosopher at Georgetown University in Qatar, and a leading advocate for basic income. “I know that if I have to close down this operation, everyone is going to be O. K. ” People who lose jobs would do well to gain training in modern trades. On this point, economists universally concur. Yet in many countries, social welfare systems are so laden with rules that jobless people tend to acquire just one skill: They gain savvy in navigating the bureaucracy. This dependency is a key justification for basic income. If people receive money without having to endure appointments with government bureaucrats, they will have time for more productive exploits. “Basic income is kind of a symbol that we believe in your capacity and we think that you are actually able to do things which are beneficial to you, and also for your community,” says Heikki Hiilamo, a professor of social policy at Helsinki University. “It’s built on a kind of a positive view of human beings. People want to be autonomous. They want to improve their . ” Jaana Matila has three degrees in computing and an obsessive interest in software, and intense aspirations to forge a career in the Oulu technology scene. What she does not have — has never had — is a job. At 29, she has completed three unpaid internships. Her last stint ended when her employer folded. She teaches adults to swim. She catches freelance jobs, recently designing a website for a hair salon. Mostly, she lives on unemployment benefits — 700 euros a month (about $732). Ms. Matila would like to do more freelance work, but she lives in fear of derailing her unemployment benefits. She is supposed to fill out forms that account for every bit of income while providing pay stubs, bank documents and work contracts. Earlier this year, she failed to secure a receipt for the swim lessons. While she tracked one down, she lost her benefits for a month. “I had to ask my boyfriend, ‘Can you give me some monthly money so I can buy some food? ’” she says. “It’s really frustrating. ” She thinks about starting a website. Mostly, though, she goes for walks through the forest with her dog. She frets that she is falling behind in skills as technology advances. “People in a disadvantaged position, they use a major part of their cognitive ability worrying about their lives, worrying about where they will get their next meal,” says Mikko Annala, a researcher at Demos Helsinki, a think tank. “What if we have this potential there that is continuously worrying about life, about making it? What if we can get that into use by giving them something? That is a hypothesis that we should absolutely test. ” The most compelling argument against basic income is the most obvious: If everyone gets money without a requirement to do anything, humans may become morally depraved slackers. Jari Viljala finds this notion ridiculous. An electrician by trade, Mr. Viljala is accustomed to braving Arctic blasts of wind in temperatures while threading wires into the spines of new housing complexes. He has left his wife and two daughters behind for as long as eight months at a time to venture north for construction projects. His gaze intense, his arms covered in tattoos, he takes pride in his reputation as the guy who will do anything. “The dirtiest, trickiest job that no one else wanted to do,” he says, “I have always volunteered. ” But since the summer, Mr. Viljala has been out of work. His 3, 300 euros in monthly wages (about $3, 450) have given way to 650 euros (about $680) in monthly unemployment benefits. He needs money for new brakes on his Ford sedan, which failed inspection. Without a car, he cannot get to what work he may secure. He also needs money to get current on the rent, having fallen more than two months behind. At 36, he is wiry and strong. He could earn additional cash on the side. But the unemployment rules say otherwise. So he stays home and does what he can — making dinner for his girls, doing the laundry. He rides the bus through the gray dawn to the unemployment office. He waits and he worries. He wonders how it makes any sense that an man with every compulsion to work must stay idle to ensure that he can support his family. | 1 |
DOES SOMEONE BEHIND THE SCENES WANT TO SEE CIVIL WAR IN THE UNITED STATES?
The answer is almost certainly yes.
And it isn’t likely to settle down anytime in the next few days. (If you aren’t prepped for this, go here to learn how to stay safe .)
Just a little background: this has been going on since the midst of the campaign when actors were hired on Craigslist and trained to disrupt rallies.
For example, one Craigslist ad was answered by Paul Horner, who admitted he was paid $3,500 to cause a scene at a Trump event in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
“As for who these people were affiliated with that interviewed me, my guess would be Hillary Clinton’s campaign,” Horner said. “The actual check I received after I was done with the job was from a group called ‘Women Are The Future’. After I was hired, they told me if anyone asked any questions about who I was with or communicated with me in any way, I should start talking about how great Bernie Sanders is.” Horner continued, “It was mostly women in their 60’s at the interview that I went to…” ( source )
The same report goes on to say:
When asked about the other protesters at the rally, Horner said he saw most of them during the interview and training for the rally.
“Almost all of the people I was protesting with I had seen at my interview and training class. At the rally, talking with some of them, I learned they only paid Latinos $500, Muslims $600 and African Americans $750. I don’t think they were looking for any Asians. Women and children were paid half of what the men got and illegals received $300 across the board. I think I was paid more than the other protesters because I was white and had taken classes in street fighting and boxing a few years back”
You can also read this article , in which a quote caught on video from Project Veritas shows how the Clinton campaign caused disruptions via “bird-dogging.” THERE’S A LOT OF EVIDENCE THAT SOMEONE IS FUNDING THESE PROTESTS.
An eyewitness in Austin, Texas spotted protesters being transported by chartered coach buses.
Then there was this Craigslist ad.
There are many more tweets along these lines, but suffice it to say, suspicion is high that these, just like the Clinton campaign, are rigged to manipulate the American people. WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO CAUSE ALL THIS TROUBLE?
That’s where the web gets tangled. It certainly seems counterproductive to set fire to America. After all, what these people are doing is likely to end up with more tyranny – like martial law, for example.
Exactly.
That’s precisely the plan.
Back in August, hackers from a group called DC Leaks got into the private documents of the Open Society, an organization founded by George Soros. Soros, whom DC Leaks referred to as “the architect and sponsor of almost every revolution and coup around the world for the last 25 years” is a pro-globalist billionaire who has been trying to take over the world via shadow government for decades.
Zero Hedge reported on the findings in the Soros leak:
The documents are from multiple departments of Soros’ organizations. Soros’ the Open Society Foundations seems to be the group with the most documents in the leak. Files come from sections representing almost all geographical regions in the world, from the USA, to Europe, Eurasia, Asia, Latin, America, Africa, the World Bank “the President’s Office”, as well as an unknown entity named SOUK. As the Daily Caller notes , there are documents dating from at least 2008 to 2016. Documents in the leak range from research papers such as “ EUROPEAN CRISIS: Key Developments of the Past 48 Hours ” focusing on the impact of the refugee crisis, to a document titled “ The Ukraine debate in Germany “, to an update specific financials of grants. They reveal work plans, strategies, priorities and other activities by Soros, and include reports on European elections, migration and asylum in Europe. An email leaked by WikiLeaks earlier this week showed Soros had advised Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State on how to handle unrest in Albania – advice she acted on.
As well, it’s important to note that Soros provided a whopping $33 million to activists in Ferguson, Missouri, escalating a protest to a siege. The Washington Times reported:
…liberal billionaire George Soros , who has built a business empire that dominates across the ocean in Europe while forging a political machine powered by nonprofit foundations that impacts American politics and policy, not unlike what he did with MoveOn.org.
Mr. Soros spurred the Ferguson protest movement through years of funding and mobilizing groups across the U.S., according to interviews with key players and financial records reviewed by The Washington Times.
In all, Mr. Soros gave at least $33 million in one year to support already-established groups that emboldened the grass-roots, on-the-ground activists in Ferguson , according to the most recent tax filings of his nonprofit Open Society Foundations… EVERYDAY CARRY GEAR – 11 ITEMS YOU SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE ON YOU (AD)
This is business as usual for the OSF (Open Society Foundation), as explained by director Kenneth Zimmerman :
Mr. Zimmerman said OSF has been giving to these types of groups since its inception in the early ’90s, and that, although groups involved in the protests have been recipients of Mr. Soros’ grants, they were in no way directed to protest at the behest of Open Society .
“The incidents, whether in Staten Island, Cleveland or Ferguson , were spontaneous protests — we don’t have the ability to control or dictate what others say or choose to say,” Mr. Zimmerman said. “But these circumstances focused people’s attention — and it became increasingly evident to the social justice groups involved that what a particular incident like Ferguson represents is a lack of accountability and a lack of democratic participation.”
Soros -sponsored organizations helped mobilize protests in Ferguson , building grass-roots coalitions on the ground backed by a nationwide online and social media campaign.
Other Soros -funded groups made it their job to remotely monitor and exploit anything related to the incident that they could portray as a conservative misstep, and to develop academic research and editorials to disseminate to the news media to keep the story alive.
The plethora of organizations involved not only shared Mr. Soros ‘ funding, but they also fed off each other, using content and buzzwords developed by one organization on another’s website, referencing each other’s news columns and by creating a social media echo chamber of Facebook “likes” and Twitter hashtags that dominated the mainstream media and personal online newsfeeds.
Soros was busted for paying protesters to go into Ferguson and stir things up. This is not theory. It’s FACT. The Daily Mail reported that Soros spent $33 million to bankroll the protests. The Washington Times reported that it was totally cool, though, because humanitarian that he is, Soros just wanted to help the civil rights movement . What a guy. Of course, this seems to be a thing with the kabillionaires. The Ford Foundation and Rockefeller foundation also fund “social activism.” Which is kabillionaire code for “mess stuff up and wreak havoc.”
Keep in mind that the organization Black Lives Matter was born through the Ferguson riots. DOES THIS LOOK FAMILIAR?
If the Modus Operandi in these protests looks familiar, that’s because MoveOn.org is organizing a lot of them, and MoveOn is funded by …you guessed it: George Soros. The organization was originally founded to combat the impeachment of Bill Clinton…are you seeing a link here? Another proud instigator is the Answer Coalition which also – are you sitting down? Has links to Soros .
There are a lot of people who are out there because they genuinely oppose a Trump presidency. The unfortunate thing is, their opposition comes from propaganda that they passionately believe. They are acting based on misinformation and they’re being professionally manipulated.
The next step here is martial law, which nobody wants.
Well, nobody except George Soros and friends.
Someone who wants to see America ripped apart is causing this division. Last summer, it was leaked that Soros attempted to destabilize Russia and depose Putin in 2012. Putin responded by banning Soros and all of his organizations from Russia. In 2014, Putin issued an international arrest warrant for Soros.
We could certainly improve both international relationships and our current situation by extraditing Soros immediately.
Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor. Her website , where this article first appeared , offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter , and you can email her at [email protected] Share: | 0 |
“When was the last time you breathed properly?” the therapist asked me. His name was Allan. Thirty minutes into my first visit, I was still waiting for him to reach the part where he would help me get over the end of my relationship. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said. “Easy, open breathing. Big lungfuls of air. ” “I don’t know,” I said. “I breathe all the time. ” I tried steering the conversation myself. “I just think I need to work out what happened — — ” “I’m not interested in what happened,” he said. “I’m interested in the last time you breathed normally. You’re a young, healthy woman. But your paperwork tells me you’re struggling at work, haven’t eaten a full meal in weeks and can’t sleep. You need to fix that. ” I thought therapy would help convince me that the loss of the person I had been devoted to for years was a good thing. Instead, something in Allan’s blunt insistence on the symptoms and not the cause had put me on my heels. He peered over his notepad. “You’re all hunched up,” he said. “You look miserable. Your homework for next week is to do the exercises I’ll email you. You’ve got six sessions, and I want you breathing and sleeping properly by the end of it. ” Cycling home afterward, I had already dismissed Allan’s words and returned to my regular programming: raking through the seven years since I had met my ex, mining memories for details of where it went wrong. We had started with two years of silent longing (me) and dating other people (him) before finally feeling our way into a life and home together in London. Until one painful, protracted summer, he left. I had always prided myself on being strong, on being able to bounce back, but here I was, months later, wrestling with questions without answers at night and awakening to a frightening bleakness. Lying awake that evening, I wondered if I was making a mistake in outsourcing my problems. Allan’s focus on breathing sounded suspiciously like mindfulness to me. I had another long night ahead, though, so I groped around the bedsheets for my phone, and that’s when I saw his promised email. “Download the app in the link below,” it read. “When you use it, imagine a place you feel happy and safe. Hold that image in your mind. Then focus on your breathing. Use the app each night before you go to sleep. Exercise. ” My mind cast around for the prescribed happy place, settling on a pebble beach on the south coast of England where I had spent childhood summers. I tried to remember its hard, smooth stones, the sounds of my brother yelling from the sea. The app, Positivity with Andrew Johnson, started. In a Scottish burr, a man counted down from 10. With a twinge of curiosity, I tried breathing in. Allan had a point: My chest was tight with tension. I attempted to push the air down, and my tummy distended like a child’s. As I tried to synchronize my breathing, the vision of the beach kept escaping and then reappearing, interrupted by jags of thought. Still, I kept trying every night. Learning how to breathe was at least something different, a quick break from analyzing my own love story with exhausting precision. When I visited Allan a few weeks later, our conversation turned to intuition. “What does your gut tell you about what you should be doing?” he asked. “My gut?” I felt embarrassed. “I don’t feel anything in there. ” I looked down hopefully at my stomach. Privately, I had always wondered what people meant by intuition. “You mentioned that you were nervous, that you often experienced anxiety from the start of the year,” he said. “Why do you think that was?” I have always relied on the flush of adrenaline to get stuff done. Yet a deeper, more frantic energy than usual had seeped in during the months before my boyfriend left. This tension pushed the vacuum cleaner faster round the living room and infused the meals I had started to make from cookbooks. Our apartment had never looked so tidy. On rainy Sundays, I urged him to make plans for a trip to Paris, which he wasn’t keen on. “I find it hard to believe that my body knew something was up before my brain did,” I said, petulance creeping into my voice. “Intuition is a sense developed from your past experiences, books you’ve read, sounds on the street, conversations, facial expressions,” Allan said. “All valuable information. It can help you to distinguish between what is real and what is fake, to notice something dangerous. Perhaps you trust your thoughts more, though. ” “Thoughts are all I have, surely,” I said. “That’s where all that information ends up getting used. ” “There’s plenty of research that would disagree with you. Why not try listening to your body instead of your head? That’s where all your feelings have been coming from. ” Feelings. We hadn’t talked about feelings at all. But as the weeks passed, I found that painful emotions, long ossified and remote, began overtaking me in humiliating ways. Tears streamed down my face in supermarkets my shoulders heaved silently on family car trips. My feelings were like the drunk who shows up too late to the party, misjudging the mood. Yet it was a strange relief to find I was capable of them. The tears were new, and they felt animal. Salt burned a rash around my eyelids in a way that I suspected wasn’t entirely about the end of a relationship. The breakup had done something else: It had caused a crack, and the breathing only seemed to be making it wider. Earlier, secrets and disasters found the fissure and out they came, noisily, messily. They had been quiet for years, but now they wanted water and air. In Allan’s company, I seemed to spend increasing amounts of time feeling like an idiot. “I’m not trying to be difficult — — ” He suddenly sounded kind. “I don’t think you are,” he said. “But deep down, people often know when something is coming. When something has to change. ” The last time I spoke to Allan was on the phone I had work I couldn’t get out of. He was as unrepentantly to the point as ever. “It’s fine,” he said as I apologized. “You’ll be fine. But I wanted to say, if your comes back, think seriously. Good luck. And don’t forget to fill in the feedback form. ” Later that day, from across my office desk, my phone pinged. It was a message from my ex: “Do you want to meet up? I’d like to speak to you. ” How had Allan foreseen that? The old love drew me back in, even when reduced to digital form. “When?” I replied. “Where do you want to meet up?” A few days later, after an evening of stilted small talk in a pub, we stood together on a London street streaming with people. It was a sharp, clear November night. I felt blindsided. Ten minutes earlier he had stared cryptically into my face and said: “I think we should try again. I miss you. ” Words I had been willing him to say. “I understand this is a surprise,” he said. “I’ll wait for you to decide. ” “I don’t know what to say,” I mumbled. But then there was the beach. I had found that the more time I spent imagining that beach, the better I felt, the more I noticed things. That afternoon, for example, I had enjoyed how the cold air smelled of bonfires. Even now, flooded with fear, I had briefly thought how cheerful the city’s scarlet buses looked as they slid past in the dark. I could see him waiting for a response, but I stood dumb. The traffic roared and I could feel my feet vibrating with the pavement. Cold wind brushed past, goading me. It was all in league with a new, internal voice, one that spoke quietly and unexpectedly. “Leave him,” it said. “Take what you have and run. ” So with hardly a word, I turned and ran for the bus. That was a couple of years ago. Allan gave me no cure for heartbreak, but he did teach me some things. To look after my body, to pay it respect. To question my mind, which doesn’t understand half as much as it thinks it does. To understand that the time spent in the gap between the endless stories we tell ourselves is the present. These days, I care more about being peaceful and happy than about being in love. I’m not sure love is love if it consumes you, if it dominates your thoughts. Perhaps that’s something else: obsession, limerence. While it’s a trip to get lost in a relationship, finding yourself again can prove and costly. But breathing freely, feeling alert to the world and being in touch with your emotions? Just $2. 99 at the app store. And a lot of work. Next I’d like to try having love and happiness at the same time, though. I’ve heard it’s possible. | 1 |
Marvel Comics has canceled its Black Lives comic book Black Panther The Crew due to poor sales, according to reports. [The comic book — written by activist author Coates — was canceled after only two issues but is expected to finish out the remainder of its run, The Verge reported. The comic features a group of superheroes including Black Panther, Misty Knight, Luke Cage and Storm — the only white person in the “crew” is Kung Fu hero Iron Fist — and their investigation into the case of a black civil rights activist who died in police custody in New York City’s famed Harlem neighborhood. The story is set in a New York City patrolled by robot police officers instead of human officials, but much of the plot appears to derive thematically from the Black Lives Matter playbook, with cops beating up minorities for little to no reason and groups of local citizens on the verge of riots over it all. Coates assured fans that with its last few issues, the comic’s storyline would be wrapped up and the mystery of who killed the civil rights activist would be solved. Naturally, the liberal comics community is upset that Marvel has canceled the Black Lives title. Gawker site Gizmodo complained that Marvel spent no resources advertising or pushing the comic on fans. The site also proclaimed the cancellation “keenly disappointing. ” The cancellation of Black Panther The Crew comes shortly after a Marvel executive noted during an industry event that comics focused specifically on featuring diverse characters are not selling well. Speaking at a Marvel retailer summit at the end of March, David Gabriel, Marvel’s vice president of sales, said the company had heard that customers “didn’t want” any more diverse characters. “I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales,” Gabriel said. “Any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up. ” The executive made his comments based on recent sales figures but later tried to roll it back after a backlash in the liberal comic book community slammed him as racist. Gabriel later noted that Marvel is still “proud and excited to keep introducing unique characters that reflect new voices and new experiences into the Marvel universe and pair them with our iconic heroes. ” The cancellation also comes ahead of Marvel’s next adaptation of the Black Panther character. Actor Chadwick Boseman will play the character in Marvel’s Black Panther, due out in February 2018. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
You’ve just landed in Beijing, Rio de Janeiro or Christchurch, New Zealand, and you’re greeted at the airport by a clutch of adoring locals. What is the polite way to greet them? Do you bow, or proffer your hand, or prepare to envelop the assembled strangers in an embrace? More important: To kiss or not to kiss? The world may be increasingly globalized, but when it comes to greeting practices, local customs still prevail — and things can get awkward when, say, a American businessman meets his Japanese counterpart for the first time. (Best just to bow.) If you find yourself facing a group of native Maoris in New Zealand, you’ll want to steel yourself for a traditional nose greeting, which involves touching snouts and foreheads. In Rio, local convention dictates three cheek kisses. But a few hours’ drive to the south in São Paulo, the single peck prevails. In Beijing, the locals prefer a nod and a smile. In the interests of international fellowship and peace, here is an incomplete guide to world greetings. In much of Latin America, Europe and the Middle East, air kissing between strangers is common, but each nation, and in some cases each region within a country, may have its own habits. Argentine men will one another, but only if they are friends of friends. In most of the Arab world, a double air kiss is obligatory, though only between people of the same sex. Things can get complicated in France, as this map suggests: Expect anywhere from four kisses (in Nantes) down to two (in Toulouse) or just a single peck (in Brest). The general rule is that lips should never touch cheek, though a faint smooching sound is expected. In most of Northern Europe, a firm handshake will usually suffice between strangers, and a single kiss for friends. “Firm” doesn’t begin to describe the obligatory handshake between two unacquainted men in Russia, which can feel like a test of strength with near results. And there’s a taboo about shaking hands across the threshold of a home: Wait until you are both on the same side of the door. When kisses are called for, where do you aim? In Portugal, the kissing usually progresses from left to right, but in Strasbourg, France, it’s right to left. Kissing or touching strangers is frowned upon in Asia. The customary greeting in Thailand involves a bow with the palms pressed together, as if in prayer similar gestures are common from Cambodia to Indonesia. In India, a limp handshake between men is fine, but don’t try it with a member of the opposite sex. The traditional way to greet an Indian elder is to bend down and touch his feet. Tibetans have one of the most unusual traditional gestures for greeting others: They stick out their tongues — though always from a safe distance. | 1 |
The United States and China are locked in a mutually dependent, frequently dysfunctional economic partnership. The world’s biggest and economies are like a married couple that complain about each other constantly yet can’t even contemplate a divorce. The marriage enters a new phase Thursday, as President Xi Jinping of China visits for two days of meetings at the Florida estate of a president who made China a punching bag on the campaign trail. The question is whether President Trump can turn his bellicose language into concrete gains for American companies and workers. A look at the economics of the relationship between the nations, and conversations with former officials with battle scars from past negotiations, show a path for getting a better deal. That path to success may not include the kind of flashy, announcements that the Trump administration has tended to celebrate. In February, Mr. Trump called China the “grand champions at manipulation of currency. ” During the campaign, too, he frequently assailed China for artificially reducing the value of the renminbi to favor its companies versus American and other competitors. It is a view that is outdated. For years, China did intervene in financial markets to depress the value of its currency. But now it is intervening to keep the yuan from falling — actually doing the opposite of what Mr. Trump alleged. Economists generally think that the Chinese currency is close to the levels that would be set by purely market forces. That doesn’t mean currencies shouldn’t come up at . This moment of relative peace between the countries on currency policy could be the ideal time to develop an understanding for the future. “I think currency is still an issue, but it doesn’t make sense to discuss it under the rubric of manipulation,” said Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China is managing its currency it’s just that it’s managing it right now in a way that is relatively advantageous to the United States. That understanding of how China intends to manage its currency in the future remains a issue. ” In other words, Mr. Trump could use this moment not to beat China over the head about what happened in the past, or where things stand today, but to develop an agreement on what it will do in the future, if a day comes when market forces start pushing the yuan upward. Mr. Trump has similarly assailed the United States trade deficit with China and other countries, often characterizing it as a scorecard, evidence that China is winning at trade and the United States losing, to the tune of $310 billion a year. The reality is more nuanced. The persistent trade deficit is indeed problematic, but that’s because of the factors that drive it and the imbalances they cause to build. Simply targeting a lower trade deficit could well leave both American and Chinese workers worse off, if carried out the wrong way. For example, a trade war that significantly reduces American imports from China while also reducing American exports to China would reduce the trade deficit but would mean lower incomes and fewer jobs in both countries. The U. S. trade imbalance is indeed driven in part by trade barriers that China enacts against American companies, including a 25 percent tariff on imported automobiles and various quotas and restrictions that reduce agricultural imports. If Mr. Trump can persuade China to loosen those restrictions, it might close the trade deficit by increasing American exports — the healthy kind of trade rebalancing. But the trade gap isn’t driven just by the details of trade arrangements. It is also driven by the flow of capital between countries. To oversimplify, when a company sells more abroad than it buys, it has to do something with that money. The flip side of a current account deficit, as an economist might put it, is a capital account surplus. China’s trade imbalances are a function not only of its trade practices, but also of its very high levels of savings, which are in turn invested around the world. For China to change that, it would have to change the very structure of its economy: away from savings and infrastructure investments, and toward consumer demand — including for products made both domestically and abroad. If the Trump administration really wants the trade deficit with China to come down over time, it’s not enough to look at only one side of the international economic ledger — flows of goods — while ignoring the flow of capital. In practice, this would mean making demands on some issues that might seem like purely domestic concerns only tangentially related to trade. That might include pushing China to allow more troubled enterprises to fail, so that their accumulated profits might be spread through the Chinese economy instead of funneled toward the purchase of foreign assets. A more generous pension system might spur demand among older Chinese citizens. If China allowed global financial companies more access to its market, it could both encourage more domestic spending and give a major American industry an opportunity it has long sought. President Trump prides himself on being a dealmaker, and his negotiating style is to lay out extreme requests in order to work back to agreement. But resetting economic relations with China will prove trickier than any real estate deal. One of the fundamental realities of the relationship is that while neither side is wholly comfortable with how it works, these are big, powerful countries that can’t be easily swayed by what a country on the other side of the Pacific Ocean wants to happen. The leverage that each side has to deploy is limited — at least so long as neither country is willing to shoot itself in the foot. So, for example, in trying to get more favorable Chinese treatment of American goods and services, the standard menu of carrots Mr. Trump has to offer for compliance is relatively modest. China wants things like United States membership in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that it started, and support for its “One Belt, One Road” program to build better transportation infrastructure stretching from Southeast Asia to Europe. Bigger Chinese goals, like achieving “market economy” status in the World Trade Organization, are likely to be nonstarters unless the country makes major progress on allowing international companies better access to its market. The United States could conceivably have more negotiating leverage by threatening punitive tariffs or other aggressive measures, as Mr. Trump did during his campaign, but those actions are just as likely to produce a painful blowback from China that damages the United States. Then there are noneconomic issues, which invariably could shape the contours of economic relationships. “In the Obama administration, China was a good citizen cooperating with us on Iran sanctions and on climate change, which I think made it hard for the U. S. to contemplate anything that harsh in the trade arena,” said David Dollar, a former Treasury Department official in Beijing and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “You could have something similar if the Trump administration wants China to cooperate more on North Korea. That could be hard to turn around and be harsh on them in the economic realm. ” Mr. Trump likes to announce big splashy deals, and given that the Chinese are looking for places to invest their capital in the United States, it would be easy enough to find something along those lines to announce. But in the context of the two giant economies, that kind of thing is small bore. This flawed economic relationship has been building for a long time, and the fixes are unlikely to come overnight. “Mr. Trump ought to pick the right fights rather than focus on issues that resonate with his political base but which are unlikely to help U. S. economic interest in either the short term or long run,” said Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell and author of “Gaining Currency,” a book about China’s role in global finance. It’s unlikely that the first meeting between the new president and the Chinese leader will resolve issues that have been building for years or even decades. Rather, those who have worked in diplomacy advise looking beyond the current headlines to make progress on lowering Chinese trade barriers, increasing its domestic savings and committing not to return to the days of manipulating its currency lower. When you’re talking about commerce between two superpowers, things don’t change overnight. | 1 |
As the judicial secretary in a court devoted to cases in Nicaragua, I transcribe everything said in our hearings. So I remember the day this one couple came in. They arrived at the courthouse well dressed. The husband was large and stocky, and the wife was in slacks and a blouse, thin and with curly hair and a delicate face. She looked frightened. I typed as the prosecutor laid out the details of the case. They were each . They owned a farm outside town. The wife had gone to church without her husband’s permission. When the husband found out, he went to the church and dragged her out by the hair. He took her home, forced her onto their bed, hit her and began to squeeze her neck. Luckily one of their children showed up at the house just then and interrupted him. He might have choked her to death. Then it was time for the wife to speak. “It was my fault, your honor,” she said. “I didn’t ask his permission to go to church. ” That’s when I said to myself: This poor woman is exactly how I used to be. When I was in high school, I met and fell in love with a schoolmate. He was religious and hardworking. He didn’t drink, and he belonged to a good family. Even though my mother didn’t approve — she scolded me for going out to see him — I left school and moved in with him. We married and had three children very quickly. Then, when I was 21, after my youngest was born, I wanted to go back to high school. I didn’t want to keep washing dishes and doing housework forever. Married women were allowed to go only to night classes, but I wanted to study during the day with the regular students. O. K. the teacher said, but you have to wear the uniform. It’s a pleated blue skirt with a white shirt tucked in, the blue and white for the flag of Nicaragua, with these long white socks up to the knee. My youngest was only 3 months old, and I was still nursing. Sometimes my breasts filled up and leaked through my uniform. I didn’t care. But my husband did. He didn’t want me to go back to school. He said that married women were supposed to stay home, taking care of the children and doing house chores, and that the ones who wanted to study were sluts — what they do is look for men. He was no longer the person I met now he cursed and went out drinking. He began to treat me badly. But I couldn’t leave. By then my mother was barely getting by, and there was no one else — no friends or family members — to help support me or my kids. Too bad, I told myself. I’ll just have to endure it. My husband tried to stop me from studying any way he could. One day he showed up at school to spy on me. Other times he got my uniform dirty or tore up my notebooks. I would buy new ones and copy my assignments all over again. He would tear them up again, and I’d copy them again. He got bored of it before I did. Finally I finished high school, and I wanted to go to university. My husband refused to give me the money, even for a notebook. I heard that the courthouse was looking for someone to mop the floors and clean the shutters. I wasn’t even an official employee. The judges paid me 300 córdobas a month (about $20 at the time) out of their own salaries. My husband was furious about it. In calmer moments, he would try to reason with me: “Why do you need to work when I provide everything you need? The rice, the beans, everything?” “But I don’t want to be a housewife,” I told him. “I want to be something. ” With the money I earned cleaning, I got my bachelor’s degree in social studies. Then I began to clean a second courthouse, so that was 600 córdobas a month. When the two courts eventually merged, they hired me as the custodian officially. Some time later, my boss, a woman, encouraged me to study law. It was only after I became a lawyer several years ago that I started earning enough money to support myself and my kids on my own. Finally I didn’t have to put up with this man anymore. So I divorced him. Now, in the hearing, I looked at this wife. The judge, who was a woman, said to her: “You have to ask permission to go to church?” “Yes,” the wife said. “No, ma’am,” the judge said. “We don’t have to ask for permission. We’re not the property of anybody. ” But I knew how hard it would be for the woman to learn what, after so long, I finally understood. | 1 |
On June 21, Gretchen Carlson devoted the closing minutes of her afternoon Fox News show, “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson,” to discussion of a milestone: She turned 50 that day. “I know, normally folks on TV wouldn’t readily admit their age, but since there’s nothing you can do about it, you might as well own it and be happy,” she said with a laugh. “And, boy, do I have so much to be grateful for. ” Two days later, she was summoned to a postshow meeting with a Fox News executive and told that, after 11 years at the network, her contract was not being renewed. The meeting took less than a minute, according to her lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith. On Wednesday, Ms. Carlson sent shock waves through the media world when she filed a lawsuit against the powerful Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, accusing him, among other things, of sexual harassment and sexism. The news channel’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, said that it was conducting an internal review of the matter. Mr. Ailes denied the charges, and said that the “disappointingly low ratings” for Ms. Carlson’s show was the reason she was let go. “When Fox News did not commence any negotiations to renew her contract, Ms. Carlson became aware that her career with the network was likely over and conveniently began to pursue a lawsuit,” he said in a statement. Though a prominent personality at Fox for many years, Ms. Carlson does not have the star power at the network of Megyn Kelly or Bill O’Reilly. But within minutes of the lawsuit going public, Ms. Carlson became a person of enormous interest in the world of television news. Ms. Carlson grew up in Anoka, Minn. where the future Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was one of her childhood nannies. She attended Stanford University, studying organizational behavior, though she did spend a year abroad at Oxford University focusing on the work of Virginia Woolf, Ms. Smith said. Before her senior year, she became a contestant in the Miss America beauty pageant, which she won in 1988. A trained violinist, Ms. Carlson was proud of her achievement, saying her victory proved the pageant was as interested in a contestant’s intelligence as her looks. “It shows that I’m not a bimbo, that I do have intelligence and that I do represent what every woman wants to be in this society, which is a career woman, and be respected for her intelligence,” she said in January 1989. After graduating from Stanford, she worked for several local TV stations before becoming the host of the Saturday edition of CBS’s morning show, “The Early Show,” in 2002. “She was very, very serious and competent and ambitious about doing journalism the way CBS News was known for,” Victor Neufeld, an executive producer of “The Early Show,” said on Wednesday. She joined Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends,” in 2006, it for eight years. In 2009, Jon Stewart devoted a segment of “The Daily Show” to Ms. Carlson, showing clips of her saying she had to Google words like czar and ignoramus to learn their definitions. Mr. Stewart then detailed her stellar educational background, accused her of playing dumb for Fox’s audience and said, “You don’t have to stash your I. Q. in an offshore account. ” Ms. Carlson is married to Casey Close, a sports agent known for his tough negotiating style, and a roster of clients that includes Derek Jeter. The couple have two children. She has been upfront in discussing matters of sexism in the workplace. In September 2013, shortly after she was removed from “Fox and Friends,” she appeared on the Fox News Radio show of her former Brian Kilmeade and noted that she was dressed casually. The morning show, she said, had a strict rule: She could not wear pants on air. The year before, Ms. Carlson walked off the set of “Fox and Friends” in apparent protest when Mr. Kilmeade made a disparaging comment about women. (She later said she was joking.) And last year Ms. Carlson wrote about sexual harassment for The Huffington Post. “Most professional women I know have experienced sexual harassment,” she wrote. “So have I — a few times — and I never talked about it until now. If that seems surprising, it shouldn’t be. I’ve always considered myself a strong woman, not afraid to stand up for myself, but in the face of sexual harassment I was silent. “As the issue takes a prominent place in the headlines today, I sometimes feel guilty about my trepidation,” Ms. Carlson continued. “Perhaps I could have moved the conversation forward if I had come forth. ” | 1 |
LONDON — Importing Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Spoils” to this city was not exactly a . Written by and starring Mr. Eisenberg, this lacerating comedy of humiliation — about a whiny, rich, and terminally narcissistic young New Yorker who impulsively sabotages his own life and that of his Nepalese roommate — appeared destined to be lost in translation. Yet since opening in June at Trafalgar Studios, “The Spoils,” staged in New York by the New Group last year, has become the production in that theater’s history. Scott Elliott, the show’s director and the New Group’s artistic director, now plans to help bring over more productions, starting with “Buried Child” with Ed Harris, seen earlier this year in New York. Part of the success of “The Spoils” is a matter of star appeal: Mr. Eisenberg, an Oscar nominee for “The Social Network,” is in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and portrays Woody Allen’s in “Café Society. ” But celebrity doesn’t explain the hard laughter and, more surprising, the tears that “The Spoils” elicits. As the run neared its Aug. 13 end, Mr. Eisenberg and Mr. Elliott sat down in the theater’s lobby to discuss why their production has grown, changed and flourished on British soil. These are edited excerpts from the conversation. SCOTT ELLIOTT They told me early on, “We don’t want you to get your hopes up about audience reactions. ” The sarcasm and the humor in the show is so American. So I was worried thinking, “Oh, maybe they’re not going to get it. ” Shockingly, the response was completely opposite, from the first preview. I came to the conclusion that people just listen better here. There is an English tradition of characters in comedy. JESSE EISENBERG That was my feeling. In terms of modern English entertainment, I really liked Ricky Gervais’s character in [the original British version of] “The Office,” and when Americans remade that show [with Steve Carrell] it was a lot lighter, and so I just assumed that my play would be O. K. here. Did you have to translate some of the cultural references for the new British cast members? ELLIOTT There’s a lot of bragging in the play. So it was interesting to teach them about that, and it took a while. EISENBERG I as a writer assume it’s totally that when people brag, they do it with this kind of facade of humility to subtly apologize for what they’re saying. And Scott picked up right away that’s not how it’s done here. People don’t freely talk about their problems here, don’t freely brag. Maybe it’s like a tall poppy syndrome. Jesse, you do create unusually characters, including the writer in your earlier work “The Revisionist” [in which he starred with Vanessa Redgrave in 2013]. EISENBERG I wish I could say he’s more than I am. The way I see the world — this is probably so pretentious and — I don’t see why people aren’t reacting the way my character reacts to bad news. Which is he falls apart, he weeps and shouts, he screams at strangers. That’s how I think the world should always be, but of course it’s inappropriate to do that when you get a coffee and don’t have the right change. ELLIOTT I’ve come to the conclusion that our job is to make people feel something. I think what you do, especially in this environment, is to let people feel through you. EISENBERG Yes, I was being glib. I think that’s the real thing. I feel like out of every kind of performance I’m involved in, theater is still the best way to communicate a story to a group of people. I think there is so much value in putting myself through the very difficult experiences of the character eight times a week because I think it communicates — on a the human condition, and on a malaise, the fear of immigrants usurping positions of power from hegemonic cultures like mine. Boy, did that turn out to be relevant this summer. EISENBERG Yes, nationalist, nativist sentiment has been so present, and the play culminates with my character screaming at an immigrant to get the hell back home. But I think it’s important that we’re humanizing the bigot, that you realize that Ben is someone who’s who’s struggling through his inaction, struggling though his own feeling that the world is passing him by. And if we can understand that that’s where it comes from, that it doesn’t come from some kind of assessment of the damage that immigrants are doing to the country, then you realize that it’s something that can be overcome. Unlike most actors who write parts for themselves, you don’t seem to feel the need to make the audience like you. EISENBERG The way I think about it is, if I’m writing the part and I’m playing the part, I can make the part as distasteful on the page as possible, and then every other ounce of me will try to humanize it. If I wasn’t playing the part, I’d worry more about the character being likable. Do the laughs come in different places than they did in New York? EISENBERG Yeah, there’s two jokes that never get a laugh here. I make fun of Jews. And Michael Moore, who’s a friend of mine, saw the play last week, and he was like, “You realize everyone in the audience is cringing when you make that Jewish joke,” and I was like, “Oh, is that what they’re doing, because they’re certainly not laughing. ” And I realized two things: One is that there is a history of that’s closer to the surface in Europe than it is in America — people are uncomfortable with hearing that stuff — and I think they don’t have Jewish stereotypes here to make fun of. The play is much more affecting here than it was New York, especially its ending. Was that song — Billy Joel’s “Summer Highland Falls,” played in the background — there before? ELLIOTT No, I changed the tone. I knew that in New York people were struggling with the ending. It was: “Am I supposed to cry? Am I supposed to hate him?” For me, there’s always this fear that redemption is going to be sentimental. But then I said to Jesse, “Look, you have written a redemptive ending, and we resisted going there in New York. But that’s what you wrote, and we have to embrace it. ” EISENBERG It’s not a play about this guy who’s mean and gets his comeuppance. It’s about this broken person, and if you’re not tracking that throughout the show, you’re not watching the show. | 1 |
The Trump campaign appeared to disavow one of its most provocative policy proposals on Thursday, as Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana said explicitly that Donald J. Trump no longer wanted to impose a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to the United States. In a round of television interviews in which he was asked to clarify once and for all where the campaign stands on the proposal, Mr. Pence, who opposed the ban before becoming Mr. Trump’s running mate, declared the idea dead. The reversal is a significant one for the Trump campaign, which was accused of promoting a policy that was discriminatory and probably unconstitutional when Mr. Trump unveiled it in the name of national security last year. Asked on CNN about why he will not condemn the Muslim ban now, Mr. Pence said, “Because that’s not Donald Trump’s position now. ” In recent months, Mr. Trump has changed how he has talked about the ban, saying that “extreme vetting” of immigrants should be focused on people coming from countries that have been compromised by terrorists. But that idea led to more confusion, because it was not clear if it was an expansion of the Muslim ban or a shift away from it. Mr. Pence appeared to imply in August that he would be open to broadening the ban to other religions, but the emphasis was placed on geography. “That’s what Donald Trump and I are calling for now, is to have a temporary suspension of immigration from countries or territories compromised by terrorism, and I believe that’s an appropriate action given the horrendous, horrendous violence that we see,” Mr. Pence told Charlie Sykes, a Wisconsin talk radio host, at the time. Historians have compared Mr. Trump’s Muslim ban to some of the darkest moments in American history, likening it to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the use of internment camps for during World War II. The timing of Mr. Pence’s latest remarks may not be a coincidence. Polls have shown a majority of Americans oppose the concept of barring Muslims, while Republicans remain divided about it. The retreat on Thursday was the latest example of the Trump campaign changing a position as the election approaches. Mr. Trump recently softened his position on immigration, forgoing his calls for mass deportation in favor of a focus on “criminal aliens. ” Mr. Pence was also one of the first members of the campaign to publicly acknowledge that President Obama was born in the United States, paving the way for Mr. Trump to finally end his false conspiracy theory about Mr. Obama’s birthplace last month. During the debate this week, Mr. Pence brushed off many of Mr. Trump’s startling comments from the campaign, disregarding some as reflecting a lack of political polish and denying that others were ever said. But critics of Mr. Trump are not letting his campaign off the hook for the Muslim ban so easily. “Governor Pence’s flagrant attempts to mislead voters on his running mate’s positions aren’t fooling anyone,” said Zara Rahim, a spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign. “Not only has Trump proposed an unconstitutional immigration ban on an entire religion, but he’s suggested creating a database that tracks Muslims in this country. ” She added, “Pence has not disavowed anything, he’s just lied to the American people once again. ” Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on Relations, said that Mr. Trump could not simply turn the page on the Muslim ban. “Whatever the Trump campaign claims is the current version of its Muslim ban, the original absolutist language of a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ — along with other bigoted statements — reflect a systematic and toxic use of Islamophobia that has had a tremendously harmful impact on the lives of ordinary American Muslims and on the unity of our nation,” Mr. Awad said. Despite efforts to quietly backtrack on the proposal, the Trump campaign has continued to face questions about the ban because the news release from last December announcing the proposal has not been removed from Mr. Trump’s website. “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” the release said. But in a separate interview on MSNBC on Thursday, Mr. Pence made clear that the Muslim ban was no longer on the table. Such a proposal, he seemed to suggest, would be absurd. “So not a ban on all Muslims?” Joe Scarborough, the host of “Morning Joe,” asked Mr. Pence. “Of course not,” Mr. Pence replied. | 1 |
Archives Michael On Television 22 Reasons Why Starting World War 3 In The Middle East Is A Really Bad Idea By Michael Snyder, on August 27th, 2013
While most of the country is obsessing over Miley Cyrus , the Obama administration is preparing a military attack against Syria which has the potential of starting World War 3. In fact, it is being reported that cruise missile strikes could begin “ as early as Thursday “. The Obama administration is pledging that the strikes will be “limited”, but what happens when the Syrians fight back? What happens if they sink a U.S. naval vessel or they have agents start hitting targets inside the United States? Then we would have a full-blown war on our hands. And what happens if the Syrians decide to retaliate by hitting Israel? If Syrian missiles start raining down on Tel Aviv, Israel will be extremely tempted to absolutely flatten Damascus, and they are more than capable of doing precisely that. And of course Hezbollah and Iran are not likely to just sit idly by as their close ally Syria is battered into oblivion. We are looking at a scenario where the entire Middle East could be set aflame, and that might only be just the beginning. Russia and China are sternly warning the U.S. government not to get involved in Syria, and by starting a war with Syria we will do an extraordinary amount of damage to our relationships with those two global superpowers. Could this be the beginning of a chain of events that could eventually lead to a massive global conflict with Russia and China on one side and the United States on the other? Of course it will not happen immediately, but I fear that what is happening now is setting the stage for some really bad things. The following are 22 reasons why starting World War 3 in the Middle East is a really bad idea…
#1 The American people are overwhelmingly against going to war with Syria…
Americans strongly oppose U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war and believe Washington should stay out of the conflict even if reports that Syria’s government used deadly chemicals to attack civilians are confirmed, a Reuters/Ipsos poll says.
About 60 percent of Americans surveyed said the United States should not intervene in Syria’s civil war, while just 9 percent thought President Barack Obama should act.
#2 At this point, a war in Syria is even more unpopular with the American people than Congress is .
#3 The Obama administration has not gotten approval to go to war with Syria from Congress as the U.S. Constitution requires .
#4 The United States does not have the approval of the United Nations to attack Syria and it is not going to be getting it.
#5 Syria has said that it will use “ all means available ” to defend itself if the United States attacks. Would that include terror attacks in the United States itself?
#6 Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made the following statement on Tuesday …
“We have two options: either to surrender, or to defend ourselves with the means at our disposal. The second choice is the best: we will defend ourselves”
#7 Russia has just sent their most advanced anti-ship missiles to Syria. What do you think would happen if images of sinking U.S. naval vessels were to come flashing across our television screens?
#8 When the United States attacks Syria, there is a very good chance that Syria will attack Israel. Just check out what one Syrian official said recently …
A member of the Syrian Ba’ath national council Halef al-Muftah, until recently the Syrian propaganda minister’s aide, said on Monday that Damascus views Israel as “behind the aggression and therefore it will come under fire” should Syria be attacked by the United States.
In an interview for the American radio station Sawa in Arabic, President Bashar Assad’s fellow party member said: “We have strategic weapons and we can retaliate. Essentially, the strategic weapons are aimed at Israel.”
Al-Muftah stressed that the US’s threats will not influence the Syrain regime and added that “If the US or Israel err through aggression and exploit the chemical issue, the region will go up in endless flames, affecting not only the area’s security, but the world’s.”
#9 If Syria attacks Israel, the consequences could be absolutely catastrophic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promising that any attack will be responded to “ forcefully “…
“We are not a party to this civil war in Syria but if we identify any attempt to attack us we will respond and we will respond forcefully”
#10 Hezbollah will likely do whatever it can to fight for the survival of the Assad regime. That could include striking targets inside both the United States and Israel.
#11 Iran’s closest ally is Syria. Will Iran sit idly by as their closest ally is removed from the chessboard?
#12 Starting a war with Syria will cause significant damage to our relationship with Russia. On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the West is acting like a “ monkey with a hand grenade “.
#13 Starting a war with Syria will cause significant damage to our relationship with China. And what will happen if the Chinese decide to start dumping the massive amount of U.S. debt that it is holding? Interest rates would absolutely skyrocket and we would rapidly be facing a nightmare scenario .
#14 Dr. Jerome Corsi and Walid Shoebat have compiled some startling evidence that it was actually the Syrian rebels that the U.S. is supporting that were responsible for the chemical weapons attack that is being used as justification to go to war with Syria…
With the assistance of former PLO member and native Arabic-speaker Walid Shoebat, WND has assembled evidence from various Middle Eastern sources that cast doubt on Obama administration claims the Assad government is responsible for last week’s attack.
You can examine the evidence for yourself right here .
#15 As Pat Buchanan recently noted, it would have made absolutely no sense for the Assad regime to use chemical weapons on defenseless women and children. The only people who would benefit from such an attack would be the rebels…
The basic question that needs to be asked about this horrific attack on civilians, which appears to be gas related, is: Cui bono?
To whose benefit would the use of nerve gas on Syrian women and children redound? Certainly not Assad’s, as we can see from the furor and threats against him that the use of gas has produced.
The sole beneficiary of this apparent use of poison gas against civilians in rebel-held territory appears to be the rebels, who have long sought to have us come in and fight their war.
#16 If the Saudis really want to topple the Assad regime , they should do it themselves. They should not expect the United States to do their dirty work for them.
#17 A former commander of U.S. Central Command has said that a U.S. attack on Syria would result in “ a full-throated, very, very serious war “.
#18 A war in the Middle East will be bad for the financial markets. The Dow was down about 170 points today and concern about war with Syria was the primary reason.
#19 A war in the Middle East will cause the price of oil to go up. On Tuesday, the price of U.S. oil rose to about $109 a barrel.
#20 There is no way in the world that the U.S. government should be backing the Syrian rebels. As I discussed a few days ago , the rebels have pledged loyalty to al-Qaeda , they have beheaded numerous Christians and they have massacred entire Christian villages . If the U.S. government helps these lunatics take power in Syria it will be a complete and utter disaster.
#21 A lot of innocent civilians inside Syria will end up getting killed. Already, a lot of Syrians are expressing concern about what “foreign intervention” will mean for them and their families…
“I’ve always been a supporter of foreign intervention, but now that it seems like a reality, I’ve been worrying that my family could be hurt or killed,” said one woman, Zaina, who opposes Assad. “I’m afraid of a military strike now.”
“The big fear is that they’ll make the same mistakes they made in Libya and Iraq,” said Ziyad, a man in his 50s. “They’ll hit civilian targets, and then they’ll cry that it was by mistake, but we’ll get killed in the thousands.”
#22 If the U.S. government insists on going to war with Syria without the approval of the American people, the U.S. Congress or the United Nations, we are going to lose a lot of friends and a lot of credibility around the globe. It truly is a sad day when Russia looks like “the good guys” and we look like “the bad guys”.
What good could possibly come out of getting involved in Syria? As I wrote about the other day , the “rebels” that Obama is backing are rabidly anti-Christian, rabidly anti-Israel and rabidly anti-western. If they take control of Syria, that nation will be far more unstable and far more of a hotbed for terrorism than it is now.
And the downside of getting involved in Syria is absolutely enormous. Syria, Iran and Hezbollah all have agents inside this country, and if they decide to start blowing stuff up that will wake up the American people to the horror of war really quick. And by attacking Syria, the United States could cause a major regional war to erupt in the Middle East which could eventually lead to World War 3.
I don’t know about you, but I think that starting World War 3 in the Middle East is a really bad idea.
Let us hope that cooler heads prevail before things spin totally out of control. It Is Illegal To Feed The Homeless In Cities All Over The United States » Boo-urns
There is no need for a *world* war. Just let them all kill each other; the sooner the world is free from the idiocy that abounds throughout the entire middle east — including Israel — the better off the rest of us will be. 2Gary2
Does anyone out there see this ending well?
Michael Rodster
The US and it’s Allies don’t care what happens in the Middle East. In fact it’s my view that they would prefer absolute chaos and a full blown out war.
As the mantra in 1992 Elections…”It’s all about the economy stupid”. And the same applies here as well. This is all desperation as the US knows what’s coming economically. If they can ramp up their Military Industrial Complex it could help boost the economy. That is the primary business the US is in. It’s all about war and spying.
I do hate constantly repeating the man but it’s needed here as well. This all played out during the Great Depression except this time all the fiat based currency nations are in the same boat as the US and this time they have nukes
“Trade wars, Currency wars, World wars”– Gerald Celente Adrian
On the contrary, a few may benefit…the CEOS and huge shareholders of Halliburton, Ratheon, etc…but the economy would be hurt by threats to oil, decreased stability in the ME, and so on. They don’t care about the economy, if they did they would have implemented stark programs to bring millions back to work. Instead, it’s been business as usual with downsizing, QE 2,3, 4, and shipping jobs overseas. davidmpark
No. It won’t. Bad Kitty Cat
Not at all… and I also wonder how many US allies are going to join in! I truely believe there is a strong desire for war! old fart
As usual they will join in for the first few months then slowly fade away leaving the US stuck with the whole mess. it has happened every time this time we are having a revisit to the crusades,, That mess lasted for 200 years and was never settled it just quieted down for a mutual draw. Hambone
Short of the second coming, I see no happy endings to this play. cateye
No good ending. Cataclysm perhaps. I got a bad feeling about this whole thing….like the US is being led like a lamb to slaughter. Colby Williams
We should just back off of the whole Syrian thing, its not worth it. JustanOguy
No. tom
No I don’t Michael. Thank you for keeping us informed on many fronts. I share your work everyday in e-mails and on FB. I hope that people are listening to what you are saying MeMadMax
Ochooma’s ego will kill us all… lupa
There would be plenty of sand for the building trade! or Rebuilding trade! RICHARD
I think we are on the verge of a economic collapse and a world war. With everything going on in just this country i will be surprise if we make in till the end of Oct. I have said this before. The train is just about to go over the cliff. lavista4u
Yes. true…I believe its a distraction. September is Illuminati New year and they do some crap during the Month of September like 911…
What is coming to Americans next month could be 100 times worse than what they would do to Syrians.
Americans needs to be more prepared and ready than Syrians it seems …It could be a distraction to cause chaos in America.
They know no one wants war in America and even lame stream is publishing that story and 99% of comments on main stream news sites like CNN is against war….
I believe America is their next target not Syria even though they are making it look like its Syria and Iran….
Even if this does not turn out this way…Americans need to be prepared for all scenarios….as they are center of all problems created by the cabal. good luck….Make friends and join forces….Unity is Strength…. patricia666
my mother in-law got Dodge Dart Sedan by working parttime from a home pc. see this website www.KEP2.com old fart
How much was she charging per lay? Sueychop
When the stuff hits the fan every American should make sure to shoot at least two Russians before they get shot themselves. That way we win. seth datta
How can this not be a part of/prelude to the End Times? And yet ignorance and apathy are the order of the day for most folk. Tim
@Richard, I couldn’t agree more. I think this October we will have our eyes opened. This train is in full speed. I have been stocking up for the last 2 years on food, ammo and sanitation. The biggest problem I have run into is income and cost of ammo. The ammo price has come down and some sites are catching up (midland and foxtrotgear seem to be the best prices). The ammo shortage hurt the last year, but my income seems like it has dwindled over the last 2 years. Josh
It has been a rough couple of months. I always check ammoseek and it seems like bulk ammo and foxtrotgear have the best bulk prices. Don’t forget sanitation, food and medical. Keep your powder dry. MeMadMax
If possible, keep a full tank of gas at all times. It seems like things are going faster than what we know. Gay Veteran
as Gerald Celente says about the economy: when all else fails they take you to war Beanodle
Oil at above $150.00 per barrel will decimate many economies. Especially it the suppliers demand Gold or a currency other than U.S. dollars for it.
If Obama starts a foreign war without Congressional approval can he be impeached? Would his impeachment placate Russia and China? Celery Muncher
Impeachment didn’t faze Bill Clinton and it certainly won’t faze King Barry the rodeo clown. These people will simply laugh at the impeachment proceedings and there are not enough congressmen with guts to remove the putz from office even if he was impeached. Obama will go on his merry way doing what he pleases because everyone is so scared of being branded a racist that their balls are frozen in their pants…. Gay Veteran
There is bipartisan agreement on empire abroad and the national security/surveillance state at home obama_drama
Bingo dood! Arkaden
“If the President takes us to war without Congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment. The Constitution is clear. And so am I.” -Joe Biden, 2007
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” -Barack Obama, 2007
THIS time must be different. Hambone
It’s sad, but those lying, two-faced hypocrites will never be held accountable for their words and actions by a great many of the lemmings in this country. We are truly getting the government we deserve. myrna652
my mom in law just got Hyundai Sonata Sedan by working at home online… see this page www.JAM20.com Adrian
DOUBLESPEAK! CorrectionSir
Actually, the president can authorize military action, short of declaring war, if it is in support of allies, treaties or through the request of the UN. That’s the way things have been changed and rejiggered. Gay Veteran
and NONE of those apply in Syria Ralfine
Attacking a sovereign country is an act of war. And an attacked country has the right to defend itself, i.e. by sinking the attacking fleet. squashpants
He said that in 2007? Afghanistan started in 2001, and Iraq in 2003. What war was Biden referring to? MeMadMax
Prolly georgian conflict. GodHelpUs
Over amount of years U.S. prospered with the highest public debt. Without wars on it’s territory and so on.. Economy collapse is inevitable. To hold it over, U.S. needs to seed unstability and war in other countries. To keep ourselves stable country, to keep dollar high value (but without gold – dollar is just a paper). We intentonally made that “Arabic spring”, changed management of all those countries. Who didn’t agree – was murdered (like Kaddafi), who did like Egypt – was changed by our man. Now we expect another wave of economical collapse. We NEED to seed fear and distable east. And it’s not Obama! He’s just a puppet.. We made hugest and well trained army with the top weapons on other countries money 😀 But It won’t last forever… churchill
o aye pal for sure its diffrent obama changed his bacon for weetabix he goes for a 5 mile run now before thinking about war and fat soldiers not being able to run from their turbo tanks it takes an american soldier at least 2 hours to put his make up on first Elelei Guhring
Notice how neonics found in many pesticides most manufactured by Bayer/Monsanto and which have killed up to 70% of bee populations around the world are not an imminent threat to the nation, even though this action is considered Terrorism under US law: any action that endangers the food supply IS terrorism. davidmpark
We accepted our orders for NBC gas masks today. 2 adult sizes; 3 children sizes. Got them online for $6.99 ea/free shipping.
Also got some extra med kits, potassium iodine, and more food.
We will get hit. The US will get struck again and no country will cry for us. Could we take on the international community? Only if we use WMD’s on them, too. China, Russia, and Iran will retaliate.
Congress needs to move to stop Obama as this is enough to prove he and his entourage are incapable of ensuring the welfare of the United States. Impeachment needs to be done, arrests need to be made, trials must commence… and sentences if judge and congressional jury find guilty anyone for crimes against this people.
We must support such actions by Congress, or we will pay the price; not them. ?huh
Where did you get the masK? Were filters outdated? That is cheap! davidmpark
They’re IDF leftovers bought on Amazon. I also bought the new canisters – assuming the included cans are expired. ?huh
I looked and the Amazon review show the items are old and may not be useful and attack. Some are as old as 40 years. davidmpark
If you are worried about gas attacks, you can make a filter for an air conditioning unit.
First, get all of the supplies you can: a lot of baking soda and wood charcoal (not briquettes), piece of wood, a scale (any kind), a large pot, 2 pillow cases, a plastic or metal box, and duct tape.
Pour the baking soda into a pot and weigh it. After recording the weight, place on heat source and cook it for a few minutes. Remove and re-weigh, then repeat. When the scale no longer shows change in weight, pour the powder into a pillowcase and make more if necessary to fill to pillowcase about half way or more. This process converts the sodium bicarbonate into sodium carbonate (soda ash, or activated carbon).
Now pour the charcoal onto the pot and use a piece of wood to crush the charcoal into smaller pieces, about the size of wheat grains. Pour into pillow case and make more if necessary to fill to pillowcase about half way or more. Some dust will fall out – let it.
Now, drill or cut two holes big enough to snuggly fit the air intake hose of your A/C unit into the plastic or metal box on the shorter sides. Place the bag of soda ash on one side, the bag of charcoal on the other side. Seal with duct tape generously. Now attach the air intake hoses of your A/C unit on the unit with the air entering the charcoal first, and the soda ash second. Duct tape generously on both ends.
We built this last year when the ash and smoke from local wildfires were choking the air around us. We were supremely comfortable with filtered air. Will it work for chemical weapons? The soda ash is the same ingredient used in gas masks, but I really don’t know. Works great for smoke and ash, and chili cook-off’s, but I have no real data that it will work for WMD’s. Can some experts chime in? Truther
Two easy reasons to understand: Racial Guilt and Desire for Something for Nothing. There you go. saintmatty
A very good chance that we will get hit. Major city and who knows where else. Get some food and water together. Might be inside for a few days as chaos occurs in the streets. davidmpark
One of those times a carbine would be handy… Keywee
“Why did such a good nation decide to #$%& itself over this bad? We’re so much better than this!” I think that as a nation you became complacent, distracted with trivial “entertainment”. The world banking system got it’s claws back into you after all that hard work by the founding fathers to escape it. Hopefully once enough of your own people are affected by the actions of your government you will rediscover your revolutionary roots. Gay Veteran
“…Congress needs to move to stop Obama….” you assume they disagree with him davidmpark
I’m hoping they’ll do their job for once. Gay Veteran
we will all be disappointed, because there is NO difference between the 2 parties Ralfine
All people have the government they deserve. Syrin
Here’s how this could play out. We invade Syria. It’s a leaping point to go to war with Iran who has already threatened war with Israel if we invade. Obama will sign the UN Small Arms Treaty, and Russian troops have already been training on US soil for over a year to disarm Americans. I believe they will stage some false flag event in FEMA region 3 which has been urgently stockpiling by “no later than October 1″ according to all their requests for supplies. (do a search, they are stockpiling a A ton in FEMA region 3) Martial law will be declared enforced by our militarized polive, some Iranian patsy will be blamed, and they will jump from Syria to Iran. Obama had a behind the scenes meeting with the highest level financial people in the US last week. The last time this happened, they took out gold. I think they will use the war and false flag events to perform a simultaneous engineered collapse of the economy because they know we cannot recover from our debt burden hoping the no information GARY voters will blame the evil Syrians for our economic problems. Just like Nazzzi Germany, we become a dictatorship overnight. davidmpark
Okay, I looked it up about the stockpiling for region 3. That makes good sense to concentrate around there for the sake of the powers in DC. They’d want to make sure they don’t have any disruptions in their cocktail parties and lasciviousness.
They stockpiled around the furherbunker during the battle for Berlin. Makes sense to do that sort of thing when they make unpopular and more blatant illegal actions against their own people. K
Excellent comment. The idea behind Russian troops was, it would be easier to get them to fire on civilians. I wonder if the puppet masters every gave any thought to the fact, that would cut both ways. K
E4B spotted in Turkey yesterday. I have never heard of them deploying them outside the Country before. The Check is in the Mail
Over the top but I understand the concern. It is not like the fools in DC have earned any trust. old fart
How can that be after all Zero won the Nobel Peace Prize. xander cross
I blame white men who are profiting of the weapons dealing. Of course, all of you will ignore that fact. Smh Jason Mckenzie
1st Oct came and went, ya rumour-monger.. K
Ever since they passed that war on terror resolution in 2001. It seems no President feels they need clearance from anyone. Can this end well? Only if a backdoor agreement has been made with Russia and China. A certain number of missiles fired at certain agreed on targets. In exchange they stick to just stern words. If such an agreement does not exist. Then the first salvo, could easily cause everyone in the area, to bring out their new toys. And that will not end well. A D
OIL is naturally occurring – GOD created the earth & everything in it. There is enough OIL in the USA, but the eco-nazi’s and other idiots will not allow them to drill. Just like AIR now carbon is a threat, so many idiots believe all of the LIES trumped up by elites. davidmpark
“OIL is naturally occurring…” Yeah, the Abiotic Oil process. We won’t ever run out of oil. Ralfine
Any idea why it’s called organic chemistry? Trainwreck Coming Fast
That will change. It is ALL going to change once the fur begins to fly domestically and abroad. Things that will be different:
–Even the liberal fools will be begging to drill. But they will not understand that decades of no new refineries means terrifying shortages caused by them.
–No more discretionary spending on music, entertainment, parties, etc. Sure, it will occur, but a tenth of what is evident now. The boards, extra houses, luxuries, will no longer be part of life. Maybe not so bad.
–Roving bands of gangs and criminals will be put down by law abiding citizens with guns. People will no longer accept crime. Bring back the death penalty and frontier justice. It is coming. The “I was disadvantages” growing up will only get a bullet in the head. The nation will no longer be able to afford and tolerate the rape of society.
–Healthcare will be a disaster. Obama and the Left will blame it on the GOP but that will only work for the hardcore remnant of his supporters. The rest of the nation will marvel at its stupidity for not pushing back sooner. But they will realize the system has been so destroyed that it will take years to bring back what we had.
–WHERE TO STOP? It is so obvious. Gay Veteran
at what cost? yeah you can have all the oil you want here at $500 a barrel Ralfine
And, to get one barrrel you have to spend 5 barrels in energy. Keywee
Yay! Someone else who actually gets it! A D
AIR, WATER, OIL you name it, the eco-nuts and elitist will do whatever it takes NOT to let a good crisis go to waste.. quoted from OHBOMA thugs. ResilientNews
one of my local tv stations had a poll on their website if the u.s. should strike Syria and the results were 100% NO. Bill
Best poll of many asking the same question shows 25% in favor. Still doesn’t show the idiot in chief is listening to we the “real”people!!! Lennie Pike
The thugs who control the U.S. are allied with those who control China! Birds of a feather (elite Godless fascists) have joined forces for totalitarian worldwide rule!!!)
Our industry and gold has been intentionally transferred to China.
Expect to see Chinese militery in the U.S. – not Russian – if Russia allows it. clemster
The Russians will never look like the “good guys”. Tatiana Covington
It could be that a coup d’etat will be required.
I hope not. GodHelpUs
Over amount of years U.S. prospered with the highest public debt. Without wars on it’s territory and so on.. Economy collapse is inevitable. To hold it over, U.S. needs to seed unstability and war in other countries. To keep ourselves stable country, to keep dollar high value (but without gold – dollar is just a paper). We intentonally made that “Arabic spring”, changed management of all those countries. Who didn’t agree – was murdered (like Kaddafi), who did like Egypt – was changed by our man. Now we expect another wave of economical collapse. We NEED to seed fear and distable east. And it’s not Obama! He’s just a puppet.. We made hugest and well trained army with the top weapons on other countries money 😀 But It won’t last forever… Bill
It’s ironic that we have a war brewing as the debt limit comes to a head —–again. Big drop in the 10 yr as $ leave the stock market for the “safety” of bonds. Any guess where the 10 yr will be in 90 days? Tobias Smith | 0 |
LONDON — The media and entertainment mogul Rupert Murdoch was on the verge of taking full control of the British satellite television giant Sky five years ago when his takeover bid was derailed by a scandal in his company’s publishing arm. On Friday, Sky said that Mr. Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox had reached a preliminary deal to acquire the 61 percent stake in Sky it did not already own. The new takeover offer would value Sky at about $23 billion. The two companies are still in talks over the final terms of a deal, Sky said. The takeover approach came more than five years after 21st Century Fox’s predecessor company, News Corporation, withdrew a $12 billion offer for the rest of Sky — then known as BSkyB — as a firestorm erupted over by the media in Britain. In 2011, it emerged that reporters at News of the World, a Sunday tabloid newspaper then owned by a subsidiary of News Corporation, had hacked the mobile phone of a young murder victim in Britain and listened to her voice mail messages, inciting outrage in Britain. The scandal led to the newspaper being closed and soon engulfed News Corporation’s publishing business in Britain. News Corporation split into two companies in 2013. Its entertainment assets were housed in the newly christened 21st Century Fox, while the new News Corporation consisted of its publishing business, including The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London. The scandal also forced James Murdoch, the son of Rupert Murdoch and chief executive of 21st Century Fox, to step down as chairman of Sky. The younger Mr. Murdoch served as chairman of Sky from 2007 to 2012 and retained a seat on its board after resigning as chairman. At the time of the phone hacking scandal, James Murdoch oversaw News Corporation’s businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He was never found to have any direct knowledge of the hacking, but a Parliament committee investigating the scandal accused him of “willful ignorance. ” James Murdoch acknowledged at the time that he had failed to read emails that referred to settlement payments made to hacking victims. Despite the scandal, the younger Mr. Murdoch has remained well respected in European media circles and returned to serve as Sky’s chairman this year, spurring speculation that another takeover bid by 21st Century Fox was in the works. On Friday, Sky said that 21st Century Fox had offered to pay 10. 75 pounds a share in cash ($13. 58) less the value of any dividends subsequently paid by Sky. The new offer represents a 40 percent premium to the Sky’s closing price on Tuesday, the last day before the initial Fox approach. Shares of Sky closed up nearly 27 percent in trading in London on Friday after the announcement but ended the day below the offer price. In the United States, shares of 21st Century Fox closed down 2 percent. “There can be no certainty that an offer will be made by 21st Century Fox, nor as to the terms of any such offer,” Sky said in a news release. Sky said that its independent directors had indicated to 21st Century Fox that they were willing to recommend the proposal to shareholders, subject to reaching an agreement on the other outstanding terms. The independent directors were advised by Barclays, Morgan Stanley and PJT Partners, Sky said. The company also said that it had formed an independent committee of its directors that it considers free of any conflicts of interest to consider the terms of the Fox proposal. A potential bid for the rest of Sky by 21st Century Fox was widely anticipated by analysts, particularly after ATT agreed to acquire Time Warner for $84. 5 billion in October. “We think the likelihood of a Fox bid for Sky now rises, which would create a stronger vertically integrated business in Europe,” Tim Nollen, senior media analyst at Macquarie Bank, wrote in a report in October after the Time Warner deal. The Warner deal was the latest in a series of transactions by media companies in recent years to gain scale, control more content and distribute that content directly to customers. On Friday, 21st Century Fox said that its 39 percent stake in Sky was “not a natural end position. ” “A proposed transaction between 21st Century Fox and Sky would bring together 21st Century Fox’s global content business with Sky’s capabilities, which have made it the number one premium provider in all its markets,” 21st Century Fox said in a news release. “It would also enhance Sky’s leading position in entertainment and sport, and reinforce the U. K.’s standing as a top global hub for content generation and technological innovation,” the company added. Gaining full control of Sky would be consistent with efforts by James Murdoch since he took over as chief executive to simplify — and gain greater control over — 21st Century Fox’s ventures. Last year, 21st Century Fox announced a deal valued at $725 million to create a joint venture with the National Geographic Society that encompassed the National Geographic Channels cable television group along with National Geographic’s other properties. Century Fox owns a 73 percent stake in the venture, National Geographic Partners. The deal came after an partnership between Fox and the nonprofit group for National Geographic Channels. The company has also looked for more ways to take its content directly to consumers, including signing a deal in November to provide live streaming of its television channels through a new service being introduced next year by Hulu, which 21st Century Fox partly owns. Sky has reshaped itself into a satellite provider in recent years, buying Sky Italia and a controlling stake in Sky Deutschland for more than $9 billion from 21st Century Fox in 2014. Sky, which offers television, broadband and telephone phone services, has nearly 22 million customers in Austria, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Italy. It reported revenue of nearly £12 billion ($15. 1 billion) in its 2016 fiscal year, which ended June 30. Sky exclusively licenses a variety of television shows from AMC Networks, HBO and Showtime in Europe, including “Game of Thrones,” “The Walking Dead” and “The Affair. ” It also broadcasts the top soccer leagues in Britain, Germany and Italy. Fox is being advised in the discussions by Centerview Partners and Deutsche Bank. | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter We are having a New Moon in Scorpio on October 30th in most places around the world, and during the early hours of October 31st in Australia and New Zealand. It will occur at 5:38pm Universal Time ( click here for your time zone). advertisement - learn more New Moons bring in a new wave of energy for the upcoming month. It is the beginning of the first half of the lunar cycle, which is when the Moon is waxing (gaining light), while the Full Moon is the transition into the second half, when the Moon is waning (losing light). Therefore, the energy of the New Moon serves as more of a guidepost for those first 10-14 days of the cycle. Scorpio: Powerful, Deep, Intense, and Passionate Scorpio is a primal and passionate sign about desires, fears, and intensity. As a ‘fixed sign’ ruled by Mars and Pluto, it holds a high concentration of power that can be used to control or to transform. It likes and seeks what is real and refrains from anything that is lacking substance. The deep merging of two individuals or parties, whether it be sexually, financially, or resourcefully, is Scorpio territory. This sign seeks loyalty, yet it must be earned after a period of being under scrutiny. It wants to know what is hidden beneath the surface to decide on how much trust is to be earned. Scorpio is about willing to look at and even embrace the deepest, darkest, and scariest aspects of others, oneself, and the world around us. It is the sign of death and rebirth, love and hate, as it is the sign of extremes. An example of all of this is how we have Halloween followed by ‘All Saints Day’, and then followed by ‘All Souls Day’ back to back during Scorpio season. The shadow side of Scorpio is that it can be manipulative and controlling in a very calculated way. While the scrutinizing of others is to gain trust, it can also be about getting some sort of advantage to have more control over a person or situation. Although Scorpio seeks hidden aspects of others, it can be very guarded about one’s own secrets. advertisement - learn more New Moon Conjunct Mercury and Trine Neptune Mercury is also in Scorpio moving away from a conjunction with the Sun that was exact 3 days before on October 27th. In the days leading up to this New Moon, many people could have experienced important communications, ideas, deep thoughts, or some sort of mental efforts towards joint resources/efforts, money, sexuality, and/or some sort of strategy. Whatever it is, think of it as something that has been ‘gathered’ or ‘set-up’ to be implemented or expanded on in this moon cycle and in the coming months. The New Moon (with Mercury separating) is also in a trine with Neptune, which could assist us with our imagination, creativity, intuition, dreams, visions, and spiritual connection. Due to the nodes also being involved, there may also be a connection with how our past can help our future. For some lovers, it can be a time of feeling like soulmates. This energy is strong until November 2nd. Venus Conjunct Saturn, Mars In Capricorn Square Uranus The day before the New Moon, Venus made a conjunction with Saturn, which initiated a new 14 month cycle between the two. Venus is about fun, love, relationships, beauty, and pleasure while Saturn is serious and more concerned with responsibilities, structure, discipline, and commitments. Therefore, many of us will experience some sort of merging of these themes both in either favourable or unfavourable ways. Occurring in Sagittarius, it can be related to our beliefs, visions, travel, education, publishing, or marketing. Mars, a ruler of Scorpio, has been in the ambitious sign of Capricorn since September 27th. This has been an excellent time to really make things happen in terms of reaching our goals, and it will last until November 8th/9th. During this New Moon, Mars is separating from a square with Uranus which was stronger in the 2 days prior. At worst, their could have been sudden change, separation, instability, and the need to take some sort of action as a result. For some people, it could have of been rebellion or wanting to break free from a controlling situation. In other cases it could of positively brought innovation towards our ambitions. These are just some examples of how it could be manifested, but whatever it is for each of us, it has created the landscape for some new beginnings. Mercury and Sun Sextile Pluto, Venus Trine Uranus During the first week of the Moon cycle, Mercury (followed by the Sun) will be in a harmonious aspect with Pluto in Capricorn. Pluto, being the modern ruler of Scorpio, indicates that this is an excellent time to expand on what was initiated during the previous week when Mercury was conjunct the Sun. Powerful thoughts, communication, or deep research to assist us in our careers, managing or earning resources/money, or implementing some sort of structure or strategy to help gain some of sort of success and fulfill a goal. Venus is trine Uranus and will be strongest on November 4th-5th. This can be a fun and exciting time, and luckily it will fall on the weekend. This is a great time to connect with people, attend social events, especially since Venus is in Sagittarius, it is a good time to explore and try new things that can bring you enjoyment. This can be a great time for lovers as well with potential breakthroughs. Things To Consider And Making Intentions For This New Moon Look at everything that has played out for you in the last week prior to this New Moon. The next 10 days following it is a significant time to make a great effort to expand on what has been initiated, and take steps to move beyond anything challenging that has occurred. Your intentions for this Lunar Month should be related to improving on and/or facilitating the positive qualities of Scorpio energy into your life. This includes (but not limited to) improving your ability to earn or manage money/resources, tapping into and harnessing your inner power and sexual energy better, facing your fears, trying to understand complex things, seeing beyond fakeness or deceit, and becoming more in touch with what is real. The best time to make your intentions for the Moon cycle is during the first 24 hours following the New Moon but it could even be done within the first 3 days. The closer to the New Moon, the better. The exact time will be at 5:38pm Universal Time, but you can click here to find out what it will be in your time zone. — Have you ever had a personal astrology reading? For a limited time, Carmen is offering a 33% discount on personalized readings/consultations based on your exact birth date, time, and location. Click here for more information.
The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle.
You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here.
"If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune | 0 |
Russian Spies and Americas Reality TV Election By Finian Cunningham
November 14, " Sputnik " - After months of mudslinging and vitriol, US President-elect Donald Trump was greeted this week by a chummy President Obama with a cozy fireside seat at the White House.
Some media outlets sniped at Trumps surprise election calling him the first reality TV star to become president. In truth, the whole US political system seems to be a reality TV show.
In the weeks up to polling day on November 8, Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton and large sections of the US media were denouncing Trump as a Russian stooge. Trumps alleged friendliness towards Russian President Vladimir Putin was said to be proof that the Republican candidate was a Kremlin agent. The Kremlin rejected the accusations as fatuous, pointing out that there was not a scintilla of evidence.
The claims, however, were not merely electioneering rhetoric to smear Trump. The Obama administration officially weighed in to accuse Russia of state-sponsored hacking of computer systems and interfering in the US election to get Trump elected. The White House based its provocative allegations on an assessment made by the Director of National Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security. In other words, US accusations of Russian subversion could not have been leveled in a more serious way.
That means, if you follow this logic, that Trump is now heading to occupy the White House thanks to Russian espionage and propaganda influencing the vote in his favor. So, what then was outgoing President Obama doing holding photo ops with Comrade Trump in the Oval Office, smiling and exchanging pleasantries? At one point, the incumbent Commander-in-Chief said he was rooting for Trumps presidency to succeed because if it does then America will succeed. Hold on a moment. Only days before this avuncular tete-a-tete marking the peaceful transition of power, Obamas administration and the mainstream media were labelling Trump as a Russian fifth columnist. Obama had also mocked Trump as being uniquely unqualified to be president with access to the nuclear keys.
It is notable how US media claims of Russian spying and interference suddenly ceased the day after Trump was elected. Granted, there have since been lame attempts to make something sinister out of the news that Russian diplomats were admittedly in touch with Trump and Clinton campaign aides before the election. Apart from that damp-squib story that the New York Times and Washington Post tried to enliven, for the most part the Russian hacker hue and cry before the election has strangely disappeared from the public arena. In the light of Trumps cordial reception at the White House and the general acceptance by the Washington establishment including President Obama, defeated candidate Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media, that is stunning evidence that the whole anti-Russia bashing prior to the election was completely concocted and disingenuous. Think about it. How could Trump be painted one day as a beneficiary of Russian espionage, and then the next day literally, he is being feted as the 45th president of the USA whom, as Obama says, we are rooting for? This demonstrates how degraded US statecraft has become. The government, its intelligence services and the countrys supposed quality news media are all prepared to fabricate and propagate lies against a foreign state Russia. Obviously, because how could serious concerns one day be so easily jettisoned the next?
Evidently, the demonization of Russia as a hostile, interfering foreign power trying to upend US internal politics is a gross falsehood. Otherwise why would Trump be officially accepted? And why have all the grave media claims just vanished? But a much more serious aspect to this official US propaganda is that it illustrates how Russia is being set up more generally as an enemy state. Recall that US intelligence agencies were reportedly preparing to launch cyber attacks on Russian infrastructure all on the back of claims that Russia was hacking into the American presidential elections. If somehow US cyber attacks were carried out to cripple Russian industries and public utilities that would have constituted an act of war. Russia would have been obliged to respond, and the whole dangerous dynamic could have escalated to an all-out war.
If US government and its intelligence agencies, as well as supposedly independent news media, are seen to be so disingenuous, then that destroys their credibility on other matters. Can you believe anything they say about Russia with regard to allegedly threatening European security or committing war crimes in Syria? For his part, Donald Trump also plays a starring role in the US democracy charade. During their fireside meeting in the White House, the billionaire property tycoon called Obama a very good man and said that he would seek his counsel in the future. This is the same very good man whom Trump had earlier accused of being the creator of the ISIS [Daesh] terror group. Along with Clinton, Trump had rallied his supporters to view Obama as a treasonous criminal for waging illegal wars in the Middle East.
Well, thats a spectacular U-turn by the fiery, big-mouth anti-politician Trump. If he can so quickly accommodate himself to such apparently hated political enemies and effectively drop all charges then one wonders what else Trump will renege on? Will he really drain the swamp of Washingtons oligarchic establishment? Will he deliver on making America great again by investing in the forgotten people who elected him? Will he really de-escalate American overseas militarism and NATO aggression towards Russia? It was surely a good thing that Hillary Clinton was not elected as president. Her warmongering record as former Secretary of State speaks for itself, as does her overt Russophobia.
But we should not be under illusions that a Trump presidency represents a new contrite and cooperative America. An American president is only ever a figurehead for a system and structure of power. That system relies on militarism and war to project US hegemony in the world. Without hegemonic relationships and imperialist conduct, US capitalism as we know it would collapse. And Trump is a raw-toothed capitalist. His early selections show a preference for further neoliberal deregulation of capital, as well as surrounding himself with his family and business cronies. Trump may be a pragmatic businessman inclined to form relations free from ideology. Potentially, that is a good thing for improving US relations with Russia and other foreign powers. Nevertheless, it would be naive to expect one individual to radically change a political system. It is not hard to imagine that when Trump enters the White House formally in 1o weeks that the military-intelligence-corporate apparatus of American capitalism will impress on him how the system works. And he will oblige. Trumps polite deference to Obama this week, and vice versa, shows in an unintended way what Obama meant when he said we are all on one team. That team is the American oligarchy. It is not the American nation. Disenfranchised working-class Americans may simply have gotten Trump into the team against their genuine aspirations for radical democratic change. The rapid disappearance of Russian hacker allegations as well as Trumps anti-establishment bombast suggest that American democracy is all just one giant reality TV show. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — In his first days as President Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai has aggressively moved to roll back consumer protection regulations created during the Obama presidency. Mr. Pai took a first swipe at net neutrality rules designed to ensure equal access to content on the internet. He stopped nine companies from providing discounted internet service to individuals. He withdrew an effort to keep prison phone rates down, and he scrapped a proposal to break open the cable box market. In total, as the chairman of the F. C. C. Mr. Pai released about a dozen actions in the last week, many buried in the agency’s website and not publicly announced, stunning consumer advocacy groups and telecom analysts. They said Mr. Pai’s message was clear: The F. C. C. an independent agency, will mirror the Trump administration’s rapid unwinding of government regulations that businesses fought against during the Obama administration. “With these tactics, Chairman Pai is showing his true stripes,” said Matt Wood, the policy director at the consumer group Free Press. “The public wants an F. C. C. that helps people,” he added. “Instead, it got one that does favors for the powerful corporations that its chairman used to work for. ” Mr. Pai, a former lawyer for Verizon, was elevated by Mr. Trump to the position of chairman after serving as a minority Republican member for the past three years. Known for being a stickler on conservative interpretations of telecommunications law and the limits of the F. C. C. ’s authority, Mr. Pai said he was trying to wipe the slate clean. He noted that his predecessor, Tom Wheeler, had rammed through a series of actions right after the presidential election. Many of those efforts, Mr. Pai argued, went beyond the agency’s legal authority. “These actions, which did not enjoy the support of the majority of commissioners at the time they were taken, should not bind us going forward,” Mr. Pai said in a statement released Friday. “Accordingly, they are being revoked. ” The efforts portend great changes at the federal agency at the center of the convergence of media, telecommunications and the internet. The biggest target will be net neutrality, a rule created in 2015 that prevents internet service providers from blocking or discriminating against internet traffic. The rule, which was created alongside a decision to categorize broadband like a utility, was the tech centerpiece of the Obama administration. On Friday, the F. C. C. took its first steps to pull back those rules, analysts said. Mr. Pai closed an investigation into practices of the wireless providers ATT and Verizon. is the offering of free streaming and other downloads that do not count against limits on the amount of data a consumer can download. If a provider like ATT offers free streaming of its DirecTV programs, does that violate net neutrality rules because it could put competing video services at a disadvantage? Under its previous leadership, the F. C. C. said in a report that it saw some evidence that made it concerned. But Mr. Pai said after closing the investigations into wireless carriers that was popular among consumers, particularly households. “The speed of the ruling and the chairman’s tone are very encouraging for internet service providers,” said Paul Gallant, an analyst at Cowen. “I think it’s a down payment on net neutrality, with much more to follow. ” Last week, Mr. Pai said he disagreed with the move two years ago to declare broadband a utility. The reclassification of broadband into a service akin to telephones and electricity provided the legal foundation for net neutrality rules. Mr. Pai said he had not decided how he would approach the overhaul of broadband classification and net neutrality rules, but he faces legal hurdles. A federal court upheld the rules last year, and the commission could end up in a lengthy legal battle if he tries to scrap the rules. Mr. Pai will have the help of powerful members of Congress who have promised to attack the classification of broadband as a service. And he is popular among Republican leaders, including the Senate’s majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who with other members viewed Mr. Pai as a loyal voice of dissent during the Obama years. Mr. Pai, 44, the child of immigrants from India who settled in Kansas, is a fresh face for the Republican Party. Congress could introduce legislation that limits the agency’s ability to regulate broadband providers and enforce net neutrality rules. Also under attack are privacy rules for broadband providers. “The agency has strayed from its core mission,” said Marsha Blackburn, a Republican representative from Tennessee who oversees a telecommunications and tech subcommittee. She has called for a hearing within two weeks on the F. C. C. agenda under the new administration. Democrats in Congress said they would fight legislation that waters down net neutrality rules. They said Mr. Pai, described as a student of telecom law, would be a tough adversary, and they face great opposition from Republicans who have promised to prioritize the overturning of net neutrality rules. “The key here is that it’s already been tested in the courts and the court upheld this,” said Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California. “Ajit Pai is intelligent and genial, but he is not on the side of consumers and the public interest. ” Most troubling to consumer advocates was the secrecy around Mr. Pai’s early actions. That included a decision to rescind the permissions of nine broadband providers to participate in a federal subsidy plan for consumers. None of the providers currently serve consumers, but Mr. Pai’s comments could foreshadow a of the Lifeline subsidy program. On Monday, the F. C. C. is scheduled to appear before a federal judge to defend its push to curb extraordinarily expensive phone call prices from prison. But it told a judge a few days ago that Mr. Pai disagreed with many aspects of the case. Mignon Clyburn, the sole Democrat of the three sitting members of the F. C. C. warned that the actions would directly harm consumers. “Rather than working to close the digital divide, this action widens the gap,” Ms. Clyburn said. | 1 |
They lived on the same Bronx block, but on opposite ends of the city’s system for treating the sick and emotionally disturbed. He was an occasional patient, a Bloods member whose family said he showed symptoms of schizophrenia and depression and received psychiatric treatment after with the police. She was a caregiver who had worked for 14 years as an emergency medical technician with the New York Fire Department and had two sons who hoped to follow her into the profession. Around sunset on Thursday, four miles from their block, they met at the back of an ambulance. The man, Jose Gonzalez, who appeared heavily intoxicated in cellphone videos recorded a short while before, had hopped on the back bumper of an ambulance for a joy ride, riding three blocks before someone flagged down Yadira Arroyo, the emergency medical technician, who was driving, the police said. Ms. Arroyo, 44, was working overtime and on her way to help a pregnant woman. She stopped the ambulance and got out to figure out what was happening. Mr. Gonzalez had just thrown a teenage boy against a fence and stolen his backpack, a criminal complaint said, pretending to be a police officer and telling the boy he was arresting him. Now, Mr. Gonzalez was saying that he had hurt his hand and needed help. Ms. Arroyo, who was familiar with the strange and sometimes scary encounters that emergency medical workers endure, told him to return the backpack. Instead, Mr. Gonzalez took a few steps, then spun around and ran into the open driver’s side door, Deputy Chief Jason Wilcox, commanding officer of Bronx detectives, said. Ms. Arroyo tried to pull him out. From the passenger seat, her partner fought him, but Mr. Gonzalez put the ambulance into reverse, trapping Ms. Arroyo underneath and eventually dragging her into an intersection. Her death plunged the city’s medical workers into mourning and sent ripples beyond the city. The specter of an intoxicated, mentally ill man turning an ambulance into a weapon was a stark reminder of the random dangers of a profession whose practitioners often get second billing to their firefighter colleagues. And Mr. Gonzalez’s case — the second in recent months in which a man with a history of crime and mental illness killed a public safety worker in New York City — renewed concerns about the shortcomings of the systems that treat violent and vulnerable people. The episode was all the more chilling for how the lives of Mr. Gonzalez and Ms. Arroyo had brushed up against each other in recent years. Several people knew both of them from their block, on Creston Avenue, a few blocks south of Fordham Road and just east of the Grand Concourse. At the supportive shelter for homeless people where Mr. Gonzalez lived, he had a reputation for lashing out when he was not taking his medication, sometimes over laundry money. A few doors down, at the apartment building where Ms. Arroyo was raised, she was known to work extra hours to provide for her five children, ages 7 to 24, and to spread the gospel of emergency medical work. “She told her children, ‘You’ll see things and be scared, but you must have a good head on your shoulders and serve and protect your community,’” said Monica Salazar, the fiancée of Ms. Arroyo’s half brother. “And that’s what she died doing: protecting her partner. ” The partner, Monique Williams, who was injured, was treated at Jacobi Medical Center and released. More than 500 emergency medical workers lined the ramp of the hospital early on Friday and watched as Ms. Arroyo’s body was driven away in an ambulance to the city Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. Mr. Gonzalez had stopped taking his medication several months ago, his brother, Andrew Mendez, 17, said. In the hours before he hopped onto Ms. Arroyo’s ambulance, he posted cellphone video online of himself with lipstick smeared around his gaptoothed grin, his tongue wagging from his mouth and his left hand dripping with blood. Behind him was a cracked windowpane. He rapped along to the words of the artist Chinx, referred to his mother’s death when he was young and, in one video, shouted, “Blood up,” interjecting an expletive, a reference to his membership in the Bounty Hunter set of the Bloods gang. He had a cut next to his left eye. Around the same time, Mr. Gonzalez called Mr. Mendez and told him he had just been jumped by members of the Crips gang. He talked about wanting revenge. “I’m always telling him, ‘Just wear the flag on our block,’” Mr. Mendez said of his brother, referring to the red Bloods colors. “But he goes to a Crip block wearing the Blood flag, so of course he’ll get jumped. ” Worried, Mr. Mendez interrupted a subway ride to Brooklyn to try to find his brother, but Mr. Gonzalez had stopped responding to calls. Mr. Gonzalez’s uncle, Reynaldo Gonzalez, 54, said his nephew grew depressed when his mother died. Mr. Mendez said he had started forgetting things and talking to himself after a bad car accident two or three years ago. “His head ain’t the same,” Mr. Mendez said. Mr. Mendez said his brother had been hospitalized 10 to 15 times as a result of his mental illness, most recently after an arrest in February. Mr. Gonzalez’s father, also Jose Gonzalez, said that he was unhappy about how the authorities had handled his son. “The police and how they handle people with mental health issues are wrong,” he said. “Something tragic happened, and I am very sorry. ” Just three weeks ago, Mr. Gonzalez was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and attempted assault, both misdemeanors, after the police said he swung at an officer, and then kicked out the window of a police van. The Bronx district attorney’s office said its prosecutors asked a judge to have Mr. Gonzalez held on a $5, 000 bail, but the judge ordered him released. A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said that prosecutors also requested bail on a case last June in which Mr. Gonzalez was accused of punching someone, but that a judge had ordered him released then, too. Mr. Gonzalez, charged with murder, was ordered jailed by Judge Kim Wilson on Friday afternoon in a courtroom packed with dozens of Fire Department employees. Prosecutors said he drove over Ms. Arroyo twice, despite knowing she was there. His lawyer, Alice Fontier of the Bronx Defenders, requested a medical evaluation. In all, the police said, he had 31 previous arrests, several of them for possession or sale of marijuana. Mr. Gonzalez had probably passed Ms. Arroyo on the street outside their homes, where some neighbors were upset by the construction of the supportive housing shelter. Ms. Arroyo, though, focused on her work and her family. She taught a half brother, Joel Rosado, 30, how to deliver oxygen when he was training to become an emergency medical technician. When he graduated from the training academy, he said, “she was ecstatic. ” “I did it because I wanted to be like her,” Mr. Rosado said. So did two of her sons, Edgar, who is in his 20s, and Kenny, 19. Edgar failed a first test to become an emergency medical technician but plans to retake the class Kenny said he was taking the course now. About six years ago Ms. Arroyo met her boyfriend on the job, a paramedic in the Bronx. They often meditated and did yoga together, and occasionally crossed paths on the job. Ms. Arroyo was the eighth emergency medical worker to be killed in the line of duty since 1994 the last was in 2005, when a lieutenant died after surgery to treat a hernia suffered on the job. In 2002, an emergency medical technician died after his ambulance was rammed by a drunken driver. Robert Ungar, a spokesman for the Uniformed EMTs, Paramedics Fire Inspectors F. D. N. Y. union, said that more than 100 members a year were assaulted on the job. The union’s president, Israel Miranda, said, “Anytime you wear a uniform and it shows some sort of authority in New York City, your life is always in danger. ” | 1 |
Robert F. Smith, the private equity titan who was named the richest man by Forbes last year after making a fortune in software, also has a quirky musical side. He owns one of Elton John’s old pianos. He hired John Legend and Seal — and a youth orchestra — to perform at his wedding last summer on the Amalfi Coast. His youngest sons, Hendrix and Legend, are named after Jimi Hendrix and Mr. Legend. And he bought and refurbished a retreat in the Rocky Mountains that was beloved by jazz musicians, including Duke Ellington. On Thursday, Mr. Smith’s intersecting worlds of money, philanthropy and music came together when he was named the chairman of Carnegie Hall, the nation’s most prestigious concert stage. He became the first to hold the post at a time when diversity at leading cultural organizations lags — a recent survey of New York’s cultural institutions found that nearly 78 percent of their board members were white. “Carnegie Hall is perfectly placed to champion not only artistic excellence, but also access and exposure to the best music in the world,” Mr. Smith said in a statement. The election of Mr. Smith, 53, who played an old upright piano while growing up in Denver and was told that with enough practice he might make it to Carnegie one day, brings to an end a low moment at the hall. The billionaire Ronald O. Perelman served as its chairman for less than a year before stepping down last fall after he alienated the board by clashing with the hall’s executive and artistic director, Clive Gillinson. After shunning the spotlight for years, Mr. Smith, who is based in Austin, Tex. where the private equity firm he founded, Vista Equity Partners, has its headquarters, has recently taken a more public role — starting a foundation, the Fund II Foundation giving commencement addresses and donating money. His alma mater, Cornell University, renamed its School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering for him earlier this year after he announced a $50 million gift. Unlike Carnegie’s most recent chairmen, Mr. Perelman and Sanford I. Weill, the former Citigroup chairman, Mr. Smith does not come from the world of New York finance, and he has not been a major fixture on the city’s social scene — he is more known for flying in to attend events in the city and then flying out. But his work outside the city with investors and tech firms could provide entree to new potential donors in the coming years. Mr. Smith said his newfound willingness to exert his influence came from a sense of obligation to help those less fortunate. “When I look at the folks that inspired me growing up, people like Frederick Douglass, they had to stand up and take positions in public in order to make a difference,” he said in an interview. “Part of the responsibility I have, because of the opportunities I’ve been granted, is to take leadership positions and help expand access for others. ” His path to Carnegie began at Petrossian, the restaurant a block north of the hall, where he had lunch a few years ago with Mr. Gillinson. A mutual friend introduced them, since Mr. Smith was interested in music education, a major focus for Carnegie. Mr. Smith joined the board in 2013. Since then he has donated money to expand Carnegie’s Link Up program, which develops music curriculums for more than 90 orchestras around the country, and become a founding patron of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, created by Carnegie’s Weill Music Institute. He also had an idea for a new program. “His suggestion was that we should also be reaching out to kids in the areas where we’re supporting the orchestras, offering lessons to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to have lessons, and instruments if they need them as well,” Mr. Gillinson said in an interview. “We added that dimension. ” Last month, Mr. Smith attended an gala concert commemorating Carnegie’s 125th anniversary and got a round of applause at the dinner afterward at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel when Mercedes T. Bass, who served as acting chairwoman after Mr. Perelman’s departure, acknowledged him from the stage. “One person I’d particularly like to point out is our board member, Robert Smith, who gave us a check,” she said. Joshua Nash, the chairman of the board’s succession committee, said in a statement that his group unanimously recommended Mr. Smith. Until recently, Mr. Smith was little known outside the sleepy world of enterprise software. But in the years since the financial crisis, his firm, Vista, has outperformed titans of the industry such as K. K. R. and T. P. G. Vista, which Mr. Smith founded in 2000 after leaving Goldman Sachs in 1999, buys and sells software companies such as Solera, Tibco and Misys. Under Mr. Smith’s management, Vista established a remarkable track record by never losing money on a leveraged buyout, and regularly returning investors 30 percent or more on an annualized basis. Last year, Forbes pegged his personal fortune at $2. 5 billion. His wedding to Hope Dworaczyk, a former Playboy model, last year at a ceremony on the Amalfi Coast made headlines in gossip columns. Growing up in Denver, Mr. Smith was exposed to music from an early age. His father attended the University of Denver on a band scholarship, playing percussion and piano, and Mr. Smith learned to play the piano from both his father and grandmother. By age 7, he was practicing conducting while listing to the radio, and soon became a fan of the pianist André Watts. His family vacationed at Lincoln Hills, a retreat in the Rockies that was popular with jazz musicians, including Count Basie. Mr. Smith later bought it, and now uses it to host underprivileged schoolchildren and musicians including Maceo Parker and Angie Stone. He counts Prince and Michael Jackson among his favorite pop artists, but also has a passion for classical music, especially Brahms and Debussy. His Fund II Foundation donates money to a variety of causes, including preserving history and culture, human rights, the environment, sustaining American values and music education. Mr. Smith is also the chairman of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights, serves on the board of overseers of Columbia Business School, is a member of the Cornell Engineering College Council, and is a trustee of the Boys and Girls Clubs of San Francisco. He has supported musical groups including the Sphinx Organization, which promotes diversity in classical music helped bring the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition to the United States and supports Ensemble ACJW, a collaboration between Carnegie Hall, the Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute and the New York City Education Department. Mr. Smith’s other charitable efforts reflect his commitment to preserving black history. When he was an infant, his mother carried him at the March on Washington, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Seven years later, his uncle was the victim of a racially motivated killing. In recent years, Mr. Smith has made substantial gifts to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is set to open in September donated millions to restore monuments in national parks and supported the Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York. What awaits him at the Carnegie board, however, could test not only his managerial skills, but also his diplomacy and prowess. When Mr. Perelman abruptly stepped down last year, hopes of landing a donation from him quickly evaporated as the hall worked to raise money for its education efforts. Now it must press forward with that, while continuing to grapple with questions of how to make classical music relevant and accessible, and over what the proper musical mix of its presentations should be. But Mr. Smith is known as a . After talking himself into an internship at Bell Labs for college students when he was still in high school, he was once charged with diagnosing a faulty semiconductor. He was in over his head, but the experience, he recounted last year, helped shape his worldview. “I learned not to fear complex problems,” he said, “but to embrace them. ” | 1 |
Vladimir Putin: The United States continues to sleep with al-Nusra ‹ › Richard Edmondson is an author, novelist, poet, and journalist whose writings often focus on Middle East issues, the Zionist lobby, and religion. His latest novel is The Memoirs of Saint John: When the Sandstone Crumbles , a story about an archaeological team doing a dig in Syria and set amidst the current conflict in the country. In 2014 Richard attended an International Conference on Combating Terrorism and Religious Extremism, held in Damascus. The book is part two in the Memoirs of Saint John series. Two other books by Richard are Rising Up: Class Warfare in America from the Streets to the Airwaves , relating his experiences founding and operating an unlicensed or "pirate" FM radio station in San Francisco in the 1990s, as well as a volume of poetry entitled American Bus Stop: Essay and Poems on Hope and Homelessness . Richard is cognizant of the words of the early Christian writer Tertullian, who in the second century-basically prognosticating the fall of the Roman Empire-wrote: "We have made merry amid the ludicrous cruelties of the noonday exhibition." Veterans Forced to Repay Signing Bonuses…While Billions in Aid Continues Flowing to Israel By Richard Edmondson on October 27, 2016 Petition Launched to Stop Veterans from Having to Repay Bonuses
Let’s say you recruit somebody to do a job for you. Because it’s a particularly dirty job, you’re having trouble finding people to fill the position… so… to sweeten the pot, you offer a $20,000 “signing bonus.” That’s in addition, of course, to the monthly salary you plan to pay them. The added incentive helps. People start signing their names on the dotted line to go to work for you.
Then nine or ten years pass by. Suddenly one day you think to yourself, “Hell, what did I offer all those bonuses for? That was dumb. I think I’ll demand my money back!” Of course some of the people you paid the money to are no longer alive, and others sustained catastrophic injuries while working for you, but hey! All’s fair in love…and especially in war!!!
Well, that’s the predicament that a number of US veterans now find themselves in. Back in the days when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were ramping up big time, military recruiters took to offering sizeable bonuses to get people to join or reenlist. Recently it was reported that the government has begun demanding this money back. Supposedly the bonuses never should have been paid out in the first place, and the decision to do so was a result of oversight, fraud, and mismanagement.
So…long story short, veterans have begun paying back their bonuses, in some cases at the rate of hundreds of dollars per month, while others, those in financial binds who could not afford to meet the additional expenses, are said to be facing wage garnishment. There are reports that veterans are even being charged interest on their outstanding debt.
As you may expect, the story of this shabby treatment of American vets has prompted public outrage, and the latest news, posted Wednesday at NPR , is that the Pentagon is now “suspending” the debt collection program.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is calling for “the fair and equitable treatment of our service members and the rapid resolution of these cases,” although the article seems deliberately vague and ambiguous as to whether the bonuses will have to be repaid or whether the debts will be cancelled. The only thing stated clearly is that Carter intends to establish “a streamlined, centralized process that ensures the fair and equitable treatment of our service members and the rapid resolution of these cases.” The “resolution” (whatever that means) of “these cases” is to be completed by no later than July 1, 2017, the Defense Secretary has announced.
“Ultimately, we will provide for a process that puts as little burden as possible on any soldier who received an improper payment through no fault of his or her own,” Carter said. “At the same time, it will respect our important obligation to the taxpayer.”
Right now the focal point of the scandal is California, because that’s where most of the illegal bonuses were paid, although it seems veterans in other states may be facing similar demands. Carter’s statement on the matter addresses only the problem in California.
A petition has been launched demanding Congress take action to rescind the obligation for veterans to repay the bonuses:
In 2006, at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the California National Guard offered bonuses for troops enlisting and re-enlisting. It was part of an aggressive recruitment effort to retain troops during the height of both of those wars.
Now, ten years later, the Pentagon is demanding many of those who received bonuses – almost ten thousand service members – pay them back because they were offered in violation of Federal law.
Right now, veterans are receiving letters from debt collectors, they’re being threatened with tax liens, tax return withholdings and other penalties if they do not repay those bonuses.
These troops, many of them whom went on to serve overseas, were offered these bonuses in good faith and should not be penalized for what amounts to a bureaucratic failure in oversight.
Congress, or the Pentagon need to make this right, and they need to do it immediately.
Sign our petition calling for immediate Congressional action, or action from the Defense Department, to use its authority to waive repayment of enlistment or re-enlisted bonuses they accepted in good faith ten years ago.
The stories are heartbreaking:
“It’s gut-wrenching because you have to figure out what you’re going to do and how you’re going to survive. We were paying upward $1,300 a month back to that recoupment. We weren’t able to afford everything — food for the kids, a day care.” – Christopher Van Meter, Iraq War Veteran and Purple Heart recipient
Congress, or the Department of Defense, must take action immediately to make things right for Christopher, and thousands of veterans like him, who are being forced into an impossible situation because of mistakes they did not make.
We’re hopeful that there will be resolution on this issue, quickly, and we know that outcome is more likely if we all make our voices heard today.
Sign our petition calling for immediate Congressional action, or action from the Defense Department, to use its authority to waive repayment of enlistment or re-enlisted bonuses they accepted in good faith ten years ago.
I have worked in financial management at the base level and at the Pentagon. In my view, there is no more important task an agency has than to alleviate any issues related to the undue financial burden placed on these veterans and their families.
Thank you for making your voice heard.
You can click here to sign the petition.
The US has been giving money to Israel since 1951, and of course nobody is presently demanding that any of that be repaid. The year 1979 was an especially watershed year–with $3 billion in US tax dollars being paid out. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, a “second special package” was approved in 1985 due to a “severe economic crisis in Israel,” this consisting of two disbursements, totaling $1.5 billion, handed out in 1985 and ’86. (1)
Economic aid, however, has gradually been phased out over the past 2o years and replaced by increases in military aid. In 2007, the Bush administration approved a 10-year, $30 billion package for military expenses, and most recently the Obama administration approved a $38 billion package that will start in 2019 and cover Israel through 2029. The present rate of flow of US tax dollars to Israel is approximately $10.2 million per day. (2)
Aid to the Jewish state is of course vigorously pushed by the pro-Israel lobby in Washington. And the lobby, as many of us are aware, doesn’t just clamor for aid; it also promotes wars.
It’s interesting that many military veterans now being called upon to repay their signing bonuses are veterans of the Iraq war. In the following video, dating from 2002, you’ll see none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu making a case for military action against Iraq, urging the US to wage “preemptive war”–he actually uses that term, not once but repeatedly–and in the process claiming, falsely, that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons and was on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Basically, he plays Congress like a violin. As you watch his performance, a performance that seems almost choreographed, consider what we now know about 9/11, the overwhelming evidence of controlled demolition, and of how the fall of Saddam Hussein led to the rise of ISIS.
It’s interesting to note what was going on in 2002 when Netanyahu made that appearance before Congress. This was two years after the start of the second Intifada, and Saddam Hussein had begun paying out sums of money, in some cases $25,000 , to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. That’s a fact of history, though not a well-known one. And while Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US, quite obviously Israel had plenty of reason for wanting him overthrown. And so Netanyahu made his pitch before Congress. And neocon pundits in the media began fanning the flames of war. Weapons of mass destruction! Mushroom clouds! Smoking guns! Yellowcake uranium from Niger! And off we went to war!!
A war essentially for Israel.
By 2005 we were caught in a quagmire with no end in sight, and the Pentagon, having trouble meeting enlistment quotas, began sweetening the pot with signing bonuses. Between 2000 and 2008, the money spent on enlistment bonuses rose from $891 million to $1.4 billion. The following is an article from CBS News published back in 2007. You might find it interesting.
Twenty-nine-year-old Joan Marte thinks now is the right time to join the army.
“I get to travel, basic training sounds like fun,” he says.
Yemin Ko, 24, who describes himself as a patriot, is also signing up.
“I wanted to do something important,” he says.
The Army needs them both to meet its enlistment goals for this year.
It surpassed its July recruitment targets by more than 200 new soldiers, CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, by adding recruiters — and with an unprecedented incentive: $20,000 signing bonus given to soldiers willing to ship out to basic training within a month .
“The intent of the bonus is to get folks to ship quickly so they can attend basic training and we can meet the end strength the army is required to have,” says Lt. Col. Joseph Feliciano.
In New York, recruitment commanders say they’re already seeing better numbers this month since the signing bonuses were put on the table. And the army hopes to pump up those numbers by September 30th, the end of the fiscal year.
“Is this what we really want? To bribe people to get them to go and fight an unpopular war?” says Larry Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan Administration. Korb, who is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, says the new policy will be bad for the army.
“They’ve already lowered the standards. Last year, when they did meet their recruiting goals, they had lowered the educational and aptitude standards,” says Korb.
Under the new deal, recruits could be serving in a combat zone within four months.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, and I’m proud of it,” says Ko.
Yemin Ko says he’ll be ready to serve, and at a time when every body counts, the Army is banking on the same thing. (3)
That was in 2007. Now here we are nine years later, and veterans are being told to repay the money they were paid. One such veteran is Susan Haley, who got sent to Afghanistan in 2008 and is now trying to repay the bonus she received. She presently sends the Pentagon $650 per month–a quarter of her family’s income.
“I feel totally betrayed,” Haley told the L.A. Times . “They’ll get their money, but I want those years back.”
Haley, 47, spent 26 years in the Army along with her husband and oldest son, a medic who lost his leg in Afghanistan.
There is a lot of outrage felt in America now toward our own government, and certainly a lot of it is justified. But maybe Americans, particularly those whose passions have been aroused over the treatment of veterans, should start considering the enormous influence exerted by the Israeli lobby in Washington, along with the possibility that the anger they’re now reserving for their own government is, at least in part, misdirected.
Notes:
1. Jewish Virtual Library, US-Israel Foreign Aid 2. If Americans Knew, US Aid 3. CBS News, Army-signing-bonuses-bring-in-recruits, Aug. 11, 2007 Related Posts: | 0 |
The celebrations have ended and we’ve all come to absorb the fact that Donald Trump is our next President, an outcome that many of us have aggressively worked for in the past several months. Now that we’ve gotten what we wanted, it’s time to describe exactly how a Trump presidency will improve our standing.
If the President can say it then you can say it
The biggest effect we’ll see is the death of political correctness. We now have a shitlord for President who has insulted ugly women as “fat pigs,” and whose private macho talk, which all masculine men have done, was relentlessly attacked by the press but not punished in the voter booth. This means that when you talk like Trump, the first thought your listener will have is, “He sounds like the President of the United States.”
What excuse will they now have for limiting your speech if one man was able to gain the highest office in the land because of it? Either Trump was elected because voters liked a person who makes those kinds of statements or they didn’t care enough that he made them. Whichever explanation you accept means that the will of the American people has stated that you can exercise your free speech, your opinions, and your desire to flirt with attractive women without having to obey a speech police force that evaluates everything you do based on how offensive it is to a kaleidoscope of races and loony identities. You can begin removing your politically correct filter.
I’m in a state of exuberance that we now have a President who rates women on a 1-10 scale in the same way that we do and evaluates women by their appearance and feminine attitude. We may have to institute a new feature called “Would Trump bang?” to signify the importance of feminine beauty ideals that cultivate effort and class above sloth and vulgarity. Simply look at his wife and the beautiful women he has surrounded himself with to remind yourself of what men everywhere prefer, and not the “beauty at every size” sewage that has been pushed down our throats by gender studies professors and corporations trying to market their product to feminist fatsoes . The President of the United States does not see the value in fat women who don’t take care of themselves, and neither should you.
Liberals will be forced to tolerate us in a way they didn’t have to before
There are so many of us that we can ease out of the closet and not be afraid of persecution like before. What are they going to do, fire everyone who supports Trump? Accuse every man who voted for him of rape? The way the establishment has been able to marginalize us is to corner men individually and apply intense pressure, but now we have natural allies in all men who back Trump, even if they don’t subscribe to our particular interpretation of masculinity .
Liberals will not be able to point and shriek to get you to withdraw like before. They will not have easy victories by using labels like “racist” or “sexist.” They will have to endure us in their midst and bite their lip when we offend their degenerate ideals, knowing that the price of attacking us is becoming too costly. It may be as simple as whipping out your MAGA hat, as if it’s a bat signal, and having fellow Trump supporters come to your aid. I know that if I see a Trump supporter in trouble, I will help him, regardless of his race or station. Liberals will be forced to share space with those whom they hate, instead of trying to exile them like in the past.
It will be easier to find a fellow traveler
Men who hold our beliefs have long ago learned that we can’t go around sharing them in public to those who are not vetted. If you’re like me, you first “test” a new man you meet with a masculine comment to see how he responds, such as remarking on the attractiveness of a woman or how you’ve heard of a community online that trolls liberals without mercy. We’ve even had to devise a special “pet shop” code to know if a man is aware of the teachings that are found on ROK or the forum . We now have a easier shortcut in Trump.
If a man tells you that he voted for Trump, it’s safe to say that he is favorable to strong borders, nationalism , masculinity, and beautiful women. On a basic level, you will be able to get along with this man and build a bond. It also works the other way around where you bring up Trump to screen out those who are offended by him. It’s fine if someone is politically indifferent, but if a man opposes Trump then I have to anticipate him attacking or sabotaging me in the future. I will distance myself from him for my own well-being.
The cultural decline will halt
We now have a President who will not encourage anti-male propaganda, rape culture, and female victimhood. While I do have minor concerns on the influence of his feminist-minded daughter, Ivanka, Trump will not continue the attack on men that has been institutionalized since the sexual revolution and accelerated during the eight years of Obama. Because our current cultural dystopia is the result of intense long-term manipulation, it is more than enough for Trump to simply not touch the gender issue to allow the culture to return to a more patriarchal order. Stop feeding the rot and it will die off, allowing biology to naturally reassert itself.
We’ve experienced so many changes in the past decade that we haven’t had a chance to understand what’s going on and adapt. Instead, we’ve been reacting from one blow to the next, whether it’s the loss of our jobs through witch hunts or the rape culture horror that has turned a banal consensual hookup into possible incarceration. Trump’s victory gives us room to begin pushing back against the fictions that have put men in harm’s way.
Conclusion Paradoxically, the benefits of a Trump presidency will not involve specific actions from Trump. His presence automatically legitimizes masculine behaviors that were previously labeled sexist and misogynist. While we may still get heat for them, it will be less severe and we’ll be less likely to sustain serious damage. Liberals will have no choice but to silently stew on our words and we can more effortlessly connect with men not only for male bonding but also to push back against a demoralized and fractured left. Victories will be far easier to achieve under Trump than Obama.
This is our moment. The door is opening for a renaissance of masculinity where men can take pride in being men, and the best part of it is that we don’t need to wait for Trump to do anything. His victory is more than enough for us to apply our own individual strength in seizing the bull’s horns where we can come out of the politically incorrect closet and assert our beliefs and behaviors. It would be icing on the cake if Trump rolled back anti-masculine laws and policies, but it’s not required, because the power to change ourselves and our country is within our hands. Return Of Kings opened in 2012, and the only surprise for me is how quickly the name is being fulfilled.
Read Next: If Donald Trump Doesn’t Win, We’re Screwed
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Russia Unveils Update of Advanced Nuclear Weapon 10/26/2016
EPOCH TIMES
Russia has unveiled a new nuclear missile that “is capable of wiping out parts of the earth the size of Texas or France.”
Reports say that the RS-28 missile, dubbed the “Satan 2,” was unveiled this week, with the first image of the weapon being released to the public by designers at the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau . It’s also known as “Sarmat” in Russian.
The report comes as Moscow has been flexing its military muscle amid tensions with the United States over the war in Syria and lingering fallout from the invasion of Crimea in Ukraine. NATO, meanwhile, has been shoring up its defenses in countries near Russia’s border amid concerns about its military direction.
“The prospective strategic missile system is being developed in order to assuredly and effectively fulfill objectives of nuclear deterrent by Russia’s strategic forces,” according to a statement from V. Degtar and Y. Kaverin, listed as the bomb’s chief designer and leading designer, respectively, reported RT , a Russian government-funded news site.
Earlier this year, the Kremlin-aligned Sputnik News website said the missile could “wipe out” portions of the earth the “size of Texas or France.”
The RS-28 will replace the R-36, which was called the “SS-18 Satan” by NATO when it was introduced in the 1970s.
Robert Kelley, a former nuclear weapons expert at the U.S. Department of Energy, told NBC News that the new missile most likely had an upgrade in the device’s electronics, rather than an increase in its explosive payload or range.
“The range of the missiles will be about the same, the explosive destructive power will be about the same [but] the reliability, flexibility and confidence [in the warheads’ ability to hit their targets] will go way up,” said Kelley.
He noted: “Your iPhone can do thousands of more things today than in the 1970s when these systems were first deployed. Many of the clunky electronic circuits of that era no longer exist and no one knows how to make them anymore.”
The RS-28 weighs about 100 tons, and it features a large, 10-ton nuclear payload capacity. The missile is expected to enter service in 2018. | 0 |
When Donald J. Trump made provocative remarks on Wednesday about Russian intelligence services and Hillary Clinton’s email, readers of The New York Times responded with a record number of comments. More than 9, 220 comments on the article were approved by moderators, who review nearly every one before they are published on The Times’s digital platforms. Thousands more comments were posted on The Times’s Facebook page. The article became the on in The Times’s history. At his news conference, Mr. Trump said he hoped Russian intelligence services had hacked Mrs. Clinton’s email, and encouraged them to publish whatever they might have stolen, essentially urging them to commit cyberespionage. Here are excerpts from the comments, some of which have been lightly edited for clarity. Some readers said Mr. Trump’s comments showed he lacked and signaled that he could not be trusted to keep the nation’s secrets safe. “Trump doesn’t seem to have a grasp on what comes out of his mouth. In his attempts to look strong, and always be talking over others, he seems to be totally unable to control his outbursts and totally ridiculous statements. ” — Julius in New York. “The man’s lack of impulse control regarding what comes out of his mouth is the most worrisome aspect of his potential presidency. Regardless of what you believe about Hillary, is this the spokesperson in chief you want for our nation?” — GMS in Chicago. “Just imagine, for even a brief second, what he might say when he is president. Who he might talk to on the ‘red phone.’ Remember, when he talks he says what HE thinks is right, not what the world believes. ” — D. C. Researcher in Washington. Some readers said Mr. Trump was committing an act of patriotism by seeking to expose Mrs. Clinton’s email and were skeptical that he intended harm with his remarks. “I hate to say it, but if it was Russia, thank goodness that someone had the urge to expose another crooked and rigged system. If you will recall, Trump has said all along that the DNC and Clinton rigged the primaries … and he was right. ” — Florida Len in Florida. “If you listen to the whole quote it was obviously cheek, not . He was making a joke about Hillary deleting all of those emails. ” — Gary Taustine in New York. “I was astounded when commentators took Trump’s statement at literal face value. Let’s hope no one ever tells one of these people to go jump off a bridge. ” — Jim in New York. “Maybe the American people deserve to see them. She had them open for the [taking]. ” — Gary James Richards of Oak Ridge, N. J. on The Times’s Facebook page. Several commenters accused Mr. Trump of sedition or treason and demanded that he be punished. “That Donald Trump would encourage a tyrant like Vladimir Putin and his surrogates to meddle in our affairs is treason of the highest order. The fact that he would encourage our adversary for his own political gain shows he would stop at nothing to get what he wants. He doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than himself. I wouldn’t ever count on a turncoat traitor like Donald Trump to have my back under any circumstances. ” — JG in Old North Bridge, Mass. “To call on a foreign government to engage in espionage against your political opponent that is a former member of the government is sedition and the stuff of banana republics. ” — Erik in Boise, Idaho. Some readers suggested Mr. Trump was angling for the spotlight during the Democratic National Convention. “Trump just can’t stomach the fact that he is not front and center in the media this week, so he has to come up with something to divert the media’s attention to him. Pitiful excuse for a human, let alone a presidential candidate. ” — Lib in Utah. “This is just Trump’s latest stunt to take the news cycle away from the D. N. C. Stop wasting time parsing the meaning of this nonsense!” — Doctor Jay in New York. Some readers compared Mrs. Clinton’s fitness to lead the country in the wake of her email scandal with Mr. Trump’s request for Russia to produce the emails. Other readers said that equivalence was false. “If President Trump saw his approval ratings fall, he might well conspire with Putin to do something nefarious to raise his ratings, even if it meant selling the secrets or the principles of his country. Yes, Hillary is sometimes not completely trustworthy, but Trump has taken untrustworthiness to a new level. ” — John in Chevy Chase. Md. “The chief complaint about Hillary Clinton is that she seems inauthentic because she is overly cautious and measures her responses. Well, here’s a perfect example of the opposite of that. Is this who we want in charge? This should be taken very seriously. ” — MDNewell in Midlothian, Va. | 1 |
Tuesday on Politico’s “Off Message” podcast, Gov. Terry McAuliffe ( ) said it was time for the Democratic Party “to move on” from Hillary Clinton. McAuliffe said, “I think you have got to move forward,” adding, “my advice would be we have just got to move on. ” Discussing the reasons for Clinton’s presidential election loss and Russia’s involvement, he added, “So, that awareness has to be raised, has to be analyzed, has to be fixed, and I think there are enough people. My advice would be to Hillary — there’s enough people that will do that and get that information out. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 1 |
WASHINGTON — As Iraqi and American troops prepare to try to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, the Obama administration is describing the battle as the last major hurdle before declaring victory against the extremist Sunni militancy — in Iraq, at least. But some former officials and humanitarian aid groups are worried that President Obama will run into the same problem that haunted his predecessor, George W. Bush: beginning a ground campaign without a comprehensive plan for what happens afterward. “There’s an effort to proclaim mission accomplished, and obviously, getting back Mosul would be a momentous and symbolic defeat for ISIS,” said Vali Nasr, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, using another name for the Islamic State. But, he said, victory in Mosul without a detailed arrangement for how the city and the surrounding province will be governed “does nothing to prevent extremists from resurfacing again. ” Still, Obama administration officials are loath to further delay the operation, which they first envisioned two years ago, in order to sort out in advance the political arrangements in and around Mosul, Iraq’s city. The administration is taking the calculated risk that the future of a region populated by a welter of ethnic and religious groups can be worked out peacefully as the battle unfolds or even after the militants are defeated, with American officials serving as brokers when needed but not imposing a plan. By all indications, the battle for Mosul will happen in stages. As in the recapture of Ramadi in December, Iraqi forces will first surround and cordon off the city, then gradually tighten the circle in a process that could take months. In a similar situation, American forces would maneuver into the heart of the city, much as they did in their assault on Baghdad in 2003. But Iraqi forces — who do not have the same kind of battlefield support, particularly medical care — have been far more and deliberate in their operations. A dozen Iraqi Army brigades, each of which includes anywhere from 800 to 1, 600 troops, have been gathering at Qaiyara Airfield West, an Iraqi base 40 miles south of Mosul. Kurdish pesh merga fighters, who are positioned to the north and east, will also help isolate the city. The eventual assault into Mosul will be carried out by Iraq’s counterterrorism service, whose commandos have been trained by American Special Forces and are the country’s most reliable and proficient fighting force. Iraq’s federal police and some Army units will also join the push into the city. The United States military is poised to influence the battle in potentially decisive ways. Apache attack helicopters equipped with Hellfire missiles have been striking targets in northern Iraq, and American and French artillery can be positioned to provide support. American Special Operations commandos have also been active in northern Iraq. American intelligence analysts estimate that 3, 000 to 4, 500 fighters remain in Mosul, a mixture of Iraqi militants and foreign recruits who have been steadily dropping under a barrage of coalition airstrikes over the past several months. One notable loss for the Islamic State was Omar a Chechen and one of the group’s top field commanders, who was killed in an airstrike in March in a town south of Mosul. “Their backs are against the wall,” Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, who recently stepped down as the overall commander for the United States’ operations in Iraq and Syria, said in a telephone interview. He added that the militants were having trouble drawing new recruits to Syria and Iraq because of tougher border checks by Turkey. “They’re not the ISIS that drove there a couple of years ago,” he said. Even so, the Pentagon and its allies in the coalition are bracing for a tough fight against an enemy that has burrowed a network of tunnels throughout Mosul, dug trenches and filled them with oil, and planted improvised explosives so densely they resemble minefields. Mr. Obama’s aides say he would like to be able to hand the Islamic State issue to the next president with the Iraq portion at least on the right trajectory, if not solved. The president’s supporters say he does not want to pass to his successor a terrorism threat as bad as or worse than the menace Mr. Obama faced from Al Qaeda when he became commander in chief. “He talks about being a relay swimmer, about the idea that he’s got this moment where he has to turn things over,” said Derek Chollet, a former assistant defense secretary in the Obama administration. But Iraq has a way of confounding even the plans, and the president’s critics see it differently. “Suppose there are a million refugees from Mosul. What are they going to do?” said Eliot A. Cohen, who was a State Department counselor in the Bush administration. “I’d like to see Mosul retaken, but one thing we all learned from Iraq is that things never simply break your way. ” American military officials acknowledge that retaking Mosul will not defeat the Islamic State, because Raqqa, Syria, the group’s de facto capital, is the heart of its caliphate. “It is not the end of the caliphate if Mosul falls,” General MacFarland said. But “if Raqqa falls, the caliphate as we know it really begins to unfold. ” For all its complexity, however, Mosul presents an opportunity for the White House that may not be readily at hand in Syria. After nearly eight years in Iraq during the Bush and Obama administrations, the American military knows the terrain well and has a network of large and Iraqi bases it can use to assist in the fight. It also has a sizable proxy force: the thousands of Iraqi and Kurdish troops the Americans have trained. Some officials expect the militants to pull back from the eastern side of Mosul, which is divided by the Tigris River, and instead defend the west bank, where the government center is. The west bank has many narrow streets, making it difficult for tanks and artillery to operate. A key question is who will secure the city once the Islamic State is driven out. Shiite militias, which are a politically powerful movement in Iraq, have been accused of detaining and killing hundreds of men who fled the fighting in and around Falluja this year. To guard against human rights abuses, Prime Minister Haider is expected to give those militias a role well outside the city. The Kurds have already said they will not send their forces into Mosul once it has been secured. Nor does the United States want Iraq to keep its largely Shiite army inside the city any longer than it needs to. As a result, security will have to be provided by thousands of local police officers, including many who have yet to be trained, as well as former officers who joined the Iraqi Army after the Islamic State attacked and now need to be recalled to their police units. More than 20, 000 tribal fighters, whom the Iraqis and Kurds are vetting, will also help with security. This plan has the virtue of giving the lead to local security forces, but it also means that one of the most delicate phases of the operation is being entrusted to fighters who are lightly equipped and whom the United States will not be directly advising. A main concern for critics is that there is no plan in Iraq for how to govern Mosul and the surrounding Nineveh Province. This has prompted fear that retaking the city could aggravate the tensions between the predominantly Sunni population of Mosul and the government in Baghdad that fueled the rise of the Islamic State in the first place. “There is no agreement about anything after the liberation,” said Atheel who was the governor of Nineveh Province when the militants charged into Mosul in 2014. “It is very dangerous. ” Mr. Nujaifi is promoting a plan to give the region around Mosul far greater autonomy. But there are no indications that the Iraqi government will go along with that degree of decentralization. While some Pentagon aides are worried, others in the Obama administration say that help from the United States will enable the Iraqis, Kurds and various other groups in Nineveh to figure out a political plan, in part by connecting the disparate factions, including Mr. Nujaifi’s successor as governor, Nofal Agoob. But carving up the political spoils is not the only challenge. Of the two million people who resided in Mosul before it was seized by the Islamic State, aid organizations estimate that about 1. 2 million remain. Humanitarian assistance groups are already stretched thin from dealing with operations to recapture towns outside Mosul. Though residents are being urged to stay in their homes, civilians fleeing the fighting could number in the hundreds of thousands. Some aid groups estimate that as many as a million people could be displaced by fighting to recapture the city, creating a daunting humanitarian task that the United Nations and other organizations say they are not yet ready to deal with. | 1 |
On Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” former Clinton campaign Press Secretary Brian Fallon stated, “Every day there are new developments, new shoes dropping, so to speak, that call into question the legitimacy of his [ Donald Trump’s] win. ” Fallon said, “Every day there are new developments, new shoes dropping, so to speak, that call into question the legitimacy of his win. First it was with respect to Russian interference. They tried to deny — the Trump folks did, that Russia was behind this, now they’ve been forced to admit that. Then they tried to say that it was not for the purposes of trying to help Donald Trump, they were just trying to sow confusion and they were targeting both sides. And now, folks in the government have concluded that it was actually to try to tip the election Donald Trump’s way. And now, with respect to the FBI, we see that Jim Comey’s actions are sufficiently questionable that the internal watchdog at DOJ thinks that they merit an independent review. So, I think Donald Trump is just trying to cling to whatever legitimacy still is in effect here. ” ( Grabien) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Home › GUNS › 4 STEPS TO ENSURE YOUR AMMO STORES (VIRTUALLY) FOREVER 4 STEPS TO ENSURE YOUR AMMO STORES (VIRTUALLY) FOREVER 0 SHARES
[10/27/16] It’s a fact that without ammunition, your guns will be little more than metal and plastic clubs. But it’s also a fact that if your ammunition has been stored in poor conditions, it not only won’t last as long as it should, but it also could potentially become dangerous to shoot if it is corroded or deteriorated.
This is why you need to store your ammo the same way you store your firearms. After all, you store your firearms in a secure and environmentally safe location, so why wouldn’t you do the same with your ammunition in which you may have invested even more money?
All ammo has a definitive shelf life. Eventually, it will go bad. But if you use proper storage techniques, you can make your ammo last on the shelf for year and years. Ammunition that has been taken care of properly and stored in the right conditions should last for 12 to 15 years before you begin to notice signs of discoloration or corrosion.
Let’s learn about some basic and yet effective storage tips you can use to ensure that you get the most out of your ammo:
1. Store in metal ammo cans.
Regardless of whether you like to keep your ammo in the boxes it came in or store it loosely, you will need to place it in metal ammo cans for storage purposes. Green metal ammo cans can be found at virtually any sporting goods store, in the $10-$20 dollar range, depending on the size of the can.
The reason why you should store your ammo in these metal cans is not just for ease of organization, but also because the cans are airtight and waterproof. They are sealed around the edges, which means you could even dunk them underwater and they would keep the water out.
2. Store in a dry place.
Humidity and moisture in general will be the biggest contributor to corrosion and discoloration. Since corroded ammo is not safe to fire, it’s imperative that you select a storage location where the moisture is kept to a minimum.
Yes, storing your ammunition in the green metal ammo cans will do a lot to resist moisture, but it never hurts to be extra careful. Keep in mind that ammunition is not cheap, so you want to take extra good care of your investment. Store it in a dry place with low moisture levels, and you can sleep knowing your ammo should remain in good condition several years down the road. Post navigation | 0 |
This is a town built on stories, the more salacious the better. So it comes as not much of a surprise that the twilight of Sumner M. Redstone’s epic career has become the stuff of conversation, especially among those who knew the man when he was perhaps the most powerful figure in Hollywood. Peter Bart, a former producer and film executive who served as the editor of Variety from 1989 to 2009, was dining recently with friends at Off Vine, a quiet Hollywood restaurant housed in a bungalow, when the inevitable came up. Others at the table included an actress who knew Mr. Redstone well. “And they wondered, ‘How could Sumner get himself into this situation? ’” Mr. Bart said. “It is very sad. ” Details about the tycoon’s private life surfaced during a lawsuit, which fizzled in court last week. The story that emerged fell somewhere between film noir at its sleazy best and “King Lear. ” Mr. Bart said the billionaire’s plight was coming up a lot lately among people. “In some cases, there were expressions of empathy,” he said. “But there is impatience with Sumner, too, that he couldn’t keep his private life private. ” The legal proceedings revealed an aging lion who craved sex and steak, although he was too ill to leave his Beverly Park mansion and took his meals through a feeding tube. Court papers described him as “a living ghost” and told of female escorts making visits to his bedside while a nurse sometimes looked on. As Mr. Redstone’s former lover and onetime caretaker, Manuela Herzer, 51, battled his daughter, Shari Redstone, 62, for control of his daily care — not to mention what she saw as her rightful place in his will — this melodrama had it all: wild shopping sprees, excursions, whispers of a sex tape and, in a bit part, an angry who seemed like a character out of a Coen brothers movie. Hollywood dynasties have long run into complications in the final reel. In the 1950s, a philandering Jack L. Warner undercut his brother Harry for control of the family’s Warner Bros. studio, and the two never spoke again. In the early 1970s, Darryl F. Zanuck was ousted from 20th Century Fox in a coup, which his wife orchestrated to avenge her husband’s treatment of their son. While those spectacles drew their share of press attention and loose talk, today’s corporate, almost bloodless entertainment industry seems less tolerant of executives who depart from the script. Sure, the stereotype of the hardhearted, executive persists. But Mr. Redstone’s eccentricities — he once boasted that he shaved poolside in the nude — and the recent disclosure of his sexual exploits seem out of step with the airbrushed culture of Los Angeles. “Sumner is caught in a time warp,” Mr. Bart said. The legal fracas has changed Mr. Redstone’s public image from a firebrand whose business acumen and ruthlessness won him control of Viacom, Paramount Pictures and CBS, a $40 billion empire, into something quite different. In the local parlance, he lost the plot. The hubris that precedes a fall was evident in 2009, when he told Larry King, “I have no intention of ever retiring or of dying,” and once again in 2014, when Mr. Redstone told The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m not going to die. ” Recent press attention has deflated such boasts. And secrets Mr. Redstone might have taken to the grave he reserved for himself in Massachusetts, where he was born in 1923, became the stuff of Internet chatter when Ms. Herzer — whom he banished from his Beverly Park home last year — filed suit. “This is all very Shakespearean, with the family, all the people taking over the kingdom,” said Michael Medavoy, a producer who knows Mr. Redstone. “It’s a tragedy. But my question is, is it a tragic comedy or is it a tragic drama?” After Judge David J. Cowan of Los Angeles County Superior Court tossed the case last Monday, Ms. Herzer filed a new lawsuit against Ms. Redstone. There is talk that Mr. Redstone’s lawyers may pursue a suit, too, meaning the situation could drag on. Mr. Redstone has long been known for his volatility. Across the decades, he has collected enemies the way residents in nearby Malibu pick up sea glass along Carbon Beach. The executives he has crossed include Tom Freston, David Geffen, Mel Karmazin and Barry Diller. In 2006, he split with Tom Cruise over the actor’s erratic behavior and stumping for Scientology, ending Mr. Cruise’s production deal at Paramount. (The star got some measure of revenge with his caustic, portrayal of a character said to be based on Mr. Redstone in the Hollywood satire “Tropic Thunder. ”) “He was a man,” Mr. Medavoy said. “But those guys can be difficult. You have to look at it all in context. The great scions of industry, the guys who made a zillion dollars, are tough guys. Those folks don’t make a lot of friends. ” On a recent evening, Christine Peters was nursing a Moscow mule in the Tower Bar at the Sunset Tower Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif. Ms. Peters, a movie producer, dated Mr. Redstone in the late 1990s and remained friends after he moved to the Beverly Park mansion in 2003. She said she had not seen the tycoon in two years. Despite his position, Mr. Redstone was not a creature of the scene, she said. He avoided galas and opening nights, preferring intimate dinners at Dan Tana’s, the dimly lit, Italian place on Santa Monica Boulevard with booths, waiters in black bow ties and bartenders in red jackets. If she arrived late for a meal, Ms. Peters said, she would find him alone and impatient, drumming his fingers on the table. Mr. Redstone, who was badly burned in a 1979 hotel fire in Boston, did not like to show weakness, Ms. Peters said, and his closest personal relationships seemed transactional, rooted in business. But his devotion to his empire seems to not have given him much protection against hits taken in the recent imbroglio. “He would rather be broke than humiliated and publicly embarrassed, his dignity lost,” Ms. Peters said. “Calling him a ‘living ghost’ is the most hurtful, saying he could not make lucid decisions. That’s where the knife hits hardest for him. ” She added that he regarded as his only worthy rival Rupert Murdoch, the media king who recently married the former supermodel Jerry Hall. A small crowd gathered at the Vibrato Grill Jazz club here in the Bel Air neighborhood at 6 p. m. for Mr. Redstone’s 92nd birthday celebration a year ago. It was one of his last public appearances. The guests included top executives in his employ, including Leslie Moonves of CBS, Philippe Dauman of Viacom, as well as Brad Grey of Paramount. Tony Bennett serenaded him with his 1962 hit, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco. ” A figurine on the birthday cake was particularly telling. It depicted Mr. Redstone as a corporate titan in a suit and red tie, phone in one hand, television remote in the other. Next to the miniature Mr. Redstone on top of the cake was a tiny stock ticker that showed the prices of six major media companies, including Viacom and CBS. Mr. Redstone sat flanked by his caretaker at the time, Ms. Herzer, and his lover, Sydney Holland, who lived at his estate and has figured into his recent convoluted legal troubles. Mr. Redstone reportedly gave Ms. Holland some $70 million in cash and gifts before kicking her out of his house in the days before he turned on Ms. Herzer. At the party, both women wore evening dresses. The details of the tycoon’s private life probably would not have come to light if Mr. Redstone’s two paramours had not participated in a Vanity Fair profile of him in the June 2015 issue. Ms. Herzer was photographed for the article in a shimmering, gown. Ms. Holland’s glamour shot showed her on a chaise lounge in Pasadena, Calif. Both gushed about the riches their benefactor had bestowed upon them, which did not sit well with Shari Redstone and a former convict named George Pilgrim, who was dating Ms. Holland at the time. Mr. Redstone’s hostile manner of conducting business and his tendency to go it alone may have also contributed to his predicament. In a town where business relationships and genuine friendships are often one and the same, his story has become a cautionary tale. “More than one person has said to me, ‘I don’t want to end up alone, at home and angry,’” said Janice Min, who oversees content for Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s almost a approach. Now, executives drive their kids to school. ” On May 6, an videotaped deposition of Mr. Redstone’s testimony, shot a day earlier, was played in the courtroom so that the judge could make a determination on whether the media tycoon was mentally fit. Despite his speech difficulties, the nonagenarian used foul language to express his contempt for Ms. Herzer. “I hate her,” he said, adding, “I want Manuela out of my life. ” For many who read the transcript, it was classic Sumner. “He was no more likable a person in old age,” Ms. Min said. “He hasn’t softened into a grandfatherly figure. ” Further, she added: “He doesn’t want a quiet goodbye. He is a ruthless negotiator to the end. ” At the Urth Caffé on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood on yet another cloudless morning, the patio was crowded with huddled over bowls of coffee and plates of coconut cake. They were buzzing about their new or the latest Hulu series. For this generation, a macher like Mr. Redstone seems as alien as the original Hollywood bosses who built the world’s most glamorous business on this outpost. “He’s obviously very wealthy and influential,” said Eric Dahan, a chief executive of InstaBrand, a that connects brands with influencers on Instagram. “But I’m not too familiar with the case, and I don’t think a lot of my generation are. ” He called Mr. Redstone an “icon,” but confessed that he and others his age were focused on another businessman lately in the news. “People in my social circle care more about Donald Trump and whether he will become president,” he said. | 1 |
United States intelligence officials have determined that last year’s cyberattacks on the World Agency originated with the Russian government, perpetrated in apparent retaliation for what President Vladimir V. Putin deemed to be an effort to defame Russia for widespread doping. That conclusion was published Friday in a declassified intelligence report ordered by President Obama. The report centered on Russia’s efforts to affect the 2016 American presidential election at Mr. Putin’s direction, while also referring to Russia’s related “influence efforts against targets such as Olympic athletes and other foreign governments. ” “A prominent target since the 2016 Summer Olympics has been the World Agency,” the report said. WADA, the global regulator of drugs in sports, commissioned numerous investigations into systematic Russian doping last year. In July, the agency recommended that Russia be barred from the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro for its doping program, which persisted for years and spanned disciplines. Weeks later, the regulator discovered that its database containing the private medical information of international athletes had been breached. A group identifying itself as Fancy Bear — a Russian cyberespionage group that forensics experts had tied to the Russian government — published the records of athletes who had received special clearance to take typically banned substances for medical reasons. In Friday’s report, American intelligence officials concluded that the Fancy Bear hacking had originated with Russia’s main military intelligence unit, the G. R. U. which had also begun working to influence the American election in March. Many of the records stolen from the doping regulator related to American athletes, including Simone Biles, the gymnast who won numerous medals in Rio, and the tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. The release of the records was an apparent attempt to discredit the athletes and paint the United States as hypocritical, Friday’s report stated. On Friday, Catherine MacLean, a spokeswoman for the antidoping agency, pointed to the organization’s statement in September condemning the criminal activity and noted that the agency had “asked the Russian government to do everything in their power to make it stop. ” Russian news media and sports officials have repeatedly invoked the stolen records in recent months, arguing that they are evidence of legalized doping and what they perceive to be the preferential treatment of Western athletes. Regulators and Olympic officials have repeatedly defended the affected athletes, noting that they followed proper procedure and received formal clearance. “Russia never had the opportunities that were given to other countries,” Vitaly Smirnov, a former top Russian sports official appointed by Mr. Putin to reform the nation’s antidoping system, said last month, referring to the hacked records as evidence. “The general feeling in Russia is that we didn’t have a chance. ” | 1 |
It’s that time of year when the literary world hands out its biggest prizes. Next week’s announcement of the Nobel Prize in Literature will be followed by the awarding of the Man Booker Prize later in October and the National Book Awards in November. Here’s a guide to the finalists for the honors — and the chatter about who might win the Nobel. Nobel Prize in Literature This year’s Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Oct. 13, a week later than usual. The voting process is a closely guarded secret, but that never stops readers from scrambling to figure out who might be next to receive the honor. (Last year’s winner, Svetlana Alexievich, was one of the rare nonfiction writers to take home the medal.) Two familiar names sit atop this year’s odds board, according to the gambling site Ladbrokes: the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and the Syrian poet Adonis. They are followed by Philip Roth, who would be the first American to win the award since Toni Morrison in 1993, though he may not have helped his chances with this comment in a 2014 interview: “I wonder if I had called ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’ ‘The Orgasm Under Rapacious Capitalism,’ if I would thereby have earned the favor of the Swedish Academy. ” Other names on the list include Joyce Carol Oates, the Kenyan novelist Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare and the Spanish novelist Javier Marías. ◆ ◆ ◆ Man Booker Prize The six Booker finalists were drawn from an earlier longlist, and the winner will be announced on Oct. 25. In 2014, the prize, which had previously been limited to writers from Britain, Ireland, the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe, changed its rules to include submissions from any author whose work was published in Britain and was first written in English. This year’s six finalists: “The Sellout” by Paul Beatty Beatty’s bold satire about race in America was one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2015. In the Book Review, Kevin Young wrote about the novel in the context of the history of black satire. He said Beatty takes “delight in tearing down the sacred, not so much airing dirty laundry as soiling it in front of you. ” Dwight Garner wrote that the first third of the book “reads like the most concussive monologues and interviews of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle wrapped in a satirical yet surprisingly delicate literary and historical sensibility. ” “Hot Milk” by Deborah Levy Levy’s novel is about a young woman named Sofia who has traveled to Spain with her mother, Rose, in search of a cure for Rose’s possibly psychosomatic ailments. In The Times, Sarah Lyall called the book “gorgeous,” and wrote: “It’s a pleasure to be inside Sofia’s insightful, questioning mind. ” In the Book Review, Leah Hager Cohen expressed mixed feelings: “As a series of images, the book exerts a seductive, arcane power, rather like a deck of tarot cards, every page seething with lavish, cryptic innuendo. Yet, as a narrative it is wanting. ” “His Bloody Project” by Graeme Macrae Burnet Burnet’s novel about a triple murder in Scotland will be published in the U. S. on Oct. 18. It starts with a confession, so it’s not a whodunit but a whydunit. “My primary interest is in the psychology of the character,” Burnet recently told The Wall Street Journal, “rather than the mystery of what’s happened. ” “Eileen” by Ottessa Moshfegh One of the most widely praised debuts by an American writer this year, Moshfegh’s novel is about a young woman working at a juvenile detention center in New England in the 1960s. On the cover of the Book Review, Lily King praised Moshfegh’s sentences as “playful, shocking, wise, morbid, witty, searingly sharp,” and said that as a character Eileen is “as vivid and human as they come. ” “All That Man Is” by David Szalay Szalay’s novel is composed of nine narratives with different male protagonists. In the Book Review, Garth Greenwell praised the novel, while questioning its label: “The publisher calls ‘All That Man Is’ a novel, but there’s very little explicitly interlinking its separate narratives. The stories cohere instead through their single project: an investigation of European manhood. ” “Do Not Say We Have Nothing” by Madeleine Thien Thien’s latest novel, which will be published in the U. S. on Oct. 11, traces the effects of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, from Mao’s rise to the Tiananmen Square protests. It follows three musician friends through the country’s changes. ◆ ◆ ◆ The National Book Awards The National Book Awards are given in four categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. The longlists of 2016 finalists have been announced. The shortlists will be announced on Oct. 6 (moved up from the earlier announced date of Oct. 13) with the winners to follow on Nov. 16. The National Book Awards longlist for fiction: (Update: The following books were announced as shortlist finalists for this award: “The Throwback Special” by Chris Bachelder, “News of the World” by Paulette Jiles, “The Association of Small Bombs” by Karan Mahajan, “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead and “Another Brooklyn” by Jacqueline Woodson.) “The Throwback Special” by Chris Bachelder Bachelder’s fourth novel follows a group of men as they reunite for the 16th straight year of an odd ritual: one of the most iconic and gruesome plays in football history, when the Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor sacked the Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann in 1985, shattering Theismann’s leg and ending his career. In the Book Review, John Williams wrote that the novel’s “imaginative freshness allows for sly new questions to be implicitly asked about men’s relationship to sports, to violence, to nostalgia and to one another. ” “What Belongs to You” by Garth Greenwell In this debut novel, a gay American poet narrates his experience in Bulgaria, where homosexuality remains a cultural taboo. Dwight Garner called it an “incandescent” book, in which “an old tale is made new, and made punishing. ” In the Book Review, Aaron Hamburger praised it as “a rich, important debut, an instant classic to be savored by all lovers of serious fiction because of, not despite, its subject: a gay man’s endeavor to fathom his own heart. ” “Imagine Me Gone” by Adam Haslett Haslett’s second novel centers on Michael, a man who has inherited his father’s psychological instability. In the Book Review, Bret Anthony Johnston wrote: “By putting the readers in the same position as Michael’s family members, Haslett has pulled off something of a brilliant trick: We feel precisely what they feel — the frustration, the protectiveness, the hope and fear and, yes, the obligation. ” “News of the World” by Paulette Jiles In this historical novel, being published in the U. S. this week, an elderly war veteran in 1870s Texas goes on a long journey with a orphan, hoping to return her to relatives in San Antonio. “The Association of Small Bombs” by Karan Mahajan Mahajan’s second novel examines the effects of a terrorist bombing in Delhi on the families of two young boys who were killed. Fiona Maazel, in the Book Review, started her assessment like this: “Allow me to skip the prelude to judgment that usually begins a book review, and just get right to it: Karan Mahajan’s second novel, ‘The Association of Small Bombs,’ is wonderful. It is smart, devastating, unpredictable and enviably adept in its handling of tragedy and its fallout. If you enjoy novels that happily disrupt traditional narratives — about grief, death, violence, politics — I suggest you go out and buy this one. Post haste. ” “The Portable Veblen” by Elizabeth McKenzie Jennifer Senior called McKenzie’s latest novel “a screwball comedy with a dash of mental illness a conventional tale of family pathos a sendup of Big Pharma a meditation on consumption, marriage, the nature of work. ” It also includes a squirrel that may or may not be communicating with the lead character. In the Book Review, Patricia Park said McKenzie “adroitly skirts the line between the plausible and the absurd. ” “Sweet Lamb of Heaven” by Lydia Millet A woman in Alaska flees her politically ambitious husband, with her daughter in tow, in the prolific Millet’s latest novel. In the Book Review, Laura Lippman wrote: “I have little patience with literary novels that claim to have the propulsive momentum of a thriller, yet Millet pulls it off. ” “Miss Jane” by Brad Watson Watson’s novel is based on the life of a in rural Mississippi in the early 20th century who couldn’t have children and never married. In the Book Review, Amy Grace Loyd wrote: “Watson’s facility with upending expectations and upsetting the lines between all sorts of categories — good and bad, normal and abnormal, pride and shame, love and hate — is at its keenest and applied most carefully. ” “The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead Whitehead’s novel imagines the Underground Railroad as a literal mode of transportation. The book has been selected by Oprah Winfrey’s book club, and has spent eight weeks and counting on The Times’s list. Michiko Kakutani called it “a potent, almost hallucinatory novel that leaves the reader with a devastating understanding of the terrible human costs of slavery. ” In the Book Review, Juan Gabriel Vásquez wrote: “In its exploration of the foundational sins of America, it is a brave and necessary book. ” “Another Brooklyn” by Jacqueline Woodson Woodson is a celebrated writer of children’s books (“Brown Girl Dreaming” and many others) and this is her first novel for adults in 20 years. In it, an anthropologist returns home for the funeral of her father and is spurred to memories of her girlhood. In the Book Review, Tayari Jones called the novel “haunting” and “powerfully insightful. ” ◆ ◆ ◆ The National Book Awards longlist for nonfiction: (Update: The following books were announced as shortlist finalists for this award: “Strangers in Their Own Land” by Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Stamped From the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi, “Nothing Ever Dies” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, “The Other Slavery” by Andrés Reséndez and “Blood in the Water” by Heather Ann Thompson) “America’s War for the Greater Middle East” by Andrew J. Bacevich The military historian Bacevich offers a history and critique of America’s militarized approach to the Middle East. In the Book Review, David Rohde said that Bacevich’s latest book “extends his string of brutal, bracing and essential critiques of the pernicious role of reflexive militarism in American foreign policy. As in past books, Bacevich is profane and fearless. ” “The Firebrand and the First Lady” by Patricia The story of Eleanor Roosevelt’s long friendship with Pauli Murray, a black woman born in 1910 who was a poet, memoirist, lawyer, activist and Episcopal priest. Irin Carmon, in the Book Review, wrote: “ allows these women to speak for themselves, a light touch that works with two heavyweights. ” “Imbeciles” by Adam Cohen Cohen revisits the U. S. Supreme Court’s 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld a statute that enabled the State of Virginia to sterilize “mental defectives. ” On the cover of the Book Review, David Oshinsky called it “a superb history of eugenics in America. ” Jennifer Senior felt the book was repetitive and disorganized, and wished Cohen spent “more time on the American obsession with the feebleminded — which is by far the richest, most fascinating, most horrifying aspect of his book — and less time in the courtroom. ” “Strangers in Their Own Land” by Arlie Russell Hochschild In this unprecedented election year, Hochschild’s book takes a close look at Tea Party supporters in Louisiana. In the Book Review, Jason DeParle called it a “generous but disconcerting” work. “While her hopes of finding common political ground seem overly optimistic, this is a smart, respectful and compelling book. ” “Stamped From the Beginning” by Ibram X. Kendi In his latest, the historian Kendi looks at the long history of racist thought in America, and how it has been used to enforce discrimination. “Nothing Ever Dies” by Viet Thanh Nguyen Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize in April for his novel “The Sympathizer. ” That book was set against the Vietnam War. In this nonfiction work, Nguyen looks closely at the war, and at how it was perceived by the various sides involved. Nguyen discussed his work on the Book Review’s podcast earlier this year. “Weapons of Math Destruction” by Cathy O’Neil O’Neil’s book raises concern about the increasing role algorithms play in regulating people. Clay Shirky wrote: “Her knowledge of the power and risks of mathematical models, coupled with a gift for analogy, makes her one of the most valuable observers of the continuing weaponization of big data. ” “The Other Slavery” by Andrés Reséndez This ambitious history looks at the centuries during which tens of thousands of Native Americans were enslaved, and the profound effect the practice had on Indian populations across North America. “The Slave’s Cause” by Manisha Sinha Sinha, a professor of studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, aims to connect the war against slavery in the United States to other liberation movements. “It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive history of the abolitionist movement,” Ira Berlin wrote in the Book Review. “Blood in the Water” by Heather Ann Thompson Thompson’s account of the notorious Attica prison uprising in 1971 is one of the year’s most discussed works of history. “This is not an easy book to read — the countless episodes of inhumanity on these pages are heartbreaking,” James Forman Jr. wrote in the Book Review. “But it is an essential one. ” Mark Oppenheimer wrote that “not all works of history have something to say so directly to the present,” but Thompson’s book, “which deals with racial conflict, mass incarceration, police brutality and dissembling politicians, reads like it was for the sweltering summer of 2016. ” ◆ ◆ ◆ 5 Under 35 The National Book Foundation, which administers the National Book Awards, has also announced the winners of its annual 5 Under 35 honors, which recognize five especially promising debut fiction writers under the age of 35. This year’s winners are Brit Bennett (“The Mothers”) Yaa Gyasi (“Homegoing”) Greg Jackson (“Prodigals”) S. Li (“Transoceanic Lights”) and Thomas Pierce (“Hall of Small Mammals”). | 1 |
Going as planned .
From Fox News : The Obama administration is trying to calm the panic over soaring ObamaCare premiums by pointing to subsidies many will receive to offset the cost — but analysts and GOP lawmakers counter that those subsidies nevertheless will stick taxpayers with a rising bill.
With enrollment set to begin Nov. 1, the administration announced Monday that premiums are set rise an average of 25 percent across the 39 states served by the federally run online market. Some states, such as Arizona, will see premiums jump by as much as 116 percent.
Department of Health and Human Services officials are stressing that subsidies provided under the law, which are designed to rise alongside premiums, will insulate most customers from sticker shock.
But the rising cost of subsidies, which already totals tens of billions a year, would be passed on to the taxpayer.
“Taxpayers are already in for a lot,” Tom Miller, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told FoxNews.com. “The cost doesn’t go away, it just goes into someone else’s pocket.”
In a March report , the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that subsidies given to enrollees in 2016 would amount to $43 billion in 2016, and predicted the cost would rise to $106 billion by 2026 . It also said that over 10 years, ObamaCare provisions would reduce the deficit thanks to tax provisions and cuts to Medicare. That was before the latest announcement by the administration. It’s unclear how exactly the looming premium hikes will affect that picture, though Republicans are now seeking new estimates.
Analysts say it’s safe to assume taxpayer costs will rise. Miller noted that HHS reported an average subsidy of $291 per month in 2016. A 25 percent increase in premiums would theoretically translate into an extra $73 per month, or about $870 a year per person.
“If you assume conservatively that there’s 10 million people getting subsidies, that’s an extra $8.5 billion in extra costs taxpayers are getting hit by going into next year,” he said.
Other experts warned this is likely to continue as long as premiums keep rising. “Its real simple, premiums are going up and up, and subsidies are going to go up with them,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and a former CBO director, told FoxNews.com.
The Department for Health and Human Services, when asked for comment by FoxNews.com, noted that the law’s coverage provisions are set to cost 28 percent less in 2019 than the CBO originally projected, amounting to about $49 billion less than originally predicted when the law was signed in 2010. A spokesman also said the same office predicted that repealing the law would increase the deficit by approximately $350 billion over 10 years.
Holtz-Eakin urged caution on the administration’s analysis. “It’s been a mixed pattern, because the enrollments haven’t been what they expected so it hasn’t been as big of an impact financially,” he said. “The bad news is that spending per person is much higher than anticipated due to subsidy increases because of premium hikes.”
One of the biggest ObamaCare costs to taxpayers has been absorbed into the Medicaid budget, paid for by both state and federal governments. As a sweetener to get states to go along with the plan, the federal government offered to pick up the cost of expanding Medicaid eligibility up to 133 percent of the poverty line. That siphoned low income — and expensive – customers away from ObamaCare exchanges, seemingly contributing to its current solvency. But that cost – in the hundreds of billions — also is borne by taxpayers.
The CBO projected in 2013 that, in part due to ObamaCare, federal Medicaid spending would more than double over the next 10 years , topping $554 billion by 2023. State governments pay another $160 billion toward Medicaid. “Volume has been greater in Medicaid, and per person costs have been much higher than expected,” Edmund Haislmaier, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told FoxNews.com.
Sensing a spike in taxpayer costs, the Republican-led House Committee on Energy and Commerce has written to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services demanding how much taxpayer money will be spent subsidizing the cost of rising premiums.
“While the Administration continues to focus on premium ‘affordability,’ it ignores the undeniable fact that federal taxpayers are subsidizing these premium increases through tax credits,” the letter from Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., says. “The Committee is concerned that the federal taxpayer continues to bear the burden of subsidizing the growing cost of health care insurance.”
The committee is demanding estimates of the amount of money spent covering rising premiums by Nov. 7.
DCG | 0 |
U. S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has begun a comprehensive reform of former President Barack Obama’s lax policies towards rising crime and is directing federal prosecutors to use every legal tool they have to remove criminals from communities. [“Unfortunately, the most recent crime data available shows a 10. 8 percent in murders in this country, while federal prosecutions for violent crimes have been declining,” Sessions wrote in a memo to all federal prosecutors Wednesday. He continued: It is the policy of the Department of Justice to reduce crime in America, and addressing violent crime must be a special priority. With crime rates rising, this is not an easy task as all professionals know. But, we do have strong evidence that aggressive prosecutions of federal laws can be effective in combatting crime. Our Department’s experience over decades shows these prosecutions can help save lives. Sessions reference to rising murder is drawn from the FBI’s 2015 crime report. The report revealed a 10. 8 percent increase in murders from 2014 to 2015 — the largest increase in a single year since 1971 — and a 3. 9 percent increase in violent crime overall. Major cities were hit with a staggering 21. 6 percent increase in murders, another FBI report found. Under Obama, a sudden reversal of a decline in violent crime took place in 2015 after be pushed his “ ” campaign against state and local police following the August 2014 riots in Ferguson, Missouri. Sessions has now directed the 94 federal U. S. Attorney’s Offices to work with state and local law enforcement to “specifically identify the criminals responsible for significant violent crime in their districts,” and ensure they are prosecuted. Sessions specifically cited drug trafficking as a major contributor to violent crime, urging prosecutors to take down dealers and their enterprises. “[M]any violent crimes are driven by drug trafficking and drug trafficking organizations. For this reason, disrupting and dismantling those drug organizations through prosecutions under the Controlled Substances Act can drive violent crime down,” he said. The memo also indicates Sessions will demand prosecutors seek mandatory minimum sentences, Politico reports. Sessions’ approach is a complete from the Obama administration’s efforts to minimize penalties against drug traffickers. For example, Obama launched an unprecedented effort to slash drug traffickers’ sentences, many of whom are armed convicts: He commuted over 1, 700 federal prisoners’ sentences before leaving office, saying it was “the right thing to do” and “we all make mistakes. ” Using revised sentencing guidelines, the Obama administration also released 30, 000 convicts from federal prison. In 2013, former U. S. Attorney General Eric Holder told prosecutors not to mention the weight of drugs seized from traffickers when officials were filing crime reports. The purpose was to avoid triggering the strong sentences. The soft approach was bad news for communities, but good news for traffickers eager to get back into the business: Recidivism rates for those charged with drug crimes stand at 77 percent, according to a Justice Department study commissioned under Holder. While the media uses the term “drug offenders” to paint a sympathetic picture of dealers, there are almost no cases of simple possession in federal courts, as Sessions explained during a May press conference. Nearly all, of 99. 5 percent those incarcerated in federal prison on charges, were found guilty of trafficking illicit drugs. Drug trafficking is an inherently violent enterprise “inseparable from violent victimization” and the ravages of addiction. Over 47, 000 people died from deaths in 2014 alone. Heroin overdose deaths have more than tripled between 2010 and 2015. Immigration also fueled this surge of : Nearly all of the heroin used in the U. S. is brought across the border by traffickers. “By consistently identifying the leading violent offenders in our communities and employing all available tools to hold them accountable, we will combat violent crime,” Sessions added. The Obama administration’s efforts to slash the prison population is directly linked to the massive death toll, according to one federal prosecutor. Read Sessions’ memo here. Email Katie at kmchugh@breitbart. com. | 1 |
During the Democratic National Convention, the Republican Party shared a popular meme to Twitter: a comic of a dog sitting at a table with a cup of coffee. The room is on fire. This is fine. The meme, derived from a webcomic by the illustrator K. C. Green, is a bit like those “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters, just with an absurdist twist. It is halfway between a shrug and complete denial of reality. “It’s a basic concept that can apply to a lot of differing situations,” Mr. Green wrote in an email on Wednesday. “That’s the whole idea behind memes and the like. ” Many memes, like “Dat Boi” or “Damn, Daniel,” exemplify the sort of nonsense that can briefly take over pop culture before vanishing. But a durable meme, like “Crying Jordan” or “This Is Fine,” allows people to use it as cultural commentary. “This Is Fine,” which is actually part of a larger comic created for Mr. Green’s webcomic series “Gunshow” in 2013, has inspired fan art and a number of derivative works on websites like Tumblr. The illustration reached the political mainstream with the G. O. P. ’s tweet, and what followed was a relatively unusual exchange between the political establishment and an artist. The Republicans had not compensated Mr. Green. (It’s common for musicians to criticize a political candidate’s use of their song, but a cartoonist criticizing the use of a meme derived from his art? That’s new.) “Having this comic and other images from my past works be made into memes before, this was really nothing completely new,” Mr. Green said of his reasoning for creating the elephant image. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t get to like some of the people who do use it, including the G. O. P. ” Slate saw the Republican tweet as a development: “The trouble with such tweets — whether they’re coming from left or right — is that they’re mostly going to make sense to people who will discard them as soon as they spread too far,” Jacob Brogan wrote. But another chapter appears to have given the meme new life: Mr. Green issued an update through The Nib, called This Is Not Fine, in which the dog wakes up from his stupor and panics. “I thought it would be more angry when I was writing,” he said, “but it turned into more just losing your cool in a situation, which reflects better, I think. ” In an email, Matt Bors, an editor of The Nib, said the update was commissioned because “2016 has been such a gross, depressing slog. ” He added: “You acclimate to the crazy, you think ‘this is fine.’ It’s not. We needed that dog to come back. ” In this case, with the staying power comes the merchandise: A Kickstarter campaign launched this week has raised more than $200, 000 to manufacture a plush This Is Fine toy. In the meantime, Mr. Green also continues to work on other projects: He writes and draws “He Is a Good Boy,” a webcomic about an acorn that explores themes of horror, gore and existentialism. This is fine. | 1 |
Carol Adl in Middle East , News , US // 0 Comments
The US- led coalition is preparing an offensive to oust ISIS from its de-facto capital Raqqa in Syria according to the US Defense Secretary.
Ash Carter said the operation will likely start before the battle for Mosul is won and Russia has not been invited to join the effort.
In an interview with NBC, Carter said the assault will start in the next few weeks.
“We have already begun laying the groundwork to commence the isolation in Raqqa,” the Pentagon chief said at a press conference in Paris.
RT reports:
According to Carter, the two officials agreed that the 13-state military coalition that gathered in the French capital would proceed with a sense of “urgency and focus” and confirmed previous statements that there will be a likely “overlap” with the assault on Mosul, which began earlier this month.
Earlier on Tuesday, French President Francois Hollande warned that many of the ISIS fighters in Mosul could simply sneak out among refugees and relocate to Raqqa, unless the coalition cuts them off.
There were up to 6,000 Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters in the Iraqi city before fighting began, while Raqqa, which Carter described as “the nexus of much of [IS] operational planning,” will be defended by an estimated 3-4,000 recruits.
Carter stated that the bulk of the assault contingent would be assembled from “capable and motivated local forces that we identify and then enable.”
“The lasting defeat of [Islamic State] can’t be achieved by outsiders; it can only be achieved by Syrians enabled by us,” said Carter.
With the battle over Mosul – a city of 1.5 million people before it was conquered by Islamic State in 2014 – expected to last weeks or months, the Pentagon is not committing itself to a tight deadline.
“I think everything is trending positively, and that we should be able to commence that effort sometime in the near future. And again, I can’t even ballpark ‘near future’ right now but it’s imminent,” said a senior Pentagon official, speaking to Reuters and other media anonymously in Paris.
Russia has not been invited to join the effort. The US-led coalition has condemned Moscow’s involvement in Syria, which was officially invited by the government of President Bashar Assad.
“Russia is not a participant in our Raqqa plan,” said Carter, who insisted that despite the breakdown of a proposed US and Russia-mediated ceasefire and accusations over Aleppo the two sides have a shared interest in defeating IS.
“We do deconflict our coalition operations with Russia through a very professional military-to-military channel. That channel is active every day, and everyone behaves themselves very professionally on both sides in that channel,” Carter added.
The Kurds, another major faction that has played a key role in combatting Islamist threats in Syria, are expected to stay away from Raqqa, in part because it lies outside the area they view as their unrecognized homeland.
“Truthfully, the Kurds that I’ve dealt with don’t intend – they’re not comfortable going into Raqqa. They know they can play a role in shaping and isolating Raqqa but it’s not their intent to be involved in the actual seizure of the city,” said the Pentagon source cited by Reuters.
The Syrian administration has so far not reacted to the plan, though has previously condemned the international force – which has supported the uprising against President Assad since 2011 – for violating the country’s sovereignty.
The US-led coalition has executed air strikes on Raqqa since 2014, despite having no UN mandate to operate inside Syria. It has not been in position to carry out a full-scale ground assault.
Despite saying he was “encouraged” by the progress of the campaign against ISIS, both Carter and Hollande warned separately that the group may further evolve its tactics and redirect its efforts towards guerilla insurgency or suicide attacks in Europe. | 0 |
The Times of Israel reports: The New York Times’s public editor Liz Spayd on Tuesday criticized the paper’s department for its failure to list the terror crimes that earned Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti five life sentences in prison, saying such skimping on opinion writers’ biographical information is a repeated fault that discredits the paper. [Barghouti wrote a New York Times piece Sunday in defense of the mass hunger strike by Palestinian security prisoners he initiated on Monday. The ’s tag line described Barghouti as a “parliamentarian and leader” but did not mention the terror attacks for which he was convicted. “I see no reason to skimp on this, while failing to do so risks the credibility of the author and the pages,” Spayd wrote in a piece titled “An Author Omits His Crimes, and The Times Does Too. ” Spayd noted that she had spoken personally with Jim Dao, editor of the pages, about the omission of Barghouti’s past. Read more here. | 1 |
In anticipation of the inauguration of Donald Trump to the highest political office in the United States, ABC News has published the private letters President George W. Bush left current President Barack Obama, and the letter President Bill Clinton left the 43rd president. [President Obama delivered his private missive to his successor on Friday morning, for Trump’s eyes only. “There will be trying moments. The critics will rage. Your ‘friends’ will disappoint you,” the second President Bush warned President Obama on his Inauguration Day, advising him to turn to the American people for strength: “No matter what comes, you will be inspired by the character and compassion of the people you now lead. ” President Clinton’s letter to President George W. Bush, in contrast, advised Bush that those who warn that the job is difficult make claims that are “often exaggerated. ” “The sheer joy of doing what you believe is right is inexpressible,” he noted in contrast. “You lead a proud, decent, good people. And from this day you are President of all of us. I salute you and wish you success and much happiness,” Clinton wrote. JUST IN: Bill Clinton’s letter to George W. Bush George W. Bush’s letter to Barack Obama made public for 1st time https: . pic. twitter. — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 19, 2017, President Obama has honored the longtime tradition of presidents leaving their successors a private letter upon vacating the office. His letter to incoming President Trump will remain private indefinitely, though cameras caught the moment President Obama delivered the letter. There’s video of President Obama leaving a letter for Trump #InaugurationDay https: . pic. twitter. — CBS News (@CBSNews) January 20, 2017, | 1 |
Mosquitoes. Flies. Cockroaches. The bugs that thrive in the heat of summer vex Chinese urban dwellers just as they do in most of the world. But in China, some insects are viewed not as pests, but as pets — especially if they sing for their supper. Chirping bugs like katydids, cicadas and crickets are prized throughout the country, collected by children and old men who keep them in clay vessels or bamboo cages and nourish them with grains of rice and slices of green onion. Crickets are even bred for their fighting prowess, and a pedigreed champion can be worth hundreds of dollars. But typical crooners can be bought for a few dollars. “Summer isn’t complete without the sound of a singing katydid in your courtyard,” said Wang Xiaoming, 68, a lifelong Beijing resident who lives in a traditional hutong neighborhood, a warren of narrow alleys that are the last bastion of many Chinese traditions. In contrast to the soft trill of the field cricket, cicadas and katydids produce the kind of deafening hiss that can drown out conversation. The practice of collecting singing insects is said to have begun 2, 000 years ago. They were sought as talismans, and later as companions for imperial concubines, who kept them in gilded cages. The insects are embedded in Chinese culture. Ancient poems praise their melodious songs, and many idiomatic expressions use crickets and grasshoppers as metaphors for fertility, friendship or the passage of time. The keeping of insects faded during the 1950s and ’60s, when Mao Zedong waged war on traditions deemed bourgeois and retrograde. But it has been revived in recent years by aficionados like Mr. Wang, a retired professor of Chinese literature, who is worried about its future. “Young people would rather play with their phones than an insect,” he said. There is, of course, a downside to befriending singing insects: They are among the most ephemeral of pets. Most live for just a few months, and even the most pampered katydid will be silenced by the first autumn frost. | 1 |
Las imágenes libres de derechos más destacadas de la semana LA BAJADA DE TEMPERATURAS Y EL NUEVO CONSEJO DE MINISTROS EN IMÁGENES GRATUITAS
Los españoles se despiden de la playa ante la inminente bajada de temperaturas.
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Beyoncé, gran perdedora de los MTV Awards, con un premio de consolación. 3.
Donald Trump, protegido por sus guardaespaldas por una falsa alarma en un mítin. 4.
Primera imagen promocional de la segunda temporada de Stranger Things, que repite protagonistas. 5.
Íñigo Errejón mantiene el pulso a Pablo Iglesias por el rumbo del partido. 6.
Un exultante Manny Pacquiao celebra su nuevo título de boxeo. 7.
Foto oficial de Íñigo de la Serna, nuevo ministro de Fomento. 8.
Momento en que Fernández Díaz hace entrega de su cartera a su sucesor en Interior, Juan Ignacio Zoido. 9.
María Dolores de Cospedal, Alfonso Dastis y Álvaro Nadal se ponen al día de sus funciones en el nuevo gobierno. 10.
La nueva foto de Cristiano Ronaldo que ha revolucionado las redes. Etiquetas | 0 |
MOUNT GILEAD, Ohio — The challenge Annette Cottrell pondered was how to grade President Trump’s stormy first full week on the job. A trade war bubbling up with Mexico. A divisive border wall. A ban on refugees from countries. Brawls with the news media and national parks. “I’d give him an ” Ms. Cottrell, 38, said from her salon, Mane Attraction, on Main Street here in the seat of a conservative Ohio county of pastures and maple groves where Mr. Trump won 70 percent of the vote. “He’s doing what he said he was going to be doing. ” So, about that week. Mr. Trump drew a torrent of criticism after pressing a series of falsehoods about voter fraud, the size of the crowd at his inauguration and his attacks on the intelligence community. His executive actions reversing years of policy on immigration, abortion and the environment left his critics seething and fearful and liberal opponents preparing a volley of legal challenges to blunt them. But in more than two dozen interviews this week, voters who helped hand Mr. Trump the presidency — and reluctant supporters alike — were cheering from their living rooms, offices and diners across America as they saw the outlines of a new conservative era in government fast taking shape, even if they were still a little uneasy about the man doing the shaping. Yes, they said, Mr. Trump should tone down his tweets and rein in what they gently called his impulse toward “exaggeration. ” “Honestly, he sometimes needs to shut up,” said Joshua Wade, 24, of Ann Arbor, Mich. a state that had not supported a Republican for president since George Bush in 1988. “Just do what we elected you to do. We won. Drop the inauguration stuff. It’s fine. ” Gun rights top Mr. Wade’s wish list for the new administration. He wants Supreme Court nominees friendly to gun owners and laws that extend rights across state lines. He said he had been encouraged that Mr. Trump took swift action on some campaign promises during his early days in office. “There’s no doubt: He’s good at showmanship,” said Mr. Wade, a registered Republican. “But I think this first week is proving he’s capable of following through on that with real action. ” But what appeals to supporters may be turning off independents. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday gave Mr. Trump only a 36 percent job approval rating and found that majorities of people surveyed said he was neither honest nor levelheaded. Still, Trump voters interviewed said they cared little if the president spouted off on Twitter because he was issuing the kind of executive actions many had long craved — freezing federal grant money for environmental research, banning foreign aid for groups that give abortion counseling and cutting off immigration from several nations. “Trump’s done more in five days than Obama did in eight years,” said Doug Cooperrider, 58, who works in construction repairing bridges and roads around central Ohio. The bar at Boondocks, where Mr. Cooperrider dug into a B. L. T. sandwich on a sleety morning, sits about 1, 900 miles from the Arizona deserts where sections of the border wall may rise. The Hispanic population is tiny in this overwhelmingly white county of 35, 000, and it has grown only 0. 3 percent in the past five years. Still, people here said they felt as if immigration had undercut wages for construction workers in the area. One man said he was uneasy about the longstanding Somali community in Columbus, about an hour’s drive south. Several embraced Mr. Trump’s directives that limited new refugees, ordered up the border wall and cut off federal grant money to cities labeled sanctuaries for immigrants. “I’m 100 percent behind the wall,” said Ms. Cottrell, the salon owner. “If he asked me to lay the first brick, I’d sign up. I’m tired of them being here illegally and cutthroating the rest of us. ” She and her husband, Andrew, a Navy veteran, said their views of government had been colored by years spent struggling to get a disability claim approved for him by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They were early and enthusiastic Trump supporters, and when they went on road trips this year, they gauged their candidate’s support by counting up his yard signs and Hillary Clinton’s. Mr. Cottrell, 34, said he supported aid to feed and shelter refugees — but he blanched at welcoming them here. “It should be about America first,” Mr. Cottrell said. “We see way too many vets waiting in line, homeless, while we’re helping refugees and immigrants. ” Mr. Cottrell said he had wanted Mr. Trump to gut the staff of the V. A. and was disappointed when he instead kept on an Obama administration official to oversee the agency. But he said that did not affect his support for Mr. Trump. “I have never seen someone make promises and immediately start keeping them,” he said. Most of those promises are a long way from fulfilled. The Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land. Efforts to build the Keystone XL pipeline or finish the Dakota Access pipeline could become mired in years of litigation. There is no agreement on how to pay for a $20 billion Mexican border wall. But moves like banning funding for overseas health providers who discuss abortion have a more rapid effect. Laura Alexandria, the director of operations for Grand Rapids Right to Life in Michigan, said she hoped to see the federal government soon remove financing for Planned Parenthood in the United States. “We have a president back in the White House, and that is very encouraging,” she said. Ms. Alexandria said she had been in Washington for the inauguration, and she was back there this week for Friday’s March for Life by abortion opponents. She said her organization had organized 12 buses to take people from Michigan to the march. If President Obama was a “Rorschach test” for voters in 2008, Mr. Trump’s actions calling for curbing regulations and repealing Obamacare were sketches. He roughed them out, and his supporters filled in the details. Robert Kersey, 82, the president of an foundry in Muncie, Ind. said he hoped Mr. Trump would pull back a recent announcement from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration addressing silica dust, which can lead to debilitating and fatal lung diseases. Mr. Kersey said he sees the rule as a burden and does not believe it will make his employees safer. Inside a gift shop in Mount Gilead’s downtown, Amanda Abdon, 28, said she was eager for a repeal of the health care tax penalty her boyfriend had to pay this year. Eddie Lou Meimer, 70, walking through her family farm south of town, said she wanted the federal government to ease the kind of regulations that she said had forced her to build a $40, 000 canning room for her business. “He’s a person,” Ms. Meimer said of the president. “I wish somebody would grab his phone. But it seems to take the press’s mind off what he’s really doing. ” | 1 |
Posted 10/31/2016 12:28 pm by PatriotRising with 0 comments
Halloween seems as good a time as any to remind ourselves that the United States is in the midst of perhaps the most truly horrifying presidential election in modern history. Sure, we’ve seen buffoons, members of political crime families and unhinged warmongers run for president before — but seldom in American politics has a political candidate been as unpredictable as Donald Trump or checked as many unsavory boxes as Hillary Clinton.
In case you’re hoping to read an endorsement of Republican Donald Trump within the body of this piece, allow me to chill your anticipation: There won’t be one.
While Trump has certainly led a successful life and smartly built a business empire by gaming a system which is stacked against the vast majority of Americans, there’s little reason to believe that he’s any more trustworthy than your average backcountry used car salesman.
Trump’s worldview is shaded by a personal belief that everything he says and thinks absolutely is correct, believe me. That’s what makes him such a maverick salesman. In any sales 101 course, students learn that customers respond best to sales tactics dripping in assertions of authority on the subject of the product being sold. They don’t necessarily have to be true—but any fast talker worth his commission knows all the best words to make anything appear honest, if only long enough to get that signature on the dotted line.
Trump is a gamble.
And with that, maybe there is room for a slighted endorsement of a Trump presidency. At least he’s peddling a product to the American voting public. He’s going to “Make America Great Again,” whatever that means.
We haven’t actually gotten a good look at the nuts and bolts of the Trump sales equation, so it is at best an as-is sale.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, can be precisely defined as “the devil we know.”
Not only has she spent three decades in various states of public office, but by mishandling sensitive information she’s also carelessly made available the finer points of her plans for the American future.
Unfortunately, the terrifying reality of Clinton’s vision are of little consequence to her campaign. The Clinton family developed a winning formula for media manipulation way back when they occupied the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion, so she has no need to finesse supporters into believing in her product.
If you know anyone supporting Clinton simply because they are put off by Trump’s lack of a political record, here are a few things you ought to let them know.
Clinton’s email scandal is only just beginning. As president, the controversy would likely continue to distract her from the work of running America.
She is a deranged sociopathic war criminal who should be indicted for conspiracy and murder.
A Clinton White House would heighten tensions between the U.S. and Russia by doubling down on Clinton’s failed State Department policies.
Clinton refuses to take responsibility for any of her actions .
Given Clinton’s trouble from transparency groups, her election would likely bring about a major crackdown on whistleblowers.
Clinton is also, as one journalist put it, beholden to scumbags who she will work for from the Oval Office.
The bottom line here is that Americans hoping for a transformative outcome in the 2016 presidential election are likely to be very disappointed. Aside from saying “not Clinton,” it’s pretty impossible to say anyone really deserves a thinking American’s vote in this cycle. The third-parties, as usual, are hell’s snowballs thanks to the political establishment’s efforts; and neither mainstream candidate is likely to reverse the nation’s leading causes of decline: cronyism, military adventurism, ballooning government and a continued disregard for the constitutional principles on which it was founded. | 0 |
VIDEO : Black Professor, “Black Voters Are Breaking For Trump” VIDEO : Black Professor, “Black Voters Are Breaking For Trump” Videos By Amy Moreno November 4, 2016
Obama and Hillary avoid talking about black poverty rates, unemployment, and crime in black communities because the statistics are a NIGHTMARE.
Global politics have destroyed blacks.
Instead, they talk about “racism” as if black people are so unsophisticated that they can’t see truth or facts for themselves.
This professor says that black voters see the truth and are much smarter than Democrats give them credit – and they’re breaking for Trump this election.
Watch the video: This is a movement – we are the political OUTSIDERS fighting against the FAILED GLOBAL ESTABLISHMENT! Join the resistance and help us fight to put America First! Amy Moreno is a Published Author , Pug Lover & Game of Thrones Nerd. You can follow her on Twitter here and Facebook here . Support the Trump Movement and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter. | 0 |
Monday, 31 October 2016 Wrong
After being accused of trying to make America Great Again by grabbing another pussy, the man who is trying to break the Guinness Book of world records for the most lies told during a presidential campaign, Donald Trump is crying "Wrong" again!
Just when you thought Donald Trump had more lawsuits than total number of sniffles ever recorded during a live speech, more women have come forward to prove he's pointing the wrong finger by showing him their middle ones.
Sexual Assault accusations are pouring in like Viagra Falls between Trumps legs. Donald Trump has been responding by abusing the word "Sue" because it's a womans' name, while his wife Melania Trump continues defending poor little Donald like the mother in denial making excuses for her baby boy who keeps crying "Wrong" while getting in trouble.
Voters fear Donald Trump is so full of malarkey, it's making him turn more orange. Donald Trump just received the 2016 Pinocchio award while donors ran to GOP customer service asking for a refund on the broken product they purchased. The few GOP members that have Donald's back, continue to look for their balls they lost on Trumps golf course. Donald Trump's response to every accusation is "wrong"! | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a sweeping review of federal agreements with dozens of law enforcement agencies, an examination that reflects President Trump’s emphasis on law and order and could lead to a retreat on consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide. In a memorandum dated March 31 and made public Monday, the attorney general directed his staff to look at whether law enforcement programs adhere to principles put forth by the Trump administration, including one declaring that “the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn” the work police officers perform “in keeping American communities safe. ” As part of its shift in emphasis, the Justice Department went to court on Monday to seek a delay in a consent decree to overhaul Baltimore’s embattled Police Department. That request came just days before a hearing, scheduled for Thursday in the United States District Court in Baltimore, to solicit public comment on the agreement, which was reached in principle by the city and the Justice Department in the waning days of the Obama administration. Mayor Catherine E. Pugh said late Monday that the city would “strongly oppose any delay in moving forward. ” Supporters of police reform called on Judge James K. Bredar, who is overseeing the negotiations between Baltimore and the Justice Department, to deny the request, arguing that Mr. Sessions was interfering with the will of the city. “This has all been negotiated by the affected parties,” said Ray Kelly, the president of the No Boundaries Coalition, a citizen advocacy group. Referring to Mr. Sessions, he said, “Now we have an outside entity telling us what’s best for our citizens and our community when he has no experience, no knowledge. ” Baltimore is one of nearly two dozen cities — including Ferguson, Mo. Cleveland and Seattle — that were the subject of aggressive efforts by the Obama administration to improve relations between the police and the communities they serve. That effort produced consent decrees with 14 departments. The broad review announced Monday could threaten some of those decrees if the Justice Department seeks to change its past stance about systematic police abuses in the affected agencies. But the Justice Department would not be able to unilaterally unwind the agreements without court intervention. Vanita Gupta, who ran the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama and negotiated the Baltimore consent decree, said it was unclear whether Mr. Sessions could withdraw from that agreement, which has not yet been officially approved by a judge. Noting that Kevin Davis, the Baltimore police commissioner, had expressed strong support for the plan, Ms. Gupta questioned “whether the attorney general is really in sync with law enforcement. ” She added that Monday’s announcement “signals an alarming retreat away from ensuring that police departments engage in constitutional policing. ” Beyond Baltimore, the most closely watched decision will come in Chicago, where the Obama administration, in its final days, issued a report that found failures in the Police Department after a series of police shootings of minorities. Negotiations have begun for a possible monitoring agreement, but Mr. Sessions has indicated he thinks the report was shoddy, casting doubt on the prospect of a deal. In a joint statement on Monday night, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Superintendent Eddie Johnson of the Chicago police said Mr. Sessions’s announcement would not alter their own plans, outlined several weeks ago, for police reform in Chicago. “We can only speak for our intentions, we can’t speak for the federal government’s,” they said. In Baltimore, a city with a history of tensions between and the police, the consent decree grew out of a federal review that followed the unrest in 2015 over the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, in police custody. The review culminated in August, when the Justice Department issued a blistering report that found that the Baltimore police had engaged in a “pattern and practice” of discrimination that systematically violated the civil rights of black residents. In January, days before Mr. Obama left office, Mayor Pugh and the Justice Department signed a broad blueprint for an overhaul. In its court filings on Monday, the Justice Department noted that the Trump administration had “announced several new initiatives and policies that prioritize combating and preventing violent crime” in response to spikes in violence in cities across the country, including Baltimore. Mr. Sessions has expressed deep skepticism about the value of consent decrees like the one planned for Baltimore, saying they vilify the police, and he has indicated that he wants to scale them back. In a speech in February, his first as attorney general, he said that the federal government’s role should be to “help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness. ” Mr. Sessions said the agreements were demoralizing to the police and could be generating a rise in violence and murders in some large cities, a contention that has been challenged by many criminologists. Kristen Clarke, who leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which has fought for greater federal oversight of troubled police departments, said the request for a delay in the Baltimore case was deeply troubling. “Attorney General Jeff Sessions is undermining and obstructing extensive efforts that have been made to promote policing reform in a small set of the most broken police departments in our country,” she said. | 1 |
Previous Texas Elector Expects Massive Corruption Related to the Electoral College Vote
I recently interviewed Ken Clark, a Texas elector for the Republican Party in the Electoral College. Ken detailed the intense pressure he received from the Gore people to change his vote to Gore in the Gore v. Bush election.
Mr. Clark expects the Democrats to pull out all the stops in the upcoming election and he expects to see corruption on a massive scale.
Here is the interview. | 0 |
Report Copyright Violation Neocon Trotskyite Hannity Wants America Back On Track Hannity wants everyone to vote for Trump to get the country back on track. This is the guy who cheered on our country to wars for a bold faced lie.Folks this guy Hannity should be swinging from the gallows or better yet take him out to see and make him walk the plank. Otherwise I'll do it myself! Anonymous Coward ( OP ) | 0 |
No Search Warrant Yet: FBI Can’t Move On Email ‘Investigation’ By Michelle Oxman on October 30, 2016 Subscribe
You bet James Comey jumped the gun when he wrote to Congress that the FBI was looking at more Clinton emails. Apparently, he had decided that emails on Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s home laptop computer should be examined further. But that didn’t mean that the FBI had the legal authority to look at them yet. Actually, it didn’t—and still doesn’t—have that authority. What Did The FBI Find?
Let’s remember, first, that the FBI was investigating Weiner’s use of the internet to send sexts and photos to a 15-year-old girl. They searched a laptop that they say was used by both Weiner and Abedin, and they found emails from the State Department, forwarded by Huma Abedin from work to home. There is no indication that Hillary Clinton sent any emails to or received emails from Abedin on this computer. When Will We Know What’s In The Emails?
No one knows. The FBI needs a warrant to view the emails. The warrant for Weiner’s emails and texts doesn’t apply to emails that Weiner neither sent or received. As of Sunday afternoon, October 30, the FBI has not gotten a warrant to search the emails. Pending requests for search warrants are not usually made public, so we wouldn’t know if the FBI has even asked for a warrant. Is Search Warrant Available? An Open Legal Question
As the Washington Post reported on October 30, 2016, there are good reasons to think that the FBI would be denied a warrant to search the couple’s computer for emails related to Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State when the purpose of the FBI’s access was to review Weiner’s recent emails and sext messages. By what logic would the FBI be justified opening emails to and from Huma Abedin’s accounts from 2009 to 2013? Unfortunately, some people, especially conservatives, resist arguments based on the “technicality” of the Fourth Amendment. Comey’s ‘Explanation’
According to Yahoo News , as of Saturday night, the Department of Justice and FBI officials were discussing what to do next. Because the FBI did not have a warrant to read Abedin’s emails, on Thursday, October 28, Comey accepted the investigators’ recommendation that the Bureau “seek access” to them. On Friday, he sent a memo to FBI employees explaining that he felt he had to update Congress because of his previous testimony that the Clinton email investigation was finished. On the other hand, he didn’t know yet what significance the emails would have. and he didn’t want to create a “misleading impression.” Violating Policy
There seems to be no doubt that Comey’s letter to Congress violated two long-standing tradition and policies: (1) prohibiting discussion of ongoing investigations; and (2) not taking actions to favor one side or another in elections. Two former Deputy Attorneys General, one Democrat and one Republican, publicly questioned Comey’s fitness to lead the FBI because of it. In addition, others have pointed out that Comey has repeatedly gone beyond established limits in his discussions of the Clinton email investigation.
Featured image from Liberal America media archives. About Michelle Oxman
Michelle Oxman is a writer, blogger, wedding officiant, and recovering attorney. She lives just north of Chicago with her husband, son, and two cats. She is interested in human rights, election irregularities, access to health care, race relations, corporate power, and family life.Her personal blog appears at www.thechangeuwish2c.com. She knits for sanity maintenance. Connect | 0 |
Videos #NoDAPL Spills Over: Musicians Boycott Dakota Access Pipeline CEO’s Record Label & Festival ‘I do not play for oil interests. I do not play for companies who defile nature, or companies who attack demonstrators with trained attack dogs and pepper spray,’ declared singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. Be Sociable, Share! A water protector stares down police off highway 134, October 27. (Photo: Derrick Broze)
AUSTIN, Texas — When it comes to the Dakota Access pipeline, musicians want to stop the music.
Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation building the controversial $3.8 billion pipeline, also owns Music Road Records, a small record label which presents the annual Cherokee Creek Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
The Indigo Girls announced in September that they would not be playing at the next festival, slated for May 2017.
Reaffirming their support for “ Standing Rock, the Standing Rock Sioux, their friends and allies in protecting their sacred land and water by stopping the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and all pipelines that carry dirty oil and threaten massive ecosystems, ” the folk rock duo also encouraged other musicians to cancel their plans to perform at the festival.
Emily Saliers, one half of the Indigo Girls, recently explained that she hadn’t realized Warren was responsible for both the pipeline and the music festival until a fan alerted her to the connection via Facebook.
“Once we found out, we immediately started talking about what can we do to rectify the situation and our presence in something that is completely the antithesis of what we stand for as artists and as allies for Native communities,” Saliers told Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman on Thursday.
In addition to playing at the festival twice, Saliers and her musical partner, Amy Ray, also contributed a song to a tribute album published by Music Road to honor the legacy of singer-songwriter Jackson Browne. Saliers and Ray said they reached out to Browne and the other musicians on the album, then contacted Warren to inform him of the growing boycott. VIDEO: Emily Saliers of the @Indigo_Girls reads letter to #DAPL CEO Kelcy Warren, urging him to halt construction on Dakota Access pipeline pic.twitter.com/gD98Uu7rdY
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) November 4, 2016
Ray read from the letter to Warren on Democracy Now!: “Sadly, we realized that the bucolic setting of your festival and the image it projects is in direct conflict with the proposed Dakota Access pipeline, a project your company, Energy Transfer Partners, is responsible for spearheading. This pipeline violates the Standing Rock Sioux nation’s treaty rights, endangers the vital Missouri River, and continues the trajectory of genocide against Native peoples.”
In a statement published by Indian Country Today Media Network , Browne vowed to donate all the profits from the Music Road tribute album to the Standing Rock “ water protectors .” Like Saliers and Ray, Browne said he’d been unaware of Warren’s involvement in the pipeline when he met him and agreed to have Music Road produce the album. He continued: “I do not play for oil interests. I do not play for companies who defile nature, or companies who attack demonstrators with trained attack dogs and pepper spray. The list of companies I have denied the use of my music is long. I certainly would not have allowed my songs to be recorded by a record company whose owner’s other business does what Energy Transfer Partners is allegedly doing — threatening the water supply and the sacred sites of indigenous people.”
Amy Goodman noted in a Nov. 3 editorial co-written with Denis Moynihan that, “Kelcy Warren is a Texas oil billionaire several times over, and might not be easily deterred by a threatened boycott.”
The notion that Warren may not be moved by a boycott isn’t stopping music fans from taking up the cause. A group of activists and fans from Denton, Texas, are asking musician Hal Ketchum to end his association with Music Road, and they’re planning to protest his concert there on Wednesday night.
In addition to dabbling in the music industry, Warren and Energy Transfer Partners also spend millions influencing U.S. elections . Energy Transfer Partners PAC spent over $869,000 in the 2014 and 2016 federal election cycles, according to OpenSecrets , a project of the Center for Responsive Politics.
Andrew Wheat, research director at Texans for Public Justice , an Austin-based nonprofit that tracks the influence of money and corporate power, told MintPress News that Warren, himself, has spent far more influencing elections on the state level. He was awarded a position on the board of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, likely due to his largesse. | 0 |
A View of the Syrian War From the Golan Heights One Syrian lieutenant described to me how he directed his artillery fire onto an Israeli jeep in the Jabhat al-Nusra occupied town of Al-Hamidiya inside Syria and destroyed it. The jeep might have been a gift or borrowed from Israel
By Robert Fisk
November 10, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Independent " - From Colonel Salehs forward position on his front line north of Quneitra, he has a unique and exclusive view of the Syrian war. To his west and south is a vast area of his country which is occupied by Jabhat al-Nusra Islamist fighters their earthen ramparts and supply roads are scarcely half a mile away. Then, another couple of miles away, Israeli soldiers are inside their concrete positions on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, above the old and Nusra-held Syrian city of Quneitra.
You see that mosque over there, just to the right of the water tower? the colonel asks. Well, Nusra is there. And you see the triangular hill beyond? The Israelis are there. Its what you call a politically intriguing battlefield yes, shells do come whizzing in towards the Syrians from Nusra and also from the Israelis. The Syrians concentrate their fire on Nusra but Nusras casualties are often taken through the Israeli lines for hospital treatment in Haifa.
So whose side is Israel on? Baath City is a concrete conurbation created back in pre-civil war days to defy the vandalisation of the old Quenitra. It was occupied by the Israeli army during the 1973 Middle East war and then before they abandoned it under the Kissinger agreement totally destroyed with explosives by Israeli troops. Nusra now occupy these 43-year old ruins. As for Baath City, its university, banks, fire station, schools, police force and hospitals are defiantly maintained by the Syrians under the eyes of their two enemies: the Nusra Islamists and the Israelis.
According to the Syrian army in Baath City their forward lines and tanks are positioned in unfinished apartment blocks on the edge of the town their intelligence departments Hebrew speakers constantly monitor conversations between the Israelis and between Israeli and Nusra fighters. They know and the Israelis have made no secret of the fact that wounded Nusrah fighters are taken to Haifa for hospital treatment. On one occasion, a Nusrah man travelling in an Israeli ambulance on the Golan was dragged from the vehicle and lynched by a crowd of enraged Druze men who are largely loyal to the Syrian government and regard Nusrah as their mortal enemies. Reports of the mans murder highlighted the highly ambiguous relationship between Israel and the Islamists, whose name-changing cannot conceal their al-Qaeda roots.
Druze towns inside Syria and close to Baath City have taken the side of the regime this does not apply to other Druze areas but it makes the geography of the front line here all the more surreal. One Syrian lieutenant described to me how he directed his artillery fire onto an Israeli jeep in the Nusra-occupied town of Al-Hamidiya inside Syria and destroyed it. The jeep might have been a gift or borrowed from Israel whether there were any Israeli personnel inside it if it was hit is another matter. The Syrians, however, also say that Israeli bulldozers were used to build a new supply route for Nusrah between Quneitra and Golan again, inside Syrias frontiers.
All of which raises a compelling question. The Nusra-controlled territory between the Syrians and the Israeli lines on Golan and other Islamist groups and a few remnants of the old Free Syrian Army allied to them in this location stretches all the way south to the edge of the Syrian city of Deraa and right down to the Jordanian frontier. And beyond that frontier is the so-called Military Operations Centre the MOC of which both the Islamists and the Syrian army refer where Western intelligence officers maintain a liaison and weapons supply depot for the anti-government Syrian forces.
So what is the relationship between the MOC and its Western backers who maintain contact with Nusra and the Israelis who treat Nusras wounded in their hospitals? The Jordanian border and the Israeli lines on Golan are at their most only about 70 miles apart and opposition fighters hold all the land in between.
Littered around the front lines outside Baath City are the wreckage of past battles and the abandoned UN posts from which Filipino UN soldiers were kidnapped en masse more than a year ago; the Syrian army now occupies several of these positions, the UN logo still painted on the walls although several of the igloo-type UN accommodation huts have migrated to Syrian compounds in the rear lines. The UN force on Golan now operates only inside Israeli-occupied territory.
Only a few hundred yards away from Nusra-held territory, we found Abu Hashem, a farmer who fled from his village, now held by the Islamists, living today in family property close to one of the old UN posts. He fed us tea and coffee and walnuts from his orchard. His wife and six children now exist in this unfinished, cold house along with a small library of books the speeches of Imam Ali (the Najul Blagha) and a collection of medical books of Aleppo herbal cures for headaches and kidney infection, published in Beirut. He says the people in his Nusra-occupied village are divided. Some are sympathetic towards the Islamists they are not fighters while others are sometimes permitted by Nusrah to cross the front lines for treatment in Syrian government hospitals. They are Bedouins and farmers, the unsettled and the landowners, always prey to the wolves of civil war insurgents.
Colonel Saleh, who is 50 years old, has been guarding his echoing and weed-strewn apartment blocks on the edge of Baath City for three years, noting wearily that the Israelis attack his army but never attack Nusra who being al-Qaeda might logically have earned Israels enmity. But no. I know every stone here, the colonel says. I can see if a rock or a vehicle has moved across the fields in front of us and I can immediately see if one vehicle has become two vehicles. We know when they are going to attack they always precede their offensives with a big artillery and mortar barrage.
Sometimes the voices of Nusra men shout insults at the Syrians on their own radio sets, calling them kafirs infidels or unbelievers. If I am in a good mood, I invite them for coffee, Colonel Saleh says. If Im in a bad mood, I am silent. Their accents are very similar to the Jordanians. They come from the south of Deraa, along the Jordanian border.
As we spoke, further down the line, the Syrians and Nusra were fighting with tanks, artillery and mortars. The Syrians claimed that their enemies arrived in several directions in a convoy of at least 13 vehicles. They spoke, too, of a Nusra female officer called Souad al-Qatahani (nicknamed Al-Nood), the 30-year-old sister of a Nusrah general called Qais al-Omani who commanded 1,200 fighters. She was, they pointed out rather remarkably, a former first lieutenant in their own Syrian government army.
And one further feature that the Syrians have noted about their enemies outside Baath City. Whenever Nusra fire a missile, they have to take a photograph of the rocket leaving its launcher presumably to prove to their suppliers that they have not sold the weapon to someone else. Trust, as usual in the Syrian war, is in short supply. | 0 |
11 27
Top three nations with elite Scrabble players on the WESPA ratings list. Nigeria is on top, despite constant travel visa rejections to play in world tournaments.
Besides Nigeria, countries like Kenya, Ghana and Uganda also contribute players to the world top 100.
An even more astonishing picture of African performance unfolds when we look beyond the English-speaking African countries.
Scrabble in French?
In 2015, Nigel Richards, an English-speaking professional Scrabble player from New Zealand, confirmed his reputation as perhaps the greatest Scrabble player in history by winning the French World Scrabble Championship, after memorizing the French dictionary in nine weeks. His goal in 2015 was apparently to hold both the English and French world championships simultaneously. He was robbed of his full glory by the Nigerian Wellington Jighere in the English version, but managed to pull off a more phenomenal victory in the language he does not speak!
Nigel Richards is said to have an authentic photographic memory .
What caught my eye in all the frenzied media reports was the name of the person Richards defeated in the finals (I was fully expecting a French name): Schelick Rekawe. An African (from Gabon) had reached the finals of the French world championships? How?
When I looked into the history of the French Scrabble World Championships, I was stunned to find that Francophone African countries have been even more dominant in French Scrabble, and over a longer period, than Nigerians have become in English Scrabble, despite a very active expert Scrabble club culture in France and other native French-speaking countries.
The full list of the top players in the 2015 French Scrabble championship that Richards won gives a clear picture of this African dominance: 2015 French World Championships final standings. Source: French Wikipedia
A look at Gabon’s demographics makes the Scrabble achievement of Gabon impossible to explain under the present racial hypothesis.
Gabon has a population of 1.7 million and a reported national IQ of 64.
If the world champion needs an IQ of just 140 (it should probably be higher than that, given the level of gender disparity at the very top), then there is statistically no one in Gabon who should ever come anywhere close to the world championship. Three made it to the top 10 in 2015.
Note that the strongest version of the genetic hypothesis is contradicted even before you do the math: the very existence of such high interest in a mathematical game can not be predicted from a genetic theory that claims heritability of (cognitive or other) human interests, if it is indeed true that Africans have the lowest genetic endowment in mathematical (or even verbal) ability.
Is French Scrabble perhaps less mathematical than English Scrabble? Not at all. The very fact that someone could successfully cross from English Scrabble to French Scrabble (Nigel Richards) should indicate that it requires similar cognitive skills. But I still looked at some profiles of the top French Scrabble players in Europe just to make sure, and found clear signs to confirm this. For example, the French Wikipedia entry on France’s best player (the last French player to keep the French World Championship from Africans, and the only one to have won it twice) says:
Christian Coustillas, professeur agrégé et génie des mathématiques, est un joueur français de Scrabble.
I do not know any French, but I can bet that there is the word ‘mathematics’ somewhere in there and perhaps even an academic career in it!
In 2016, Nigel Richards returned to defend his World Championship title and this time the Africans vowed to keep the crown from him. Like the year before Richards stole the French championship, the two finalists in 2016 were both Africans again; Richards was fourth, behind three Africans. The French math professor and former world champion, Christian Coustillas, could not make it to the top ten as more Africans dominated the chart: 2016 French World Championships final standings. 8 /10 positions are African. Source: French Wikipedia
Notice that the names of the 2016 top Gabonese players are different from the ones in 2015, which defies the probability projections from their population and national IQ even further. Senegal (population 13 million, IQ 76), which has probably had the most success at the world championships historically, achieved this with a literacy rate of only 40%!
Something Special about Scrabble for Africans Perhaps?
The man who won the French World Scrabble championship in 2014, Julien Affaton from Benin, also happens to be a top master draughts (checkers) player in his country. This should immediately suggest that whatever he is using to win his Scrabble games probably has something in common with what is needed to be a master in checkers, because it is highly improbable to be that exceptional in two different areas that require unrelated skills.
The question can then be asked: if this is true, then why aren’t Africans also very good in checkers at the world level, just as they are with Scrabble? Isn’t checkers an even more natural field for Africans since it is cheaper to make a checkers set?
Meet Baba Sy.
Baba Sy breaking world record for simultaneous draughts play.
Back in 1960, a draughts expert from France was visiting the French colony of Senegal when he decided to watch some of the street games in poor communities after the French settlers had introduced the game to the black natives. He could not believe the accuracy and speed of their calculations, despite their lack of exposure to theory, and he decided to expose one of the stronger players to his homeland of France where there was a strong checkers club culture among the mathematically-inclined elites. To the utter shock of everyone in France, the young Senegalese player, Baba Sy, defeated every single expert in France and instantly achieved national fame by becoming the national champion of France!
France had once been the most dominant nation in the world of international draughts, before the Netherlands (briefly) and then the Soviet Union (permanently) took this honor from them through the latter’s state-sponsored program of monetarily professionalizing chess and checkers careers. With the phenomenal rise of Baba Sy, the French thought they had the chance of recapturing the World Championship from the Soviets by using this brilliant talent from one of their colonies.
Baba Sy participated in the 1960 World Championship tournament and shocked the Soviets by coming second in the world, in a variant of draughts he had just been introduced to that was different from his Senegalese one. Sy was not convinced that there was a human who was better than him at any form of checkers, so he decided to challenge the world champion in a more decisive one-on-one World Championship match instead of an open tournament of cumulative points against different players. But by the time this match was supposed to happen, Baba Sy had gained enough mastery of this standard variant to convincingly demolish the best of the Soviets, including their reigning champion and best match play genius at the time, Iser Kuperman. This made the Soviet government reluctant to allow the official World Championship match to take place, apparently for fear of the international embarrassment this title loss would cause, given their heavy investment in the game (they had the same fears over Bobby Fischer in chess). On the day of the match, the Soviet champion simply did not show up, and thus began a long contentious diplomatic standoff between the governments of the Soviet Union and Senegal, as the world of international draughts hotly debated who the rightful champion of the world was for many years. It was only fully resolved posthumously for Baba Sy. List of Draughts World Champions. Source: Wikipedia
Again, a person like Sy should not exist outside the realm of science fiction if the racial hypothesis is correct. In 1960, Senegal’s population was 3 million, and IQ 76. The population of France was 47 million, and the population of Russia was 120 million, with national IQs of 98 and 97, respectively.
It should be impossible for a Senegalese champion to beat just the high school champions of either France or the Soviet Union. The reason we have never seen a child become world champion in checkers or Scrabble (or anything) is probably because their brains are not fully developed (brain development continues to 25 years of age); and yet the racial hypothesis tells us that the fully developed African brains are on average the mental age equivalent of the white 12 year olds. So why do (the smartest of) Africans produce world champion level players and the smartest of the white 12 year olds (or even the much more “superior” 18/19 year olds) never do?
Baba Sy was not some freakish anomaly in African draughts. Former African colonies of France have continued to offer the biggest challenge to Russia’s traditional dominance of the game, even though, like Scrabble players, most of them still have little access to international tournaments to raise their ratings (the fact that many of them come from lower income communities even by African standards makes it harder for them to obtain travel visas.) In 2015, Jean Marc Ndjofang , a Cameroonian player who has migrated to Europe, managed to qualify as the challenger to the Russian world champion (by defeating everyone else, including other Russians), and only came short of ending the iron grip of the Russians on the world title through a tie-break, as the two failed to beat each other after seven games of normal classical match play. The 2015 World Champion, Alexander Georgiev, in a heated tournament game against the Vice-World Champion, Jean Ndjofang.
American Checkers.
Americans play a different variant of draughts called English checkers or American checkers; the different variants mainly differ on the number of squares on the board. Although the game is mostly popular with children in the US, there is a whole world of professional checkers players who also have a clear endowment in mathematical ability. Thus, the most famous world champion in the history of American checkers was a distinguished math professor, Marion Tinsley . (There are now two variants of Anglo-American checkers: the normal Go-As-You-Play or GAYP and one called 3-move, in which the first three moves are pre-chosen, to prevent memorized opening plays that increase probabilities of draws).
After Tinsley’s indomitable reign, the most dominant English-checkers player in the world became the appropriately named Ron King, who won American championships and 12 world championships. At the height of his dominance, Ron King faced the biggest challenge of his career from an unknown player named Lubabalo Kondlo. King was able to retain the title after a grueling match that was later made into a documentary . Kondlo happens to be a black man from a very poor area in South Africa. Ron King is also black, from Barbados, and he is known as the Muhammad Ali of checkers for his “trash talking.” At the height of his career, King entered the Guinness Book of World Records for playing an unbelievable 350 simultaneous games and winning them all!
Ron King successfully defended his World Championship against strong Russian players who had shifted to the Anglo-Saxon checkers, including Alexander Moiseyev , a grandmaster in three variants of the game. Moiseyev, a computer programmer, finally snatched the crown from King in the 3-move variant in 2003.
Incredibly, Ron King held on to the World Championship of the GAYP variant until 2014, when he forfeited it to an Italian grandmaster, Sergio Scarpetta , when he failed to show up for the last four games of the World Championship match. South Africa’s Kondlo has continued his quest for the world title; he qualified again to play the World Championship match in 2015 in 3-move checkers (after defeating a strong field including Scarpetta), but lost the match to the world champion, Italian Michele Borghetti.
Canadian Checkers.
Canada also has its variant of checkers. The 2015 Canadian Champion is a Senegalese immigrant, Souleymane Keita. He defended his title against (a-Russian-immigrant-sounding name) Vladimir Lubarsky.
In summary, a player from sub-Saharan Africa was the finalist or world champion of 2015, in International Draughts, American checkers, Canadian checkers, English Scrabble and French Scrabble.
Why aren’t Africans also dominant in chess?
The simple reason seems to be that, unlike Scrabble and Checkers, master level chess requires access to a very large body of ever-growing literature in chess theory (even ignoring the difficulty of making homemade chess pieces); it’s no longer possible to teach yourself grand master level chess, without memorizing these long chess openings. Africans do not have this access to chess materials (which now includes computer programs) for the same reason that they have no access to mathematics text books and other educational materials in schools or public (I would be surprised if even 1 percent of Africans have ever seen the word “library” on a building anywhere; they simply don’t exist). Chess has become more resource-demanding than any school subject.
Fischer himself decried the increasingly heavy reliance of top-level chess on familiarity with professionally analyzed theoretical opening lines that the Soviet chess machine engendered (Fischer had to learn Russian just to keep up with the countless Russian opening analyses), and he ultimately invented a variant of chess (called Fischer Random chess) that basically rearranges the pieces at the start of a game. But standard chess continues to be the most popular in the world and Africans continue facing a training deficit for as long as there are no books there.
Thus when the New York Times reported on the incredible Grandmaster achievement of an amateur Zambian chess player in 2007, their article was revealingly titled “Zambian with Little Training Stands Poised to Make History.” (By contrast, re women in chess, a 1992 book about the best chess playing female trio in history, was skeptically titled “The Polgar Sisters: Genius or Training? ”).
The resource disadvantage of Africa in chess still does not mean, as some racial hypothesis bloggers seem to constantly suggest, that African chess teams relatively perform at a level that “confirms” their low national IQ scores. On the contrary, Zambia has a stronger national chess team than either Japan or South Korea, for example. Thus, Zambia (population 15 million, national IQ 78) quite easily defeated South Korea (population 50 million, national IQ 106) last time they met at the Chess Olympiads, with the former not even featuring its grandmaster. (China, on the other hand, is now an East Asian chess powerhouse, although it should be mentioned that they achieved this through a semi-Soviet-style professionalization program dubbed “ Big Dragon Project ”, initiated by an Asian billionaire in collaboration with Chinese officials, with the explicit aim of raising East Asian chess performance). South Africa’s first chess grandmaster, Kenny Solomon.
Even within some historically multiracial countries, you can find some hints of anomalies to the racial hypothesis: South Africa has produced only one chess grandmaster in its history, and he happens to come from the black community. The fact that the black population of South Africa is larger shouldn’t really matter; after all, the top swimmers in South Africa are all white (for likely genetic reasons), and the fastest runners in white majority multiracial societies are black.
What about American blacks?
The vast majority of observations that have led to the conclusions of the racial hypothesis are based on the intellectual performance of blacks in America, where a historical IQ gap of one standard deviation seems to be intractable.
Indeed the game of expert Scrabble itself appears to confirm the ethnic conclusions of Jensen et al within America because black Americans perform (on Scrabble) exactly as predicted by IQ data. Top black American experts generally perform lower than white American women at the top expert level.
The best male native black American Scrabble player, Marlon Hill, has apparently made it his open mission to beat whites at Scrabble, a story that has not escaped Rush Limbaugh ‘s amusement. He has so far failed to convincingly establish his racial “superiority.” His rating does not appear on the top 1000 players of the world (WESPA) or even on the top 100 rated players in North America (NASPA). (By contrast, Marlon Hill’s old training partner , Sammy Okosagah, a Nigerian immigrant, has been ranked as high as number one in North America at his peak in 2004, and was one of the highest performing American duo, with David Weigand, at the 2013 World Championships when he came third in the world.) Lisa Odom, the highest ranked native Black American player.
Quite surprisingly, there are some signs that the well-known gender reversal of intelligence that has been observed in black Americans may be slightly confirmed in Scrabble. A female black expert, Lisa Odom, does not appear on the recent international WESPA ratings list (although she has qualified in the past to play at the world championships) but she appears on the North American top 100 NASPA list . She is presently 59 th on that list (it changes frequently), which makes her not only the highest ranked native black American, but also one of the highest ranked women of any race in North America. (Incidentally, the third highest ranked player on the entire North American list at the time of this writing is a Kenyan immigrant, Patrick Gitonga Nderitu, who is ranked just above the Stanford wonderkid, Mack Meller.)
A Jewish Rule?
One simple informal test of the “g-loadedness” or cognitive intensity of any intellectual field is the presence of Jewish over-representation at the very top of the game, so to speak. This rule seems to work for the game of Scrabble.
One of the highest rated Scrabble players in the world, second only to the great Nigel Richards in official rating at the time of this writing, is an Australian player named David Eldar. Eldar attended a special school called King David High School, whose Wikipedia description sounds like it was exclusively formed to serve the Australian Jewish community. Ashkenazi Jews are only 0.5% of that country. Although Eldar has not yet won the world championship, the odds are highly in his favor, as the second highest rated player in the world.
Someone who has won the World Championship is Joel Sherman, who is one of only three Americans to have held the coveted title. Even without digging further for more Jews on the long list of highly rated players in North America, these examples are already sufficient to establish Jewish statistical over-representation on Scrabble super-achievement. And we have a strong reason to believe that there are even more. In a 2005 interview where he was asked to confirm his Jewish roots after he appeared on a list of Jewish sports figures, Sherman disclosed:
… Several other North American Scrabble ® Champs have been Jewish and they’re not listed, presumably because the Wikipedia contributor who compiled that list found my Jewishness mentioned in “Word Freak” and the same info is not readily available about them. I won’t “out” them because I don’t know how they would feel to share that listing as well. My own feeling is ambivalent: it’s nice to be noted, but I’d rather my born religion was not the criterion for my inclusion, as I have been an atheist since even before my Bar Mitzvah…
Seven years before Sherman’s statement, a 1998 New York Times report on computers playing Scrabble against human experts, contained a revealing sentence in the long article: “The leading Scrabble players, many of whom are Jewish, …”
The over-representation of Ashkenazi Jews at the top of such cognitively demanding games might also put in doubt any suggestions of steep declines in real Jewish IQ in the 20 th century.
The game of checkers does not escape this Jewish rule (no pun intended). I found that the greatest checkers match player in the Soviet Union at the height of Soviet sponsorship of the game, the man the Soviets were apparently shielding from Senegal’s Baba Sy, Iser Kuperman, was Jewish . This means that the two Russians who held the World Championship in chess and checkers at this time of Soviet dominance were both Jewish (the great Mikhail Botvinik was the chess world champion at this time in the early 1960s).
It is said that this ambitious Soviet promotion and glorification of chess and checkers was originally instituted by Stalin to keep the most intelligent elites of his country, especially the Jews, occupied with something that would keep them from meddling in politics (in more recent years, Gary Kasparov, an Ashkenazi Jew, has indeed become quite troublesome for the Russian government after retiring from chess). It was of course also later used for propaganda purposes to convey the intellectual “superiority” of the Soviet system internally and internationally.
Jewish brilliance has not left the world of checkers to this day. Alexander Moiseyev, the Russian who ended the World Championship reign (in 3-move American checkers) of the Barbadian Ron King, is of Jewish descent . (The 2015 finalist against Senegalese Souleymane Keita in Canadian checkers, Vladimir Lubarsky, is also almost certainly Jewish .)
The bottom line is that if the cognitive hierarchy under the racial hypothesis was true, there should be no single popular intellectual activity in the world in which Africans and Ashkenazi Jews are both over-represented at the top (just as there is no single world athletic activity requiring high speed, in which the slowest populations and the fastest populations are both over-represented at the top). Scrabble and Checkers are in violation of that logical axiom.
Jewish over-representation at the top of such games (checkers, scrabble, chess, etc) also puts in doubt any conclusions that the male advantage over females has to do specifically with visuospatial abilities, as Jews are not exceptional in that regard. It would seem that the advantage has to just do with general intelligence.
No East Asians in Scrabble? National School Scrabble championships, source: Wikipedia
East Asians have the reputation of being good at math in school and college, but their dominance does not extend to the highest award in math (the Field’s Medal), so it is not an anomaly for Scrabble that they are not over-represented at the world championships (especially those born in English-speaking nations). The question still is: why aren’t they good at Scrabble in school, since they are so conspicuously good in math at that stage? Does their failure at this stage pose a problem for Scrabble as a math game?
Actually, they do quite as well at Scrabble as they do in school mathematics.
It appears that there has been an East Asian name among the winners of the highly competitive National School Scrabble Championships in four of the last six years! (They are only 6% of the US population). Notice that only one female name has appeared (Aune Mitchell, 2007) even at this stage. I did not investigate the Jewishness of the other names, but it would not be surprising if there were a few. First team to win National Scrabble School Championship twice, Andy Hoang and Erik Salgado SAT math scores by gender and ethnicity in 2015. Source: AEI
Discussion
“For expert players, the game requires the simultaneous interplay of verbal, visuospatial, and mathematical abilities under speeded conditions. There are no other games that require the simultaneous, rapid use of all of these abilities.” Halpern and Wai, The World of Competitive Scrabble , Psychology Today.
Spearman’s hypothesis , an idea used by Arthur Jensen to demonstrate the biological nature of the black-white performance gap, predicts that the gap should expand the more you use a test that relies on more raw brain power or ‘g’. Scrabble involves much more mental manipulations than the simpler well-known “WordSum” Vocabulary test and the latter shows a wide gap between blacks and whites (in America). This gap does indeed appear to grow even further when you replace WordSum test with Scrabble, but only when you limit “black” to native black Americans. The gap appears to reduce and even reverse when you introduce black Africans, which is an anomaly for the racial hypothesis. The fact that we are talking about the most elite players should actually make it even more impossible for this to happen since the black-white gap should be even more conspicuous (in favor of whites) at higher ends of cognitive performance.
In the same vein, the game of draughts (especially its speeded up form, called “blitz draughts”) is much more g-loaded than a simple “ Reaction Time ” test that is used by cognitive psychologists to test natural brain power differences by comparing how long it takes one to react to certain simple stimuli. Blitz draughts does not only demand your quick reaction to the move of your opponent, it includes the added mental challenge of calculating your reaction move based on assessing a constantly changing position. Besides playing the World Championship match in the slow classical draughts, an African player reached the top two slots of the super-elite world championships in blitz draughts for both 2015 and 2016 .
If Africans are doing well on these games because of some special environmental reason, then that contradicts the genetic racial hypothesis. If Africans in Africa are outperforming others due to some environmental reason, then black American performance on Scrabble can also be raised by environmental methods; if black American Scrabble performance can be raised to equal whites, then black American math performance can also be raised by environmental intervention. If it can’t, then the fallacy of the hereditarian position has been to assume that native black Americans are cognitively representative of blacks everywhere.
The global racial hypothesis is therefore not just contradicted by these findings, it is logically refuted . Under this hypothesis, there should not be even one single cognitive field where the top blacks are equal or more over-represented than the top whites, especially when white participation in such fields is elite enough to result in a wide gender performance gap in favor of males even with relatively high numbers of female participants. The additional presence of Jewish over-representation at the top of a field should only reinforce the impossibility of black dominance or equality under that hypothesis. You have the opposite empirical result in Scrabble and checkers since you get increasing African over-representation with rising cognitive selectivity, suggesting a reversal of the gap, if anything.
The falsifiable part of the racial hypothesis is duly falsified.
REFERENCES Downie, J. (2011). Why are Most Scrabble Champions Male? New Republic Fatsis, S. (2002). Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. Penguin. Halpern, D., Wai, J. (2007) The World of Competitive Scrabble: Novice and Expert Differences in Visuospatial and Verbal Abilities . Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied 2007, vol.13 no.2 79-94 Lynn, Richard (1994). “Sex differences in intelligence and brain size: A paradox resolved”. Personality and Individual Differences . 17 (2): 257–71 Pinker, S. (2009). The sexual paradox: Men, women and the real gender gap . Simon and Schuster. | 0 |
link originally posted by: theantediluvian It looks like everyone is releasing their October suprises in pieces, including the Telegraph . Now we have Jesse Benton admitting to voter suppression on a hidden camera. Here's the transcript: Benton: We're doing pretty well ahhh but we don't have anywhere near the funds that Hillary's groups do so we really have to be surgical Benton: So we have a voter suppression campaign — quite frankly — targeting African Americans , and uh, and sort of, suburban moms , just bad stuff about Hillary, just trying to take their taste for her away. Female Reporter: I see, so that they don't turn out. Benton: Yeah just keep them — just try to drop her turn out two or three points Basically if they put out enough negative adds about how she hasn't supported blacks and there causes they will make it less likely they will vote for her. Realistically speaking they aren't going to votell republican and they know that. So the best they can hope for is make them mad enough at her not to vote. But looking at early voting they may have switched more than they thought and instead of bit voting they are voting trump wI'll see as election. Gets cloaer. | 0 |
Accuses Clinton Campaign of 'Neo-McCarthyist Hysteria' by Jason Ditz, November 03, 2016 Share This
In an interview with John Pilger, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has confirmed today that the organization did not get any of the hacked emails they published from the Russian government. WikiLeaks has a long-standing policy of not commenting on sources , so even such a denial is highly unusual.
Assange insisted however that it was necessary to deny the claims, saying that Hillary Clinton’s camp “has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria” with false claims that Russia’s government in behind the hacked emails as part of a plot to rig next week’s election.
Russia has long denied being involved in the hacking, but the Clinton campaign has run heavily on the issue, accusing Republican candidate Donald Trump of being a “puppet” of the Russian government, who they are trying to install by leaking embarrassing emails.
The campaign’s allegations have so far been pretty effective at limiting media coverage of the content of the leaks, with a lot more attention going to the speculation that Russia is plotting to “hack the vote” for Trump. Whether Assange’s straightforward denial is sufficient to bring the focus back to content remains to be seen, though the Democratic campaign is unlikely to give up what has been materially their main talking point over the past several months just because the facts don’t support it. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
(AP) WASHINGTON — The United States has concluded Russia knew in advance of Syria’s chemical weapons attack last week, a senior U. S. official said Monday. [The official said a drone operated by Russians was flying over a hospital as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment. Hours after the drone left, a fighter jet bombed the hospital in what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of chemical weapons. The senior official said the U. S. has no proof of Russian involvement in the actual chemical attack in northern Syria. But the official said the presence of the surveillance drone over the hospital couldn’t have been a coincidence, and that Russia must have known the chemical weapons attack was coming and that victims were seeking treatment. The official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on intelligence matters and demanded anonymity, didn’t give precise timing for when the drone was in the area, where more than 80 people were killed. The official also didn’t provide details for the military and intelligence information that form the basis of what the Pentagon now believes. Another U. S. official cautioned that no final American determination has been made that Russia knew ahead of time that chemical weapons would be used. That official wasn’t authorized to speak about internal administration deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The allegation of Russian foreknowledge is grave, even by the standards of the currently dismal U. S. relations. Although Russia has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, and they’ve coordinated military attacks together, Washington has never previously accused Moscow of complicity in any attack that involved the gassing of innocent civilians, including children. The former Cold War foes even worked together in 2013 to remove and destroy more than 1, 300 tons of Syrian chemical weapons and agents. Until Monday, U. S. officials had said they weren’t sure whether Russia or Syria operated the drone. The official said the U. S. is now convinced Russia controlled the drone. The official said it still isn’t clear who was flying the jet that bombed the hospital, because the Syrians also fly aircraft. U. S. officials previously have said Russians routinely work with Syrians at the Shayrat air base where the attack is supposed to have originated. U. S. officials say the chemical weapons were stored there and that those elements add to the conclusion that Russia was complicit in the attack. Last Thursday 59 Tomahawk missiles were fired on the base in the United States’ first direct military action against Assad’s forces. The U. S. has been focusing its military action in Syria on defeating the Islamic State group. On Monday, Col. John J. Thomas, a U. S. military spokesman, said the U. S. has taken extra defensive precautions in Syria in case of possible retaliation against American forces for the cruise missile attack. Thomas told reporters at the Pentagon that the increased emphasis on defensive measures to protect U. S. troops on the ground in Syria led to a slight and temporary decline in offensive U. S. airstrikes against IS in Syria. There has been no Syrian retaliation so far for the cruise missile attack, which destroyed or rendered inoperable more than 20 Syria air force planes, he said. Thomas said the U. S. intends to return to full offensive air operations against IS as soon as possible. | 1 |
Rep. Dave Brat describes the “political pressure” placed by the White House and Republican leadership upon conservatives to vote for the American Health Care Act (AHCA) as “overwhelming. ”[Brat was a guest on The Laura Ingraham Show Thursday, where he described “pressure like crazy” with both the Trump administration and House Speaker Paul Ryan’s whips trying to get the votes they need to pass the bill. A member of the House Freedom Caucus, Brat said he knows the grassroots base of the GOP wants Obamacare finally repealed, so for Republicans to vote for the AHCA — which many say “cements” the primary flaws found in Obamacare — could be detrimental to President Donald Trump. “We want Trump to be hugely successful, so we don’t want to handle a bill that’s going to fail in a few years,” he told Breitbart News Saturday. | 1 |
New England Patriots Quarterback Tom Brady, Head Coach Bill Belichick, and principle owner Robert Kraft, according to SB Nation staff writer Charlotte Wilder, by supporting New York billionaire Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, somehow leave their fans struggling with “emotional implications” making it hard for them to watch the games and enjoy the team’s march to a potential fifth Super Bowl victory. [Without citing any hard evidence that the team won’t be supported — like organized protests or decline in ticket sales — Wilder instead provides some anecdotal stories about some liberal friends not being able to enjoy the games because they were upset with Trump’s message. She also says Brady’s facebook page was inundated by negative remarks from alleged fans. But Wilder doesn’t really make a very good case that the fans will be bailing on Tommy and the boys. Significantly, she fails to point out that Boston Red Sox fans didn’t have any problems supporting conservative pitcher Curt Schilling when their team, which sits in the hub of New England’s liberal leaning swath of America, helped upend the curse of the Bambino by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. Now Wilder contends that although Pats fans never lost faith and were able to endure and “recently, that blind faith has faced its greatest test in the form of the team’s connection to Republican Donald Trump. ” Wilder, who hails from Lincoln Mass where 77. 7 % of the population voted for the failed ticket, argues, “The trouble began when Patriots reporters spotted Brady with a Make America Great Again hat in his locker in Foxboro in the fall of 2015. ” Wilder points out that the New England legend donned the hat “soon after Trump announced his candidacy and called Mexicans rapists in the same speech. ” Wilder’s bias intentionally mischaracterizes Trump’s comment. As Breitbart News reported in June, Trump was not referring to all Mexicans as Wilder implies but “was referring to illegal aliens coming over the U. S. border who commit additional crimes, such as rape. ” Wilder demonstrates that she’s the one with the Trump problem when she calls the “one of the most divisive and figures in the history of American politics.’ When Brady said back in 2015 that it would be “great” if his “friend” Trump won the election, and Trump responded by saying “Tom Brady is a great friend of mine. He’s a winner and he likes winners,” Wilder claims that shock permeated the internet. Brady never went on record saying who he actually voted for. The SB Nation writer goes on to characterize the man who will be President of the United States on January 20th as one who ran “with the most (and racist, misogynistic, Islamaphobic, etc.) rhetoric. ” To support her case that the Patriots have a “Trump Problem,” the author cites a story that her mom told her about one of her friends, who once was a fan but can no longer watch Pats games. Wilder’s mom said, “She used to watch every Sunday with her family, and now she just can’t do it. ” Wilder called the friend soon after she was told the story and asked her if she can no longer support the team. “Yeah, I just will not watch,” Susan Pease said: I really enjoy watching the game with my family. I like what it means for my family to sit down and talk and laugh and watch and snack and now … I just, it’s just ruined for me. It’s not the worst thing about this, of course — this whole thing stems from my tremendous disappointment over this election and country. But it will forever color my opinion of the team. I will not watch, I will not buy any more jerseys. I’m done. But Pease is not alone, Wilders claims “at least 6” other people she knows can’t watch the games either. I’m sure that will make a big dent in the ratings for the playoff game at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, where the Patriots will host the Houston Texans in the NFL Divisional Round on Saturday. | 1 |
During an interview broadcast Thursday’s “Special Report,” on the Fox News Channel, Pinal County, AZ Sheriff Mark Lamb (R) stated, “illegal immigration goes almost always, with drug trafficking and with human trafficking. ” Lamb said, “People need to understand that illegal immigration goes almost always, with drug trafficking and with human trafficking. ” He added that the 287( g) program “allows me to make sure that I’m not putting criminals back in our communities. ” During the same segment, ICE’s LA Field Director David Marin said, “[T]hose sheriffs and law enforcement agencies realize that by turning over these criminal aliens to us, that, they’re not going to be able to go out and commit additional crimes. ” Marin added that with sanctuary cities “Instead of taking these criminal aliens in a secure environment of a jail, our officers have to go out on the street. And that not only endangers our officers, but the community at large, as well. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
Drew Stratton October 29, 2016 Prep Blog Review: How To Survive The Flu & Cold Season
Ready or not, the flu and cold season is here. I’m sure you are not the type person to stay in bed all day long as you have so many things to do for your winter preparedness.
Even though both are respiratory illnesses and share similar symptoms like runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat and cough, a cold is milder than a flu and it doesn’t usually result in other serious health problems.
I can’t say the same thing about the flu. So, if you also have fever, headaches and muscle soreness, you should see a doctor.
So, for this week’s Prep Blog Review I’ve gathered a handful of tips to help you feel better during the flu & cold season. 5 Natural Ways to Fight a Cold or the Flu
“It is that time of year again, the beginning of cold and flu season. Yuck! Although many of us would love to stay inside and avoid all those nasty germs lurking about in public, it is not always feasible. So, let’s look at a few ways to fight off and relieve the symptoms of a cold or the flu, Naturally:
Herbs:
One of the best herbs to stimulate immune supporting white blood cells, T cells, macrophage and interferon activity is Echinacea. This can be taken at the first signs of a cold and will help to ease the symptoms. Boneset is another herb that will help to stimulate the immune system and is one of the most effective herbs to fight a cold or the flu. It promotes sweating and helps your body to release toxins. Although you could steep it and drink as a tea it is best to take it in pill form if possible, as it can be quite bitter tasting.”
Read more on The Trailer Park Homesteader . 4 Ways to Cut the Duration of Your Cold
“At our house, back to school means back to kids bringing home germs. When the leaves start turning, I start reaching for my cough drops, feeling that all too familiar tickle in my throat. If I can, I try to drink tons of water, wash my hands like crazy, and keep the bug from taking hold. But once I know I’m past the point of no return, the following things can help cut the duration of my cold and get me back to my busy life.
Do you know how to tell cold and a flu virus?”
Read more on Ready Nutrition . 17 Natural Antibiotics Our Grandparent Used Instead of Pills
“For hundreds of years, maybe even longer, our grannies and grandfathers relied on simple household items to heal. For that purpose, they picked different natural antibiotics, which they mostly found in home, gardens or meadows and woods nearby.
Much of this came out of necessity. Rather than using an antibacterial facial scrub, our Nanas massaged honey deep into their pores. By using proven old home remedies, we can treat and cure various health problems and do a lot for our health avoiding unpleasant medications side effects, too.”
Read more on Backdoor Prepper . What You Need to Know About Expired Prescription Drugs
“The topic of using expired prescription drugs comes up frequently in survival and preparedness circles. Although there are many articles detailing with the efficacy of outdated meds, one question I get over and over again is “what do I do when the meds run out?”
Whereas there is no single clear answer, one thing we can all start to do now is hang on to our old, unused meds. For the most part and with very few exceptions, they will be viable for two to twelve years beyond their expiration date. The secret is to keep them in a cool, dark, location that is not too dissimilar from your food storage.”
Read more on Backdoor Survival . Prepping For Medical Emergencies
“Planning for medical emergencies is one of the biggest challenges one faces. This is especially true if the situation will occur with limited outside resources on which to rely. There are several things you can do to improve the odds for yourself and your loved ones, including solid medical knowledge, the leadership skills necessary to create a makeshift hospital, and a comprehensive medical stockpile.”
Read more on The Prepper Journal .
Drew Stratton for Survivopedia. 11 total views, 10 views today | 0 |
Oakland, one of California’s many sanctuary cities, set up a $300, 000 fund on Tuesday in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order last week that aims to cut off federal funds to “jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply” with federal immigration enforcement. [According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the fund will be disbursed to to a “rapid response network” composed of 12 Oakland organizations to help families that cannot afford legal representation and whose illegal status could result in deportation. Money will also go towards creating an emergency hotline for residents, holding “know your rights” workshops, and providing free consultations. “Without counsel, up against a federal prosecutor, they’re supposed to represent themselves in one of the most complex areas of law, where the stakes are permanent separation from their families,” Eleni immigration program director of Centro Legal de la Raza, told the Chronicle. According to the Chronicle, over a quarter of residents in Oakland are . The publication further noted that on Tuesday, during a City Council meeting to discuss Oakland’s budget for the next two years, Mayor Libby Schaaf said, “I caution that we are at a moment of unprecedented uncertainty in this new, I would say, horrific federal environment. ” Schaaf had previously warned, according to the San Jose Mercury News, that Turmp’s order would “destroy trust in government” and complaining that “it’s disrespecting the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power. ” Trump’s order states, “Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic. ” It stipulates that such jurisdictions will not be eligible to receive Federal grants unless they are found necessary for law enforcement purposes as prescribed by the Attorney General of Secretary of Homeland Security. Oakland is located just over 10 miles away from San Francisco, another sanctuary city where Kate Steinle was infamously murdered by an illegal alien and felon with multiple convictions and deportations in July 2015. Only one mayor from a major California city agreed with Trump’s order. Last week, Fresno Mayor Lee Brand told the Fresno Bee, “I’m not going to make Fresno a sanctuary city because I don’t want to make Fresno ineligible from receiving potentially millions of dollars in infrastructure and other types of projects … My philosophy is to follow the law and to avoid these national questions. ” Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz | 1 |
Dean James AMERICA’S FREEDOM FIGHTERS –
Last week, the Pentagon issued a Defense Department directive that allows “Department of Defense (D0D) personnel to carry firearms and employ deadly force while performing official duties.”
The Defense Department has been working on changing the “gun-free” zones on domestic military basis for several years in light of the deadly shootings at military sites in recent years.
Military.com reports that the directive “also provides detailed guidance to the services for permitting soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guard personnel to carry privately owned firearms on DoD property.” It authorizes “commanders, 05 and above…[to] grant permission to DoD personnel requesting to carry a privately owned firearm (concealed or open carry) on DoD property for a personal protection purpose not related to performance of an official duty or status.”
The directive also makes clear that DoD will consider further changes to grant “[standard] authorizations for other DoD personnel, who are trained in the scaled use of force or who have been previously qualified to use a government-issued firearm, to carry a firearm in the performance of official duties on DoD property.” This would allow DoD with certain combat training to carry firearms without going through the additional step of making application with a commander.
Kim Smith at Conservative Tribune notes that the policy was a response to an NRA-backed provision in the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that required the Defense Department to allow more service members to carry firearms on base.
“It is a good first step in that it recognizes personal protection is a valid issue for service members, but there are many roadblocks in the way of making that option available,” NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker told the Washington Free Beacon .
Those wishing to apply for permission to carry a firearm must be at least 21 years old and meet all federal, state and local laws, the directive said.
It would appear that the Pentagon saw no problems with implementing a policy for which President-elect Donald Trump has expressed support.
President-elect Donald Trump ran on removing gun-free zones from military bases. On July 9, 2015, Breitbart News reported that Trump pledged to end the gun-free scenarios for U.S. troops by “[mandating] that soldiers remain armed and on alert at our military bases.”
The immediate institution of this directive probably left President Barack Obama incensed, but he undoubtedly realized that there was nothing he could do to prevent its implementation in a couple of months anyway. And that’s good news because it works to ensure the safety of our troops, which should always be a priority.
Let us know what you think about this in the comments below!
God Bless. | 0 |
The world’s grocery carts could soon be filled with more and more products from one global colossus. Food, beverage and companies have been seeking merger partners to obtain greater scale and efficiencies as consumers, particularly younger shoppers, eschew the boxed and jarred foods of their parents’ generation. Now, one such recently merged giant, Kraft Heinz, has set its sights on the biggest target to date: Unilever, the home of Dove soap and Axe body spray, Ben Jerry’s ice cream and Hellmann’s mayonnaise. Kraft Heinz disclosed on Friday that it had made a $143 billion takeover offer for Unilever. If completed, it would be the largest merger since the British wireless provider Vodafone’s $183 billion acquisition of Mannesmann of Germany in 2000. Unilever said it had spurned the offer, which it said “fundamentally undervalues” the company. Still, that is not expected to end the matter. Pressed by growing competition from upstarts and changing consumer habits, food and giants will have little choice but to seek deals. And 3G Capital, the Brazilian investment firm that bought Heinz, then Kraft just two years ago, has the resources and the good will of Wall Street to continue to pursue Unilever. It also has the support of Warren E. Buffett, who has previously collaborated with 3G and is expected to provide financing in any deal with Unilever. A combination of Kraft Heinz and Unilever would create an empire of hundreds of household names, with more than $82 billion in sales. Kraft Heinz’s geographic strength in North American sales would complement Unilever’s stronger sales in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Kraft Heinz executives have “said they really want to develop and have an international platform for those Kraft Heinz brands,” said Brittany Weissman, an analyst with Edward Jones in St. Louis. “I think Unilever would give them that international platform to get those brands out overseas. ” But a merger would be certain to draw antitrust reviews by regulators from many countries. “Market power would be much increased, as the major supermarkets would have little choice but to buy from the merged business,” John Colley, a professor of practice in strategy and leadership at Warwick Business School in Coventry, England. Kraft Heinz approached Unilever about a potential deal in the last few weeks, according to people briefed on the matter, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations. Among its pitches, these people said, was that the combined company would maintain headquarters in the United States, Britain and the Netherlands. That could prove important amid rising nationalist sentiment, given Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and an election approaching in the Netherlands. Kraft Heinz, with 3G behind the wheel, has long been considered the most likely to drive a wave of consolidation in the food industry. Friday’s disclosure followed speculation late last year that Kraft Heinz might make an offer for Mondelez International, the maker of Oreos and Ritz crackers Shares of Mondelez, and those of companies like General Mills and Campbell Soup that had been seen as potential targets, fell on Friday in part because of disappointment over news of the Unilever bid. Shares of Kraft Heinz surged nearly 11 percent. The Brazilian principals of 3G have led a buying spree over two decades to become a global force in food and beverages. In doing so, they have won the admiration of no less a business eminence than Mr. Buffett. They took a small Brazilian brewing company and eventually transformed it into InBev, the gorilla of beer. They moved into fast food by buying Burger King, then merging it with Tim Hortons, Canada’s foremost purveyor of coffee and doughnuts. And with Mr. Buffett’s help, they bought Heinz in 2013, transforming a staid American ketchup legend into a lean maker of condiments and canned soups. Two years later, in 2015, they bought Kraft to become even bigger. Now — almost two years after the Kraft deal — 3G and Kraft Heinz are casting their eyes on Unilever, which is the seller of packaged food worldwide and the maker behind Procter Gamble. Unilever, which is based in London and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has embraced sustainability measures aimed at reducing the company’s environmental impact and improving customers’ health. It has also moved to update its products with younger, hipper names by buying like Dollar Shave Club and the cleaning products maker Seventh Generation. And the company has built an important presence in developing countries, which now account for some 58 percent of its revenue. Still, Unilever has been weighed down by slowing sales in the last year, prompting some analysts to call for additional cost cuts. Combining with Kraft Heinz would leave the company in the hands of masters of who have won praise from Mr. Buffett. At Burger King, for example, executives disposed of luxurious corporate offices, the corporate jet and even workers’ personal printers. At Kraft Heinz, that approach has helped lead to profit margins of about 30 percent, compared with roughly 15 percent at Unilever. Unilever said that Kraft Heinz’s bid was valued at roughly $50 a share, for an 18 percent premium to the target company’s closing price on Thursday. The offer consists of $30. 23 a share in cash and 0. 222 in shares in the combined company. Under British takeover rules, Kraft would have until March 17 to announce its firm intention to make an offer for Unilever or it would have to walk away. Shares of Unilever jumped in Friday trading in London after The Financial Times’s Alphaville blog reported the offer. A deal for Unilever would be expensive by any measure, particularly because Kraft Heinz already has nearly $30 billion in debt on its books. But Kraft Heinz has argued in private that it has healthy cash flows that could easily service the additional debt that would help finance the bid. Potentially further bolstering Kraft Heinz’s firepower is Mr. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which helped finance 3G’s $23 billion purchase of Heinz and its merger with Kraft. Some analysts, however, were cautious on the prospects of a Unilever sale. Raphael Moreau, an analyst with Euromonitor in London, said that Unilever might ultimately be willing to pursue a smaller deal with Kraft to offload some of its food brands. “While creating synergies in sauces and soups could be a rationale for such a deal, a combination of Heinz and Hellmann’s in mayonnaise could struggle to be given approval by competition authorities,” Mr. Moreau said. And some British lawmakers have already criticized Kraft Heinz’s approach, pointing to Brexit and the decline in the pound as paving the way for “fire sales” of British companies. The chairman of Parliament’s business committee, Iain Wright, said on Friday that “a lot of very good British companies will be subject to fire sales without taking into account their performance and quality. ” | 1 |
Department of Homeland Security John Kelly said the U. S. military would not be used in America’s efforts to deport criminal aliens. He also stated there would be no mass deportations. His comments came during a press conference in Mexico City where he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with their counterparts. [“Let me be very, very clear, there will be no, repeat, no mass deportations,” Secretary Kelly told reporters. “Everything we do in DHS will be done legally and according to human rights and the legal justice system of the United States. ” His comments followed shortly after remarks made by President Donald Trump when he referred to the targeted immigration enforcement efforts as a “military operation,” The Hill reported. White House Spokesman Sean Spicer later clarified the remarks reminding reporters that President Trump used the phrase as an adjective. “The president was clearly describing the manner in which this is being done,” Spicer explained. Kelly also appeared to reference a fake news article from the Associated Press last week that claimed President Trump was considering using the National Guard as deportation officers. The White House and DHS flatly denied the allegation. “That is 100% not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this,” Spicer told reporters during a news briefing. Department of Homeland Security Spokesman David Lapan responded to an inquiry from Breitbart Texas stating, “The Department is not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement. ” The DHS has repeatedly said their department is not and will not be engaging in mass deportations. The department has been engaged in a targeted enforcement action aimed at taking criminal aliens and those who have been ordered removed from the country by an immigration judge. Nearly 700 such people were rounded up earlier this month in Operation Cross Check. Despite the targeted nature of the operation, many fake news reports scared members of immigrant communities spreading rumors of mass sweeps and raids, Breitbart Texas reported. One post by an Austin city council member went as far as to claim the arrest of criminal aliens was somehow an act of retaliation by the Trump Administration because of immigration protests. Kelly and Tillerson were expected to meet with President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto, and the Mexican ministers of Interior, Foreign Relations, Finance, National Defense, and the Navy to discuss border security, law enforcement cooperation, and trade. Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX. | 1 |
ERROR: type should be string, got "https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton/hillary-r.-clinton-part-04-of-04/view (p. 44) “Early in Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, she and her staff were observed removing lamps and furniture from the State Department which were transported to her residence in Washington, DC,” After leaving the White House, Hillary was forced to return tens of thousands of dollars worth of White House furniture, china, and artwork that she had stolen. The fact that she stole State Department furniture shouldn’t shock anyone. Recurring Hillary Clinton behavior. 63. Hillary told Tim Kaine back in July 2015 he would be VP https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25445#efmALMAM- “…HRC has personally told Tim Kaine he’s the veep.” “Won’t stop assuring Sens Brown and Heitkamp (at dinner now) that HRC has personally told Tim Kaine he’s the veep.” Kaine says he only knew 48 hours before the announcement. Solidifies all theories that he dropped out as the DNC chair so Debbie Wasserman-Schultz could replace him (and help ensure she rigged the primary for Hillary against Bernie as evidenced in earlier leaks) and open door for Kaine to be VP. This is despite her saying he would be a terrible choice for Obama’s VP in her book when she was talking about the last election. But she needed DWS in charge to ensure she was the nominee. 64. Hillary tweaks her policies based on donors’ wants https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/25320#efmAFmAHCATBAUQ “Raisers are effectively salespeople selling the candidate on the donor marketplace, so their feedback is valuable to HQ in terms of tweaking policy, messaging, tone, etc … big donors usually have ideas/advice and want to feel like they are being heard.” These leaks prove that Hillary will do anything for money, regardless of morals. Her staff even comments often about how worrisome it is. She takes money from countries who kills gays, enslave women, and persecute Christians and doesn’t care about any of it. She changes her policies based on who gives her what. She sells U.S. assets to countries who donate… what a mess… 65. Hillary camp admits it doesn’t support $15 minimum wage https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2893 “Substantively, we have not supported $15 – you will get a fair number of liberal economists who will say it will lose jobs.” Even if they flip-flop and say they will implement it, they still admit that it is bad for the economy according to liberal economists. 66. Illegally coordinating with Priorities USA, a SuperPAC funded by George Soros https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2372 “So afraid that NYT is going with this story on Priorities whether we like it or not. They have sources about the meetings.” They were scrambling to make sure they were within the law and really worried the donor list was about to come out. The New York Times spiked the story about the corruption to protect her, shielding the donors which OpenSecrets.org shares with us from a later disclosure . As you can see clearly there, the top contributor is none other than George Soros with $6 million in. Staff from the two groups met and coordinated efforts, which caused the concern from Hillary’s side because the Priorities people were talking and the media, specifically the New York Times hid this violation of campaign election law. 67. Racist and sexist remarks: “too white and too male” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/24546 “Reed’s lists are still too big, too undifferentiated too white and too male.” Just because the people being referred to are white and male does not stop it from being racist. Just replace it with black and female and you can see why. Race and gender should not be the main determining factor when it comes to administrative positions, only experience and merit, but for Hillary’s staff and democrats race and gender are the determining factors unfortunately. 68. Podesta illegally has access to top secret information https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11042#efmASpAWS “Two exceptions–White House requests he can handle by email; if any other emergency request comes up, I can process. I’m holding a TS clearance. Scott, you may need to figure out what we need to do to add me to the review authority.” Why does Podesta have a top secret clearance? He’s not holding a government position… 69. Podesta connects to unsecure network where anyone could access classified files https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/10270 “Yes inbox finally opened up. I should never connect to Amtrack wifi. Seems to always screw things up.” Holds TS clearance, conducts official campaign business on unsecure Amtrak WiFi… These are the people Hillary will trust to secure our secrets once in office. Good God… 70. Hillary’s speechwriters: “I don’t mind the ‘backs of dead Americans’ because we need a bit of moral outrage.” (Benghazi) https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3049 One prominent theme throughout the leaks is that Hillary is just a put together political head piece that is drafted, rewritten, and approved before being sent into public. They note where she should be outraged, they note where she should smile, she even sighed when they told her to sigh. All of the words coming out of her mouth go through weeks of tweaking so that she comes off as likable – and yet she still comes off as a cold. 71. The AP colluding with the Hillary campaign https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4099 “They do not plan to release anything publicly, so no posting online or anything public-facing, just to the committee. That said, they are considering placing a story with a friendly at the AP (Matt Lee or Bradley Klapper), that would lay this out before the majority on the committee has a chance to realize what they have and distort it.” And the AP is supposed to be THE NEUTRAL news source… wow… 72. Hillary’s camp says she has a “character problem” and is “arrogant” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/11136#efmAC0AGw “I know this email thing isn’t on the level. I’m fully aware of that. But her inability to just do a national interview and communicate genuine feelings of remorse and regret is now, I fear, becoming a character problem (more so than honesty). People hate her arrogant, like her down. It’s a sexist context, but I think it’s the truth.” Her closest confidants admitting what everyone already knows. She is not genuine. 73. Staging fake anti-Trump protest, conspiring with Univision CEO https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3718 “Thinking about the early 4, there is the Trump International Hotel in Vegas. Maybe there is an organizing opportunity next week. Would be good to reach out to unite here.” Previous leaks months ago proved many of the “protests” were staged and hired people to be there with professional signs. The James O’Keefe bombshell video ( first one ) proves that all these “protests” were staged and they paid mentally ill people to incite violence. 74. Meeting to go over Cheryl Mills’ testimony https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12105#efmAC4ADoAHvAIE “Please see below for today’s 8am meeting agenda. Also, please note that this meeting should last a full hour” Lists items to talk about “Timing of Focus Groups re Debate Prep”“8/31 Email Release”“Jake/Cheryl Testimony.” Memo revealing they were discussing the testimony of Cheryl Mills in meetings It must have been highly important to keep all of their stories straight, properly vetted and discussed. 75. Iran nuclear deal was “greatest appeasement since Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/727 “This agreement condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf… Yup.” Top Hillary advisor agrees with that statement, indicating they know the Iran deal was terrible despite what they state publicly (another public vs private position). 76. Journalist talks strategy with Clinton staff and asks for permission to write article https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/6453 “am not going to raise this publicly, but one of HRC’s opponents will soon charge that she is running an “imperial campaign.” If it is the right opponent, Democrat or Republican, the charge will resonate.” “BTW, I may doing an Elizabeth Warren column soon. If I write that my optimum scenario would be for Elizabeth to ultimately give a big endorsement to HRC and give the keynote speech at the Convention, totally off the record, would that give you a problem? It would be my personal opinion only, but if you have a problem with my suggesting this as my idea, I won’t tell anyone and I won’t include it, deferring to you” Yes. This supposed journalist is discussing strategy with the chairman of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Giving him information and warnings about things he learned from other sources most likely off the record. Extreme collusion between the media and Hillary’s staff. But wait, there is more! He is asking permission from Podesta to write parts of an article. John Podesta responds to the email, and grants permission for the journalist to write the story as originally planned. 77. Bill Clinton admits Clinton Foundation has no “real projects” “He also said he’s worried about the pensions commitment and not having real projects to announce at CGI america. I said we are concerned too…” It was also mentioned that the employees are unhappy. 78. Violating campaign finance law https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/13999#efmAClADMADOAEwAIPAI3 “I’m swinging way above my weight class here. And I’m 100% sure this out of protocol. I’m trying to land the campaign a big fat whale that can give between $100,000 to maybe $1 million if their ego can be reassured that they won’t be just treated “just like any other donor. With your permission, can I CC you in an email to these guys. I’m work with Haim Saban’s political director on these same guys. If it’s 100% inappropriate I understand.” Haim Saiban is the owner of Univision, who has been working with Hillary as revealed throughout the leaks. 79. Interfering with the 2008 Republican primary process https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/27648 “Yes, we need to move with some tactics to try to stop him. Ideas? We should take another swing at the immigration angle. I think this is a crisis. We need to ring the alarm bell. But I’m not sure how we could affect the GOP primary? Earned media play on McCain and immigration. Robocalls to suppress his vote? Turnout evangelicals for Huck?” What right do they have to interfere in another party’s primaries? Not surprised though. 80. Proof that ‘Correct the Record’ (SuperPAC) is directly coordinating with the Hillary campaign against federal campaign law https://www.wikileaks.com/podesta-emails/emailid/5636 (in attachments) “In May of 2015, CTR separated from its parent organization, American Bridge, and became its own SuperPAC. This structure allows CTR to retain its independence but coordinate directly and strategically with the Hillary campaign. This work is necessary now more than ever.” Correct the Record (CTR) is a group funded by globalist billionaire George Soros to pretend Hillary has support online. They pay “an army of nerd virgins” ( their own words ) to create memes and pretend to support Hillary. On popular internet sites like Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook, they are paid to ‘downvote’ or ‘dislike’ or delete anything pro-Trump/anti-Hillary, and fake-promote anything pro-Hillary/anti-Trump. Incredibly sad, but Hillary and her “support” is staged in every department. The same attachment describes everything. 81. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in direct contact with the Hillary campaign https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15092#efmARfAUUAZpAd9AfGAf6 “[He is] particularly interested in meeting people who could help him understand how to move the needle on the specific public policy issues he cares most about. He wants to meet folks who can inform his understanding about effective political operations to advance public policy goals” They are basically saying he wants to learn how to bribe people. Mark Zuckerberg has been very outspoken about Trump and his wall idea, when he himself is building a large wall around his mansion. Guess protecting yourself is OK, but not the American people. Facebook also manipulates it’s trending stories to not show pro-Trump/anti-Hillary articles or trends, and even censors videos against Hillary . The censorship is well known and has reduced Facebook’s integrity tenfold. Pro-Trump stories with hundreds of thousands of mentions are deleted to allow room for anti-Trump articles with less than a thousand mentions. Happens literally daily. Unfortunately this is the case across Twitter , YouTube , Google , and Reddit as well (and why it seems like at times more support Hillary despite Trump getting 30,000 at his rallies and Hillary getting 200 ). They are in the tank for Hillary. 82. Hillary’s team working with hundreds of MSM news pundits https://www.wikileaks.com/podesta-emails/emailid/5636 (in attachments) “IMPACTING THE DIALOGUE: CTR has identified 372 surrogates including influential and frequent pundits on broadcast and cable news for Presidential 2016 politics and provided them around 80 sets of talking points…” Once again, shows the media collusion with the Hillary campaign. 83. Katy Perry is a puppet for Hillary Clinton https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/27006 “She said no to asking Chelsea. Would go herself before asking her daughter. So we are at plan B: Katy Perry it is.” Huma Abedin writes that they have to send Katy Perry to do an Arkansas event because Hillary is unwilling to ask her daughter to go. Katy Perry is such a puppet for them that they can use her as a replacement for Chelsea when needed. 84. Hillary tries to hide her tiny rallies" | 0 |
BEIJING — China said Saturday that its military budget would rise by about 7 percent this year, apparently the lowest increase in seven years, signaling that its leaders do not plan to engage the United States in an arms race even as President Trump seeks to bolster the Pentagon’s spending. Addressing reporters before the start of the annual National People’s Congress, Fu Ying, a spokeswoman for the legislature, said the increase would be “about” 7 percent. She said defense spending would amount to roughly 1. 3 percent of China’s gross domestic product. Last year’s proposed increase was 7. 6 percent, though China has yet to release final figures indicating how much was actually spent. Those figures, and the exact number of this year’s projected increase, will be revealed in a budget that the government releases on Sunday, when the national legislature starts its annual full session. Before 2016, the military budget had received increases for six years, a reflection of China’s economy. Chinese experts said the new budget would keep military spending roughly in line with the government’s usual formula of G. D. P. growth plus inflation. As China’s economy continues to slow, annual growth in the gross domestic product is expected to be about 6. 5 percent. Inflation hovers around 2 percent. And the government must also find more money for health care, education and other increasingly expensive social needs. Chinese and Western military analysts said it was notable that Mr. Trump’s recent pledge to raise American defense spending by $54 billion had not spurred China to elevate its own spending further. Ms. Fu said that China wanted good relations with the Trump administration but would respond to any challenges. “President Xi Jinping and President Trump have had two direct phone calls, and the message was very clear, which is that there must be more cooperation between China and the United States so we become good partners,” Ms. Fu said. But she added that China would watch the effects of Mr. Trump’s global policy changes. “Of course, everyone hopes that their impact will be positive, but if there are challenges, China will respond calmly,” Ms. Fu said. The U. S. military is vastly more powerful than China’s, as Ms. Fu noted. “Fundamentally, this is about the United States worrying that China could catch up and surpass the U. S. in its ability,” she said. “But in fact there is a still a huge gap in ability between the U. S. and China, which is still a developing country. ” To emphasize his intent to strengthen the American military, Mr. Trump visited the country’s new aircraft carrier this week. The Gerald R. Ford is a floating fortress due to be commissioned this year and is the first in a new generation of supercarriers. The United States has 10 supercarriers. In contrast, China is building its first aircraft carrier, a vessel, and has one refurbished carrier from Ukraine. Wang Xiangsui, a retired senior colonel in China’s Air Force who is now director of the Research Center of Strategic Issues at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said Mr. Trump’s plans to increase military spending were unlikely to prod China into following suit. “I don’t think China will be oversensitive about this,” he said. “Despite all the aggressive talk, no one wants a war,” Mr. Wang said. While the $54 billion increase sounds like a lot, he added, ”the Americans didn’t achieve anything after spending six trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan. ” China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, who visited Washington this week and met briefly with Mr. Trump at the White House, probably had the military budget on his mind as he tried to judge the mood of the new administration, said Dennis J. Blasko, an American expert on the Chinese military. “I’m guessing Yang Jiechi was tasked to make an assessment of the state of the bilateral relationship to see if there may need to be a adjustment in reaction to the requested increase for the U. S. defense budget,” said Mr. Blasko, a retired army lieutenant colonel and the author of “The Chinese Army Today. ” Mr. Yang probably found the relationship to be on a sound enough footing, Mr. Blasko said. “I don’t think they want to get into a military budget fight with us, not even a rhetorical one. ” Ni Lexiong, a naval expert in Shanghai, said that if China really felt the need to spend more heavily on the military, it would not hesitate to do so. “If China felt threatened, I don’t think slower economic growth would stop them from spending more on the military,” Mr. Ni said. “You have seen how the Chinese were willing to starve to build an atomic bomb. We do not worry about poverty when we think a larger military is necessary. ” He said the new budget would allow China to keep modernizing its navy and air force, the two services currently getting the most attention. The navy launched 22 warships in 2016 to replace old ones, and the budget would let it keep up that pace this year, he said. “A chunk of the expenditure will go towards developing and manufacturing the latest weapons for a stronger air force and navy,” he said. “I believe this speed of replacement will continue, because it has been one of China’s growth goals to build a military stronger than America’s one day, in either quality or quantity. ” While China’s future aircraft carriers are likely to be nuclear powered, the Chinese Navy will probably be focused on other, more important areas, said Lyle J. Goldstein, an associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U. S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. “Chinese submarine development and the building of destroyers and frigates are likely more expensive and more consequential for the overall military balance,” he said. If Mr. Trump were to win his proposed increase of $54 billion, the American defense budget would be $603 billion, about 3 percent higher than under former President Barack Obama’s last budget plan. The People’s Liberation Army’s official budget was about $146 billion in 2016. Western groups that study the Chinese military say that actual spending is roughly 1. 2 to 1. 5 times greater than the announced figures. Using a rough estimate that assumes an average G. D. P. growth in China of 6. 5 percent and a U. S. growth rate of 3 percent, China’s military spending would be expected to surpass America’s around 2040, said Bonnie S. Glaser, the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. Among the issues that Chinese military planners must deal with is how to handle the retrenchment of 300, 000 personnel announced by President Xi Jinping in 2015, part of an effort to streamline the P. L. A. into a modern fighting force. Although most of those leaving the army are to officers and soldiers, the severance costs are expected to be substantial, retired Chinese officers said. | 1 |
Sioux Indians Wish Dakota Pipeline Protesters Would Go Home October 30, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
The ecoloons protesting the Dakota pipeline have the support of the media and the White House. But many of the local Sioux don't see them as defenders. They just wish they would go home .
Ask around and you'll hear stories of pipeline protesters who've traveled great distances. They've come from Japan, Russia and Germany. Australia, Israel and Serbia. And, of course, there are the allies, not exclusively Native American or indigenous, who've flocked here from all corners of the US.
Demonstrating is their proud daily work.
The obnoxious leftists of the world have united. And they want no pipelines or showers.
No one makes this clearer than Robert Fool Bear Sr., 54, district chairman of Cannon Ball. The town he runs, estimated population of 840, is just a few miles from the action. It's so close that, given the faceoffs with law enforcement, you have to pass through a police checkpoint to reach it.
It's about time people heard from folks like him, he says.
Fool Bear has had it with the protesters. He says that more than two years ago, when members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe could have attended hearings to make their concerns known, they didn't care. Now, suddenly, the crowds are out of control, and he fears it's just a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt.
Go down to the camps, he says, and you won't see many Standing Rock Sioux.
"It irks me. People are here from all over the world," he says. "If they could come from other planets, I think they would."
And the Sioux are stuck helping leftist idiot protesters.
Not long ago, he found three teenage girls from Ontario, Canada, camped out inside his storage shed. A white woman from Spokane, Washington, came to see him for help, saying she'd come here with nothing and her car had broken down. When he was at the casino recently, someone approached him about two young kids who were on their own because their parents had been arrested.
Even though Fool Bear is against the protests, that doesn't mean he's not preparing to help people out, too. He anticipates opening the community gymnasium for people without beds come winter, and a growing pile of sleeping bags and blankets sits in his office.
Those protesters from Arizona, Georgia and California won't know what hit them when the cold rushes in, he says.
Instead of helping the Sioux, privileged leftists have become a burden for them to take care of. | 0 |
■ White House press secretary Sean Spicer stood by President Trump’s false assertion that millions of illegal voters gave Hillary Clinton her popular vote win. ■ Gag orders seem to be proliferating throughout the federal bureaucracy, but the national parks are taking to Twitter to speak up. ■ A new national security political action committee, assembled by former intelligence officers and national security officials, has begun posting “no spin” research on the president’s business interests abroad. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, confirmed on Tuesday that President Trump has long believed that millions of undocumented immigrants voted illegally in the 2016 election, furthering a false claim from the podium of the West Wing briefing room and refusing to rule out an investigation down the road. “He said 3 to 5 million people could have voted illegally, based on the studies that he’s seen,” Mr. Spicer told stunned reporters, acknowledging a statement that Mr. Trump made privately in a meeting with congressional leaders on Monday afternoon. Mr. Trump and his aides repeatedly suggested during the transition period that “irregularities” contributed to his loss by nearly 3 million ballots to Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump won the Electoral College, but his popular vote loss to Mrs. Clinton was the largest for a winning presidential candidate since the disputed election of 1876. Democrats and some Republicans have pointed to that margin to claim that Mr. Trump is an illegitimate president. Such assertions have rankled Mr. Trump deeply. A November 2016 blog post on Infowars, the conspiracy website run by radio host Alex Jones, posited the idea that roughly 3 million people voted illegally. Mr. Jones has hosted Mr. Trump on his radio show in the past. The assertion was based on tweets from a voter expert, who claimed to have a study. However, there’s no evidence of the study. And officials in swing states where Mr. Trump secured victory, many of which are governed by Republicans, say that there is no evidence of such fraud. Mr. Spicer also made vague reference to another Pew Research Center study that supposedly backed up Mr. Trump, but the author of the study in question, David Becker, now executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, tweeted again that no such fraud happened. When a reporter pointed out to Mr. Spicer that such widespread fraud would be one of the biggest scandals in American electoral history and asked why the administration isn’t investigating, the press secretary said, “Maybe we will. ” Mr. Spicer, who worked at the Republican National Committee before working for Mr. Trump, declined to say whether he personally believes this claim. “What does it mean for democracy?” a reporter asked about Mr. Trump’s belief. “It means that I’ve answered your question,” Mr. Spicer said. With reports proliferating about executive branch agencies under gag orders, Mr. Spicer told reporters that the White House is “looking into it,” though he didn’t exactly deny it. “I don’t think it’s any surprise that when there’s an administration turnover, that we’re going to review the policies,” he said. It started when the National Park Service retweeted crowd shots this weekend attesting to a smaller audience for President Trump’s inauguration than for Barack Obama’s first in 2009. That prompted a blackout, then an apology, then lots of pretty pictures. “They had inappropriately violated their own social media policies,” Mr. Spicer said. “There was guidance that was put out to the department to act in compliance with the rules that were set forth. ” Well, looks like Badlands National Park has gone rogue. But it looks like out there. Poor man wanna be rich. Rich man wanna be king. And a king ain’t satisfied, Till he rules everything. “Badlands,” Bruce Springsteen Daring Mr. Trump to make good on his grand infrastructure promises, Senate Democrats on Tuesday will unveil a plan to rebuild the nation’s roads, railways, airports, waterways and sewer systems over 10 years. “From our largest cities to our smallest towns, communities across the country are struggling to meet the challenges of aging infrastructure,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, will say. “Our urban and rural communities have their own unique set of infrastructure priorities, and this proposal would provide funding to address those needed upgrades that go beyond the traditional road and bridge repair. ” Republicans resisted President Barack Obama’s push for an infrastructure “surge” for eight years, arguing that the federal government couldn’t afford it and that state and local governments should shoulder more responsibility for improvements. But Mr. Trump has taken up the Democratic cause. “We will build new roads, and highways, and bridges, and airports, and tunnels, and railways all across our wonderful nation,” he vowed in his Inaugural Address. The plan dedicates $180 billion to rail and bus systems, $65 billion to ports, airports and waterways, $110 billion for water and sewer systems, $100 billion for energy infrastructure, and $20 billion for public and tribal lands. “We’re asking President Trump to work with us to make it a reality,” Mr. Schumer will say. Next up from the Trump White House news fire hose: a nominee for the Supreme Court. President Trump has invited Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, as well as both the chairman and ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to the White House at 3 p. m. Tuesday to discuss the nearly vacancy on the Supreme Court. The president said a nomination would be announced next week. “We will pick a totally great Supreme Court justice,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the end of an event where he signed executive actions. Mr. McConnell, on the Senate floor Tuesday, said, “I appreciate the president soliciting our advice on this important matter. ” Mr. McConnell blocked consideration of any nominee to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February, during the final year of President Obama’s term. Former intelligence officers and national security officials have formed a new national security political action committee, called 4DPac (Democracy Development Diplomacy Defense) to publish what they call research on Mr. Trump’s foreign investments. Their concern: that the president’s business dealings could clash with the nation’s national security interests. Their first targets: India and Turkey, with many more to come. White House aides have been trying to nudge the president to ditch his personal Twitter account and use the official @POTUS handle. After all, presidential communications are supposed to be archived and preserved under specific rules. Think Hillary Clinton’s private server, not something Mr. Trump appeared to approve of during the campaign. It’s not working. He started the day with: He continued with: (That one has the peculiarity of misstating the date of Mr. Trump’s inauguration.) And he has kept going. #MAGA! House and Senate Republicans decamp from Washington on Thursday for their annual retreat — this time in Philadelphia. And House Speaker Paul D. Ryan made it official: President Trump will be the guest of honor. Despite a rocky start to their relationship, Walter M. Shaub Jr. the head of the Office of Government Ethics, is apparently still “willing and ready” to help Mr. Trump handle his potential conflicts of interest. Mr. Shaub met with members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in a session on Monday afternoon at the request of the chairman of the panel, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah. After Mr. Shaub publicly criticized Mr. Trump’s plans this month, Mr. Chaffetz accused him of playing politics — prompting Democrats and other watchdogs to come to the ethics monitor’s defense. According to a recap of Monday’s meeting by Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, Mr. Shaub said that his office had not received copies of documents that Mr. Trump referenced at a news conference on Jan. 11, and that it had been provided with no new information. Still, Mr. Shaub said he would help the president, if called upon. There were about nine members of the committee at the meeting — eight Democrats and Mr. Chaffetz, according to his spokeswoman, M. J. Henshaw. After Mr. Chaffetz left the meeting with Mr. Shaub, he told reporters: “I think we understand each other better. ” Big Labor may have been With Her, but the unions that represent builders and pavers Love Him. “We have a common bond with the president,” said Sean McGarvey, the president of North America’s Building Trades Unions, after meeting on Monday with Mr. Trump and hearing him promise a major push to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure. “We come from the same industry. He understands the value of driving development, moving people to the middle class. ” If the labor movement divides over Mr. Trump, it would not be the first time. An old saying holds that the building trades would pave over their mothers’ graves if it created jobs. And before Mr. Trump’s rise, unions like the Communications Workers of America and the Service Employees International Union had split with the building unions over the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines, with the former siding with liberal environmentalists and the latter seeing opportunities for work. In this case, the unions may unite with Democrats behind the new president — leaving Republican spending hawks in the cold. On his first working day as the country’s new secretary of defense, James N. Mattis spoke with the head of NATO and told him that the United States depends on it and on Europe for security. The telephone conversation came just a week after Mr. Mattis’s boss, Mr. Trump, called NATO “obsolete,” because, Mr. Trump said, the alliance hasn’t done enough to combat terrorism. Mr. Mattis “wanted to place the call on his first full day in office to reinforce the importance he places on the alliance,” a Pentagon spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, said in a statement on Monday night. | 1 |
Report Copyright Violation Even if you hate Hillary you have to give her props for making this race a referendum on Trump Most people voting for Hillary have no idea where she stands on the issues or what her policies are, they just have been told Trump is a bad man and they should vote for Hillary Page 1 | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Travelers were stranded around the world, protests escalated in the United States and anxiety rose within President Trump’s party on Sunday as his order closing the nation to refugees and people from certain predominantly Muslim countries provoked a crisis just days into his administration. The White House pulled back on part of Mr. Trump’s temporary ban on visitors from seven countries by saying that it would not apply to those with green cards granting them permanent residence in the United States. By the end of the day, the Department of Homeland Security formally issued an order declaring such legal residents exempt from the order. But the recalibration did little to reassure critics at home or abroad who saw the president’s order as a retreat from traditional American values. European leaders denounced the order, and some Republican lawmakers called on Mr. Trump to back down. As of Sunday evening, officials said no one was being held at American airports, although lawyers said they believed that dozens were still being detained. More than any of the myriad moves Mr. Trump has made in his frenetic opening days in office, the immigration order has quickly come to define his emerging presidency as one driven by a desire for decisive action even at the expense of deliberate process or coalition building. It has thrust the administration into its first constitutional conflict, as multiple courts have intervened to block aspects of the order, and into its broadest diplomatic incident, with overseas allies objecting. The White House was left to defend what seemed to many government veterans like a slapdash process. Aides to Mr. Trump insisted they had consulted for weeks with relevant officials, but the head of the customs and border service in the Obama administration, who resigned on inauguration day, said the incoming president’s team never talked with him about it. White House officials blamed what they portrayed as a hyperventilating news media for the confusion and said the order had been successfully carried out. Only about 109 travelers were detained in the first 24 hours, out of the 325, 000 who typically enter the United States in a day, they said. As of Sunday evening, the Department of Homeland Security said 392 green card holders had been granted waivers to enter. That did not count many visitors who remained overseas now unable to travel. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said Mr. Trump simply did what he had promised on the campaign trail and would not gamble with American lives. “We’re not willing to be wrong on this subject,” he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “President Trump is not willing to take chances on this subject. ” The order bars entry to refugees from anywhere in the world for 120 days and from Syria indefinitely. It blocks any visitors for 90 days from seven designated countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The Department of Homeland Security initially said the order would bar green card holders from those seven countries from returning to the United States. With thousands of protesters chanting outside his White House windows and thronging the streets of Washington and other cities, Mr. Trump late on Sunday defended his order. “To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting,” he said in a written statement. “This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe. ” He noted that the seven countries were identified by former President Barack Obama’s administration as sources of terrorism and that his order did not affect citizens from dozens of other predominantly Muslim countries. “We will again be issuing visas to all countries once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies over the next 90 days,” he said. Mr. Trump expressed sympathy for victims of the civil war in Syria. “I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria,” he said. “My first priority will always be to protect and serve our country, but as president, I will find ways to help all those who are suffering. ” While Mr. Trump denied that his action focused on religion, the first iteration of his plan during his presidential campaign was framed as a temporary ban on all Muslim visitors. As late as Sunday morning, he made clear that his concern was for Christian refugees, and part of his order gives preferential treatment to Christians who try to enter the United States from nations. In a Twitter post on Sunday morning, Mr. Trump deplored the killing of Christians in the Middle East without noting the killings of Muslims, who have been killed in vastly greater numbers in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. “Christians in the Middle East have been executed in large numbers,” he wrote. “We cannot allow this horror to continue!” His order, however, resulted in a second day of uncertainty at American airports. The American Civil Liberties Union said it was investigating reports that officials were not complying with court orders in New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago. New York’s attorney general sent a letter to federal authorities demanding a list of all individuals detained at Kennedy International Airport. The Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday evening that it was “in compliance with judicial orders. ” Still, at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, even the arrival of four Democratic members of Congress did not prompt customs officers to acknowledge whether they were holding anyone or provide lawyers access to anyone detained. The lawmakers arrived after 3 p. m. and were rebuffed by police officers when they tried to enter the Customs and Border Protection offices at the airport. Representative Gerry Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, said he was told to call the main office of the agency in Washington. His staff got a legislative liaison from the customs service on the phone, and “they said we’ll put you in touch with the deputy commissioner,” Mr. Connolly said. “I said that’s not acceptable,” he continued. “We want to talk to the person in charge of operations at Dulles Airport. That’s where the problem is, and that’s where the federal judicial ruling is applicable. ” The clash over the order provoked emotional responses. At a news conference, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader from New York, choked up as he vowed to “claw, scrap and fight with every fiber of my being until these orders are overturned. ” The mayors of New York, Chicago and Boston spoke out, as well. In Dallas, Mayor Mike Rawlings personally offered regrets to four released detainees at Worth Airport. “We have wished them welcome, and we have apologized from the depths of our heart,” he said. Chelsea Clinton joined a protest in New York. The order roiled relations with America’s traditional allies in Europe and the Middle East. The spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she “is convinced that the resolute fight against terrorism does not justify blanket suspicion on grounds of origin or belief. ” Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, who met with Mr. Trump in Washington on Friday and has sought to forge a friendship with him, initially declined to comment on the policy on Saturday when pressed by reporters during a stop in Turkey. But under pressure from opposition politicians, her spokesman later said the British government did “not agree with this kind of approach. ” The matter was especially sensitive in Muslim countries, and Mr. Trump spoke by telephone on Sunday with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi. White House statements on the calls said they discussed the fight against terrorism but did not say whether they discussed the immigration order, which did not include their countries. In Washington, protesters gathered by the thousands outside Mr. Trump’s front lawn to denounce his order and show solidarity with Muslim Americans. “Shame,” they chanted, hoisting homemade signs toward the executive mansion, where Mr. Trump was scheduled to host a private screening of the movie “Finding Dory. ” “No hate, no fear,” they added later. “Refugees are welcome here. ” Security fencing and reviewing stands still in place from the inauguration prevented the crowd from getting more than a couple hundred yards away from the building, but did not stop crowds from swelling through the afternoon, when protesters departed to march to Capitol Hill. Some Republicans grew increasingly alarmed by the backlash to the order. “This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country,” Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a statement. “That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security. ” Some conservative donors also criticized the decision. Officials with the political network overseen by Charles G. and David H. Koch, the billionaire conservative activists, released a statement on Sunday criticizing Mr. Trump’s handling of the issue. “We believe it is possible to keep Americans safe without excluding people who wish to come here to contribute and pursue a better life for their families,” said Brian Hooks, a chairman of the Kochs’ donor network. “The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive. ” Senator Bob Corker, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the order was “poorly implemented” and urged the president to “make appropriate revisions. ” Other Republicans were more circumspect. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, said the issue would be decided by the courts. Mr. Trump fired back at Mr. McCain and Mr. Graham on Twitter. “They are sadly weak on immigration,” he wrote. “Senators should focus their energies on ISIS, illegal immigration and border security instead of always looking to start World War III. ” | 1 |
Waking Times
Today, the government has returned in force, in multiple busses brimming with militarized police and tactical weaponry, all for some peaceful non-violent protesters. Arrests have already begun at the “front-line camp,” a no-fly zone has been instituted, and cell and internet coverage have been shut-down; all the more reason to question the legitimacy of this pipeline and the people from whom the land is being taken , as clearly the desire is to have as little coverage of this as possible.
Ask yourself why, despite the national outcry against the DAPL and others like it, and virtually zero support save for corporate and governmental entities, the US government is unfaltering in its push to accomplish this environmentally damaging, unconstitutional defiling of land that will put to risk, not only multiple states’ well-being, but desecrate sacred Native-American land. It’s not enough that this entire nation is built on the robbery of land from an entire race of people, but it appears the government has returned to finish the job.
Now this may seem sensationalist to many, but for those who have been following the story in North Dakota, the level of totalitarian police state control that is being witnessed is staggering. From stars such as Shailene Woodley being singled out from thousands involved and arrested for simply participating in a peaceful protest(as if to make a clear point to other famous Americans with a conscious), to children and senior citizens getting attacked and treated like criminals for attempting to stand, in a non-violent fashion, and fight for their rights as Americans; the original ones at that. Journalists are even getting arrested and charged just for trying to cover this extremely relevant story .
After being outlasted and outmanned, the government had recently chosen to leave the scene, claiming a lack of man-power to remove the protesters. This left many to hope that they might have come to their senses and realized that this level of resistance and this type of national story wasn’t worth it; or that the government realized that they should be fulfilling the will of the people and not fighting for some faceless corporate entity … but those wishful thinkers clearly didn’t realize how dedicated the US government is to maintaining its symbiotic relationship with its corporate sponsors , and its unwavering ability to disregard the Constitution when it suits their needs.
Aside from the obvious constitutional violations, one must consider that the leaking and spilling of these pipelines in the surrounding areas, is a common occurrence . If recent years have shown us anything, it’s that environmental catastrophes such as these are the rule, not the exception. It has become so common place that these corporate giants can devastate the Amazon with a massive oil spill , and it does not even make the evening news .
What many don’t know, is that the clean-up associated with a spill from one of these pipelines, or from a tanker for instance, is massive business, and creates millions in profit for those involved . Connections between the oil companies and the groups hired to conduct the oil clean-up are quite apparent, but with the infectious nature of corporate influence today, these companies no doubt have clear connections with just about every one of relevance. That being said, the mutually beneficial partnership that exists in this dynamic is nonetheless alarming. BP makes enough in under a week to cover much of the costs that go along with such an intensive clean up. In an article by Think Progress , they outline this absurdity following the Gulf spill :
For now, at least, BP’s prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits.
On Monday , BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant’s profits averaged $93 million a day.
The amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated at 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. In the first quarter, BP produced 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day worldwide — and it received $71.86 for every barrel.
When confronted with the astounding level of profit that these oil companies make in a given day, it is very clear that, to them, the losses taken were inconsequential, which gives them all the more motivation to play it fast and loose next time around. It is also clear that they make enough money to spend more to ensure this simply no longer happens if they truly wanted to, yet, they instead choose to play chicken with the world’s ecosystem, as the US government seems to have no problem turning a blind eye when it pertains to any such industry.
The continual profit being made by cutting corners and forgoing precautions, due to their lack of concern of actually being held accountable, surpasses the minuscule cost to them of hiring their clean-up company, from which they no doubt receive some sort of kickback and most likely have on speed dial. “At $93 million a day in profits, BP makes $350 million in about 3.8 days. The Washington Post noted that Exxon, through a decision by the Supreme Court, was able to pay only $507.5 million of the original $5 billion in punitive damages that it had been assessed for the 1989 Valdez disaster.” So even when being “held accountable,” if you can call it that, these monolithic companies get let off with a proverbial “slap on the wrist” when considering the amount of profit they generate in a given year.
Some would even go as far as to make the claim that companies will intentionally create circumstances that make these type of disasters more of a possibility, just to create an artificial demand, hire their go-to clean-up company, and start the process all over again. And many are unaware that deliberate discharges from oil tankers have traditionally been the biggest source of oil pollution from ships, greater than the accidental spills by far, and they are common-practice. So either way, this entire industry is one big environmental disaster that continues to grow with dependence upon it.
These pipelines, such as the one being forced upon the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota, are put in as quickly as possible by the lowest bidder with little to no concern for the preservation of the local lands. The only motivation given to the locals, if any, is that there will be an increase in jobs from the pipeline(while being built), but that is hardly worth the environmental destabilization of ones homeland. This does not even take into consideration the detrimental effects of the drilling and construction work alone, but that aside, one single leak can cause generations of problems, that in many cases will never be recovered, such as an endangered species . Yet sadly, this country has all but forgotten about the damaging effects its industry can have on our co-inhabitants of this planet.
As this atrocity continues in the face of public resistance and nationwide protest, ask yourself if this feels like the democracy politicians so fervently claim we have (even though it should be a republic), or the freedom we are continually told the world begrudges us. Ask yourself if the will of the people ever truly dictates the path of the United States, or if that is simply what we are told. About the Author
Ryan Cristian is the author of website, The Last American Vagabond .
Sources: | 0 |
Thursday, 10 November 2016 "My White House will be the best White House ever. I have all the best white houses."
The White House staff was in full swing as measures are put in place in expectation of the needs of incumbent president Trump.
"The first thing we did was put baby proof door knobs on all of the military related areas," stated Denis Richard McDonough. "We put an extra baby lock on "the button", McDouough explained further. "It is our understanding that he has exceedingly short fingers and a quick temper, so our hope is that he'll get frustrated and walk away mad like most children would after a couple of unsuccessful attempts to access it."
Some other measures taking place are plastic coverings being placed on all historical furniture in the event of any "spillage" during one of the president's private meetings with female visitors. All attractive women on staff will also be fitted with hockey masks in the event that the president isn't able to control his lips in their presence.
Some other upgrades include all signage will be changed to extra large print and throne shaped chair lifts will be installed on all stairs to replicate the 70 year old's current comfort level at Trump Tower.
There is also talk of adding 5 new members to the grooming staff to reduce the amount of time it takes for Trump to comb his hair from three hours down to something more manageable for the hectic schedule of the president of the United States.
"Overall, our transition is going quite smoothly," McDonough said, "now, all we have to do is determine which rooms we can configure to house Trump TV and its staff. It will be a first for our country to have an in-house broadcast network right inside the White House. I'm sure this level of access will only further the American people's understanding of the inner workings of our government."
It was unclear if having to compete with a private TV network owned by the president would affect access of other competing news organizations. "Most people just probably assume they'll make stuff up just like they did during the past election cycle." offered one staff member.
Some other firsts appear to be the addition of stripper poles and a rotating zebra print circular bed in the oval office, and portraits of former Presidents being replaced by advertisements for Trump University and many of the incumbent president's other business ventures.
"We are trying to advise against replacing the Roosevelt Chandelier with a disco ball, but the incoming family does have a certain amount of leeway when it comes to White House decor," the exasperated Chief of Staff explained. "Although, we did had to flatly dent the request for each Trump family member to have their own new White House constructed."
One staffer summed the experience up best, "I think it makes sense on a metaphorical level. The American people clearly wanted the government tore up, and that's exactly what Mr. Trump is doing to the White House." Make StubbornGorilla's day - give this story five thumbs-up (there's no need to register , the thumbs are just down there!) | 0 |
39 Views November 05, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News
With continued uncertainty in global markets, today the man who has become legendary for his predictions on QE, historic moves in currencies, and major global events, spoke with King World News about the destiny of the world.
Egon von Greyerz: “Eric, the destiny of the world economy is not going to be determined by what happens to Brexit or the U.S. election. Of course the election can be a catalyst but it won’t be the reason for what will happen next. What will trigger the next crisis phase in the world economy is the implosion of… KWN has now released this extraordinary audio interview with Egon von Greyerz, where he gives KWN listeners a look what is really happening behind the scenes globally and in the gold market, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.
***ALSO RELEASED: Forget The Propaganda, Here Is What Is Really Happening In The Gold Market CLICK HERE.
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Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain , on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com -- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show , broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 200 podcasts are archived for downloading here , or can be accessed from iTunes . Rob is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com
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Just before 9:30 p. m. on Sept. 13, the first Twitter post appeared, directing users to an obscure article about a remark Donald J. Trump had made last year that 50 percent of the country did not want to work. Over the next 48 hours, 1, 819 people, seemingly furious that the news media had paid more attention to Hillary Clinton’s assertion that half of Trump supporters fit into a “basket of deplorables,” lashed out at reporters and news outlets. “Dear Media: If you don’t cover this, you’re covering for him, #Trump50percent,” wrote one Twitter user. “@CNN @CNNPolitics have been in bed with #Trump for a year! They refuse to report #TrumpScandals #Trump50percent” wrote another. By the end of the week, the hashtag #Trump50percent had appeared in Twitter timelines more than 30, 000 times. Other liberal Twitter users, some of them with more than a million followers, linked to the article and spread the same complaint the Clinton campaign had made: that a shameful false equivalence was causing the media to Mr. Trump’s many transgressions and overplay the few it could find on Mrs. Clinton. At first glance, the Clintonian grass roots seemed to have organically sprouted in anger. But closer inspection yielded traces of that led to the sixth floor of a building in the Flatiron neighborhood of Manhattan. There, surrounded by tech companies, “Star Wars” posters and televisions fixed on cable news, Peter Daou sat with his team at a long wooden table last week, pushing the buttons that activate Mrs. Clinton’s outrage machine. Mr. Daou’s operation, called Shareblue, had published the article on Mr. Trump’s comment on its website and created the accompanying hashtag. “They will put that pressure right on the media outlets in a very intense way,” Mr. Daou, the chief executive of Shareblue, said of the Twitter army he had galvanized. “By the thousands. ” In the sprawling Clinton body politic, Shareblue is the finger that wags at the mainstream news media (“R. I. P. Political Journalism ( )”) or pokes at individual reporters. It is a minor appendage, but in an increasingly close race for the presidency, it plays its part. And it is already warming up for the biggest event of the general election so far: the first debate, on Monday night. It has already published a piece calling on moderators to Mr. Trump on the spot, and will continue through debate night, whipping up support online with the hashtag #DemandFairDebates. Shareblue is owned by David Brock, the onetime Clinton critic who remade himself into a Clinton supporter and architect of a conglomerate of organizations designed, he said, to be the liberal answer to the conservative messaging of Fox News. The Brock network includes his Media Matters for America watchdog website two “super PACs,” the opposition research outfit American Bridge and the and operation Correct the Record and Shareblue, which filled the need, Mr. Brock said, for a progressive outlet that spoke directly to the grass roots and which “was avidly and unabashedly . ” Shareblue’s content is exposing what it considers to be news coverage stacked against Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Daou was particularly excited about a project seeking to show that Mrs. Clinton’s email travails had been in the news every day since the story originally broke in March 2015. Often, their editorial direction seems in sync with the Clinton campaign, which has instructed its surrogates to blame news coverage for negative press. “Are they going to hold Hillary to a different standard again?” read one recent “talking points” memo sent by the campaign to its surrogates. That approach became clear this month. On Sept. 1, The Washington Post broke a story about the Donald J. Trump Foundation being fined for improperly donating $25, 000 to Pam Bondi, the attorney general of Florida, around the time that her office was deciding whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. The next day, the Clinton campaign put out a statement contending that while the news media had an unhealthy obsession with the Clinton Foundation, Mr. Trump’s charity had been caught in an “actual scandal. ” The Clinton campaign’s foreign policy spokesman, Jesse Lehrich, wrote on Twitter: “Awaiting outrage. ” He didn’t have to wait long. Mr. Daou and his website incessantly demanded coverage of the Trump Foundation story. “We just have to start the fire,” Mr. Daou said in an interview last week. Many liberal columnists, Democratic operatives and members of the Media Matters family reached the same conclusion, excoriating news outlets and individuals for grading Mr. Trump “on a curve. ” Whether it truly cleared the air about Mr. Trump’s foundation or merely muddied the water about Mrs. Clinton’s, Mr. Daou took credit for injecting the notion of false equivalence into the social media bloodstream and for forcing some news outlets to adjust their coverage. “ people are now talking about the double standard in coverage,” Mr. Daou said. “We feel we were way ahead of the curve. ” Mr. Brock recruited Mr. Daou to join what was then called Blue Nation Review (it relaunched as Shareblue this month) during a breakfast at the Regency Hotel in New York in November. Mr. Daou grew up in Lebanon and spent the ’90s working in dance music with his first wife as part of a group called The Daou, which put the words of his aunt, the novelist Erica Jong, to music. He then worked as a producer and keyboardist for Björk and other musicians. In the 2000s, Mr. Daou broke into progressive blogging and claimed to have helped found The Huffington Post. His suit accusing the company of denying him appropriate credit and compensation was settled in 2014. He also worked directly in politics, first for John Kerry in 2004 and then for Mrs. Clinton in 2008, leading her digital operation. Beyond creating a boisterous echo chamber, the real metric of success for Shareblue, which Mr. Brock said has a budget of $2 million supplied by his political donors, is getting Mrs. Clinton elected. Mr. Daou’s role is deploying a band of committed, outraged followers to harangue Mrs. Clinton’s opponents. “The pond scum of American politics,” is how Tad Devine, a senior strategist to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, described the website in March for its frequent attacks on Mr. Sanders. Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, viewed Shareblue more as a necessary voice in a world teeming with conservative radio, television and internet outlets that fire up the Republican base. “On the left, frankly, having more of that is not a bad thing,” Mr. Merrill said. Of Mr. Daou, he added, “He has a great sense of what’s moving around and where in the depths of the Twittersphere. ” Just how much Mr. Daou coordinates his efforts with the Clinton campaign is hard to pinpoint. The campaign said there was no formal coordination with Shareblue, and Mr. Daou said he did not take any direction from the campaign. “Now do I communicate with them regularly? I do,” Mr. Daou said, noting that because of his years working for Mrs. Clinton, “half the people on that campaign, if not more, are former colleagues and friends. ” He added that when one of their stories takes off, “I’ll let them know, ‘Hey check out what we just posted, it looks like a good angle. ’” Mr. Brock said his Correct the Record PAC talked to the Clinton campaign. But as for his Shareblue operation, he said: “There are people in the campaign who are aware of what we are doing and who have been encouraging about what we are doing. I wouldn’t go further than that. ” While Mr. Daou, the pianist, can accompany the larger Clinton ensemble, he can also step forward as a soloist when need be. When video of Mrs. Clinton falling ill on Sept. 11 exploded in the news media, the campaign, which had at first said she overheated, apologized for not revealing her diagnosis of pneumonia beforehand. Correct the Record went virtually dark. “It was waiting for guidance from the campaign,” Mr. Brock explained. But Mr. Daou quickly started defending Mrs. Clinton from critics on Twitter (“They should be ashamed”) and that evening posted an article on Shareblue about Mrs. Clinton’s grit, headlined “Hillary Clinton’s feat of strength obliterates months of health conspiracies. ” It was roundly mocked as a blatant example of spin. But two days later, the Clinton campaign distributed another memo of talking points to its surrogates using her near collapse as an opportunity to talk about her stamina. “To anyone who knows Hillary,” read the first bullet point, “it does not come as much of a surprise that even when she’s under the weather, she would want to power through her normal schedule. ” | 1 |
OXON HILL, Md. — In an administration hardly five weeks old, Stephen K. Bannon’s reputation has taken on almost mythic proportion as a populist, emerging power center, man of mystery. When Mr. Bannon, President Trump’s chief strategist, appeared in public on Thursday for the first time since the president was sworn in, it was to deliver, in his own combative way, a message of soothing reassurance to the conservative activists gathered here for their annual assessment known as the Conservative Political Action Conference. Do not believe the “corporatist globalist media” that was “crying and weeping” on election night and is still “dead wrong” about what the Trump administration is doing. Inside the White House, Mr. Bannon said, everything is going according to plan. The “deconstruction of the administrative state” has just begun. Appearing with Reince Priebus, the president’s chief of staff, he joked about how well the two get along despite the friction that had always existed between them. “I can run a little hot on occasion,” Mr. Bannon said, complimenting Mr. Priebus’s equanimity. And he urged a ballroom full of activists to stick together against the forces that were trying to tear them apart. “Whether you’re a populist, whether you’re a conservative, whether you’re a libertarian, whether you’re an economic nationalist,” he said, “we want you to have our back. ” Despite Mr. Bannon’s assurances, a simmering unease remains among conservatives over whether Mr. Trump will honor his promises to them, given that he was not part of their movement — or any political movement, for that matter — until very recently. Not too many years ago CPAC almost denied Mr. Trump a speaking slot because it feared he only wanted to promote himself. As for Mr. Bannon, he was essentially banished from the premises when he was running Breitbart News. So Mr. Bannon started a rival conference at a hotel down the street and called it The Uninvited. Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, acknowledged the discomfort that comes with any hostile party takeover when she addressed the meeting. Mr. Trump, she said, had to uproot the political system. “Every great movement ends up being a little bit sclerotic and dusty after a time,” she said. She predicted that CPAC would wholly embrace the new president. “Well, I think by tomorrow this will be TPAC,” she said. Part of what has been so problematic in Mr. Trump’s first month is that the disruption he promised to unleash on the federal bureaucracy so far seems to be occurring in the wrong place: his administration, which has been rife with infighting and rattled by early missteps. The destructive forces that Mr. Bannon and other conservatives complain about can sometimes come from within. Mr. Trump’s first nominee for labor secretary withdrew after allegations of domestic abuse and revelations that he had employed an undocumented immigrant he did not pay taxes on. His hastily carried out executive order barring refugees and all visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries has been tangled up in the courts and blocked from going into effect. He fired his national security adviser. And questions of how closely members of his inner circle may have worked with the Russians to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s campaign continue to attract interest from investigators. “Disruption is a good thing,” said Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC. Still, he acknowledged, “on some days they do it better than others. ” There is another lens through which to see the disorder that has characterized this White House, Mr. Trump and his supporters say. And that is to understand that the president’s enemies — especially in the news media — want to distort his actions, exaggerate his mistakes and not discuss issues like safety and unemployment that are on the minds of his supporters. Gov. Matt Bevin, Republican of Kentucky, said he was appalled by the “unbelievable incessant focus on the most mindless things,” with regard to how the president is portrayed in the news media. “Let’s talk about crime rates. Let’s talk about economic viability. Let’s talk about joblessness,” Mr. Bevin added. “Let’s focus on things that matter and stop being so and titillated by idiocy. ” Ms. Conway said the stories of disarray in the White House, including recent accounts that she has been sidelined lately, were nothing more than tiresome palace intrigue. And without naming names, she said the attacks directed at her were really desperate attacks against the president by political enemies still sore about the election. “To try to remove me from the equation would remove one of his voices and one of his trusted aides. And that would be hurtful to him,” she said. “They didn’t see this coming. They weren’t prepared for this result — even though they all ran around and said: ‘We’re a divided country! We’re a divided country! ’” It was not as if the support for Mr. Trump, who will speak to the conference Friday morning, is not enthusiastic. “I always said he’s not a stupid man. And if he has the right people around him he’s going to do the right thing,” said Daniel Cirucci of Cherry Hill, N. J. who was standing in line on Thursday evening to listen to Vice President Mike Pence, a conservative he said he deeply admired. “I think he realizes the enormity of the job,” Mr. Cirucci added. “Now does that mean Trump is going to stop being Trump? No. ” These should be good times for conservatives — and much of the time they are. They control not just the White House but both houses of Congress and appear on the verge of regaining a majority on the Supreme Court. They have not dominated so many state governments in close to a century. But part of the subtext of CPAC this year has been how conservative leaders are trying to smooth out the rougher edges of their movement, not all of which involve Mr. Trump. Because of the association that a fringe element of Trump supporters has with white nationalists, the CPAC organizers held a panel discussion on Thursday to signal their strong disapproval. Its title: The Ain’t Right at All. Yet after the panel was over, the white nationalist leader Richard Spencer stood in the hall just off the main stage and declared himself a conservative. “I’m a conservative in a deep sense, in a sense that I care about people and defending a culture. ” And the organizers had to cancel a planned speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart editor and Trump supporter who has a history of insulting Jews, Muslims, and other minorities, after a tape surfaced in which he condoned sex with boys as young as 13. The projections of placidity inside CPAC tried to mask how fractious the movement remains. Yet optimists were not hard to find. Mr. Pence said the Trump victory has given conservatives “the most important time in the history of our movement. ” “My friends, this is our time,” he told the conference Thursday night. “This is the time to prove again that our answers are the right answers for America. ” In his brief remarks, Mr. Bannon ended on a conciliatory note. He insisted that conservatives all had more in common than most people realized. “We have wide and sometimes divergent opinions,” he said. But the core of what conservatives believe is “that we’re a nation with an economy, not an economy just in some global marketplace with open borders — that we’re a nation with a culture and a reason for being. “And I think that’s what unites us,” he added. “And I think that’s what’s going to unite this movement going forward. ” | 1 |
MOSCOW — Tiger shooter, horseman and architect of Russia’s revival as a muscular global power, President Vladimir V. Putin, dressed in a somber suit and tie, sat for over an hour this past week sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup and offering earnest advice on how to improve housing, medical care and other services in a provincial town south of here. State television broadcast the entire encounter, in between reports of Russian airstrikes in Syria ordered by Mr. Putin and gleeful accounts of how, thanks to a stunt by a athlete, the Russian flag appeared during the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro despite a ban on the Russian squad because of a doping scandal. It was, in the span of just a few hours, a dizzying display of the political mastery that Mr. Putin has over his country and his own image — a tough, warrior caring father of his people and guarantor that no slight to Russia’s pride will go unanswered. Mr. Putin, 63, has shown an extraordinary ability to project an image of towering strength no matter what the circumstances. When he first took power, an old schoolteacher of his in St. Petersburg, Vera Malishkina, remembered her former pupil, who is below average height, as a superb basketball player because he was “very tall. ” He has many critics, many of them now in exile outside Russia or voiceless outside the coffee shops and wine bars of cosmopolitan cities like Moscow. But as Donald J. Trump said with admiration: Mr. Putin has “very strong control” over Russia. According to Mr. Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, “He has been a leader far more than our leader. ” The beauty of that is largely in the eye of the beholder, and is certainly lost on Mr. Putin’s Russian opponents. “Vladimir Putin is a strong leader in the same way that arsenic is a strong drink,” Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and a fierce critic of the Russian president, said in a Facebook post. “Praising a brutal K. G. B. dictator, especially as preferable to a democratically elected U. S. president, whether you like Obama or hate him, is despicable and dangerous. ” But what, aside from his undeniable skill at rallying the support of the Russian public, has made Mr. Putin such a potent figure, giving him a growing band of admirers like Mr. Trump and any number of populist leaders scattered across Europe? Mr. Putin has annexed Crimea, stirred up and armed a rebellion in eastern Ukraine, turned a once vibrant Russian news media into an echo chamber, and restored Moscow as an indispensable player on the world stage, by turns a peacemaker and troublemaker. His peacemaking was at the fore early on Saturday when Russia and the United States agreed in Geneva to a new plan to curb violence in the Syrian conflict, in which Washington and Moscow back opposite sides but share a desire to destroy the Islamic State. Judged by many of the yardsticks of success he set before his first presidential race in March 2000, however, Mr. Putin has often faltered. He has cut down to size or driven into exile some of the oligarchs who made billions in murky deals under President Boris N. Yeltsin in the 1990s. But far from eliminating “oligarchs as a class” as he promised, he has created a new class of business moguls who still enjoy sweet insider deals and whose only real difference with those who thrived under Mr. Yeltsin is that they do not dare challenge the Kremlin. Mr. Putin’s economic record has also been mixed to poor. The economy grew rapidly during his first two terms as president, from 2000 to 2008 — about 8 percent annually, on average, thanks largely to soaring prices for energy, of which Russia is a major exporter. But it developed none of the diversity beyond oil and gas or freedom from corruption that Mr. Putin repeatedly promised. And with oil prices now below $50 a barrel, half what they were in 2014 and far off their peak of $145 in 2008, the economy is in the doldrums. It perked up slightly in June but has declined over all by nearly 1 percent since the start of the year. That is better than the decline of 3. 7 percent last year but still a threat to what had been Mr. Putin’s contract with his people: rising prosperity in return for obedience. With the economy on the ropes, the Kremlin has turned increasingly to foreign affairs to keep Mr. Putin’s popularity at levels that would delight any Western leader. His ratings soared after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, which unleashed a wave of patriotic fervor across Russia — and caused more economic pain as the United States and the European Union imposed sanctions. The military interventions in Syria to prop up President Bashar have been accompanied by a drumbeat of reports on state television celebrating Russia’s role as a key power without which no military or political knot can be untied. This has reinforced his status at home, but also a deep wariness of his intentions among mainstream political leaders abroad. He has inserted Russia not only into Syria but also into the even more intractable conflict, with Russian diplomats working frantically to organize a meeting in Moscow between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. “It is important for Putin to drive home the message, especially to the U. S. that Russia is a global power,” said Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Moscow Carnegie Center, a research group, and an expert on Russian foreign policy. Mr. Putin, he said, was “incensed” in 2014 when President Obama dismissed Russia as a “regional power. ” Eager to show that Mr. Obama underestimated Russia’s reach, Mr. Putin has since embarked on a whirlwind of diplomatic activity across the Middle East and in Asia, asserting Moscow’s role far beyond the narrow confines of the former Soviet Union. “You can criticize Russia for anything, but if you belittle Russia, that is a crime,” Mr. Trenin said. That Russia is now a power to be reckoned with is a message drummed home relentlessly on television. Under President Yeltsin, television had a wide array of state and private channels offering a cacophony of views, but now it is largely and entirely on message with the Kremlin. “We interpret freedom of expression in different ways,” Mr. Putin told three Russian journalists who were writing a book to burnish his image before the 2000 presidential election, when he was a former K. G. B. officer. One of those journalists, Nataliya Gevorkyan, has since been beaten up twice by unidentified assailants in Moscow, and her old and once freewheeling newspaper, Kommersant, was taken over by a businessman. Effectively barred from publishing in Russia, she lives mostly in France. While never a fan of Mr. Putin — “I was sure a guy who served in the K. G. B. should never be president” — Ms. Gevorkyan granted the Russian president one indisputable asset, one that appalls Moscow intellectuals but enthralls admirers like Mr. Trump: “People elected him. ” “He is popular. Maybe not 86 percent, but definitely more than 50 percent,” she continued. “That is democracy. I really don’t know about democracy anymore. ” Mr. Putin’s ratings are certainly far higher than those of Mr. Obama, and Mr. Putin should easily win the next presidential election in 2018 if he runs. But the authorities are taking no chances. In the latest strike in a sustained campaign to shut down or at least tame alternative sources of information, Russia’s Justice Ministry recently announced that it would place the Levada Center, an independent and highly respected national pollster, on its official register of organizations “operating as foreign agents,” a listing that the center said would cripple its work. The decision to brand the country’s most reliable polling organization as an alien force followed the release of an opinion survey that showed declining support for Mr. Putin’s United Russia Party ahead of elections for Parliament on Sept. 18. Mr. Putin’s popularity, said Peter Kreko of the Political Capital Institute, a research group in Budapest, has made him a seductive figure for Western politicians and electors, who often pine for decisive action and a more secure world, free from the uncertainties created by immigration, insecurity and economic globalization. “All Western politicians that define themselves as out of the mainstream tend to have positive views of Russia and Putin,” he said. “They regard the Putin regime as contrary to the hesitant democratic and sometimes incompetent and paralyzed systems in their own countries. ” This efficiency, Mr. Kreko added, is mostly a myth but is widely believed. “We used to think that because of pluralist media, checks and balances, and globalization that people could not be brainwashed,” he said, “but what we see in Russia and also Hungary is that people can be brainwashed. ” | 1 |
They went to unusual, even dangerous lengths to support President Trump’s unpopular health care bill, facing down protesters at home and begging for special accommodation from House leaders in Washington. John Faso of New York negotiated a side deal for his state in exchange for backing it. Mike Coffman was the lone Colorado lawmaker to endorse the bill, while his Republican neighbors agonized and stalled. But with the collapse of the legislation on Friday, such Republican representatives now have nothing to show for their trouble. They ventured far out on a political limb, only to watch it disintegrate behind them. And when they run for next year, they may have to defend their support for a politically explosive bill that many Republicans backed only reluctantly, and that never came close to reaching the president’s desk. The fiasco in Washington is already rippling at home: Back in their districts, there are early signs of backlash against these lawmakers, including from constituents who voted Republican last November. Many voters’ complaints echo the criticism they leveled against the passage of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare: that it was passed too quickly, with too many deals and too much potential to destabilize the insurance system. Even voters supportive of Mr. Trump said the process had unfolded in a slapdash way, without sufficient attention to explaining the bill to people whom it might affect directly. At the Kings Valley Diner in Mr. Faso’s district, stretching across the Catskills and north past Albany, the congressman won some harsh reviews. He had at first hesitated over the health care proposal, which the Congressional Budget Office projected would lead to 24 million fewer people having health insurance over a decade. But Republican leaders pursuing Mr. Faso shifted the cost of Medicaid programs away from upstate counties like the ones he represents, and he backed the bill days before it fell apart. “Faso played that whole thing like an idiot, to be frank,” said Jim Palmatier, 62, who said he was disappointed to see the congressman over a doomed bill. “He tried to be a little too clever, and he just ended up looking like a fool. There’s no way I’m voting for him next time around. ” Eating breakfast with his teenage grandson, Mr. Palmatier, who described himself as a conservative, said he wanted to see the Affordable Care Act repealed but had been disappointed with the Republicans’ replacement. “They tried to get it through so quickly, they barely had time to explain the thing,” he said. In Representative Adam Kinzinger’s district, a Republican seat in a largely rural area outside Chicago, even conservative voters voiced unease with Mr. Kinzinger and his party’s sputtering approach to health care. Bill Chivers, 64, a teacher in Onarga, Ill. who said he leaned Republican, questioned whether lawmakers understood the bill: “Nobody knew what it was. Not even Congress — they don’t even know what it means. ” Anthony McIntyre, 55, who was grilling pork burgers for a outside the Hometown Family Foods store in Gilman, Ill. said he was relieved that the bill had failed. Mr. McIntyre, who has health coverage through his job in roofing, said he feared that the bill would have led to higher insurance rates. “They can write it better,” said Mr. McIntyre, who said he regularly voted Republican. “They have to do a better job with it. ” Told that Mr. Kinzinger supported the bill, he was not pleased. “Oh no, he can’t do that,” Mr. McIntyre said. “Congressman Kinzinger — I might not want to vote for him again. ” In an interview on Saturday, Mr. Kinzinger, 39, said he understood that many voters were concerned about change to the health care system, and suggested that Republicans should now try to work with Democrats on more incremental changes instead of pushing for wholesale repeal. “Anytime you do something like this, it’s unpopular at first,” he said. “People may dislike the health law in its current form, but they always get nervous for change. ” Mr. Faso, 64, said he did not regret supporting the House health care bill, calling it merely a “partial solution” to a difficult policy problem. He said he had heard from constituents supportive of unwinding the Affordable Care Act, but had also been confronted by protesters as recently as Saturday morning, at an event in New Lebanon. “I would say that my constituency is pretty divided on this whole question,” Mr. Faso said in an interview. “A lot of people want to see the A. C. A. or a system and just as many people, in my view, want to see us get rid of the A. C. A. I’m trying to listen to both sides. ” It is not only supporters of the bill, known as the American Health Care Act, who may face censure from voters. Dozens of Republican lawmakers opposed the measure after campaigning for years on a pledge to undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement. Mr. Trump suggested repeatedly that he might seek to punish Republicans who failed to support the proposal, raising the possibility of primary battles next year. But it was Democrats who moved fastest to exploit the Republican health care debacle: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced on Saturday that it was running online advertisements against more than a dozen Republicans, including Mr. Faso, who voted for versions of the health care bill when it was being drafted in committees. Democratic strategists said their private polling found the health care bill to be extremely unpopular, a finding mirrored in public opinion surveys. A Quinnipiac University poll published this past week found that just 17 percent of voters approved of the legislation, compared with 56 percent who disapproved. Three in five independent voters said they were against it. The Democratic campaign committee said it would even go after Republicans who never endorsed the final version of the bill, if they voted for it in earlier drafts, like Representatives Carlos Curbelo of Florida and Leonard Lance of New Jersey. The squeeze facing Republicans was evident in Mr. Curbelo’s district, where even voters critical of Obamacare were divided over the Republican strategy for replacing it. Sara Reig, 71, who said she was familiar with the main particulars of the bill, said the party should have been more patient and taken the time to craft a stronger piece of legislation. “What’s the rush?” she asked. “Better to fix it right and make it clear and really let us know what is in there,” Ms. Reig added. “They want to support the president, which I agree with, but it has to be done right. ” National Republicans, still reeling from their unexpected defeat, expressed hope that health care might fade as an issue before the congressional elections in 2018. With more than a year and a half until voters next pass judgment on the Congress, party leaders say they have plenty of time to record victories on issues like a tax code overhaul and infrastructure spending. Mr. Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan indicated on Friday that they did not intend to revisit health care in the near future. But Republican strategists also acknowledged that they would probably have to give extra help to vulnerable members of Congress who supported the health care bill. Corry Bliss, the chief strategist for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a “super PAC” backed by Mr. Ryan, said the group would go out of its way to protect lawmakers who backed the bill. “We are committed to helping advance the legislative agenda of House leadership,” Mr. Bliss said on Saturday. “Of course we are going to give preferential treatment to friends and allies. ” By contrast, Mr. Bliss noted that the group had cut off funding to Representative David Young of Iowa, a Republican who opposed the health care bill. It is unclear whether voters’ anger over health care will be enough help Democrats win a majority in the House next year. Republicans control the chamber by a sizable margin, and the district maps in many states were drawn to protect the party’s incumbents. And some voters appeared willing to give their representative a pass on the messy health care process. In Mr. Coffman’s district, anchored in the Denver suburbs, George Markline, 52, said he did not care for the Republican bill, pointing out that it would lead to higher premiums for people who lose their coverage. Yet Mr. Markline, a Republican, said he believed Obamacare needed changes and gave Mr. Coffman credit for trying. “I like the fact that he’s standing up for a change that needs to be done, even though it may not have been fixing everything, as it needs to be,” said Mr. Markline, who works in logistics at a warehouse. But other voters who once eagerly supported Republican opponents of Obamacare said the last few weeks had given them second thoughts. In Kingston, N. Y. on the eastern edge of Mr. Faso’s district, Sal Traficante, the owner of a small construction business, said he had begun to question his support for Republicans. Mr. Traficante, 57, said he wanted the Affordable Care Act to be modified, but was dismayed at the thought of tens of millions of people losing health care coverage. “Those are working people who need the coverage,” he said. Mr. Traficante said he was disappointed by the Republicans: “I liked the idea of repealing Obamacare, but I thought the Republicans would actually have a plan. ” | 1 |
Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer representing the UCB College Republicans, held a press conference Monday to discuss the case being brought against UC Berkeley and suggested deploying the National Guard to provide security if Berkeley’s mayor could not maintain control of the city. [One reporter asked Dhillon (at 29:00 in the video) whether or not the President should federalize the National Guard and have them provide security to speakers at UC Berkeley. In response, Dhillon said: Well again, I don’t think it’s Ann Coulter’s or YAF’s or Berkeley College Republicans’ problem to solve that problem. First of all I think the Governor has to call out the National Guard. The President declaring martial law in Berkeley so that Ann Coulter can speak is a bit extreme. I’m not suggesting that would be an appropriate outcome, but I think the problem runs deeper than this Ann Coulter event. To be clear, what we have here is a shadowy policy that is, like I said, double secret we didn’t find out about it until we were on the verge of a lawsuit. And we have a policy that’s going to be applied in the future to other speakers in the future unless it’s going to be brought out into the open, debated, and accommodated between the needs of the students who want to hear interesting speakers and the university which has an interest in the safety of all people, I accept that. But to unilateraly declare that certain facilities — all the desireable facilities are “not securable” in the sole discretion of the university, when they were securable for Vicente Fox last week — that does not pass the smell test of credibility. And so that’s the problem we’re dealing with, the double standards. Absolutely, if the Mayor of Berkeley cannot maintain control of his city, the Governor should call the National Guard, because that’s a serious public health issue. Watch the full press conference below: Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com | 1 |
October 31, 2016 White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest tells the press that President Obama stands with Director Comey.
President Obama made it clear today that he doesn’t stand with Hillary Clinton as much as we thought he did. President Obama made it clear he stands with FBI Director James Comey and his recent actions. Press Sec said that Director Comey’s actions have not changed Obama’s opinion on him or the FBI. White House: “President Obama does not believe FBI Director Comey is trying to influence election outcome.”
Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said that the White House won’t criticize the FBI or Director Comey. Josh Earnest on Comey's decision: "I just don't have the independent knowledge of the decisions that are made" https://t.co/dspAaoCcbL
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 31, 2016
Obama doesn’t believe James Comey is trying to influence or change the election. This destroys all the claims the left has been making that this is somehow an influence to ‘fix’ the election.
Now that the President of the United States has declared the FBI is non-partisan to this election, where does Hillary move next? Having the President shut down your claims makes the ‘lying’ stigma more prominent with Clinton. The following two tabs change content below. | 0 |
US Sent Huge Weapons Shipments To Saudi Arabia Weeks Before Yemen Funeral Bombing Without U.S. support there’s no way Saudi coalition could wage the war at this level.” | October 28, Members of the Higher Council for Civilian Community Organization inspect a destroyed funeral hall as they protest against a deadly Saudi-led airstrike on a funeral hall in Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, Oct. 13, 2016.
Published in partnership with Shadowproof .
The United States shipped hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to Saudi Arabia just weeks prior to the Saudi-led coalition’s funeral bombing in Sanaa, Yemen, according to a new analysis of U.S. government data conducted by Shadowproof.
The October 8 bombing killed 140 and wounded over 500. It was widely condemned by human rights groups and exposed U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen to greater scrutiny.
In response to a query from Shadowproof about the funeral strike, State Department spokesperson Frankie Sturm replied, “We have regularly expressed our concerns to the Saudi-led coalition, and urged them – as we have urged all sides, including the Houthis – to take all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian objects and return to a cessation of hostilities.”
Despite the US government’s purported desire for a “cessation of hostilities” and “concerns” for civilians, Shadowproof’s analysis shows that large quantities of U.S. weapons continue to flow to the Saudi government, impeding a sustained ceasefire and enabling civilian carnage.
In July and August, the U.S. shipped Saudi $8.8 million in bombs, $47.3 million in parts for bombs, 313 guided missiles worth $26 million, one military helicopter worth $15.7 million, and 334 armored fighting vehicles and 19 armored vehicles, which together are worth over $197 million.
From April to July, when peace talks were active, the U.S. shipped $50 million in armored vehicles and $82 million in parts for bombs. Talks broke down in July and were followed by a major increase in coalition air assaults in Yemen.
Following the attack on a funeral, the U.S. government announced it was “ reviewing ” its support for the Saudi coalition; however, as of October 10 , there were no changes to U.S. military support for coalition operations.
A UN-brokered ceasefire implemented in April ushered in a major reduction in fighting. Yet, U.S. weapons shipments continued.
In fact, over the course of President Barack Obama’s administration, it has approved a staggering $115 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia—including a $1.29 billion sale in November 2015, which included over 19,000 bombs and a $1.15 billion sale of tank components, ammunition, and other weapons.
The U.S. government has also provided logistical and intelligence support that has facilitated the Saudi coalition’s carnage.
Given Saudi’s dependence on the U.S. government for military support, it is difficult to overstate the degree of influence the U.S possesses over the Saudi government. For example, Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said in April, “If the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow.”
Kristine Beckerle, who researches Yemen for Human Rights Watch, told Shadowproof, “The Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign in Yemen has been devastating for civilians, hitting marketplaces, factories, homes and hospitals. There is no question US weapons have been used in some of these unlawful attacks, including one of the most deadly. The US should be suspending arms sales to Saudi, until it not only curbs unlawful strikes but also credibly investigates those that have already occurred.”
A survey conducted by the Yemen Data Project found that, from the beginning of the Saudi coalition’s air campaign in Yemen in March 2015, through August of 2016, more than one-third of the coalition’s 8,600 strikes hit non-military targets.
“The coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of air strikes,” UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said back in March.
Nasser Arrabyee, a journalist in Sanaa, told Shadowproof, “In the first weeks of the war the battle for Sanna was over, all the military sites were destroyed, yet the coalition strikes continue on a daily basis, often hitting civilians.”
The U.S. government continues to insist the Saudi coalition isn’t intentionally targeting civilians, but Colette Gadenne, who heads Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) Yemen mission told Shadowproof, “We’ve seen airstrikes hit civilian locations so often. For example, there was a strike on a crowded marketplace in Harad at 8 pm on July 4. It took place after people broke their Ramadan fast. And we only know about the strikes we see directly.”
Three MSF hospitals, one MSF mobile clinic, and an MSF ambulance were attacked by coalition forces.
After the funeral attack, images appeared on social media allegedly showing fragments of a U.S-supplied tail fin for a JDAM guidance kit for a U.S-made Mark 82 500 lb. bomb.
Ali Al-Ahmed, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the Institute for Gulf Affairs and himself a Saudi, told Shadowproof the Saudis indeed target civilians.
“They couldn’t defeat [the Houthis] on the battlefield so they’re killing women and children, bombing schools, to get that result,” Ahmed explained.
Back in 2010, U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning disclosed a State Department cable from the same year that showed the U.S. government provided “imagery” of the Yemen border to the Saudi government, despite evidence Saudi aircraft were attacking civilians when attacking Houthis in northern Yemen. Assistant Minister of Defense and Aviation Prince Khaled bin Sultan appealed to a U.S. ambassador to give them a Predator drone to help limit civilian casualties.
Another cable from 2009 that was also disclosed by Manning shows the U.S. government approved military assistance for Saudi Arabia or Yemen if aid was not used against Houthis. Since then, the U.S. government has allowed the Saudi Kingdom to pull them into an open-ended war.
With regard to al Qaida, Ahmed noted, “Hundreds of Saudi jets and their allies bombing Yemeni forces have avoided bombing…positions in Yemen of al Qaida.”
“The Saudi air force is really becoming the air force for al-Qaida,” Ahmed said. “The Saudi bombings have helped mostly one group: al-Qaida.”
Ahmed also stressed the bombings fuel “anti-Americanism.” Prior to the war, the Yemeni government cooperated closely with the U.S. in counterterrorism matters.
In a letter to President Obama, 36 members of congress urged him to block the $1.15 billion arms deal announced in August. The letter stated, “Amnesty International has documented at least 33 unlawful airstrikes by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition across Yemen that appear to have deliberately targeted civilians and civilians facilities, such as hospitals, schools, markets, and places of worship. These attacks may amount to war crimes.”
According to a recent report by Reuters, the coalition has hit sites the U.S. government put on a “do not strike” list. The U.S. designated these locations as being vital infrastructure for delivery of food aid and for post-war reconstruction.
The Saudi coalition declared as a target the entire Saada Governorate (measuring 4,000 square miles), which borders Saudi Arabia. It also reportedly used incendiary weapons, white phosphorous, as well as cluster weapons, which are banned by most countries.
Both of these weapons were supplied by the U.S.
The war’s effect on civilians in Yemen is enormous. “The jets overhead scare the children. There is no place people can go to be safe, even hospitals are hit in strikes. The population is traumatized,” Gadenne said.
More than 10,000 civilians have been killed since the Saudi-led coalition began, including more than 1,000 children. More than 80 percent of the population now requires some form of humanitarian assistance for survival.
Beatriz Ochoa from Save the Children told Shadowproof, “The number of children that are severely malnourished has doubled to 370,000 since the beginning of the coalition bombing. 1.6 million women and children under 5 are suffering from acute malnutrition with over 14 million, or roughly half of Yemen’s population, are considered food insecure.”
The coalition imposed a blockade, which has resulted in shortages of medicine and food, as well as price spikes and hoarding of goods.
Recently, there was a reported cholera outbreak, which may exacerbate the already dangerous health crisis.
Another serious concern is unexploded ordnance. “A 16-year-old girl was collecting firewood in Sadaa, and there had been an air strike in the area 3 months prior. An unexploded ordnance went off and she lost a leg,” Gadenne recalled.
Ms. Gadenne said MSF has seen victims from unexploded ordnance all over the country. Research from Amnesty International found thousands of unexploded munitions in northern Yemen, following a 10-day tour of the region earlier this year.
The dire humanitarian crisis resulting from the war has given rise to a great deal of anger in Yemen, according to Arrabyee. “Yemenis see the war as an American war, as the coalition couldn’t carry out the strikes in Yemen without U.S. support. There is a big campaign saying Americans are the ones killing the Yemenis people.”
William Hartung from the Center for International Policy told Shadowproof the U.S. is directly involved in Yemen, even if it’s not the one dropping the bombs.
“Without U.S. support there’s no way Saudi coalition could wage the war at this level,” Hartung said. “The large weapons deals and mid-flight refueling provided by the U.S. play an important role in Saudi’s ability to conduct strikes in Yemen.” Be Sociable, Share! | 0 |
ALERT: Texas Voter Finds Ballot Switched Inside Voting Machine
“I am a single, Republican mother of two younger kids in small town Illinois,” the email, written Thursday, read. “Within my friends, I keep seeing and hearing of all these examples of voter fraud going on right now with Trump supporters.”
“Three well-respected people within the same household in my town who mailed in their ballots in favor of Trump went online to make sure their votes were counted — only to find they were not going to be counted because the signatures on the ballot didn’t match those on their letter ,” she wrote.
“They would have never seen this if they hadn’t gone online to verify!” she added. Advertisement - story continues below
Here’s the screenshot submitted with the email as evidence:
This is yet another friendly reminder: If you want to make sure that your vote counts, go into the polling place and ask for a paper ballot.
We’ve heard enough about electronic voting and other machines keeping suspicious records, and it’s time to put an end to that. If you think there’s a possibility of crooked officials erasing your vote, the clear way to go is the paper ballot. And if enough of us do so, perhaps officials will be moved to eliminate electronic machines altogether. Advertisement - story continues below | 0 |
“Never too late to come back. ” So sayeth the High Swearengen, ministering to his followers but speaking in particular to a certain disfigured member of his flock. It was a clever bit of sermonizing, applying both to its target’s potential for salvation within the story as well as his renewed purpose, overall, in the world of “Game of Thrones. ” For Sandor Clegane, also known as the Hound, who has not been seen since the end of Season 4, has returned. You’ll recall that he was beaten nearly to death and tossed off a cliff by Brienne, who then let Arya escape anyway. Some time later, we learned Sunday, the roving played by Ian McShane discovered and nursed him back to health. It was unclear how he did it or where they had all ended up. The group seemed to be building a church in a pastoral field but everyone was apparently wiped out by a rather prickly Brotherhood Without Banners contingent before they could explain what they were up to. The big Hound reveal was less surprising than it might have been, thanks to Mr. McShane’s letting some clues slip a few months ago. (The resulting hubbub led to the actor’s memorably terse, but unprintable, description of the show.) But it was still fun to again see the Hound, who showed up looking perhaps worse for the wear. Who could tell, really? The man was never in this tale for his beauty — what’s important is that he’s still strong and he feels as if he has some atoning to do. Oh, and he has an ax. That could come into play at some point. The return of the Hound, revealed in a rare cold open, provided the spine of an episode that was largely about alliances productive and wearying, newly forged and torn asunder. As Sansa and Jon Snow tried to drum up support in the North, Arya dealt with the consequences of cutting ties with the Faceless Men. As Jaime worked to counteract the general numbskullery of the idiot Freys at Riverrun, Cersei watched as her former collaborator Lady Olenna called her “the worst person I’ve ever met” on her way out of town. Those crazy Greyjoy siblings, for their part, are eying a new partnership with Daenerys Targaryen in Meereen, which would be good news for multiple reasons. (More on that in a minute.) The alliance between the Hound and Mr. McShane’s Brother Ray was the one partnership of the night that wasn’t purely transactional, which means it was doomed from the beginning. If you had any doubt, there was Ray, on an undefensible open plain, preaching about the uselessness of violence on one of the most violent shows on television. “Violence is a disease,” he said. “You don’t cure a disease by spreading it to more people. ” Which is true, but there aren’t many people in this story interested in curing that particular disease. Morality is fluid in “Game of Thrones” the one cardinal sin seems to be to refuse to deal with the world as it is. (Ned Stark is the enduring example of this.) Which is to say: this thing was going to go only one way. The real tragedy is that Mr. McShane, almost always the best part of whichever screen he’s on, is already gone. And so now, the Hound and his trusty ax are off in search of new alliances. It remains to be seen whether that leads toward revenge on the Brotherhood — they have a complicated history, remember — or Brienne or his undead brother or something else entirely. Arya sure could’ve used her old protector this week. Last seen lying in wait for the Waif in the dark — at least that’s how it looked to me — Arya on Sunday made travel plans in broad daylight and otherwise behaved in oddly leisurely fashion for a woman who just defied a band of deadly assassins. She strolled around Braavos, taking in the sights, and what’s this? A kindly old woman wants to have a word? Soon there were a few new holes in her belly and, a quick swim later, she was bleeding in the streets among a sea of unfriendly faces, any one of which could bring more stabbing. So what’s the plan, Arya? I still think we’re not done with the theater troupe so perhaps someone among them has some medical expertise. (I’m sure we all remember the young actor seeking help for his skin problem a few weeks ago.) A key scene from an early trailer found Arya taking a terrific flying leap so perhaps a future escape will make up for this week’s bizarre lack of urgency. A world away, Arya’s sister tried to rally the North and only ended up with some Wildlings and 62 Mormont men for her trouble. On the bright side, Wun Wun the giant is among the Wilding supporters — “Snow!” — and I also wouldn’t underestimate the latest formidable female in the story, Little Miss . Leave it to Davos, the little girl whisperer, to win her over. (I know it came up a few weeks ago but he doesn’t have the whole story of what happened to Shireen, right?) Lyanna Mormont is probably my favorite new character of the season so far, and that’s even before you consider that she oversees a place called Bear Island. How did we not get to see more of Bear Island? Throw us a bone, HBO. Sansa was last seen writing a letter to someone, presumably asking for more help. Any guesses who it was? Littlefinger seems like the obvious choice — she appeared pretty joyless about it and we already know he has the knights of the Vale queued up and ready to ride. But what will be his price? Could Sansa (sigh) be in for yet another dispiriting marriage? “Is she a Bolton or is she a Lannister? I’ve heard conflicting reports,” Ms. Mormont said. I do what I have to do, Sansa replied. Would she do it again? Speaking of Lannisters, in King’s Landing, the High Septon has consolidated his power by taking control of the throne, and is now eliminating threats. Last week, he had Jaime sent away. (Yes, Tommen officially did it, but he’s a puppet at this point, right?) This week the Sparrow targeted Lady Olenna. “I only pray your grandmother follows your lead,” he tells Margaery. The Sparrow is loathsome, wrapping in sanctimony the same crass power craving that animates many of the show’s characters. But it’s worth noting how good Jonathan Pryce is at conveying a sense of superficial guilelessness that masks darker undercurrents. A phony man of God (or seven gods) can easily veer into caricature but the Sparrow’s humility has never wavered, even as his dominion has expanded exponentially. We received confirmation that Margaery is telling the Sparrow and Septa Unella what they want to hear — Margaery signaled her loyalty and warned away the Queen of Thorns with a drawing of a rose, the family sigil. The question is: Is she playing into the Sparrow’s hands by sending away her grandmother? Not that Margaery had a choice, with the threats on the table. But I suspect the real point is to remove any possible obstacles for the Sparrow’s control of the royal couple. He already has Cersei ready to face charges — the mother of the king is a potentially powerful adversary — so if he can clear out Olenna, his hold on the king and queen would be secure. Olenna’s departure also removes yet another former Cersei ally, not that the Olenna has any interest in helping her after their failed coup last week. Still friends? Cersei asks, knowing that without the Tyrells she has little hope of overthrowing the Sparrow. “You’ve lost, Cersei,” Olenna replies, which brings “the only joy I can find in all this misery. ” So that would be a no. Finally, Theon was like the guy at the fondue party on Sunday, as Yara and friends indulged in some classic behavior. Yara took a quick break for some tough love, telling her brother that she had no time for his stress disorder. “I know you’ve had some bad years,” she said, in a riotous bit of understatement before making her point: Get over it or kill yourself. Theon continues to be one of the more interesting characters this season — with Alfie Allen giving him a poignant, quality — because we don’t know how he’s going to turn out. His past as a feckless cad obliterated, there’s no going back to what he was, despite Yara’s urging. We received confirmation that the Greyjoys intend to sail to Meereen to offer their services to Dany, as suspected, which is good news for a couple of reasons. One, anything that will expedite a departure from Meereen is welcome. Two, who better than Varys and the Unsullied to help Theon understand that there’s life after … well, you know? • Jaime arrived at the mudpit known as Riverrun and Bronn made his first appearance of the season. (It was a big week for beloved, scraggly bearded dudes.) But otherwise it was all fruitless parleys and doofus Freys. The real action starts with Brienne’s arrival next week, promised in the preview, at the tent of her old kingslaying crush. • As discussed in the episode, Lyanna Mormont’s uncle was Jeor Mormont, whom Jon Snow initially served under at Castle Black. But a reminder: Jeor’s son was none other than Jorah Mormont, the same lovelorn knight currently wandering Essos in search of a cure for his greyscale. Forget Bear Island. Can we just get a scene of little Lyanna talking some sense into her cousin over his Dragon Queen obsession? • This just in: Marital relations do “not require desire on a woman’s part,” the High Sparrow tells Margaery. “Only patience. ” Quite the romantic, this guy. • What say you? Is Cersei as doomed as I think she is? What do the gods have planned for the Hound? Who else in this show, besides Septa Unella, could use a good bashing? Please weigh in in the comments. | 1 |
Something lighter: ‘Shiny’ legs optical illusion goes viral Posted at 2:22 pm on October 26, 2016 by Greg P.
If you need a quick break from the election madness, check this out.
A new optical illusion has gone viral via Twitter [email protected] These look like shiny legs, right? Once you see it you can't unsee it pic.twitter.com/5mREeJUhYV
OK … now look again, but this time look for white streaks of paint…. This just pissed me off like cmon https://t.co/KVDerfPk6b
— Mathew Fiorante (@Royal2) October 26, 2016 mindblowing – do you see shiny legs or painted legs? WHOA. I saw shiny and then painted and I can't unsee it! https://t.co/rVN3LDdYAc
— Carla Marie (@theCarlaMarie) October 26, 2016 Where have the shiny legs gone?? https://t.co/SLPKynGnjE
— Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) October 26, 2016
Although the image went viral thanks to @msbreeezyyy, it looks like this might be the original: A photo posted by hunter 🧀 (i post a lot) (@leonardhoespams) on Oct 23, 2016 at 9:01am PDT
That image was posted a month ago as well with the caption, “i like the feeling of paint on my skin.” A photo posted by hunter 🧀 (i post a lot) (@leonardhoespams) on Sep 15, 2016 at 1:55pm PDT
*** | 0 |
Area: Total of 0.44 sq. km. (109 acres).Population (July 2006 est.): 932.Ethnic groups: Italian, Swiss, other.Religion: Roman Catholic.Languages: Italian, Latin, French, various others.Literacy: 100%. Work force: 3,000 lay workers (reside outside the Vatican).GovernmentType: Papacy; ecclesiastical governmental and administrative capital of the Roman Catholic Church.Independence: Sovereign entity since medieval times (Lateran Pacts confirming independence and sovereignty of The Holy See signed with Italy on February 11, 1929).Suffrage: Limited to Cardinals less than 80 years old. EconomyBudget: Revenues (2005) $247 million; expenditures (2005) $243 million.Industries: Printing; production of coins, medals, postage stamps, a small amount of mosaics, and staff uniforms; worldwide banking and financial activities. This unique, noncommercial economy is also supported financially by contributions (known as Peter's Pence) from Roman Catholics throughout the world, the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees from admissions to museums, and the sale of publications. The incomes and living standards of lay workers are comparable to, or somewhat better than, those of counterparts who work in the city of Rome.PEOPLE AND HISTORY Almost all of Vatican City's citizens live inside the Vatican's walls. The Vatican includes high-ranking dignitaries, priests, nuns, and guards as well as about 3,000 lay workers who comprise the majority of the work force. The Holy See's diplomatic history began in the fourth century, but the boundaries of the papacy's temporal power have shifted over the centuries. From the 8th century through the middle of the 19th century, the Popes held sway over the Papal States, which included a broad band of territory across central Italy. In 1860, after prolonged civil and regional unrest, Victor Emmanuel's army seized the Papal States, leaving only Rome and surrounding coastal regions under papal control. In 1870, Victor Emmanuel captured Rome itself and declared it the new capital of Italy, ending papal claims to temporal power. Pope Pius IX and his successors disputed the legitimacy of these acts and proclaimed themselves to be "prisoners" in the Vatican. Finally, in 1929, the Italian Government and the Holy See signed three agreements resolving the dispute: A treaty recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the Holy See and creating the State of the Vatican City; A concordat defining the relations between the government and the church within Italy; and A financial convention providing the Holy See with compensation for its losses in 1870. A revised concordat, altering the terms of church-state relations, was signed in 1984. | 0 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. A Senate showdown over Judge Neil Gorsuch: The Judiciary Committee approved his Supreme Court nomination in a vote, which moves the issue to the Senate floor. But Democrats appear to have secured enough votes to filibuster. So Republicans are planning to use the “nuclear option” — changing longstanding Senate rules. Judge Gorsuch could be confirmed by the end of the week. _____ 2. President Trump warmly welcomed Egypt’s authoritarian president, Abdel Fattah to the White House. The moment underscored a fundamental shift in focus in American foreign policy, from human rights to counterterrorism. Mr. Sisi had been barred from such visits since he came to power in a military takeover four years ago because of his brutal suppression of domestic dissent. “We agree on so many things,” Mr. Trump said. “I just want to let everybody know in case there was any doubt that we are very much behind President . ” _____ 3. Mr. Trump’s busy diplomatic week peaks when he hosts his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Florida on Thursday and Friday. The top agenda item will be pressing China on economic sanctions on North Korea over its weapons program — which may have expanded to include thermonuclear weapons. Back in China, Mr. Trump has a surprisingly strong fan base among a fringe, Maoists, who admire his focus on protecting workers. _____ 4. Jared Kushner was in Iraq, for what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said was an update on the fight against the Islamic State. It’s the latest example of Mr. Trump using his and adviser as an envoy to foreign leaders, creating something of a parallel structure to the State Department. Also Monday: Conservative news outlets reported that Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, requested the identities of Americans who were cited in intelligence reports about surveillance of foreign officials, and who were connected with Mr. Trump’s campaign or transition. _____ 5. More trouble for Fox News: Another woman came forward with allegations of sexual harassment involving its former chairman, Roger Ailes. Julie Roginsky, a current Fox News contributor, above left, said she faced retaliation for rebuffing his sexual advances and for refusing to disparage another accuser. Over the weekend, we published an investigation that found that five women have received payouts for agreeing not to sue or speak out publicly about their allegations of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior against the Fox superstar Bill O’Reilly. One of the reporters discussed the findings on The Daily podcast. _____ 6. The final game in a thrilling N. C. A. A. tournament: The men’s final begins at 9:20 p. m. Eastern. (CBS, or live stream) We’re breaking down what the Gonzaga Bulldogs and the U. N. C. Tar Heels need to do to win, and we’ll have live coverage all night. And congratulations to the women’s champions, the South Carolina Gamecocks. _____ 7. Among our articles today: an report on Uber’s use of psychological tricks to control drivers. The company is pairing the latest in behavioral science with video game design in an extraordinary experiment to get drivers to work longer and harder. And in a demonstration of how tech is transforming the auto industry, Tesla is now worth more than Ford. _____ 8. Devastating scenes after an explosion in Russia and a mudslide in Colombia: In St. Petersburg, a bomb tore through a subway train midafternoon, killing an estimated 11 people and injuring dozens more. President Vladimir Putin was a few miles away at the time. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. And in Mocoa, rescue workers arrived to an almost unrecognizable city. At least 254 people have died after heavy flooding set off a mudslide on Saturday. _____ 9. The starting gun went off on application season for visas, known as which allow American employers to bring in foreign workers. For the last few years, the government has been so overwhelmed by applications that it has stopped accepting them within a week of opening day. This year, the rush has escalated to an frenzy, because the program’s future is unclear. _____ 10. Finally, our new food writer, the British chef Yotam Ottolenghi, invited the Easter bunny to his Seder. So to speak. In his latest column, he offers recipes for each holiday, and reflects on how a meal can be “the bridge between generations and the signifier of a story” that allows us to connect personally with history, and make our own. “Such is my story and the story of my family: In order to live on, traditions need to be braided together to become something new. ” Have a great night. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s Friday night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
A Michigan college student with a deadly peanut allergy was the victim of a hazing ritual in which he was daubed in the face with peanut butter at an party, spurring a severe reaction that left him with swollen eyes, officials and the man’s mother said. The police in Mount Pleasant, Mich. said they were investigating the October encounter involving youths who said they were members of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity at Central Michigan University and the student, Andrew Seely, 19. Law enforcement authorities and university officials found out about the hazing this week, after Mr. Seely’s mother, Teresa Seely, wrote about it and posted a photograph of her son’s distorted face on Facebook. “He could have been killed,” she wrote, adding that he carried medicine to counteract accidental exposure to peanuts. “We will be investigating,” Capt. Andy Latham of the Mount Pleasant Police said by telephone. He added that the authorities had not yet spoken to Mr. Seely, who transferred to another school, but that they were contacted on Wednesday by the family’s lawyer. Ms. Seely wrote in the post that her son had a “deadly” peanut allergy and had passed out at the party. When he came to, she said, he discovered that his eyes, nose and lips had ballooned because peanut butter had been rubbed on his face. Ms. Seely said he was treated at a campus clinic. He told his family only this week about the hazing, she said, after which she called the campus police, the Mount Pleasant police and university officials. Ms. Seely could not be reached by telephone on Friday. Heather Smith, a spokeswoman for the university, said the fraternity had not been active on campus since 2011 because of previous hazing. She said campus officials heard about Mr. Seely’s experience through his mother’s social media post. University police do not have jurisdiction over the party, according to Ms. Smith, but the university could investigate any violations of the student code of conduct if Mr. Seely reached out. “It is a potential criminal matter,” she said. “It is obviously a very concerning situation. ” The national headquarters of Alpha Chi Rho, which said in a statement on Friday that it had revoked the chapter’s charter in 2011 because of hazing, added that the people involved in Mr. Seely’s case “were not members” of the fraternity and “acted independently. ” “Alpha Chi Rho does not condone this type of behavior, or any form of hazing, and it stands in conflict with our mission to cultivate men of character, honor and integrity,” the statement added. The television station WDIV in Detroit quoted an unidentified fraternity member as saying: “We were just trying to be funny, just guys hanging out, and we used peanut butter and put some on his face. We didn’t know he was allergic,” the member said. “We were not trying to harm him in any sense. ” Officials have been trying to stamp out the kind of campus activities and rituals that lead to Mr. Seely’s allergy attack, as university and high school students find disturbingly creative ways to haze others. Students trying to join fraternities, sororities, clubs or athletic teams have been tied up, blindfolded and sexually abused. Others have been forced to binge drink until death, and others have even been fatally beaten. While there are no official government databases on hazing cases and their outcomes, university professors keep their own statistics, and put in place policies to control the practice. According to a chronology of cases kept by Hank Nuwer, a journalism professor at Franklin College in Indiana, there has been at least one hazing death every year from 1969 to 2016 at United States colleges and high schools. “I would say there are thousands of hazings every day, most of which are not reported,” said Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and expert on the practice. “And each year hazing gets worse. A rookie wants to enter the group, and you become a bystander and watch others, and eventually become a perpetrator. ” Dr. Lipkins said that in some cases, members of banned fraternities recolonize and operate in unofficial, groups. She said she had no direct knowledge of Mr. Seely’s case, but believed it was most likely that the group had advance knowledge that he had an allergy. “It is not a typical hazing activity,” she said. “Of all the hazing activities, I have not heard of peanut butter on the face. ” In 2012, a drum major died after a brutal hazing ritual at Florida AM University in which he was pummeled with hands, drumsticks, bass drum mallets, straps and even an orange cone by at least 15 band members on a bus. The cause of death was “hemorrhagic shock caused by trauma,” the medical examiner said. | 1 |
Outraged reporters piled onto Principal Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders Friday during a press conference, demanding to know why the White House had dared mention an alleged rape committed by suspects after initial charges were dropped. [“I want to ask you about this case out of Maryland,” ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega began, and went on to say: As you probably know, the prosecutors have dropped the rape charges against the two, undocumented teens [sic] accused of attacking that classmate. This White House has been — was vocal on that case from this podium. Sean Spicer said that ‘a big of the reason this president has made illegal immigration and crackdown such a big deed — deal, is because of tragedies like this.’ Vega then made a expression and asked: “Did this White House unfairly jump to conclusions in this case?” On Mar. 16, Maryland police arrested two illegal alien suspects, Guatemalan Henry E. Sanchez Milian and El Salvadoran Jose Montano, after staff at Rockville High School in Maryland reported an alleged rape of a freshman who claimed to a police detective she had been raped orally, anally, and vaginally simultaneously by the two suspects after being stripped naked and “bent over a toilet” in the boys’ bathroom. A forensic specialist found blood and bodily fluids in the bathroom after the alleged victim said she was raped. Prosecutors in the case, which sparked a national uproar, said on Friday they planned to drop the rape and sex offense charges, citing the “challenges corroborating events the girl described,” according to the Washington Post. The alleged victim had exchanged text messages and images with at least one of the alleged assailants beforehand. Sanchez Milian will likely face child pornography charges, however. White House press secretary Sean Spicer had expressed indignation at the alleged of the freshman. Spicer said at the White House in late March: This is a tragic event, and it is horrendous, and horrible, and disgusting what this young woman in Rockville went through. I can’t possibly imagine. Part of the reason the president has made illegal immigration and [a] crackdown such a big deal is because of tragedies like this. Part of the reason is the tragedy this young girl dealt with, had inflicted upon her, whatever the word is. This is why he’s passionate about this. Because people are victims of these crimes. But since prosecutors dropped some of the charges against the suspects — and have decided to pursue others — leftist reporters thought they had a “gotcha” moment against anyone concerned about illegal immigration. “Look, I think we’re always looking to protect the American people,” Sanders replied. “Sean was speaking about what he knew at the time. And certainly, I haven’t had a chance to dive into the latest on that, but we will, and we’ll get back to you. ” “You wanna retract anything that — that the White House has said so far?” Vega said. “I’m not gonna retract anything without further information in front of me,” Sanders said. Bizarrely, another CBS reporter wanted to know if the White House regretted speaking about a national scandal that would never have happened had illegal immigration from Central America been stymied, not encouraged, during the Obama years. “Have you talked to Sean and does he have any regrets about what he said?” CBS News’s Chip Reid asked. “I have not talked to Sean,” Sanders said, adding he was on Navy duty. Another reporter asked if “there is a general danger that the White House, through its rhetoric, is animating too many people to jump to conclusions against immigrants [sic] and in the process, diminishing the entire immigrant community [sic] whether they’re or not?” “Not at all,” Sanders said, adding, “The president has been incredibly outspoken against crime in any form, fashion — certainly from his joint address, to his speech last week on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Look, this is a president. He’s focused on restoring law and order. We’ve seen a spike in crime rates, starting in 2015, across the board, not just in any particular sector. I think that’s why he campaigned and talked so much about needing to restore law and order in this country. It’s why he’s focused on securing our border — stopping drug trafficking, human trafficking. Those are things that have been a priority for him. And I think the reason is, is because he places such a high value on that. And I think to call into question his rhetoric, to be anything other than someone who has condemned hate and violence in all of its forms, is simply a complete misrepresentation. Not only of who the president is, but also what he’s said. ” | 1 |
My grandmother, F. Helen Hunt, was tough. I learned this when I was 13, the year I moved alone from London to Clinton County, Ind. to live with her on her farm. I sailed in amid the wreckage of my parents’ marriage. Maybe I should say as part of the wreckage. Upon my arrival, my grandmother took one look at furious, hurt, young me and prescribed hugs — she was never stingy with them — and what felt to me, lately prowling the streets of South Kensington and St. John’s Wood, like outrageous amounts of manual labor. These weren’t chores: She paid me, not unfairly, for what I did. But it wasn’t quite voluntary either. I hauled wood, I mowed her enormous lawn with a little push mower, I cleared fallen branches, I raked, I burned, I strung and tested electric fences, I dug holes, I ran a rototiller, I pulled weeds, I knocked down derelict buildings with a crowbar and sledgehammer, I washed windows, I worked a scythe. One of my early jobs was learning how to drive my late ’s temperamental 1951 Farmall Cub tractor so that I could tear out a vineyard, relic of a winemaking project started by my aunt and uncle that had by that time, in the early 1980s, run its course. It turned out the Cub had a functioning mowing element, and when I had finished tearing out the rows of Foch grapevines, I regularly used it to shear the grass and weeds of my grandmother’s east and west woods. Even if from time to time I also found myself detasseling corn in hot fields or baling and stacking hay in even hotter barns for neighboring farmers, the core of what I did was always for my grandmother. And I didn’t do it alone. My grandmother stood a smidgen over five feet tall in her Sunday heels, was a retired teacher of Latin who knew all the declensions and had once interviewed Thomas Wolfe’s brother and traveled the world, but man, could she get to it. After school and church duties were done — and there was no monkeying around about either — we went out rain or shine, cold or heat. It didn’t matter if I was walking with a limp or had sore muscles from playing football or basketball the night before. If it wasn’t torn or broken, you worked on it. That first year, on a day when we were shifting old from one spot to another for no clear — to me — reason in a cold, steady springtime drizzle, I let one I was supposed to be holding steady slip, and it smacked her hard in the mouth. I already stood a foot taller than her and outweighed her by 50 pounds and that blow would have laid me out. But my grandmother just spat, instructed me through her swelling lip to get a tighter grip, and we went back to it, got it done. On those occasions when we worked independently — say my grandmother in her greenhouse and me at the woodpile — she was never loath to raise a steely eyebrow in the face of my highball estimates about how many chunks of wood I had carried. I’m painting a picture of a taskmaster here — the older who runs everyone else into the ground — but she also remained generous with those hugs. There were kisses too. My grandmother was, in addition, fond of affectionately grabbing and squeezing my forearm. At the end of a big job, or when I’d done something passable at school or on the field, we would link hands, throw our heads back and spin around together. She would also brag about me to anyone, in any context, within earshot, whether she knew them or not. Much as my teenage self rebelled against the one and sometimes only grudgingly tolerated the other, when I look back on it now, it is clear to me that with these sturdy threads of hard work and fierce affection my grandmother was weaving the torn world back together for me. My grandmother’s admirable grit, which she displayed in just about every aspect of her long life (she variously credited these qualities to having been born breach and not breathing or to having come of age during the Great Depression) not only helped see me through my troubled teens and early adulthood, it has become the subject of my life’s work. Indeed, I recently finished my third novel set in and around rural Indiana, featuring strong women as protagonists. These novels, which take place in the deep well of the past, aren’t studies of my grandmother’s life, but they are absolutely and unapologetically inspired by it. Each character is different, each is admirable and flawed in near equal measure, but they all have in common my grandmother’s inability to quit in the face of challenge and a thundering capacity for love. When I first went to my grandmother’s, the idea was that I would stay in Indiana for a year. I ended up staying five with her, and nine if you count college in Bloomington, a couple of hours away. In the process, in the company of my outsize, diminutive grandmother, I grew to adulthood. And although she has been gone for years, I keep her close both in my characters and in myself. There is no way to pay off a debt like the one I owe her, but I make regular payments in the only kind of currency she would have accepted: dedication to the task at hand and the ability, when it has been merited, to link hands with those close to me and spin with joy. | 1 |
It was a mystery that captivated Australia for years, inspired a Meryl Streep movie and tormented a couple for more than three decades. Now, one of the central figures in the case — in which a dingo, a type of wild dog found in Australia, was found to have killed the couple’s baby girl — has died. Michael Chamberlain, a former pastor who fought for decades to prove to the world that the animal was responsible for his daughter’s disappearance, died on Monday, his former wife, Lindy Chamberlain, told The Associated Press. He was 72. The cause was complications of acute leukemia, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The couple’s ordeal began in 1980, when their daughter, Azaria, disappeared from the family tent while on a trip to the Australian outback. Despite a lack of evidence — a body was never found — blame for the disappearance soon fell on the couple. Ms. Chamberlain, who said that she had seen a dingo slip out of the tent, was convicted of murder in 1982 and was sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Chamberlain was found guilty of being an accessory to murder after the fact. Three years later, new evidence absolved them both. But the Chamberlains still struggled for years to win over public opinion. They were helped by the book “Evil Angels,” by John Bryson, published in 1985, which offered a scathing review of the prosecution botching forensic evidence, and by the 1988 film “A Cry in the Dark,” which was based on that book and starred Ms. Streep and Sam Neill as the couple. But the movie also turned their misfortunes into a joke in the United States, inspiring material for shows such as “Seinfeld” and “The Simpsons. ” The strain on the family was ultimately too strong. In 1990, Ms. Chamberlain published a book, “Through My Eyes,” which portrayed her husband unkindly, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. A year later, the couple divorced. Michael Leigh Chamberlain was born on Feb. 27, 1944, in Christchurch, New Zealand, to Ivan and Greta Chamberlain, according to the newspaper, and met Lindy in 1968 while studying theology at college in Australia. A year later, he graduated and they married. They had two sons before Azaria was born, and another daughter after. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available. In 1994, Mr. Chamberlain married Ingrid Bergner. Within a few years, he had a daughter with Ms. Bergner, wrote his first book and began working toward the doctorate he earned in 2002 from the University of Newcastle. In 2011, Ms. Bergner had a stroke and Mr. Chamberlain became her caretaker. The next year, a tearful coroner, Elizabeth Morris, apologized to Michael and Lindy Chamberlain as she brought their fight to an end: Azaria, she concluded in a fourth inquest, died as a result of being taken by a dingo. “I am here to tell you that you can get justice even when you think that all is lost,’’ Mr. Chamberlain said after the ruling. “But truth must be on your side. ” | 1 |
Leaked Documents Reveal The Truth About UFOs And Military Secrecy # Grey 0
The military has claimed they have no interest in UFOs and say they do not investigate UFO cases. However, through the Freedom of Information Act, investigators have uncovered several documents that would indicate UFOs have been of interest, and that the most important files were most likely never made public. Tags | 0 |
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Le rêve s’avéra amer : il lui fallut vivre dans des préfabriqués de chantier, ce qui ne la dissuada pas. « Je trouvais ça marrant. Tu ne fais rien à part jouer au football. On m’avait même expliqué qu’on pouvait en vivre. Bien sûr que je reste [décida Nadedja], je suis prête à me laver à l’eau froide et tout » , confie-t-elle. « Si mon père ne m’aidait pas, je crèverais de faim » Июн 6 2016 в 7:49 PDT
Se faire une place dans le football professionnel s’avéra difficile. Après ses études, le club de l’académie, Rossiyanka, proposa à Nadejda, qui jouait alors déjà dans l’équipe jeunes de Russie, 9 000 roubles (120 euros) par mois. Ce furent les représentants d’un autre club, Zorky, qui la sauvèrent de la misère en la payant trois fois plus cher. Mais cet argent ne suffisait de toute façon pas pour quoi que ce soit. « Je ne peux rien m’acheter avec l’argent que je gagne au football , a raconté Nadjeda dans une interview à Eurosport en 2014. Je peux m’acheter une carte de métro. Si mon père ne m’aidait pas, je crèverais de faim » .
Durant ces deux ans, Nadedja fait des débuts remarqués dans l’équipe nationale et est en tête des marqueurs du championnat russe 2016 dans l’équipe Chertanovo de Moscou. Cependant, la star du football féminin russe vit toujours modestement, comme tout le football féminin en Russie, qui paie 3 000 roubles (40 euros) de prime pour une victoire, et dont les joueuses en déplacement s’entassent dans les wagons de troisième classe.
« Les salaires des hommes, on n’en rêve même pas. Je ne veux même pas entendre parler de ces sommes. Qu’est-ce que… je pourrais faire de 50 000 dollars ? Rien de bon… J’irais faire la fête, je perdrais la raison. Il me semble que c’est ce qui arrive à tous ceux qui reçoivent des sommes pareilles » , affirme Nadejda. | 0 |
The White House will release its “ budget” on Tuesday, which includes $1. 7 trillion in cuts for entitlement spending and a 30 percent reduction in the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) budget. [The Trump budget proposal will balance over the next ten years by cutting both mandatory and discretionary funding for agencies such as the EPA and State Department. The budget proposal assumes that the economy will grow at three percent compared to the 1. 6 percent growth that America experienced in 2016. White House staffers explained that the proposal is a “ ” budget, meaning that the budget assumes that Trump signed the health care overhaul known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and tax reform into law. The budget proposal will make substantial cuts into four entitlement programs, SNAP (food stamps) CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) and SSDI (Disability Insurance). The Trump budget assumes that the AHCA becomes law, which would roll back Medicaid expansion. White House staffers told Axios that the budget would cut entitlement costs through an “emphasis on work requirements for people. ” The Washington Post’s Damian Paletta stated, “The White House also will call for giving states more flexibility to impose work requirements for people in different kinds of programs, people familiar with the budget plan said, potentially leading to a flood of changes in states led by conservative governors. ” Josh Archambault, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Government Accountability, explained that giving states the flexibility to impose work requirements could to lead to significant changes to programs such as Medicaid or public housing assistance. “One of the encouraging things about putting this in the budget is that states will see if it works,” Archambault said. “States will try it. ” Michael Tanner, a welfare expert at the Cato Institute, admitted that despite the United States spending roughly $700 billion a year on entitlement programs, the country does not experience significant reductions in poverty. Tanner said, “We’re not seeing the type of gains we should be seeing for all that spending, and that would suggest its time to reform the system. ” Although the budget will include cuts to food stamps and disability insurance, President Donald Trump told his budget director Mick Mulvaney that he does not want any cuts to Medicare or Social Security. President Donald Trump’s budget would also cut the EPA’s budget by a third and slash the agency’s operational budget by 35 percent. The budget would reduce environmental grant programs by 35 to 40 percent. The proposed budget for the EPA would limit the EPA’s budget to $5. 7 billion from roughly $8 billion. Trump’s budget cuts for the EPA coincide with the EPA’s $12 million buyout and early retirement plan to reduce the agency’s workforce under the Trump administration. Trump made campaign promises to eliminate the EPA, and has already taken great strides to limit the agency’s workforce. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed half of the scientists on its Board of Scientific Counselors earlier this month. White House staffers told Axios that the Trump budget proposal will be a victory for conservatives, much to the chagrin of moderates and Democrats. “Conservatives will love it moderates will probably hate it. ” | 1 |
SAN FRANCISCO — Palmer Luckey, a founder of the technology company Oculus, has left Facebook three years after the social network acquired his company for close to $3 billion. Mr. Luckey’s departure was announced two months after a trial in federal court over allegations that he and several colleagues had stolen trade secrets from a publisher, ZeniMax Media, to create the Oculus technology. A jury found Facebook liable for $500 million in damages, in part for Mr. Luckey’s violation of a confidentiality agreement. “Palmer will be dearly missed,” Tera Randall, an Oculus spokeswoman, said in a statement. “His inventive spirit helped the modern VR revolution and helped build an industry. ” Ms. Randall declined to disclose the terms of Mr. Luckey’s departure. The move adds another twist to Facebook’s bumpy foray into technology. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, has bet big on virtual reality as part of the social network’s future, saying he envisioned social interactions between people will someday exist inside virtual worlds. Oculus, he has said, could be a catalyst for that. But from the start, Oculus has run into problems. Adoption of the Oculus technology and headsets has been slower than Facebook had anticipated. The selection of content made for VR headsets is still small, though growing. “These things end up being more complex than you think upfront,” Mr. Zuckerberg said in January while appearing in court for the ZeniMax trial. “If anything, we may have to invest even more money to get to the goals we had than we had thought upfront. ” Mr. Zuckerberg has committed to spending more than $3 billion over the next decade to get virtual reality off the ground and into the mainstream. Mr. Luckey has had other stumbles. In 2016, it became public that he had donated $10, 000 to Nimble America, a political organization that promoted memes and slogans on social media sites like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. He has since apologized for the impact his actions had on Oculus and its partners. Mr. Luckey did not immediately respond to a Facebook message requesting comment. In January, Facebook appointed a new leader, Hugo Barra, to head up the company’s efforts, including Oculus. | 1 |
BRUSSELS — The European Parliament has passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the reintroduction of visa requirements for American citizens, raising the stakes in a battle over the United States’ refusal to grant access to citizens of five European Union countries. In the vote on Thursday, European lawmakers played in their dispute with the United States, demanding restrictions on American travelers unless the Trump administration lifts travel requirements for citizens of Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Poland and Romania. “You’re talking about citizens from countries, like Poland, with a major diaspora” in the United States, Claude Moraes, the British lawmaker who leads the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in the European Parliament, said in a telephone interview on Friday. “You’re really seeing frustration and anger, and without any timetable, this is becoming increasingly seen as treatment. ” The resolution, while nonbinding, was an important political signal, and it increases pressure on the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, to confront the new administration in Washington, even though it may prove to be as intransigent on the matter as the Obama administration, if not more. The European Parliament also warned that it could take the further step of bringing the European Commission to court if it continues not to stand up to Washington. “Only when the U. S. fully gets that the European Commission is going to act are we going to get any kind of timetable from the United States,” Mr. Moraes said. “At the moment, the U. S. just believes the commission is not going to act but stick with the pragmatic argument that doing so would create damage that’s just too great. ” He continued, referring to Washington, “There’s no denying heightened concern about the current administration, but that’s more about uncertainty about who’s in charge and how the State Department is working. ” Mr. Moraes said the civil liberties committee could still recommend within two months that a case against the commission’s failure to act be brought to the bloc’s highest tribunal, the Court of Justice of the European Union. “It’s a question of using what options are open to us,” he said, explaining the possible resort to litigation. In the vote on Thursday, the Parliament gave the European Commission two months to take legal measures to impose visas for American travelers to the European Union unless the Americans offered reciprocity to all citizens from the bloc. European officials in Brussels have balked at making travel to Europe more difficult for Americans, saying doing so would have an economic cost and would most likely not even resolve the hurdles facing citizens of the five affected countries. The Parliament’s measure was approved in a show of hands and was not expected to worsen the standoff with the United States. But in the event that the court in Luxembourg were to rule in favor of Parliament, the commission might be forced to impose visa requirements on Americans. The Trump administration, finding itself in a battle over access, would then almost certainly do the same for travelers from the European Union. In 2014, the European Commission was notified that the United States and four other countries — Australia, Brunei, Canada and Japan — were failing to provide reciprocal, travel to citizens of some European Union countries. Australia, Brunei and Japan have resolved differences with the European Union, and an agreement with Canada is expected to take effect in December for all citizens of Bulgaria and Romania, according to a statement from the European Parliament. Margaritis Schinas, the chief spokesman for the commission, appeared to tamp down any expectations that it would impose visa requirements on Americans within two months, as outlined in the Parliament resolution. Instead, he said he advocated “continued engagement and patient diplomatic contacts” with Washington. The commission will issue a progress report on discussions with the United States, he added, but not before the end of June. | 1 |
On a rainy night in Queens, Armani Graves leapt into the swirling ropes and started to move her feet. Soon the ropes — and her orange knee socks — were a blur as she jumped faster and faster in a cavernous gymnasium echoing with her teammates’ encouragement. “Knees up!” “Push!” Armani, 13, and her teammates were practicing competitive double dutch, the schoolyard game that was adopted and perfected by black girls in urban American communities after World War II. In recent decades, double dutch has evolved into a competitive sport, complete with rules, score sheets and tournaments. But it has also fallen out of favor in the neighborhoods where it was born and once flourished. “I’m one of the only kids who does double dutch in my school,” said Armani, a member of Stan’s Pepper Steppers, a club, who lives in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. But even as double dutch has declined in popularity in New York City and across the United States, its appeal has surged beyond the country’s borders, with the number of teams from abroad soaring and many of them beating American teams at a sport that was invented here. Perhaps nothing illustrates double dutch’s international spread as much as the Double Dutch Holiday Classic, an annual tournament at the Apollo Theater in Harlem that bills itself as the Super Bowl of double dutch and will have its 25th anniversary on Sunday. In addition to teams from Queens, Brooklyn, Connecticut and South Carolina, there will be competitors from France and Japan. “The Double Dutch Classic is a perfect example of what’s happened,” said Kyra Gaunt, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Baruch College and author of “The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes From to . ” “For the last 15 years, almost every freestyle competition has been won by groups that are outside the United States. ” As Stan’s Pepper Steppers were practicing Wednesday night in a community center in Queens, five teams from Japan were aboard a flight to New York. On Thursday, a Japanese team called Big Up, still rehearsed in Central Park for this weekend’s tournament, the Midtown skyline looming behind them. While the Queens team is known for its swiftness — members hold various speed records — Japan’s competitors are renowned for their choreographed, style. Two of the five members of the coed team Big Up, including Koichiro Sugawa, were trained as dancers. Mr. Sugawa, 21, first tried double dutch when he began college. “I simply thought it was cool,” he said. The organizer of the Japanese trip, Jun Haratake, was a competitor in high school and then at his university in Tokyo, where the double dutch club had 100 members. Now 36, Mr. Haratake is the director and of the Japan Double Dutch Association, a nonprofit organization. From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Haratake studied English in New York and worked as a physical education teacher in a Japanese school. He recalls taking the subway to the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and joining teenage girls in jam sessions — akin to a golfer traveling to St. Andrews in Scotland. Double dutch, he said, is still ascendant in Japan. “It’s continuing to grow in popularity,” he said. In New York City, its transformation into a competitive sport started in the 1970s, when a former police sergeant in Harlem, David A. Walker, decided that girls needed a way to channel their athletic skill. He founded the National Double Dutch League, a nonprofit group that sponsors the annual tournament at the Apollo. He also developed rules and worked with the city’s schools to incorporate double dutch into gym classes and intramural programs. “In the 1970s, there were not a lot of programs for girls,” said Lauren Walker, Mr. Walker’s daughter, who assumed leadership of the league after his death in 2008. “Boys had baseball, basketball and football. My father saw some girls jumping double dutch in a schoolyard one day and said, ‘Hey, let’s turn an urban activity into an actual sport. ’” In 2009, the city’s Department of Education made double dutch a varsity sport in nearly a dozen high schools, mostly in predominantly black neighborhoods like and Harlem. The idea was to increase the number of students, girls in particular, who participate in competitive sports. Yet despite the imprimatur of school officials, and clubs like Stan’s Pepper Steppers, double dutch veterans and observers of black youth say the activity has slowly lost its appeal as a spontaneous form of play. They blame the lure of social media and video games. “Back in the day, there were no computers,” Ms. Walker said. “Kids are just not as physically active anymore. ” Dr. Gaunt, who is an ethnomusicologist and social media researcher, agreed. “Most girls spend most of their time on Instagram or Tumblr, or with games online, rather than outside,” she said. “That’s true across all demographic groups. But double dutch is a street sport. It’s so common now to meet girls who have never . That wasn’t the case 20 years ago. ” But in countries from Latin America to Asia, the sport has been embraced as part of a love affair with culture. (The impresario Malcolm McLaren put it on the map as far back as 1983 with his hit song “Double Dutch. ”) Since the 1980s, double dutch organizations and competitions have emerged across the globe. In the last decade in Europe, championship tournaments have been held in Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands and Sweden. In Japan, it has spread though clubs in high schools and colleges. Mr. Haratake said that at least half of the members of his university’s double dutch club were studying physical education, adding that they would most likely spread the sport as future teachers. But double dutch still casts a spell on some teenagers in New York — mostly girls, but the occasional boy, too. Young competitors say it combines art and athleticism and also improves their performance in other sports. Armani Graves, for example, plays flag football and runs track. “I’m one of the fastest runners in my school because of double dutch,” she said. During practice, Javon Langston, 14, a member of the Pepper Steppers, had just pulled off a series of tricks inside the swirling ropes, including an aerial, a and a flip, and he did not get tangled. “I like the freestyle the most because it shows your creativity,” he said modestly. His mother, Reneé Langston, nodded her approval. “It keeps him positive and active and off the streets,” she said. “It has definitely made him a better young adult. ” Dr. Gaunt lamented that there weren’t more funds available to allow the city’s double dutch champions to travel to international competitions. “The girls here who jump don’t get to go to Morocco and France and Germany,” she said. “A lot of the teams in Far Rockaway and Brooklyn don’t have that kind of money. So the descendants of the culture from which double dutch emerged do not have the same resources to compete. ” | 1 |
Posted on November 4, 2016 The French Fear Islamization but Do Nothing Guillaume Durocher, American Renaissance, November 2, 2016 Not even the Front National is prepared to act.
In his classic study Democracy in America , Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about Southerners’ attitudes towards the rapidly expanding population of Blacks:
In the states of the South, they are quiet; they do not speak about the future to foreigners; they avoid explaining themselves with their friends; everyone is in denial about it even with themselves. There is something more frightening about the silence of the South than the noisy fears of the North. [1]
Almost two centuries later, there is a similar attitude of denial among French politicians about the steady Afro-Islamization of France. Conservatives are happy to talk about “Islamic totalitarianism,” “secularism,” “burkinis,” etc, but not the underlying problem, which is continued Muslim immigration. Socialists recognize the problem in private, but do nothing either to stop the flood of Africans and Muslims. There is something surreal about the situation.
The most striking example of awareness combined with inactivity was provided recently by the publication of a book of exclusive interviews with our painfully uncharismatic and ineffectual president, the Socialist François Hollande. Among Mr. Hollande’s statements , one finds: On conservative politician Nadine Morano’s saying that France is “a country of the white race” (quoting Charles de Gaulle): “I am convinced that, when one asks the French, the majority have her position. [. . .] They think: ‘We are for the most part Whites. There are more Whites than others.’ ” On Islamic immigration: “There are at the same time things which work very well and the accumulation of potential bombs linked to a continuous immigration. Because it continues.” On the salience of race in politics: “The Left cannot win on the theme of identity, but it can lose on the theme of identity.” On ethnic segregation and potential civil war: “How can we avoid partition? Because that is really what is happening: partition.”
Mr. Hollande recognizes that integration, let alone assimilation, is not happening and that “at some point [immigration] will have to stop.” And yet, during his four years as president, he has done nothing to stop it. Instead, his government has radically increased the rate of naturalizations of foreigners , providing the flagging Socialists with thousands of new voters in time for national elections next spring.
On the Right, we have the conservative party, now called “Les Républicains,” led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy. He knows racial problems well, having made a career from a sort of low-level race-baiting while, as president, actually letting more immigrants settle in France than his Socialist predecessors. Mr. Sarkozy is also well aware of the medium-term existential threat to France. As he said recently at a political meeting:
The Sahel will in 30 years have 200 million inhabitants. There are 6 to 8 children per family on average in the Sahel. Can we continue family reunification in these conditions? Is the future of the Sahel’s children to end up in our cities’ neighborhoods? Even though we have no jobs, no housing, and we no longer have the means to pay benefits for families who do not pay one cent in taxes.
Well said! But can Mr. Sarkozy claim to have been unaware of these facts while he was president from 2007 to 2012? The end of family reunification would be welcome, but in the face of the demographic threat to France and all of Europe, this is like fending off a rhinoceros with a water-pistol. Other than this, Mr. Sarkozy has mainly been trying to win the conservative party primaries by complaining about “burkinis” and demanding “assimilation.” However, as a former adviser Patrick Buisson –a Rightist who recently published a book on his disenchantment with Mr. Sarkozy–has said: “He is ready to say what is needed to get elected and to then do nothing.” French police ask a woman to remove some of her clothing to comply with a ban on “burkinis.”
The gravity of the situation is matched only by the sheer fecklessness of European politicians . According to United Nations statistics, the population of Europe (including a growing proportion of highly-fertile non-Whites) will stagnate and decline this century while that of Africa is set to quadruple to a whopping 4 billion. The most important, tragic, horrifying, ungodly, evil question facing Western Civilization and mankind this century is this: Will Europe turn African ?
Books warning against Islamization, whether by journalists or second-rate politicians, top the best-seller lists, but most French people care more about welfare and pay checks than long-term considerations. Even on economic issues, they would rather stay in denial, vaguely hoping the problems of a heavily state-run French economy in an inefficient Eurozone monetary union will sort themselves out on their own, rather than ask hard questions. Ethno-religious questions are even more inconceivable.
It is true that diversity is not yet an unmanageable problem in the daily lives of most Frenchmen, aside from the unpleasant evening news about Muslims shooting up hundreds of people at a rock concert, running down dozens of people with a truck on Bastille Day, or trying to burn policemen to death . Incidentally, the last time France’s religious homogeneity was broken–during the Protestant Reformation–this led to a civil war between Catholics and Protestants.
We are told that mass government surveillance, abrogation of civil liberties, and mass murder by the fanatics of a Middle Eastern religion are the price we pay for enjoying the fruits of diversity. And if you don’t like it, you will join the scores of European patriots who have been fined and even jailed under anti-free-speech laws for “inciting hatred.” (By the way, France has passed special laws to counter the Islamic terrorism. These same laws have been invoked to spy on thousands of patriots who have been designated as “security threats.”)
Nonetheless, the current offering for next spring’s presidential elections in France is dismal. Besides Mr. Hollande and Mr. Sarkozy, with whom the French are thoroughly disenchanted, there is the frontrunner in the conservative primaries, Alain Juppé, a felon guilty of misusing public funds, who is proud of France’s “diversity.” He speaks of France’s new “happy identity,” and is being called a “steady,” “serious” candidate–who will change nothing. As mayor of Bordeaux, he noted that 60 percent of the students in some of his schools are “foreign-language speakers,” but appeared to think this was nothing worse than an exciting challenge.
Then there is the eternal promise of the Front National, a party that has risen to unprecedented heights in polls and secondary elections. But this has come at a significant cost: Marine Le Pen has gone to great lengths to “detoxify” the party and stay within the bounds acceptable to France’s heavily policed and state-dependent mainstream media. The “new FN” talks more about dismantling the European Union and the Euro than about identity and Islam, let alone race.
Marine Le Pen is breaking no new ground in the fight against political incorrectness, in contrast with the Alternative for Germany’s Frauke Petry on the other side of the Rhine. And yet, a solid two-thirds of French people still strongly oppose Miss Le Pen. She will probably reach the second-round runoff of the presidential elections and then lose in a landslide, though surely with a better score than her father’s 18 percent in 2002. The majority of Frenchmen are likely to be repelled by the prospect of an FN government that represents the working classes and the ethnocentric fringe. The conservatives, for their part, have refused to work with the FN ever since the French branch of the B’nai B’rith asked them to in 1986 . Marine Le Pen
The most groundbreaking politician in France today is probably the mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, who, in a former life as a leftist, founded Reporters Without Borders, but now calls himself a reactionary. He has broken French law by counting the city’s school children by religion–he found that 65 percent were Muslim, judging from their first names. He wants to reinstate the death penalty, opposes homosexual marriage, and he visited a refugee center to tell the occupants they are not welcome in France. Recently he proposed a municipal referendum to reject the imposition of “refugees” on his town.
Disenchantment is severe among the French: 83 percent think Mr. Hollande is “disqualified” as president due to his failure on unemployment. Two-thirds think Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Hollande were equally bad presidents , and a solid majority, continuously egged on by a hostile media, are “worried” by Marine Le Pen . I am inclined to agree with best-selling author Éric Zemmour , whose latest book is Un Quinquennat Pour Rien (“A Five-Year Term for Nothing”), when he says that the next year’s elections are pointless.
Why is there such a divide between the aspirations of French voters and the politicians on offer? I believe this can be explained only by the authoritarian cliquishness of the French political system: The parties and the media serve as critical choke points to prevent the penetration of nationalist and identitarian movements that might appeal to a majority of the French people. No Trump-like figure–half independent billionaire half media personality–has emerged to break this stranglehold by uniting the nationalist fringe of the disenfranchised white working class with mainstream conservative voters.
All this is depressing, but one must not forget that, as the great European historian Dominique Venner said: “History is nothing but a set of strategic surprises.” The presidential elections are in April and May, and six months is a long time in politics. France cannot remain unaffected by the enormous political and cultural gains made in recent years by nationalists across the West. Happy surprises do happen. If Donald Trump were to win, this would set a patriotic and anti-immigration precedent for many Europeans governments. There is a long tradition of opportunistic European politicians slavishly following the American political and cultural lead.
The mainstream political establishments across Europe are reeling from the economic crisis, the migrant invasion, and–one must not underestimate this–the mainstream media’s own economic and legitimacy crisis due to the rise of alternative media. These establishments are merely trying, in a dull bovine reflex, to keep the ship on course without ever questioning their premises. But this is proving harder and harder. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who for her role in opening the floodgates to Afro-Islamic colonization is an objective enemy of Europe, is facing real problems. Her party, the so-called Christian-Democratic Union, has reached its lowest ever levels of support , falling to less than 30 percent.
The critical media-political choke points of power in the “democratic” West–particularly in America, Germany, and France–are more open for takeover than ever. If one or two go, particularly America, many of the rest are likely to follow. If we are lucky, a major shift towards national-populist governments could be possible. This would appeal to the great majority of our people and drastically reduce the pace of dispossession. And that could be a prelude for far greater things to come. | 0 |
Back on March 2’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Evelyn Farkas, deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, backed up a March 1 New York Times report revealing an effort to gather as much intelligence on Donald Trump and his campaign and transition team’s ties to Russia. “I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill, it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration,” Farkas, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people who left, so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy … that the Trump folks — if they found out how we knew what we knew about their — the Trump staff dealing with Russians — that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia. So then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were trying to also help get information to the Hill. ” ( Fox News) Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
The surge in gun ownership among LGBT community members that began after the June 12, 2016, Orlando Pulse attack has continued and even grown during the first months of the presidency of Donald Trump. [Haaretz reports, “The latest wave, following the June 2016 mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, has brought a new kind of person to the gun culture — young and liberal gay people, many of them . They’re now standing side by side with straight white conservative men at shooting ranges. ” The Orlando Pulse nightclub was a zone and the attack on it was carried out by an Islamist with two guns a rifle and a handgun. He passed background checks for both guns and a waiting period for the handgun, proving once more that gun control is no hindrance to determined attackers. Many in the LGBT community came away from the attack awakened to this fact and to the reality that they were going to have to take into their own hands — literally. Enter the Pink Pistols. Prior to the Orlando Pulse attack “the Pink Pistols Facebook group numbered about 1, 500 people. ” But following the attack “sixteen Pink Pistols branches opened … and the Facebook group grew to 9, 000 members. ” Pink Pistols spokesperson Gwendolyn Patton said: We teach queers to shoot so they can be safer from those who would harm them for who and what they are. Then we tell the world we’ve done it, so those who think queer people are helpless targets who can’t fight back and are easy pickings for violence will know that it isn’t necessarily true … . We don’t want to have to shoot anyone. We’d much rather they decided it wasn’t worth the risk and went to play pool or something. On June 12, 2016, just hours after the Orlando Pulse occurred, Breitbart News quoted Patton saying, “Let us not reach for the fruit of blaming the killer’s guns. Let us stay focused on the fact that someone hated gay people so much they were ready to kill or injure so many. A human being did this. The human being’s tools are unimportant when compared to the bleakness of that person’s soul. ” Patton admitted that it is difficult to carry guns in the bars of some states because of prohibitions. But she suggested this can often be remedied by a selecting designated driver who agrees to forgo any alcohol for the night so that that he can carry a gun with which to protect his companions. Patton said, “It’s sad that we must consider such things, but when there are persons out there who mean us harm, we must find ways to protect ourselves within the law. ” Erin Palette is transgender who lives 60 miles from Orlando and has concealed carry permit. Palette recalled how the LGBT community’s view of owning guns for appeared to change overnight — following Orlando Pulse — and how gun ranges and firearms training facilities across the country were eager to help: I started seeing this wonderful outpouring of support from gun owners who were posting all across social media that if you were LGTBQ and wanted to learn how to defend yourself, these gun owners would teach you shooting for absolutely free. And the sentiment was: ‘I don’t care what your politics are, I don’t care what your sexuality is, I don’t care what you have between your legs — you are a human being, you have the inherent right to defend yourself, and if you don’t know how, I will be happy to teach you.’ | 1 |
Alex Tizon, a Pulitzer reporter whose 2014 memoir documented his insecurities and alienation as a was found dead on March 23 in his home in Eugene, Ore. He was 57. His wife, Melissa, said that he had died in his sleep and that the cause had not yet been determined. At The Seattle Times, where he shared a Pulitzer in investigative reporting in 1997, and later at The Los Angeles Times, where he was Seattle bureau chief, Mr. Tizon (pronounced ) was admired as a prose stylist and was known for long, deeply reported articles. He wrote of his own life in “Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self. ” In the book, he addressed many of the stereotypes he had internalized as an having experienced them “as a set of suspicions that seemed corroborated by everyday life. ” “When did this shame inside me begin?” he wrote. “Looking back now, I could say it began with love. Love of the gifted people and their imagined life love of America, the sprawling idea of it, with its gilded tentacles reaching across the Pacific Ocean to wrap around the hearts of small brown people living small brown lives. It was a love bordering on worship, fueled by longing, felt most fervently by those like my parents who grew up with America in their dreams. The love almost killed us. ” Mr. Tizon’s memoir detailed his struggle to find masculine Asian role models in Western popular culture and his childhood attempts to make himself look whiter. He recalled dangling from trees to stretch his vertebrae and pinching his nose with a clothespin to narrow it. “‘Big Little Man’ is an unflinchingly honest, at times beautifully written, often discomforting examination of Tizon’s remarkable, yet thoroughly relatable, life,” Jay Caspian Kang wrote in The New York Times Book Review. Mr. Tizon said in an online interview with The Boston Globe last year that he thought life had grown better for . “I have nephews who are just worldbeaters,” he said. “They read my book, and yeah, they can relate to some of it. But a sense of inferiority? No. That’s just not there. ” Michele Matassa Flores, the managing editor of The Seattle Times, said in a phone interview that as a reporter Mr. Tizon “focused on the gray” rather than seeing the world in black and white. “The world was not a simple place for Alex,” she added, “and he wanted to convey that to his readers. ” On one assignment Mr. Tizon rode through the streets of Seattle with a gang during a period of growing violence in the city in the late 1980s. He also wrote a series of profiles, “Crossing America: Dispatches From a New Nation,” for which he traveled across the country with the photographer Alan Berner after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Tizon, along with Eric Nalder and Deborah Nelson, won the Pulitzer Prize for articles about problems facing a Department of Housing and Urban Development program to help Native Americans build homes. The articles chronicled dysfunction and incompetence within the department, corruption and nepotism at the tribal level, and misallocation of funds at Indian reservations around the country. In many cases, the articles showed, the result was overcrowded hovels for most and mansions for a connected few. “It is not much more than a large plywood box, this house Thelma Moses calls home,” one article began. “To stand outside it is to wonder how such dimensions — 10 feet by 12 feet — can enclose a life. ” The series resulted in a congressional investigation and changes in the federal program. Tomas Alexander Tizon was born in Manila on Oct. 30, 1959. His parents, Francisco Tizon and the former Leticia Asuncion, used borrowed money to bring their family to Los Angeles in 1964. The Tizon family lived in Seattle and the South Bronx before settling in Oregon. Alex graduated from high school in Salem, Ore. in 1977 and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Oregon. He received a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University in 1986, the year he joined The Seattle Times. Mr. Tizon left The Los Angeles Times in 2008, and in 2011 he began teaching at the University of Oregon in Eugene and writing freelance articles for national publications, including The Atlantic. In addition to his wife, the former Melissa Quiason, with whom he lived in Eugene and Seattle, he is survived by their daughter, Maya Tizon a daughter from an earlier marriage, Dylan Tizon two brothers, Art and Albert and six sisters, Leticia Tizon, Maria Maria Nikki Walker, Toni Tizon and Giselle . | 1 |
On the Tuesday edition of Breitbart News Daily, broadcast live on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 from 6AM to 9AM Eastern, Breitbart Alex Marlow will continue our discussion of Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration and President Obama’s legacy as he finishes his final week in office. [Breitbart Senior Joel Pollak will discuss his new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which will be released on Tuesday. We’ll also hear from Dan Gainor, the Vice President of Business and Culture at the Media Research Center, about the mainstream media’s fawning coverage of Obama’s final days in office and their airbrushing of his administration’s many scandals. Peter Schweizer, author of the bestselling book Clinton Cash and President of the Government Accountability Institute, will discuss the Clinton Foundation shutting down the Clinton Global Initiative. Breitbart’s Amanda House and former Hill staffer Richard Garon will discuss Trump’s inauguration. Live from London, Rome, and Jerusalem, Breitbart correspondents will provide updates on the latest international news. Breitbart News Daily is the first live, conservative radio enterprise to air seven days a week. SiriusXM Vice President for news and talk Dave Gorab called the show “the conservative news show of record. ” Follow Breitbart News on Twitter for live updates during the show. Listeners may call into the show at: . | 1 |
The last year has turned the United States into a country of information addicts who compulsively check the television, the smartphone and the good newspaper with a burning question: What fresh twist could our national election drama and its executive producer, Donald J. Trump, possibly have in store for us now? No doubt about it: Campaign 2016 has been a smash hit. And to the news media have gone the spoils. With Mr. Trump providing TV theatrics, cable news has drawn record audiences. Newspapers have reached online readership highs that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. On Wednesday comes the reckoning. The election news bubble that’s about to pop has blocked from plain view the expanding financial sinkhole at the center of the branch of the news industry, which has recently seen a print advertising plunge that was “much more precipitous, to be honest with you, than anybody expected a year or so ago,” as The Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerard Baker told me on Friday. Papers including The Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, the Gannett publications and others have responded with plans to reorganize, shed staff, kill off whole sections, or all of the above. Taken together, it means another rapid depletion in the nation’s ranks of traditionally trained journalists whose main mission is to root out corruption, hold the powerful accountable and sort fact from fiction for voters. It couldn’t be happening at a worse moment in American public life. The forces that are eating away at print advertising are enabling a host of players to pollute the democracy with dangerously fake news items. In the last couple of weeks, Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets have exposed millions of Americans to false stories asserting that: the Clinton campaign’s pollster, Joel Benenson, wrote a secret memo detailing plans to “salvage” Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by launching a radiological attack to halt voting (merrily shared on Twitter by Roger Stone, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign) the Clinton campaign senior strategist John Podesta practiced an occult ritual involving various bodily fluids Mrs. Clinton is paying public pollsters to skew results (shared on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr.) there is a trail of supposedly suspicious deaths of myriad Clinton foes (which The Times’s Frank Bruni heard repeated in a hotel lobby in Ohio). As Mike Cernovich, a Twitter star, news provocateur and promoter of Clinton health conspiracies, boasted in last week’s New Yorker, “Someone like me is perceived as the new Fourth Estate. ” His content can live alongside that of The Times or The Boston Globe or The Washington Post on the Facebook newsfeed and be just as well read, if not more so. On Saturday he called on a President Trump to disband the White House press corps. He may not have to. All you have to do is look at the effect of the Gannett cuts on its Washington staff, which Politico recently likened to a “blood bath. ” Even before this year’s ad revenue drop, the number of daily journalists — nearly 33, 000 according to the 2015 census conducted by the American Society of News Editors and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Florida International University — was on the way to being half what it was in 2000. That contraction in the reporting corps, combined with the success of disinformation this year, is making for some sleepless nights for those in Washington who will have to govern in this bifurcated, environment. “It’s the biggest crisis facing our democracy, the failing business model of real journalism,” Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri and a longtime critic of fake news, told me on Saturday. Ms. McCaskill said that “journalism is partly to blame” for being slow to adjust as the internet turned its business model upside down and social media opened the competitive floodgates. “Fake news got way out ahead of them,” she said. It does not augur well for the future. Martin Baron, the Washington Post executive editor, said when we spoke last week, “If you have a society where people can’t agree on basic facts, how do you have a functioning democracy?” The cure for fake journalism is an overwhelming dose of good journalism. And how well the news media gets through its postelection hangover will have a lot to do with how the next chapter in the American political story is told. That’s why the dire financial reports from American newsrooms are so troubling. If the national reporting corps is going to be reduced even more during such an readership boom, what are things going to look like when the circus leaves town? I surveyed the higher precincts of the industry last week, and what I found wasn’t entirely gloomy there was even some cause for optimism. But there’s going to be a lot of and some bloodletting on the way to deliverance. It’s pretty much taken as a given that the news audience will largely shrink next year, despite what is expected to be a compelling news environment. “Is anything in 2017, politically speaking, going to be as sexy as it was in 2016? I’m not going to play poker at that table,” Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, told me on Friday. Still, though he’s predicting a ratings fall of 30 percent or perhaps “much more” at MSNBC, he said, “I don’t have financial pressure on my bottom line. ” That’s not only because MSNBC and its competitors earned tens of millions of unexpected dollars this year, but also because they still draw substantial income from cable subscriber fees. Newspapers are the originators of that setup. But as lucrative print ads dwindle, and Facebook and Google gobble up more than of the online advertising market, affecting outlets, too, newspapers are scrambling to build up their subscriber bases and break their reliance on print ads. Mr. Baker of The Journal said he was confident that newspapers could make the transition but acknowledged a rough interim period that will require cuts and will be even harder to navigate or survive for smaller, regional papers (a practical invitation to municipal corruption). The cause for relative optimism comes from the performance of some of the more ambitious, newspaper articles of the last year. The Times article revealing Mr. Trump’s nearly $1 billion tax loss in 1995 drew some 5. 5 million page views. That’s huge. The Washington Post doesn’t share its numbers, but behold the more than 13, 000 online comments attached to just one of David A. Fahrenthold’s articles about how Mr. Trump ran his charity in ways that clashed with philanthropic moral conventions. But in this new era, subscriber numbers are more important than readership. Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, The Times’s newly named deputy publisher, pointed to a bright spot in last week’s earnings report. Mixed in with a drop in print advertising revenue (!) was a 21 percent increase in digital advertising and, more important, the addition of 116, 000 new subscriptions. The Times now has nearly 1. 6 million subscribers to its offerings. “It shows people are willing to pay for great, original, deeply reported and expert journalism,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “That will allow great journalism to thrive. ” It could be Pollyannaish to think so, but maybe this year’s explosion in fake news will serve to raise the value of real news. If so, it will be great journalism that saves journalism. “People will ultimately gravitate toward sources of information that are truly reliable, and have an allegiance to telling the truth,” Mr. Baron said. “People will pay for that because they’ll realize they’ll need to have that in our society. ” As The Times’s national political correspondent Jonathan Martin wrote on Twitter last week, “Folks, subscribe to a paper. Democracy demands it. ” Or don’t. You’ll get what you pay for. | 1 |
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