text
stringlengths 1
134k
| label
int64 0
1
|
|---|---|
PRISTINA, Kosovo — Every Friday, just yards from a statue of Bill Clinton with arm aloft in a cheery wave, hundreds of young bearded men make a show of kneeling to pray on the sidewalk outside an improvised mosque in a former furniture store. The mosque is one of scores built here with Saudi government money and blamed for spreading Wahhabism — the conservative ideology dominant in Saudi Arabia — in the 17 years since an intervention wrested tiny Kosovo from Serbian oppression. Since then — much of that time under the watch of American officials — Saudi money and influence have transformed this Muslim society at the hem of Europe into a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists. Kosovo now finds itself, like the rest of Europe, fending off the threat of radical Islam. Over the last two years, the police have identified 314 Kosovars — including two suicide bombers, 44 women and 28 children — who have gone abroad to join the Islamic State, the highest number per capita in Europe. They were radicalized and recruited, Kosovo investigators say, by a corps of extremist clerics and secretive associations funded by Saudi Arabia and other conservative Arab gulf states using an obscure, labyrinthine network of donations from charities, private individuals and government ministries. “They promoted political Islam,” said Fatos Makolli, the director of Kosovo’s counterterrorism police. “They spent a lot of money to promote it through different programs mainly with young, vulnerable people, and they brought in a lot of Wahhabi and Salafi literature. They brought these people closer to radical political Islam, which resulted in their radicalization. ” After two years of investigations, the police have charged 67 people, arrested 14 imams and shut down 19 Muslim organizations for acting against the Constitution, inciting hatred and recruiting for terrorism. The most recent sentences, which included a prison term, were handed down on Friday. It is a stunning turnabout for a land of 1. 8 million people that not long ago was among the most Muslim societies in the world. Americans were welcomed as liberators after leading months of NATO bombing in 1999 that spawned an independent Kosovo. After the war, United Nations officials administered the territory and American forces helped keep the peace. The Saudis arrived, too, bringing millions of euros in aid to a poor and land. But where the Americans saw a chance to create a new democracy, the Saudis saw a new land to spread Wahhabism. “There is no evidence that any organization gave money directly to people to go to Syria,” Mr. Makolli said. “The issue is they supported thinkers who promote violence and jihad in the name of protecting Islam. ” Kosovo now has over 800 mosques, 240 of them built since the war and blamed for helping indoctrinate a new generation in Wahhabism. They are part of what moderate imams and officials here describe as a deliberate, strategy by Saudi Arabia to reshape Islam in its image, not only in Kosovo but around the world. Saudi diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2015 reveal a system of funding for mosques, Islamic centers and clerics that spans Asia, Africa and Europe. In New Delhi alone, 140 Muslim preachers are listed as on the Saudi Consulate’s payroll. All around Kosovo, families are grappling with the aftermath of years of proselytizing by preachers. Some daughters refuse to shake hands with or talk to male relatives. Some sons have gone off to jihad. Religious vigilantes have threatened — or committed — violence against academics, journalists and politicians. The Balkans, Europe’s historical fault line, have yet to heal from the ethnic wars of the 1990s. But they are now infected with a new intolerance, moderate imams and officials in the region warn. How Kosovo and the very nature of its society was fundamentally recast is a story of a global ambition by Saudi Arabia to spread its version of Islam — heavily funded and systematically applied, including with threats and intimidation by followers. After the war ended in 1999, Idriz Bilalli, the imam of the central mosque in Podujevo, welcomed any help he could get. Podujevo, home to about 90, 000 people in northeast Kosovo, was a reasonably prosperous town with high schools and small businesses in an area hugged by farmland and forests. It was known for its strong Muslim tradition even in a land where people long wore their religion lightly. After decades of Communist rule when Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia, men and women mingle freely, schools are coeducational, and girls rarely wear the veil. Still, Serbian paramilitary forces burned down 218 mosques as part of their war against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians, who are 95 percent Muslim. Mr. Bilalli needed help to rebuild. When two imams in their 30s, Fadil Musliu and Fadil Sogojeva, who were studying for master’s degrees in Saudi Arabia, showed up after the war with money to organize summer religion courses, Mr. Bilalli agreed to help. The imams were just two of some 200 Kosovars who took advantage of scholarships after the war to study Islam in Saudi Arabia. Many, like them, returned with missionary zeal. Soon, under Mr. Musliu’s tutelage, pupils started adopting a rigid manner of prayer, foreign to the moderate Islamic traditions of this part of Europe. Mr. Bilalli recognized the influence, and he grew concerned. “This is Wahhabism coming into our society,” Mr. Bilalli, 52, said in a recent interview. Mr. Bilalli trained at the University of Medina in Saudi Arabia in the late 1980s, and as a student he had been warned by a Kosovar professor to guard against the cultural differences of Wahhabism. He understood there was a campaign of proselytizing, pushed by the Saudis. “The first thing the Wahhabis do is to take members of our congregation, who understand Islam in the traditional Kosovo way that we had for generations, and try to draw them away from this understanding,” he said. “Once they get them away from the traditional congregation, then they start bombarding them with radical thoughts and ideas. ” “The main goal of their activity is to create conflict between people,” he said. “This first creates division, and then hatred, and then it can come to what happened in Arab countries, where war starts because of these conflicting ideas. ” From the outset, the newly arriving clerics sought to overtake the Islamic Community of Kosovo, an organization that for generations has been the custodian of the tolerant form of Islam that was practiced in the region, townspeople and officials say. Muslims in Kosovo, which was a part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, follow the Hanafi school of Islam, traditionally a liberal version that is accepting of other religions. But all around the country, a new breed of radical preachers was setting up in neighborhood mosques, often newly built with Saudi money. In some cases, buildings were bulldozed, including a historic library in Gjakova and several mosques, as well as shrines, graveyards and Dervish monasteries, all considered idolatrous in Wahhabi teaching. From their bases, the imams propagated Wahhabism’s tenets: the supremacy of Sharia law as well as ideas of violent jihad and takfirism, which authorizes the killing of Muslims considered heretics for not following its interpretation of Islam. The charities often paid salaries and overhead costs, and financed courses in religion, as well as English and computer classes, moderate imams and investigators explained. But the charitable assistance often had conditions attached. Families were given monthly stipends on the condition that they attended sermons in the mosque and that women and girls wore the veil, human rights activists said. “People were so needy, there was no one who did not join,” recalled Ajnishahe Halimi, a politician who campaigned to have a radical Albanian imam expelled after families complained of abuse. Within a few years of the war’s end, the older generation of traditional clerics began to encounter aggression from young Wahhabis. Paradoxically, some of the most serious tensions built in Gjilan, an eastern Kosovo town of about 90, 000, where up to 7, 000 American troops were stationed as part of Kosovo’s United peacekeeping force at Camp Bondsteel. “They came in the name of aid,” one moderate imam in Gjilan, Enver Rexhepi, said of the Arab charities. “But they came with a background of different intentions, and that’s where the Islamic religion started splitting here. ” One day in 2004, he recalled, he was threatened by one of the most aggressive young Wahhabis, Zekirja Qazimi, a former madrasa student then in his early 20s. Inside his mosque, Mr. Rexhepi had long displayed an Albanian flag. Emblazoned with a eagle, it was a popular symbol of Kosovo’s liberation struggle. But strict Muslim fundamentalists consider the depiction of any living being as idolatrous. Mr. Qazimi tore the flag down. Mr. Rexhepi put it back. “It will not go long like this,” Mr. Qazimi told him angrily, Mr. Rexhepi recounted. Within days, Mr. Rexhepi was abducted and savagely beaten by masked men in woods above Gjilan. He later accused Mr. Qazimi of having been behind the attack, but police investigations went nowhere. Ten years later, in 2014, after two young Kosovars blew themselves up in suicide bombings in Iraq and Turkey, investigators began an extensive investigation into the sources of radicalism. Mr. Qazimi was arrested hiding in the same woods. On Friday, a court sentenced him to 10 years in prison after he faced charges of inciting hatred and recruiting for a terrorist organization. Before Mr. Qazimi was arrested, his influence was profound, under what investigators now say was the sway of extremists and the patronage of Saudi and other gulf Arab sponsors. By the Saudi money and clerics were already exerting influence over the Islamic Community of Kosovo. The leadership quietly condoned the drift toward conservatism, critics of the organization say. Mr. Qazimi was appointed first to a village mosque, and then to mosque on the edge of Gjilan. Few could counter him, not even Mustafa Bajrami, his former teacher, who was elected head of the Islamic Community of Gjilan in 2012. Mr. Bajrami comes from a prominent religious family — his father was the first chief mufti of Yugoslavia during the Communist period. He holds a doctorate in Islamic studies. Yet he remembers pupils began rebelling against him whenever he spoke against Wahhabism. He soon realized that the students were being taught beliefs that differed from the traditional moderate curriculum by several radical imams in lectures after hours. He banned the use of mosques after official prayer times. Hostility only grew. He would notice a dismissive gesture in the congregation during his sermons, or someone would curse his wife, or mutter “apostate” or “infidel” as he passed. In the village, Mr. Qazimi’s influence eventually became so disruptive that residents demanded his removal after he forbade girls and boys to shake hands. But in Gjilan he continued to draw dozens of young people to his classes. “They were moving 100 percent according to lessons they were taking from Zekirja Qazimi,” Mr. Bajrami said in an interview. “One hundred percent, in an ideological way. ” Over time, the imams expanded their work. By 2004, Mr. Musliu, one of the master’s degree students from Podujevo who studied in Saudi Arabia, had graduated and was imam of a mosque in the capital, Pristina. In Podujevo, he set up a local charitable organization called Devotshmeria, or Devotion, which taught religion classes and offered social programs for women, orphans and the poor. It was funded by Al Waqf al Islami, a Saudi organization that was one of the 19 eventually closed by investigators. Mr. Musliu put a cousin, Jetmir Rrahmani, in charge. “Then I knew something was starting that would not bring any good,” said Mr. Bilalli, the moderate cleric who had started out teaching with him. In 2004, they had a core of 20 Wahhabis. “That was only the beginning,” Mr. Bilalli said. “They started multiplying. ” Mr. Bilalli began a vigorous campaign against the spread of unauthorized mosques and Wahhabi teaching. In 2008, he was elected head of the Islamic Community of Podujevo and instituted religion classes for women, in an effort to undercut Devotshmeria. As he sought to curb the extremists, Mr. Bilalli received death threats, including a note left in the mosque’s alms box. An anonymous telephone caller vowed to make him and his family disappear, he said. “Anyone who opposes them, they see as an enemy,” Mr. Bilalli said. He appealed to the leadership of the Islamic Community of Kosovo. But by then it was heavily influenced by Arab gulf sponsors, he said, and he received little support. When Mr. Bilalli formed a union of fellow moderates, the Islamic Community of Kosovo removed him from his post. His successor, Bekim Jashari, equally concerned by the Saudi influence, nevertheless kept up the fight. “I spent 10 years in Arab countries and specialized in sectarianism within Islam,” Mr. Jashari said. “It’s very important to stop Arab sectarianism from being introduced to Kosovo. ” Mr. Jashari had a couple of brief successes. He blocked the imam Mr. Sogojeva from opening a new mosque, and stopped a payment of 20, 000 euros, about $22, 400, intended for it from the Saudi charity Al Waqf al Islami. He also began a website, Speak Now, to counter Wahhabi teaching. But he remains so concerned about Wahhabi preachers that he never lets his son attend prayers on his own. The radical imams Mr. Musliu and Mr. Sogojeva still preach in Pristina, where for prayers they draw crowds of young men who glare at foreign reporters. Mr. Sogojeva dresses in a traditional robe and banded cleric’s hat, but his newly built mosque is an incongruous modern multistory building. He admonished his congregation with a list of dos and don’ts in a recent Friday sermon. Neither imam seems to lack funds. In an interview, Mr. Musliu insisted that he was financed by local donations, but confirmed that he had received Saudi funding for his early religion courses. The instruction, he said, is not out of line with Kosovo’s traditions. The increase in religiosity among young people was natural after Kosovo gained its freedom, he said. “Those who are not believers and do not read enough, they feel a bit shocked,” he said. “But we coordinated with other imams, and everything was in line with Islam. ” The influence of the radical clerics reached its apex with the war in Syria, as they extolled the virtues of jihad and used speeches and radio and television talks shows to urge young people to go there. Mr. Qazimi, who was given the prison sentence, even organized a summer camp for his young followers. “It is obligated for every Muslim to participate in jihad,” he told them in one videotaped talk. “The Prophet Muhammad says that if someone has a chance to take part in jihad and doesn’t, he will die with great sins. ” “The blood of infidels is the best drink for us Muslims,” he said in another recording. Among his recruits, investigators say, were three former civilian employees of American contracting companies at Camp Bondsteel, where American troops are stationed. They included Lavdrim Muhaxheri, an Islamic State leader who was filmed executing a man in Syria with a grenade. After the suicide bombings, the authorities opened a broad investigation and found that the Saudi charity Al Waqf al Islami had been supporting associations set up by preachers like Mr. Qazimi in almost every regional town. Al Waqf al Islami was established in the Balkans in 1989. Most of its financing came from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, Kosovo investigators said in recent interviews. Unexplained gaps in its ledgers deepened suspicions that the group was surreptitiously funding clerics who were radicalizing young people, they said. Investigators from Kosovo’s Financial Intelligence Unit found that Al Waqf al Islami, which had an office in central Pristina and a staff of 12, ran through €10 million from 2000 through 2012. Yet they found little paperwork to explain much of the spending. More than €1 million went to mosque building. But one and a half times that amount was disbursed in unspecified cash withdrawals, which may have also gone to enriching its staff, the investigators said. Only 7 percent of the budget was shown to have gone to caring for orphans, the charity’s stated mission. By the summer of 2014, the Kosovo police shut down Al Waqf al Islami, along with 12 other Islamic charities, and arrested 40 people. The charity’s head offices, in Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, have since changed their name to Al Waqf, apparently separating themselves from the Balkans operation. Asked about the accusations in a telephone interview, Nasr el Damanhoury, the director of Al Waqf in the Netherlands, said he had no direct knowledge of his group’s operations in Kosovo or the Balkans. The charity has ceased all work outside the Netherlands since he took over in 2013, he said. His predecessor had returned to Morocco and could not be reached, and Saudi board members would not comment, he said. “Our organization has never supported extremism,” Mr. Damanhoury said. “I have known it since 1989. I joined them three years ago. They have always been a mild group. ” Why the Kosovar authorities — and American and United Nations overseers — did not act sooner to forestall the spread of extremism is a question being intensely debated. As early as 2004, the prime minister at the time, Bajram Rexhepi, tried to introduce a law to ban extremist sects. But, he said in a recent interview at his home in northern Kosovo, European officials told him that it would violate freedom of religion. “It was not in their interest, they did not want to irritate some Islamic countries,” Mr. Rexhepi said. “They simply did not do anything. ” Not everyone was unaware of the dangers, however. At a meeting in 2003, Richard C. Holbrooke, once the United States special envoy to the Balkans, warned Kosovar leaders not to work with the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo, an umbrella organization of Saudi charities whose name still appears on many of the mosques built since the war, along with that of the former Saudi interior minister, Prince Naif bin . A year later, it was among several Saudi organizations that were shut down in Kosovo when it came under suspicion as a front for Al Qaeda. Another was which in 2004 was designated by the United States Treasury Department as having links to terrorism. Yet even as some organizations were shut down, others kept working. Staff and equipment from shifted to Al Waqf al Islami, moderate imams familiar with their activities said. In recent years, Saudi Arabia appears to have reduced its aid to Kosovo. Kosovo Central Bank figures show grants from Saudi Arabia averaging €100, 000 a year for the past five years. It is now money from Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — which each average approximately €1 million a year — that propagates the same version of Islam. The payments come from foundations or individuals, or sometimes from the Ministry of Zakat (Almsgiving) from the various governments, Kosovo’s investigators say. But payments are often diverted through a second country to obscure their origin and destination, they said. One transfer of nearly €500, 000 from a Saudi individual was frozen in 2014 since it was intended for a Kosovo teenager, according to the investigators and a State Department report. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations were still raising millions from “ donors and charitable organizations” based in the gulf, the Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, David S. Cohen, said in a speech in 2014 at the Center for a New American Security. While Saudi Arabia has made progress in stamping out funding for Al Qaeda, sympathetic donors in the kingdom were still funding other terrorist groups, he said. Today the Islamic Community of Kosovo has been so influenced by the largess of Arab donors that it has seeded prominent positions with radical clerics, its critics say. Ahmet Sadriu, a spokesman for Islamic Community of Kosovo, said the group held to Kosovo’s traditionally tolerant version of Islam. But calls are growing to overhaul an organization now seen as having been corrupted by outside forces and money. Kosovo’s interior minister, Skender Hyseni, said he had recently reprimanded some of the senior religious officials. “I told them they were doing a great disservice to their country,” he said in an interview. “Kosovo is by definition, by Constitution, a secular society. There has always been historically an unspoken interreligious tolerance among Albanians here, and we want to make sure that we keep it that way. ” For some in Kosovo, it may already be too late. Families have been torn apart. Some of Kosovo’s best and brightest have been caught up in the lure of jihad. One of Kosovo’s top political science graduates, Albert Berisha, said he left in 2013 to help the Syrian people in the uprising against the government of President Bashar . He abandoned his attempt after only two weeks — and he says he never joined the Islamic State — but has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison, pending appeal. Ismet Sakiqi, an official in the prime minister’s office and a veteran of the liberation struggle, was shaken to find his son, Visar, a law student, arrested on his way through Turkey to Syria with his fiancée. He now visits his son in the same Kosovo prison where he was detained under Serbian rule. And in the hamlet of Busavate, in the wooded hills of eastern Kosovo, a widower, Shemsi Maliqi, struggles to explain how his family has been divided. One of his sons, Alejhim, 27, has taken his family to join the Islamic State in Syria. It remains unclear how Alejhim became radicalized. He followed his grandfather, training as an imam in Gjilan, and served in the village mosque for six years. Then, two years ago, he asked his father to help him travel to Egypt to study. Mr. Maliqi still clings to the hope that his son is studying in Egypt rather than fighting in Syria. But Kosovo’s counterterrorism police recently put out an international arrest warrant for Alejhim. “Better that he comes back dead than alive,” Mr. Maliqi, a poor farmer, said. “I sent him to school, not to war. I sold my cow for him. ” Alejhim had married a woman from the nearby village of Vrbice who was so conservative that she was veiled up to her eyes and refused to shake hands with her . The wife’s mother angrily refused to be interviewed. Her daughter did what was expected and followed her husband to Syria, she said. Secretly, Alejhim drew three others — his sister his best friend, who married his sister and his wife’s sister — to follow him to Syria, too. The others have since returned, but remain radical and estranged from the family. Alejhim’s uncle, Fehmi Maliqi, like the rest of the family, is dismayed. “It’s a catastrophe,” he said. | 1 |
Happy Birthday to ILLary from James O'Keefe (new video) Page 1 Mail with questions or comments about this site. "Godlike Productions" & "GLP" are registered trademarks of Zero Point Ltd. Godlike™ Website Design Copyright © 1999 - 2015 Godlikeproductions.com Page generated in 0.005s (8 queries) | 0 |
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Bags of body parts. Three young siblings killed along with their mother. A pregnant woman lying dead under a fallen roof. These sights — described by Syrians after a marketplace bombing in the northern Syrian city of Idlib on Saturday — represent just a small fraction of the carnage from Russian or government airstrikes in the two days since Russia and the United States declared that a new would begin on Monday. At least 91 people were killed and scores more wounded in two days of attacks on areas around the country, mainly in Idlib and in the divided city of Aleppo, according to tallies by doctors, rescuers and monitoring groups. The violence has deepened mistrust among Syrians that the agreed on late Friday, will deliver on its promise to ground the government planes that opposition groups say cause the war’s greatest death toll. Rebels, who have no air power, also attacked areas, mainly with mortar shells. The Syrian state news media reported rebel shelling in several cities — Damascus, Aleppo, Hama and Dara’a — but did not say whether there were casualties. In any war, it is common for the parties to escalate attacks in the days or hours before a truce, and in this case the uptick was sharp. “I will tell my expectations for the coming two days,” Abdelkafi a teacher and an activist, said in a text message minutes after the deal between the United States and Russia was announced. “Assad will try to kill as much as possible before the claimed ” he said, referring to President Bashar . “A lot of shelling and bombs will fall upon civilians, especially the almost empty markets. ” On Saturday, airstrikes hit Idlib, Aleppo and the Damascus suburb of Douma. On Sunday, Mr. Hamdo wrote grimly, “We know what Assad and Russia are. ” news media said on Sunday that the Syrian armed forces had attacked insurgents in several provinces. Russian officials have denied that their warplanes have been responsible for a single civilian casualty in nearly a year of airstrikes the monitoring group Airwars. org estimates the number at more than 3, 000. The heaviest strikes over the weekend happened in Idlib, a province held by insurgents ranging from the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, which recently changed its name to the Levant Conquest Front, to rebel groups backed by the United States. The strikes hit a marketplace as people shopped for Eid or the Feast of the Sacrifice, a major Muslim holiday. The is set to begin on Monday at sundown, when the holiday starts. “Idlib’s people got a gift for the feast,” said Mohammad Najdat Kaddour, a resident of the nearby town of Binnish who went to Idlib to film the aftermath. “This was their gift. ” “People decided to go out after hearing there was a truce on Eid,” he said via internet chat. He said he was incensed not only at the Syrian government, but also at the United States for supporting a deal he considered worthless. “Do you believe there’s something called a truce?” he said. “They are all a bunch of criminals. ” Residents compiled a list of the dead, including three young siblings, Sidra, Abdelkareem and Mohammad Arafa, who had been killed along with their mother. Videos from the scene posted online showed piles of rubble and overturned carts, and the bodies of children and adults. In Douma, residents reported the deaths of two young brothers who had lost a third brother last year. In Aleppo, doctors reported new casualties on Sunday morning from another round of barrel bombing. Youssef Mohamamd Almosto, 60, was reported dead a man had a leg amputated and several children were treated for injuries. Syrian armed opposition groups were debating whether to accept the terms of the deal, which calls for a complete halt to violence for seven days, followed by joint operations by the United States and Russia against designated terrorist groups like the Islamic State and the former Nusra. Opposition groups — including those strongly against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State — widely believe the deal is stacked against them. The Islamist group Ahrar said on Sunday that it would not accept the terms. Some government supporters also distrust the deal. Yet virtually all Syrians would welcome a respite from fighting and bombing, as was provided under a in February. They may be willing to give it a try, even though the Russian and American officials who brokered it have themselves voiced doubts that it will work. Other opposition groups have been warned that they may also be hit by airstrikes if they do not leave areas where Nusra is present or remove the militant group itself — something not always possible for weaker groups to do without abandoning their home areas. The plan accepts the presence on the battlefield of other groups designated as terrorists by the United States — such as Hezbollah — that are battling on the side of the Syrian government, and considers them parties to the . Iran, Hezbollah and the Syrian government have all declared that they accept the deal. | 1 |
It has become possible for anyone to start a news website. While this has many advantages, both to the creator and to their audience, it also poses some serious problems. On the one hand, people get a voice — the ability to say and share what they want. On the other hand, people can say and share whatever they want — and other people believe it to be truth.
I’ve been running a conscious alternative news platform for over seven years now. In the course of that time, I’ve seen some truly amazing things, and some troubling things, too. But now, more than ever, I believe it’s important for people to recognize the problem with some alternative news websites and to understand what really goes on. They are harming the face of independent news and I feel it needs to stop.
Why Alternative News Is Necessary It’s not hard to understand why alternative news exists at this point. With the majority of the mainstream media being owned by just five corporations , diverse viewpoints and interpretations of world events have become scarce. And when you understand that most outlets are serving some sort of corporate or political agenda, you start to notice how those biases play out in the representation of certain stories, and even in how frequently they’re covered. Showing certain stories over others, and showing them repeatedly, goes a long way toward shaping public opinion.
Many are unaware of how often important stories are blacked out completely by all of mainstream media. The major pipeline spill that occurred during the Standing Rock protests or the revelation that the Pentagon paid a PR firm to create fake terrorist videos are just two recent examples. Are these not things the people should know about? Why aren’t they being reported on?
This leads us to wonder if there is in fact an agenda to hide this information. And how might that work? Sharyl Atkisson, a former CBS investigative journalist, explained that “astroturf,” or fake grassroots movements, funded by political, corporate, or other special interests, are very effectively manipulating and distorting mainstream media messages.
Further, here is a document declassified by the CIA that outlines their involvement in manipulating media, journalists, authors, films, and more to have “reporters postpone, change, hold, or even scrap stories that could have adversely affected national security interests or jeopardized sources and methods.” The ‘national security’ play has always been a way for these agencies to justify shady actions.
Given the shady dealings, agency manipulation, and ownership structure of most of mainstream media, the need for alternative voices is clear. But how should we view those alternative voices? Do we take their work at face value?
The Problems With Alternative News Websites I have seen a lot in the past seven years and I have seen a movement that is very important lose a lot of credibility — for GOOD reason. It’s easy to dismiss alternative news websites because so many of them so carelessly carry out their work. There are good ones out there, but they are vastly outnumbered by the bad.
I decided to write this because, as someone working within this movement and who cares a lot about creating a better world, I want people to know the truth so they can make informed decisions. As much as I respect many people for what they do, there is an inherent danger in not raising awareness about this. If we expose mainstream media, we should expose alternative media too; it’s only fair. I hope this encourages many of these outlets to do better work.
Given the ease of creating alternative news websites these days, and the ease of making advertising revenue, it’s easy to see why much of the content that gets posted is questionable.
Usually Run by One or Two People
Many alternative news or health websites are run by just one or two people. While this isn’t bad when it’s a passionate person who’s doing work the right way, it can become a problem when that person is simply doing it for a business. They are driven to make money by exploiting a niche market, not a desire to create change, and so they make low quality websites and content so ads can be placed on the website. As you might imagine, it begins to create some or even all of the following issues that I believe do more harm than good to the movement.
Too Driven by Ad Revenue
Many of the outlets I’ve worked with firsthand are highly driven by ad dollars. While it would be naive to suggest anyone should run a business without making money, since we need money to survive on this planet and simply hosting a website requires it, a desire to do good needs to remain the bottom line. Many outlets will post just about anything to make ad revenue. They will even go so far as to venture completely outside of their initial intention simply to keep up with making funds. I’ve had people ask us to post something on our page for even just 10 or 15 minutes, even after I told them it was a fake or false story. Even when you let them know that a story or health tip is false, they will post it anyway to get as many hits as they can before people figure it out — if they do. And this leads to the next problem.
Copying Content
Since it is typically only one or two people running each of these huge websites and Facebook pages, they can’t possibly write original content each day. And so, the majority of the time, they simply copy and paste the most viral and trendy stories onto their own website. No adding their own thoughts, opinions, insight, etc. — just taking content and adding a little link at the bottom back to the original creators. Now some have legitimate syndicated content partnerships, but this is rare. What typically happens is websites will copy and paste the most viral content each day or simply change the first few lines so the content looks fresh. This entire process takes away from the few websites that do write original content and pay a lot of money to do so.
Taking other website’s content.
The next time you read an article from an alternative news website, have a look at where the content originally came from. Check to see how many times that thread goes back from website to website to website. Often the content originates from six or seven sites back. Certainly at CE we see our original content posted on other websites all the time, sourced back to another site that took it from us (and another site, and another site).
Risk for False Claims and Poor Fact Checking
False Information being spread
Since many of these websites are run by one person, they take their content from other websites. And since their primary objective is to make as much ad revenue as possible, they often look for the most trendy or viral topic and repost without ever checking to see if the story is true. Health research, political scandals, lifestyle suggestions, and more — these topics often contain false information and there is no research behind it! People then spread this ‘exciting’ information, and since things can go viral quite easily, false information about real issues travels all over the web, all in the name of carelessness and profit. The very things they expose the mainstream for doing, they are doing themselves.
Check the article for sources , legitimate ones. Are there any? Do they link to credible information? Oftentimes you will find they don’t.
Why It Has to Change People are starting to realize en mass that the mainstream media has its own agendas, and rarely, if ever, do they align with our well-being. They are starting to move away from this sponsored, biased content and looking for other sources. The question becomes, what will they find instead? The bevy of alternative news websites that aren’t being run ethically or with integrity? Alternative sites that kill the credibility of the entire movement because of the way they title, image, and spread content that is false?
As a media organization that spends a lot of time doing what we do, hiring the necessary people to make sure work is done right and articles researched properly, we have to stand up and fight against laziness and greed, and we have to fight for the truth. It’s only fair. How could we possibly justify holding mainstream media accountable but letting alternative media slide?
So now you know. You know what to look out for and what to do. My advice is, stop supporting and sharing content that isn’t sourced or well researched. Sharing it only further denigrates this movement and supports these bad habits.
If you recognize how good alternative websites operate compared to the not so good ones, awesome! You are aware and on the ball. Support those sites! If you love what we do here at CE, check out our funding campaign for CE NEWS , as we are taking our high quality media to the next level! http://www.cenews.tv
| 0 |
TAPACHULA, Mexico — Leaving El Salvador had never been in Alberto’s plans. He and his wife had stable jobs and supportive friends and relatives, and their five children were happy. But a local gang tried to recruit one of Alberto’s sons as a drug mule and beat him up when he resisted, the family said. A gang leader approached his daughter, then 10 years old, and told her that he was going to make her his girlfriend. Then Alberto and his family received a phone call threatening to kill them if they did not turn over the children for the gang’s use. The corpse of a boy even appeared on the street in front of their house. The family fled north, taking only what it could carry. “We can’t just hand them over to the gang,” Alberto said of his children, sitting with his family in a shelter in Tapachula, a small Mexican city near the Guatemalan border. (Like other migrants interviewed, Alberto and his family asked that their last name not be used, fearing their persecutors could find them.) Gang violence in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala has conspired with economic desperation to drive an unrelenting exodus of migrants, including entire families, seeking safety in other countries, mainly the United States. Despite efforts to tighten regional borders and address the root causes of the exodus, American and international officials say the migration numbers have soared in the past year. “It’s really a refugee crisis,” said Perrine Leclerc, the head of the field office for the United Nations refugee agency in Tapachula. In the 2016 fiscal year, which ended in September, nearly 409, 000 migrants were caught trying to cross the southwestern border of the United States illegally, a 23 percent increase over the previous fiscal year, according to statistics released by the Obama administration. Officials said the increase reflected the growing number of people heading north, not any sweeping changes in enforcement. The trend continued through October, according to figures released Thursday by American immigration officials: More than 46, 000 people were caught last month on the southwestern border, up from about 39, 500 in September. The recent flow has been particularly notable for the unusual number of Central American migrants traveling in family groups. In the most recent fiscal year, about 77, 700 migrants caught on the southwestern American border were traveling in families, nearly twice as many as were detained in families the previous year. About 91 percent of all those migrants were from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, a region known as the Northern Triangle. As part of his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump promised an unforgiving approach to illegal immigration, including building a wall along the border with Mexico and stepping up deportations beyond even President Obama’s record removal rates. Now, among the array of immigration challenges he will face upon taking office, Mr. Trump will have to contend with this surge of migrants, an issue that has overwhelmed not only American border officials but also governments throughout the region. Some American officials have floated the theory that families may be migrating together in the hope that adults will have a better chance of avoiding detention in the United States if they try to enter with children. But interviews with migrants and their advocates suggest that families are fleeing — sometimes in groups of as many as 15 people — because they have no alternative. Gangs in certain communities in the Northern Triangle have become so merciless, and their control so widespread, that a family is often left with a stark choice: Comply, flee or die. “Today the violence is widespread, and because it’s widespread, it’s affecting the whole family,” said Diego Lorente, the director of the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula. Almost all of the migrants said they had once had no intention of ever leaving their countries. Alberto said he had a thriving business breeding livestock and dogs. His wife ran a food stand. Their youngest children were on track to attend college, he said. They were active members of their church. The family first fled in 2013 to northern El Salvador, where Alberto rebuilt his business and the children returned to school. But the gang members tracked them down, forcing them to move two more times, he said. They finally fled the country in March. While staying at a migrant shelter run by the Catholic Church in southern Mexico, a nun told them about Mexico’s asylum program. They applied and are now waiting for their claim to be adjudicated. “What can I say?” Alberto said with a sigh. “This is the horrible reality that our country is living now. ” As the violence and impunity have soared in the Northern Triangle, so has the number of asylum claims from those countries, according to the United Nations. Nearly half of those asylum seekers this year have sought sanctuary in the United States. But migrants are increasingly viewing other countries in the region, including Belize, Costa Rica and especially Mexico, as asylum destinations. Under international pressure, the Mexican government has been expanding its capacity to receive refugees. Its acceptance rate for completed applications increased to about 62 percent in the first six months of this year, from about 45 percent in 2015. United Nations officials and migrants’ advocates here believe that of the hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants who crossed into Mexico last year, as many as half may have qualified for refugee protection. Yet only about 3, 400 people applied for asylum in Mexico, according to government figures. By comparison, nearly 177, 000 Central Americans were deported by Mexican immigration authorities last year. The migrant shelters here in Tapachula are full, and advocates are struggling to accommodate the growing number of families that find their way here, either as a pit stop on their journey to the United States or as a place to file for asylum. “Tapachula is the first place that they arrive where they have a perception of security,” Mr. Lorente said. The migrants tell of grisly murders, of how gangs have recruited boys as lookouts and drug runners and forced girls into becoming their brides. They speak of “war taxes,” sometimes amounting to half of their earnings. Noncompliance is met with death. “It’s butchery,” Ms. Leclerc said. Entire neighborhoods have fallen under the control of gangs, which are abetted by corrupt officials on their payrolls. Several migrants said they had not reported crimes to the police, fearing that the police would inform the gangs. Most said they had left their homes with no understanding, or even awareness, of asylum protections in other countries, only a determination to find a safer place to live. Fatima, 19, said she had fled El Salvador after gang members killed her husband, an apprentice auto mechanic, and threatened her, too. Traveling with her son and two close relatives, she was hoping to reach the home of her late husband’s parents in the Mexican state of Puebla. The women knew nothing about asylum protections in the region. So when immigration officials caught them, they did not know they could present their case, they said, and the immigration officials never asked why they were migrating. The women said they and their children had been deported back to El Salvador, but immediately headed back to Mexico. They were captured again. But this time, Fatima said, she spotted United Nations posters on the wall advertising the Mexican asylum program. “It was never in my thinking to leave my country,” she said at a migrant shelter in Mexico City. Fatima said she hoped to remain in Mexico and had not considered trying to move to the United States. But according to some migrants’ advocates, the goal for most Central American migrants is to eventually make it “farther north,” a phrase common among migrants. Even many of those applying for asylum in Mexico view refugee status as a stopgap allowing them to travel to the northern border without harassment by the Mexican authorities. “It’s the superbest country,” Juan, a Honduran migrant, said of the United States. He has applied for refugee status in Mexico, along with his wife and two small daughters, but he hopes to reach America. He said they had fled Honduras after gang members threatened to kill him if he did not join their operation. “You don’t migrate now in search of the American dream,” he said. “You go for your life. ” | 1 |
KABUL, Afghanistan — Abdul Ali Shamsi had already covered a lot of ground before he moved to Kandahar Province to become deputy governor a year and a half ago. Mr. Shamsi was at the vanguard of a new generation of Afghan leaders. From an early job as a security guard in Kabul, he became a security expert in Helmand Province and moved up in the provincial government there. And he helped found the Afghanistan 1400 youth political movement, starting public campaigns to console victims of violence around the country and to raise support for Afghan governance. “These efforts have two impacts: One is we stand up against things we believe are wrong, but the other more important factor is we project courage,” he told The Guardian newspaper a few years ago, as he was spearheading an effort to clean up and reopen a lakeside picnic spot in Kabul after a Taliban attack. “We enable people to stand up against violence, people who in many ways have been passive because of fears instilled among the population. ” On Tuesday, Mr. Shamsi, 38, became a victim of the kind of violence he had helped others withstand, killed along with 10 other people when explosives placed within the Kandahar governor’s guesthouse detonated during a reception for visiting Arab officials. He was the third Kandahar deputy governor to be killed in the line of duty in just a few years, and he knew, in taking the job, that he would be just as much a target as his two predecessors — one a young poet and writer who was gunned down in a university classroom and, before that, an engineer who was killed by a suicide bomber on his way to work. The attack in Kandahar this week seemed expressly aimed at breaking down the cause that Mr. Shamsi and his colleagues were dedicated to: trying to restore faith in government after years of devastating war and disappointing failures. Among the dead were an Afghan senator and a member of Parliament, five officials from the United Arab Emirates and an Afghan envoy to the United States, according to officials. Eighteen others were wounded. The governor of Kandahar, Humayoon Azizi, and the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, Juma Mohammed Abdullah were among the wounded, but their injuries were not considered said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the security chief of Kandahar Province. The president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed said in a statement that the officials were in Kandahar “to carry out humanitarian, educational and development projects. ” He ordered flags to be flown at for three days of mourning in his country. The explosions in Kandahar capped a bloody day in Afghanistan. A bombing targeted a meeting of militia commanders in the Helmand provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, killing from seven to 11 people, according to various Afghan officials. Hours later, a double bombing that was claimed by the Taliban killed at least 38 people and wounded 86 others outside the Parliament during the early evening rush hour. Even by the standards of Kandahar, which has a long history of officials and elders being targeted in complex attacks over the years, the extent of the security breach raised questions. To get to the governor’s guesthouse requires passing through multiple security checks, and measures were so tight on Tuesday before the dignitaries’ visit that, according to one official, Mr. Shamsi’s own car was even searched. General Raziq said that an intense investigation into the attack was starting, and that the national security adviser was coming to Kandahar to lead the effort. In an interview, the police commander said the guesthouse had been under construction for months, with about three dozen workers coming to the site each day, raising the possibility that explosives could have been smuggled in that way. “We have detained several people who were working there, and they are under investigation,” General Raziq said. The general, who has survived dozens of attacks himself, barely escaped this one. He said he had walked out of the hall to offer his evening prayers in the next room when the explosives went off. “I wasn’t finished with my prayers when the loud explosion occurred,” General Raziq said. “It shook the whole building, blew out the windows, and the entire hall was in flames that were out of control. ” Many of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, Afghan officials said. And despite the government’s formally declaring Mr. Shamsi among the dead, his brother, Fazal Bari Shamsi, said the family had yet to receive the body, which was awaiting DNA testing for identification. On Wednesday, tributes poured in after it was confirmed that Mr. Shamsi was among the dead. President Ashraf Ghani was described as openly grieving, remaining solemn through his morning meeting with aides and describing Mr. Shamsi’s death as a profound loss for the country. “This unfortunate and poor nation had such need for you,” wrote Baryalai Helmand in a Facebook post about Mr. Shamsi. “The martyrdom of youth like you breaks our back. ” Shaharzad Akbar, who was one of the founding members of Afghanistan 1400 along with Mr. Shamsi, posted another emotional tribute. “He always gave us morale — in the hardest days he was hopeful, and in the darkest moments patriotic,” Ms. Akbar wrote. “He was more experienced than most of us. With me, a much younger girl with much less experience, he would interact with such respect that it would put me to shame. ” The political group found itself developing a side specialty in trying to rebuild after violence. When a gruesome massacre took place in western Farah Province, Mr. Shamsi was among the group of young leaders who traveled to the province to console the residents of the shaken city. As the most experienced of the lot, having dealt with death and violence during his years in Helmand and the American troop surge, he often took the lead in those kinds of delegations. One of Mr. Shamsi’s first acts on the job the day he became deputy governor in August 2015 was to visit the elderly father of his assassinated predecessor, Abdul Qadeem Patyal, to pay his respects. Dawa Khan Meenapal, then the provincial director of culture in Kandahar and currently a deputy spokesman for Mr. Ghani, was with him. “It was the atmosphere of a funeral, especially after Patyal’s children came to the room,” Mr. Meenapal said about the visit. “The two deputy governors before him had been martyred. Shamsi knew that working in Kandahar meant being mentally prepared for that. ” | 1 |
There is a new safe space for liberals in the age of President Trump: the television set. MSNBC, after flailing at the end of the Obama years, has edged CNN in prime time. Stephen Colbert’s openly “Late Show” is beating Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” for the first time. Bill Maher’s HBO flock has grown nearly 50 percent since last year’s presidential primaries, and “The Daily Show” has registered its best ratings since Jon Stewart left in 2015. Traditional television, a medium considered so last century, has watched audiences drift away for the better part of a decade. Now rattled liberals are surging back, seeking catharsis, solidarity and relief. “When Obama was in office, I felt like things were going O. K.,” Jerry Brumleve, 58, a retiree from Louisville, Ky. said last week as he stood in line for a “Daily Show” taping in Manhattan. These days, he is a newfound devotee of Rachel Maddow of MSNBC — “She’s always talking about the Russians!” his wife, Yvonne, chimed in — and believes Mr. Stewart’s successor, Trevor Noah, has finally “hit his stride. ” “With Trump in office, I really feel the need to stay more informed,” Mr. Brumleve added. “You just don’t know what the hell this guy is going to do. ” Many others feel the same. Last month, Ms. Maddow was watched by more viewers than at any time in the run of her show. The turbocharged ratings are a surprise even to television executives, who had been bracing for a plunge in viewership after the excitement of the presidential campaign. Before election night, networks were scrambling to generate new hits and digital offshoots that could stanch the bleeding. Instead, the old analog favorites are in, with franchises like “Saturday Night Live” drawing its highest Nielsen numbers in 24 years. Despite a dizzying array of new media choices, viewers are opting for television’s mass gathering spots, seeking the kind of shared experience that can validate and reassure. “There’s definitely a sense of we’ ” Mr. Noah said in an interview, noting that Mr. Trump’s election had infused his show with a new sense of purpose. “People are finding a space here in saying, ‘Oh, I’m not crazy — somebody else is also outraged by this,’” Mr. Noah said. Uncertainty and tumult have long driven ratings, and the interest is bipartisan. Fox News, already cable’s network, is having another big year: In February, its viewership was up another 31 percent from a year ago. of the 48 million people who watched Mr. Trump’s address to Congress two weeks ago did so on Fox. But MSNBC’s growth has outpaced its rivals — its audience in February was up 55 percent from a year ago — a striking turnaround for a channel once considered the of cable news. The network has beaten CNN in total weekday viewers for six of the last seven months. (CNN still outranks MSNBC in prime time among the audience of adults ages 25 to 54.) At MSNBC headquarters in New York on a recent weeknight, the mood was energized. Ms. Maddow sprinted down a hallway minutes before her 9 o’clock airtime the anchor was late for makeup after a monologue on Russian meddling in the election. (Generous by cable news standards, the segment still spilled over its allotted time.) It was a day after a Maddow milestone: Her Wednesday show outranked that of her Fox News counterpart, Tucker Carlson, in total audience and the coveted demographic. Later, after swapping her blazer for a fleece Ms. Maddow speculated that some viewers were gravitating to the show to feel part of a broader movement across the country. “There is this surge in civic interest and engagement,” Ms. Maddow said as she sprawled in a chair in her cluttered Rockefeller Plaza office, where the tip of an Emmy Award poked out of a metal beer pail. “It feels like a spontaneous, organic, pretty heterogeneous, energized, constructive force, and it’s been interesting to me to see it happen everywhere. ” Still, Ms. Maddow smiled when told that some viewers say they turn to her as a source of sanity. “My standard response to that is, ‘That is a gossamer thread — you need to work on that in your life! ’” she said, laughing. “I’m a TV show, and you shouldn’t depend on me. Anything can happen. Build up other sources of sanity. ” In some ways, television is the last mass medium that Americans turn to en masse in uncertain times. “It is a place where we congregate,” said Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center for media and society at the University of Southern California. “We all gather around that hearth to know what’s going on out there, and be comforted by the people who come on our screens to say, things will be all right. ” Last week, outside a taping of Samantha Bee’s TBS comedy show, “Full Frontal,” Stacie Bloom, 44, said she was finding television “cathartic. ” “Maddow, I love her,” said Ms. Bloom, a scientist who lives in New York. “It’s reinforcing to watch. It’s the same reason I marched in the women’s march: It’s because I believe in it, and I want to be surrounded by other people who believe in it, too. ” Ms. Bee, in an interview, said she was glad her show could provide an outlet for liberals’ frustrations. “I’m certainly requiring catharsis myself,” she said, laughing. “I wish I could be more helpful to them, actually. As much as they need the show, I need the show. I experience it in a different way than the audience experiences it, but I need it, too. ” For Mr. Noah, who struggled early on to replicate the success of his “Daily Show” predecessor, Mr. Stewart, the election became a clarifying moment. “We are in the same position as a lot of our audience is in,” he said. “We felt the change and we felt an immediate shift, and we responded accordingly. ” Viewing habits seem to reflect the increasingly polarized state of the nation. Cable news, with its sharp punditry, is seeing huge ratings, but viewership for the network evening newscasts is falling, along with that of morning shows. CNN, once the straight man of cable news, has embraced its role as foil to Mr. Trump, with anchors like Jake Tapper delivering aggressive interviews and commentary on the administration. Gloria Steinem, the liberal activist and writer, wrote in an email that she had grown tired of “false equivalency or ” from news organizations, which she blamed for aiding Mr. Trump’s rise. “I watch MSNBC for Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell because I trust them as journalists,” Ms. Steinem wrote, adding, “A journalist’s job is not to be balanced it’s to be accurate. ” At Rockefeller Plaza, Ms. Maddow was asked if it felt odd to be enjoying a major career moment thanks to the election of a president whose policies she loathes. “I don’t feel like a winner right now, if that’s what you’re getting at,” she said. “I don’t feel like, ‘Score! Let’s hope for even more senior diplomats to get fired! ’” “Like, God, no,” Ms. Maddow added, turning serious. “I am not hoping for it to get worse. ” | 1 |
Trump Raises Concern Over Members Of Urban Communities Voting More Than Zero Times ATKINSON, NH—Warning supporters that the troubling practice could affect the outcome of the election, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump expressed strong concern Friday that members of urban communities were voting more than zero times, sources reported. Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Most Hotly Contested Down-Ballot Measures Of 2016 As Americans head to the polls, they will be presented with a number of issues to vote on besides choosing their representatives. The Onion gives voters an advance look at which measures will be included on the ballots in which states. New Heavy-Duty Voting Machine Allows Americans To Take Out Frustration On It Before Casting Ballot WASHINGTON—Saying the circumstances of this year’s presidential race made the upgrade necessary, election commissions throughout the country were reportedly working to install new heavy-duty voting machines this week that will allow Americans to physically take out their frustrations on the devices before casting their votes. Clinton Staff Readies EMP Launch To Disable All Nation’s Electronic Devices NEW YORK—In an effort to prepare for any new revelations that might emerge about her emails during her tenure as secretary of state, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told her staff Tuesday to ready the launch of several electromagnetic pulses to disable all of the nation’s electronic devices. End Of Section | 0 |
Cisco Oracle
And this is what Moody’s has to say about Apple’s wondrous cash hoard, much of it overseas:
Based on Apple’s reported results for its fiscal year that ended in September, Moody’s projects the company’s cash will exceed $250 billion by the end of calendar 2016, representing over 14% of total non-financial corporate cash.
And then it dives straight into tax lobbying, in behalf of its clients, directed straight at Congress:
“Without tax reform that reduces the negative financial consequences of repatriating money to the US, we expect offshore cash levels to continue increasing,” said Richard Lane, a Senior Vice President at Moody’s.
The financial media jumped on the bandwagon and quoted this falsehood for mass consumption in order to pressure Congress to give our multinational corporate heroes another opportunity to dodge taxes, on top of the countless opportunities already written into the tax code for them that small businesses don’t have access to.
But here’s the thing. In May 2013, Apple got into a pickle because it had decided to fund its stock-buy-back and dividend program by taking on a record $17 billion in debt rather than “repatriating” part of its “offshore” cash and paying income taxes on it.
The Senate subcommittee investigation and hearings, chaired by Senator John McCain , showed that Apple had sheltered at least $74 billion from US income taxes between 2009 and 2012 by using a “complex web” of offshore mailbox companies. The investigation found untaxed “offshore” profits of $102 billion held by Irish subsidiaries – which Apple refused to “repatriate” in order to keep that income from being taxed in the US.
But according to the Senate report, Apple doesn’t have to repatriate that moolah because it’s already in the US. The Irish mailbox subsidiaries, on whose books this money is for tax purposes, transferred it to Apple’s bank accounts in New York. The money is managed by an Apple subsidiary in Reno, Nevada, and is invested in all kinds of assets in the US. Apple’s accountants in Austin, Texas, keep the books,
Money doesn’t stop at borders. Tax accounting does.
These revelations explained another corporate mystery that had long baffled economists. In 2004, after heavy lobbying by our Corporate Titans, Congress declared a “repatriation holiday” to encourage the “return” of $300 billion in overseas cash to be invested in the US. This would cause a burst of investment and hiring in the US, it was said. This was similar to what Moody’s is now clamoring for on behalf of its clients, except this time, they want permanent tax reform rather than a one-time “repatriation holiday.”
So in 2004, our heroes made some adjustments on their books to “repatriate” these profits that were then taxed at the special and minuscule rate of 5.25%, less than the payroll taxes withheld from their US working stiffs.
And then nothing happened. There were no investments and no hiring and no benefits for the economy because the money had already been deployed in the US, as we now know. In May 2013, as a result of the Senate hearings, the New York Times summarized the 2004 phenomenon this way:
On the contrary, some of the companies that brought back the most money laid off thousands of workers, and a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research later concluded that 92 cents on every dollar was used for dividends, stock buybacks or executive bonuses.
This sort of “repatriation holiday” or tax reform would simply be a handout benefitting our Corporate Titans, but not the millions of smaller companies that don’t have the resources to lobby Congress, make special deals with foreign governments, and create that “complex web” of offshore mailbox companies. They’re too busy struggling on a daily basis in their dog-eat-dog world.
Subcommittee Chairman John McCain thundered in his opening statement of the hearings that it was “unacceptable that corporations like Apple are able to exploit tax loopholes to avoid paying billions in taxes.” Since then, nothing happened in Congress. The loophole wasn’t closed. And the falsehoods that had been stabbed many times during the hearings have once again risen to shine in even greater glory, with Moody’s adding some additional sparkle.
Hot air keeps hissing out of IPOs. Read… What the Heck’s Wrong with This Market? Biggest IPO of the Year Sags to New Low 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 0 |
0 |
|
Congressman Jason Chaffetz, head of the House Oversight Committee, published a photo of himself greeting losing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at Friday’s inauguration ceremony, teasing, “the investigation continues,” with no other comment. [“So pleased she is not the President,” Chaffetz wrote on Instagram, where he posted the photo. “I thanked her for her service and wished her luck. The investigation continues. ” So pleased she is not the President. I thanked her for her service and wished her luck. The investigation continues. A photo posted by Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) on Jan 20, 2017 at 12:31pm PST, As House Oversight chairman, Chaffetz played a significant role in investigating Clinton following the revelation that she had used an unsecured private email server to save classified documents she came into contact with in her capacity as Secretary of State. Chaffetz has personally demanded an FBI investigation into Clinton, arguing that Clinton’s claim she was unaware of her breach of security protocol did not match the evidence the FBI had initially uncovered. Chaffetz was extremely critical of FBI director James Comey’s decision not to prosecute Clinton for her actions, and vowed to continue the investigation following Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 presidential election. Upon winning the presidency, President Donald Trump announced he would not seek to further investigate Clinton. “I’m not looking to go back through this,” he told the New York Times. “I think it would be very, very divisive for the country. ” | 1 |
Friday at a Boeing manufacturing facility in North Charleston, SC, President Donald Trump gave a speech that promoted the “America first” theme that was also a part of his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump’s stop in North Charleston was part of Boeing’s rollout of the aerospace manufacturer’s aircraft. Transcript as follows: TRUMP: USA. AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! TRUMP: Thank you, Dennis (ph). And I have to say, I love South Carolina. I love it. (APPLAUSE) Remember we came down all together. We came down, and this was going to be a place that was tough to win, and we won in a landslide. This was a good one. (APPLAUSE) So I want to thank — I want to thank the people of South Carolina. And your governor, tremendous guy. He supported us right from the beginning. So I’d like to thank Governor McMaster for the incredible job, he’s right here someplace. Thank you very much. You have been fantastic. And I have to say also, that is one beautiful airplane. (APPLAUSE) Congratulations to the men and women here who have built it. What an amazing piece of art. What an amazing piece of work. Thank you, Dennis (ph) for the invitation to be with you today. You know, the old days when I made this speech, I got paid a lot of money. Now I have to do it for nothing. (LAUGHTER) So, not a good deal, but that’s OK, we love it. It’s wonderful to be back in South Carolina, especially with your new governor. Where is Henry? He’s around here someplace. Where is he? Stand up, Henry. Proud of you. He helped us so much. (APPLAUSE) And I want to also thank your former governor, Nikki Haley, who’s doing an awfully good job for us. (APPLAUSE) She’s representing America very well as our ambassador to the United Nations. She is doing a spectacular job. It’s early, but she has just been really great. We’re here today to celebrate American engineering and American manufacturing. We’re also here today to celebrate jobs, jobs. (APPLAUSE) This plane, as you know, was built right here in the great state of South Carolina. Our goal as a nation must be to rely less on imports and more on products made here in the USA, right here in the USA. (APPLAUSE) It’s amazing to think that a little over 113 years ago, next door in North Carolina, Orville Wright was the first man to sail the skies in a very little airplane. The 1903 Wright Flyer was made of mostly wood and cloth. It was so small that Orville’s brother Wilbur could not join him on the flight. He was always very upset about that. The flight lasted all of 12 seconds, but it was incredible. That flight was a testament to the American spirit. I see that same spirit everywhere I travel in the country. I saw that spirit all throughout the campaign. We have the greatest people anywhere in the world. We have the greatest spirit, and you just look at what’s going on today in our country, you look at what’s happening with jobs, you look at what’s happening with plants moving back into our country. TRUMP: All of a sudden, they’re coming back and they’re gonna be very happy about it, believe me. (APPLAUSE) They’re gonna be very, very happy. As your president, I’m going to do everything I can to unleash the power of the American spirit and to put our great people back to work. (APPLAUSE) This is our mantra, “buy American and hire American. ” We want products made in America, made by American hands. You probably saw the keystone pipeline I approved recently and the Dakota. And I’m getting ready to sign the bill I said where is the pipe made? They told me, not here. I said, that’s good, add little sentence that you have to buy American steel. And you know what? That’s the way it is. (APPLAUSE) That’s the way it is going to be. We are going to fight for every last American job. We’ve come a long way since the Wright brothers and their first flight more than a century ago. Your plane is made of carbon fiber. It seats 330 passengers. Its 18 feet longer than the previous version of the 787, and this airplane can fly for half away before it touches the ground. The name says it all “Dreamliner,” great name. Our country is all about making dreams come true. Over the last number of years, that hasn’t been necessarily the case, but we’re going to make it the case again. (APPLAUSE) That’s what we do in America. We dream of things and then we build them. We turned vision into reality, and we will be doing a lot more of that believe me, in the months and years to come. (APPLAUSE) I also want to say a word to all of the members of the armed forces who are here with us today in this record crowd. (APPLAUSE) South Carolina has a long, very, very proud military tradition and history. We salute all South Carolina military families, and we salute all of the men and women who wear the uniform. (APPLAUSE) We are going to fully rebuild our military — by the way, do you care if we use the Super Hornet or do you only care about — what do you think? (APPLAUSE) Well — I thought that was Super Hornet. We are looking seriously at big order, and we will see how that — you know, the problem is that Dennis is a very, very tough negotiator. But I think we may get there. We’re also working on the Air Force One project which was a difficult project for previous administrations, but it looks like we are getting closer and closer. And we’re going to ensure … (APPLAUSE) … that our great service members have the tools, equipment, training, and resources they need to get the job done. (APPLAUSE) As George Washington said, “being prepared for war is the best way to prevent it. ” And that’s really what it is. The best way to prevent war, being prepared. Peace through strength. We build a military might so great, and we are going to do that, that none will dare to challenge it, none. (APPLAUSE) We will ensure our men and women in uniform have the latest, the most cutting edge systems in their arsenal. Right now, it’s not that way. It will be that way very, very soon, believe me. You will be an important player in this effort. TRUMP: Boeing has built many important aircraft including, as I said, the Super Hornet, the Strike Eagle, and the Apache helicopter, just to name a few. (APPLAUSE) And I am being very, very serious, the new Air Force One, that plane, as beautiful as it looks is 30 years old. Can you believe it? What can look so beautiful at 30? An airplane. (LAUGHTER) I don’t know. Which one do we like better, folks, tell me. AUDIENCE: ( ) TRUMP: On every front, we are going to work for the American people. No where in our focus is — and I mean this so strongly, and our focus has to be so strong, but my focus has been all about jobs, and jobs is one of the primary reasons I am standing here today as your president. And I will never, ever disappoint you, believe me. I will not disappoint you. (APPLAUSE) I campaigned on the promise that I will do everything in my power to bring those jobs back into America. We wanted to make much easier — it has to be much easier to manufacture in our country and much harder to leave. I don’t want companies leaving our country. Making their product, selling it back, no tax, no nothing, firing everybody in our country. We’re not letting that happen anymore, folks, believe me. There will be a very substantial penalty to be paid when they fire their people and move to another country, make the product and think they are going to sell it back over what will soon be a very, very strong border. It’s going to be a lot different. It’s going to be a lot different. (APPLAUSE) Already, American industry is roaring back. And believe me, if we — not me, I’m a messenger — if we didn’t have this victory, we wouldn’t even be talking about it. To achieve that goal, we are going to massively reduce job crushing regulations — already started you’ve seen that — that sent our jobs to those other countries. We are going to lower taxes on American business so it’s cheaper and easier to produce product and beautiful things like airplanes right here in America. (APPLAUSE) We are going to enforce, very strongly, enforce our trade rules and stop foreign cheating — tremendous cheating, tremendous cheating. We want products made by our workers, in our factories, stamped with those four magnificent words, made in the USA. (APPLAUSE) AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA! TRUMP: Since November, jobs have already begun to surge. We’re seeing companies open up factories in America. We’re seeing them keep jobs at home. Ford, General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, just to name a very, very few, so many more already. They are keeping and bringing thousands of jobs in our country because the business climate they know, has already changed. In Arizona, Intel announced it will open a new plant that will create 10, 000 American jobs. They’re spending billions of dollars. (APPLAUSE) We will see more and more of that across the country as we continue to work on reducing regulations, cutting taxes, including for the middle class, including for everyone and including for business, and creating a level playing field for our workers. When there is a level playing field — and I’ve been saying this for a long time — American workers will always, always, always win. But we don’t have a level playing field. Very shortly, you will have a level playing field again. (APPLAUSE) Because when American workers win, America as a country wins big league, wins. That’s my message here today. America is going to start winning again, winning like never, ever before. We’re not going to let our country be taken advantage of anymore, in any way, shape, or form. We love America and we are going to protect America. We love our workers, and we are going to protect our workers. We are going to fight for our jobs, we are going to fight for our families and we are going to fight to get more jobs and better paying jobs for the loyal citizens of our country. Believe me. (APPLAUSE) You have heard me say it before and I will say it again. From now on, it’s going to be America first. (APPLAUSE) Working together as a unit, there is nothing we cannot accomplish, no task too large, no dream too great, no goal beyond our reach. Just like you built this incredible airplane behind me, both of them when you think about it, we are going to rebuild this country and ensure that every forgotten community has the bright future it deserves. And by the way, those communities are forgotten no longer. The election took care of that. (APPLAUSE) And we will pass onto our children the freedom and prosperity that is their American birthright. Our children will inherit from us a nation that is strong, that is proud and that is totally free. And each of you will be part of creating that new American future. I want to thank you, South Carolina. I want to thank the great people of South Carolina. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America and God bless Boeing. (APPLAUSE) Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
0 Add Comment
AS TEACHERS in Ireland enjoy some well earned time off this week, they have been plagued by the undeserved stereotype of being hard party animals that love nothing more than to be 4 days into a session with no end in sight.
WWN carried out some extensive research to discover not all teachers fit the lazy stereotype and are actually making the most of their time off.
Here’s 5 things they’re doing that won’t result in them ending up face down in a pool of their own vomit while haphazardly correcting your child’s ‘I love my Mammy because’ essay.
1) Pre-Session
Don’t even try to class this as a balls to the wall session. It isn’t. Do not misunderstand the situation. A pre-session is no more a session than the Pope is a Muslim. So don’t try and pull a fast one on teachers. Sure it can’t be a session, there’s no drugs in sight, trust us, we looked.
2) Just the one
Just going for the one is simply that, an expression of a desire to have a casual catch up with a fellow teacher friend without being unfairly labelled a basket case that can’t go two minutes without recreating their favourite scenes from Trainspotting. And it’s still ‘just the one’ if it’s an early house, after ambling home from last night’s pre-session.
3) Correcting essays
See, it’s not all fun and games and importing four tonnes of class A drugs. Teachers have some serious work to do, and a bottle of wine and a line will certainly make the whole thing go more smoothly.
4) Bumping into a student in a nightclub
An awkward encounter many people can sympathise with. What is your favourite pupil Thomas doing in Flannerys at 2.30am? And what’s he eating a Toffee Crisp for? Why is his mother shouting at you? Wait, why does Flanneys now look eerily like a suburban front garden. An easy mistake to make, don’t worry about it.
5) Re-lax-ing-the-fuck-out
Educating the Nation’s little shits isn’t easy, we can only imagine, which is why teachers often just catch up on their sleep during a midterm. Or if sleep isn’t possible, a trance sleep-like state after necking some Ketamine in a field in Kildare. | 0 |
Students at Evergreen College, demanding the suspension of a professor who opposed a school event asking white students and staff to leave campus, are demanding that a video of their protest efforts published online be taken down. [“We demand that the video created for Day of Absence and Day of Presence that was stolen by white supremacists and edited to expose and ridicule the students and staff be taken down by the administration by this Friday,” the students wrote in a list of demands to college President George Bridges. The video depicts student protesters screaming and shouting on campus in response to Professor Bret Weinstein’s refusal to participate in a campus event in which white community members were asked to leave the school for a day. The video spread throughout social media. The students in the videos demanded that it be taken down, a request which would have been difficult for the administration to comply with due to the nature of social media and the internet. They claimed that the video had been stolen by “white supremacists” and demanded that it be taken down by Friday. Based on conversations with the Attorney General’s office, the most likely course of action requires an investigation. We commit to launching an extensive forensic investigation of the theft of this video and to determining who stole it from the student. If that investigation yields a suspect, we will seek criminal charges against the individual in consultation with the Attorney General. The video includes profane language and includes a segment in which students hurl expletives at college president George Bridges, who largely complied with the group’s demands. Editor’s note: The original video included in this story has been removed after it was called into question whether it was the video that student activists had demanded be taken down. Breitbart Tech has reached out to Evergreen and the uploader of the video for clarification. Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about economics and higher education for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart. com | 1 |
You can listen on our player .
To listen on a smart phone, just click this link: http://listen.spacial.com/api/listen/?sid=9826&method=sc It will ask if you want to download or execute. Click “Execute”. Then on the next screen, Complete action using, click “Google Play Music”.
Get together in our chat room: The Pub. | 0 |
Email
The Clintons are a “crime family” and Hillary a “pathological liar,” said former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom during an interview Sunday. And it appears his belief is shared by current rank-and-file FBI agents, as a rebellion has apparently been brewing within the bureau.
The latest shocking news on this front is that despite a plea deal to destroy laptops (evidence) belonging to Clinton associates, those devices were not destroyed and are still in the possession of the FBI. As the Daily Caller reports : Washington D.C. attorney Joe DiGenova said on The David Webb Show on SiriusXM Friday night that despite the FBI agreeing to destroy the laptops of Clinton aide Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson as part of immunity deals made during the initial investigation of Clinton’s email server, agents involved in the case refused to destroy the laptops. “According to the agreement reached with the attorneys who handed over their laptops, the laptops were to be destroyed per the agreement after the testimony was given — the interviews were given — by the attorneys. The bureau and the department agreed to that,” DiGenova said. “However the laptops contrary to published reports were not destroyed and the reason is the agents who are tasked with destroying them refused to do so. And by the way the laptops are at the FBI for inspection by Congress or federal courts.” DiGenova said the laptops have already been subpoenaed and the FBI is waiting for Congress to ask for them.
As to this report’s credibility, American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson notes that “DiGenova, a former US Attorney and Washington, DC superlawyer is no flake. He has plenty of contacts within the FBI and a reputation to protect. So I take his words on Sirius/XM’s David Webb show quite seriously.”
Ever since FBI director James Comey (shown above) shook the political world Friday by announcing that the bureau was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s illegal use of a private e-mail server, theories as to why he’s acting now have proliferated. After all, since consensus was that Comey was covering for the Democrats at the Obama administration’s behest, no one expected a revisiting of Clinton’s criminality just over a week before the election.
Of course, given that tens of thousands of e-mails — some apparently Clinton related — were recovered from ex-congressman Anthony Wiener’s laptop during an investigation into his having sent illicit text messages to a 15-year-old girl, the most obvious explanation is that of Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein , that whatever was found is “a real bombshell.” As Thomas Lifson wrote in “3 competing theories on why the FBI re-opened the Hillary email server investigation,” “It is possible that something so dramatic came up in the pertinent emails that postponing a public reaction by not announcing the reopening of the investigation would, [sic] be regarded as political interference by covering up a smoking gun until after the election. In this scenario, Comey is assuming the evidence cannot be suppressed, and that he would be held accountable after it comes out. This scenario also indicates that we could be headed for a constitutional crisis, involving the possible indictment of a president-elect before an election. Or the evidence being turned over to the House of Representatives for impeachment hearings.”
The second theory Lifson outlined was one put forth by radio host Rush Limbaugh. As Lifson wrote, “By announcing an FBI Investigation resuming, Comey is putting a lid on further attention to Wikileaks. I guess this means that Clinton forces will argue we must wait for the investigation to be complete (after the election) before speaking about what the evil Russians are planting into our politics.”
Lastly, Lifson wrote that Comey “might be seeking to restore his badly damaged reputation, recognizing that the damage he has inflicted on the FBI is substantial. Three days ago, American Thinker published an open letter from a retired FBI agent, Hugh Galyean, that laid out some of the damage Comey has inflicted on the institution he leads. There is little doubt that this reached many in the FBI family, putting in print what people have only whispered about. If those silenced voices start speaking out, Comey could face a serious loss of face. In this scenario, he is heading off a staff rebellion, possibly including mass resignations.”
This last theory is lent great credence by the news that the plea-deal laptops were never destroyed. If that story is true, it reflects a rebellion more serious than most anyone had imagined — with agents defying a direct order . This also adds weight to a related theory: that agents are so disgruntled that not only could some “resign and reveal,” but that active personnel could actually leak the truth to the media. If this is the case, Comey might be trying to get out ahead of such a development.
None of this is hard to imagine. While the FBI director is a political appointee perhaps chosen based on party or ideological loyalty, rank-and-file agents didn’t join the bureau for political power or money. They often are people who chose their career because they wanted to serve their country, and many (if not most) take their oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” very seriously. And word has it that they have no respect for Comey, viewing him as a “dirty cop.”
The aforementioned James Kallstrom vindicated this assessment, saying “that FBI Director James Comey and the rest of the FBI’s leadership were responsible for holding back the investigation, not the rest of the bureau,” reports the Hill . “‘The agents are furious with what’s going on, I know that for a fact,’ he said.”
This is, apparently, because the agents know what Kallstrom does. As the Hill further writes: “The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically,” Kallstrom said. “It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool.” ... He also blasted Attorney General Loretta Lynch, claiming that she impeded the investigation into Clinton’s private server. “The problem here is this investigation was never a real investigation,” he said. “That’s the problem. They never had a grand jury empanelled, and the reason they never had a grand jury empanelled, I’m sure, is Loretta Lynch would not go along with that.” “God forbid we put someone like that in the White House,” he added of Clinton.
This appears standard FBI sentiment. I personally know of an ex-agent — someone with knowledge of Clinton “crime family” dealings — who I’m told is having trouble sleeping at night due to the prospect of a Clinton presidency.
Two other people who may now have trouble finding the arms of Morpheus are Clinton and her longtime aide and confidante (and rumored lesbian lover) Huma Abedin. Abedin, who has questionable Islamic connections , is Anthony Wiener’s estranged wife and is apparently responsible for the Clinton-related e-mails found on his laptop. Note that Abedin may have legal problems herself, having sworn under oath that she relinquished “all devices” and having signed, under penalty of perjury, a document stating she wasn’t retaining any copies of the relevant materials.
Whether or not the new Clinton e-mails contain devastating information, they certainly provide an excuse for Director Comey to reopen the investigation, thus controlling a bureau rebellion that could lead to his own scandalization and career destruction. He may now realize that it’s a matter of Clinton — or him.
Whatever the case, this unprecedentedly scandal-ridden campaign — with Project Veritas, WikiLeaks, and now FBI revelations and a story that, as radio host Michael Savage put it, only a Shakespeare could write — should have a wild closing week. Logic dictates that Halloween will be followed by the scariest revelations yet, likely the result of another WikiLeaks dump. Hold on to your seats; the ride has just begun. Photos of Hillary Clinton and James Comey: AP Images Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
Thank you for joining the discussion at The New American. We value our readers and encourage their participation, but in order to ensure a positive experience for our readership, we have a few guidelines for commenting on articles. If your post does not follow our policy, it will be deleted.
No profanity, racial slurs, direct threats, or threatening language.
No product advertisements.
Please post comments in English.
Please keep your comments on topic with the article. If you wish to comment on another subject, you may search for a relevant article and join or start a discussion there. | 0 |
Клоунада — не напасть, как бы клоунам не пропасть! 31 октября 2016 Происшествия
В Германии, где только в октябре было 370 случаев нападений «клоунов» на жителей, не собираются оставлять этих пранкеров безнаказанными.
Подражатели идиотским действиям американских ряженых с бейсбольными битами и бензопилами нашли в Англии благодатную почву. Но ни одного любителя подобной клоунады там не наказали, сочтя их нападения на людей всего лишь невинными шуточками. Однако «тонкий» британский юмор доступен не всем. Вряд ли подобные выходки понравились бы и российским туристам, отправлявшимся этой осенью в туманный Альбион. Посему их всех предупреждали быть осторожными и не бродить по Лондону тёмными вечерами.
На европейском континенте эта зараза появилась чуть позже и начала распространяться со скоростью, присущей разве что пресловутому свиному или птичьему гриппу. Но не тут-то было! Законопослушные немцы завалили полицию сообщениями об инцидентах, часть которых, как это бывает повсюду, оказалась ложной.
Но лишь часть – в основном, переодетые клоунами шутники пугали прохожих и преследовали их с бейсбольными битами. Были настоящие атаки с ножами и другим оружием. Кое-кто даже пострадал, а некоторые жертвы вполне успешно отбивались, вступая с «клоунами» в драку или опрыскивая их из перцовых баллончиков. Само собой, немецкая полиция не собирается потакать нарушителям спокойствия и призывает всех пострадавших обращаться с жалобами.
А что у нас? Миновала ли эта напасть российские города? Ага, как же! И у нас нашлись подобные любители поприкалываться. Один «клоун с вантузом» чего стоит! Только его удалой выход на проезжую часть питерского района Купчино закончился абсолютно бесславно: водитель, коего этот тип в маске собирался напугать, вышел из машины, да так ему наподдал, что тот отлетел на обочину.
В преддверии Хэллоуина и в наших магазинах раскупили все клоунские наряды. Российской полиции, как всегда, не до хулиганских происшествий, и заниматься их предотвращением вызвались… не подумайте, что у нас активизировались «дружинники». Патрулировать улицы собираются конные казаки — тут уж «клоунам» будет не до шуток!
Источник информации и картинки: t-online.de Теги: | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say. Even as much of the Republican political establishment lines up behind its presumptive nominee, many conservative and libertarian legal scholars warn that electing Mr. Trump is a recipe for a constitutional crisis. “Who knows what Donald Trump with a pen and phone would do?” asked Ilya Shapiro, a lawyer with the libertarian Cato Institute. With five months to go before Election Day, Mr. Trump has already said he would “loosen” libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations. He has threatened to sic federal regulators on his critics. He has encouraged rough treatment of demonstrators. His proposal to bar Muslims from entry into the country tests the Constitution’s guarantees of religious freedom, due process and equal protection. And, in what was a tipping point for some, he attacked Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of the Federal District Court in San Diego, who is overseeing two class actions against Trump University. Mr. Trump accused the judge of bias, falsely said he was Mexican and seemed to issue a threat. “They ought to look into Judge Curiel, because what Judge Curiel is doing is a total disgrace,” Mr. Trump said. “O. K.? But we will come back in November. Wouldn’t that be wild if I am president and come back and do a civil case?” David Post, a retired law professor who now writes for the Volokh Conspiracy, a law blog, said those comments had crossed a line. “This is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary,” Mr. Post said. “You can criticize the judicial system, you can criticize individual cases, you can criticize individual judges. But the president has to be clear that the law is the law and that he enforces the law. That is his constitutional obligation. ” “If he is signaling that that is not his position, that’s a very serious constitutional problem,” Mr. Post said. Beyond the attack on judicial independence is a broader question of Mr. Trump’s commitment to the separation of powers and to the principles of federalism enshrined in the Constitution. Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown and an architect of the first major challenge to President Obama’s health care law, said he had grave doubts on both fronts. “You would like a president with some idea about constitutional limits on presidential powers, on congressional powers, on federal powers,” Professor Barnett said, “and I doubt he has any awareness of such limits. ” Republican leaders say they are confident that Mr. Trump would respect the rule of law if elected. “He’ll have a White House counsel,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told Hugh Hewitt, the radio host, on Monday. “There will be others who point out there’s certain things you can do and you can’t do. ” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who has become a reluctant supporter of Mr. Trump, said he did not believe that the nation would be in danger under his presidency. “I still believe we have the institutions of government that would restrain someone who seeks to exceed their constitutional obligations,” Mr. McCain said. “We have a Congress. We have the Supreme Court. We’re not Romania. ” “Our institutions, including the press, are still strong enough to prevent” unconstitutional acts, he said. Mr. Post said that view was too sanguine, given the executive branch’s practical primacy. “The president has all the power with respect to enforcing the law,” he said. “There’s only one of those three branches that actually has the guns in its hands, and that’s the executive. ” Republican officials have criticized Mr. Obama for what they have called his unconstitutional expansion of executive power. But some legal scholars who share that view say the problem under a President Trump would be worse. “I don’t think he cares about separation of powers at all,” said Richard Epstein, a fellow at the Hoover Institution who also teaches at New York University and the University of Chicago. President George W. Bush “often went beyond what he should have done,” Professor Epstein said. “I think Obama’s been much worse on that issue pretty consistently, and his underlings have been even more so. But I think Trump doesn’t even think there’s an issue to worry about. He just simply says whatever I want to do I will do. ” Mr. Trump has boasted that he will use Mr. Obama’s actions as precedent for his own expansive assertions of executive power. “He’s led the way, to be honest with you,” he said in January on “Meet the Press,” referring to Mr. Obama’s program to spare millions of immigrants in the country unlawfully from deportation. “But I’m going to use them much better, and they’re going to serve a much better purpose than what he’s done. ” But Mr. Post said there was a difference between Mr. Obama’s view of executive power and that of Mr. Trump. “Whatever you think of Obama’s position on immigration, he is willing to submit to the courts,” he said. “There is no suggestion that he will disobey if the courts rule against him. ” Several law professors said they were less sure about Mr. Trump, citing the actions of another populist, President Andrew Jackson, who refused to enforce an 1832 Supreme Court decision arising from a clash between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation. “I can easily see a situation in which he would take the Andrew Jackson line,” Professor Epstein said, referring to a probably apocryphal comment attributed to Jackson about Chief Justice John Marshall: “John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it. ” There are other precedents, said John C. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who took an expansive view of executive power as a lawyer in the Bush administration. “The only two other presidents I can think of who were so hostile to judges on an individual level and to the judiciary as a whole would be Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt,” he said. Both of those presidents chafed at what they saw as excessive judicial power. “But they weren’t doing it because they had cases before those judges as individuals,” Professor Yoo said. “They had legitimate fights between the presidency and the judiciary. Trump is lashing out because he has a lawsuit in a private capacity, which is much more disturbing. ” Other legal scholars said they were worried about Mr. Trump’s commitment to the First Amendment. He has taken particular aim at The Washington Post and its owner, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. “He owns Amazon,” Mr. Trump said in February. “He wants political influence so Amazon will benefit from it. That’s not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems. ” More generally, Mr. Trump has discussed revising libel laws to make it easier to sue over critical coverage. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Mr. Trump said in February. “We’re going to open up those libel laws. So when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. ” On one hand, Mr. Trump seemed to misunderstand the scope of presidential power. Libel is a tort constrained by First Amendment principles, and a president’s views do not figure in its application. On the other hand, said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, Mr. Trump’s comments betrayed a troubling disregard for free expression. “There are very few serious constitutional thinkers who believe public figures should be able to use libel as indiscriminately as Trump seems to think they should,” Professor Somin said. “He poses a serious threat to the press and the First Amendment. ” Many of Mr. Trump’s statements about legal issues were extemporaneous and resist conventional legal analysis. Some seemed to betray ignorance of fundamental legal concepts, as when he said in a debate that Senator Ted Cruz of Texas had criticized Mr. Trump’s sister, a federal appeals court judge, “for signing a certain bill,” adding for good measure that Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. while still an appeals court judge, had also “signed that bill. ” But bills are legislative rather than judicial documents. And, as it happened, Judge Alito had not joined the opinion in question. Asked on “Good Morning America” in March about whom he would name to the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump said he would “probably appoint people that would look very seriously at” Hillary Clinton’s “email disaster because it’s criminal activity. ” In the constitutional structure, however, Supreme Court justices are neither investigators nor prosecutors. When Mr. Trump recently released a list of his potential Supreme Court nominees, conservative and libertarian scholars were heartened, but only to a point. “It was a tremendous list, a great list,” said Mr. Shapiro, from the Cato Institute. “Who knows how much you can trust the list?” | 1 |
The female bonobo apes of the Wamba forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo had just finished breakfast and were preparing for a brief nap in the treetops, bending and crisscrossing leafy branches into comfortable day beds. But one of the females was in estrus, her rump exceptionally pink and swollen, and four males in the group were too excited to sleep. They took turns wildly swinging and jumping around the fertile female and her bunkmates, shaking the branches, appearing to display their erections and perforating the air with screams and hoots. Suddenly, three older, female bonobos bolted up from below, a furious blur of black fur and swinging limbs and, together with the female in estrus, flew straight for the offending males. The males scattered. The females pursued them. Tree boughs bounced and cracked. Screams on all sides grew deafening. Three of the males escaped, but the females cornered and grabbed the fourth one — the resident alpha male. He was healthy, muscular and about 18 pounds heavier than any of his captors. But no matter. The females bit into him as he howled and struggled to pull free. Finally, “he dropped from the tree and ran away, and he didn’t appear again for about three weeks,” said Nahoko Tokuyama, of the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan, who witnessed the encounter. When the male returned, he kept to himself. Dr. Tokuyama noticed that the tip of one of his toes was gone. “Being hated by females,” she said in an email interview, “is a big matter for male bonobos. ” The incident was extreme but not unique. Describing results from their field work in the September issue of Animal Behaviour, Dr. Tokuyama and her colleague Takeshi Furuichi reported that the female bonobos of Wamba often banded together to fend off male aggression, and in patterns that defied the standard primate rule book. Adult females responded to a broad range of male provocations — unwanted sexual overtures, food disputes, pushing, kicking, vocal threats, persistent pestiness — by forming coalitions of two or more females, who would then jointly take on their male tormentors. Remarkably, the female partners in a bonobo posse cooperated with one another despite lacking any ties of blood or even close friendship. As the dispersing sex, female bonobos must leave their birthplaces before puberty and find another social set to join, which means that none of the adult females in a given bonobo community are kin. Moreover, female bonobos rarely formed coalitions with their preferred girlfriends — the individuals they spent the most time with and groomed the most ardently. Instead, the researchers found, coalitions arose when a senior female would step in and take the side of a younger peer caught up in an escalating conflict with a resident male. By delivering the formidable luster of her social standing, as well as an extra pair of hands, the intervening senior pretty much guaranteed that the skirmish would break her way. The new results add depth and complexity to our emerging understanding of Pan paniscus, the enigmatic, lithe great ape with the dark licorice eyes, who lives only in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is seriously endangered. The bonobo is a sister species to the more widespread common chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes, and the two share equal footing as our nearest primate kin. Yet the apes have followed distinctly different behavioral paths. Chimpanzee society is and features strong bonds between adult males and feeble ties between females. In the bonobo world, by contrast, female camaraderie prevails, while the bonds between males are weak. “It’s a matriarchy,” said Amy Parish, a primatologist at the University of Southern California. “Females are running the show. ” The latest research indicates that the nature of the bonobos’ sororal bonds shifts depending on circumstances, and that the most effective deterrent to male harassment may be a pact. “I sometimes think that bonobos sit up late at night reading papers about primates, and then decide to do the opposite,” said Joan Silk, a primatologist at Arizona State University. “They’re unusual in so many ways. ” Bonobos are famed for their hypersexuality and the way they use sex as an problem solver in every possible situation, permutation and combination. When bonobos come upon a great patch of fruit, for example, and tensions rise over feeding priority, the bonobos will decompress with a quick round of rubbing and similar acts: males with females, males with males, females with females, juveniles with adults. Female bonobos in Congo’s LuiKotale forest use specialized gestures and pantomime to convey their desire for a bit of frottage, according to a report last year by Pamela Douglas and Liza Moscovice of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. The soliciting female will point backward with a foot toward her sexual swelling and then shimmy her hips in imitation of a rub, at which display the second bonobo will embrace her for the real thing. “It’s status acknowledgment,” said Barbara Fruth, a bonobo researcher at the Royal Zoological Society in Antwerp, Belgium. “The approaching female is saying, ‘I know you’re than I am, I know you’re superior, but I would like to sit near you and maybe share your food. ’” Bonobos practice oral sex, have intercourse and make sex toys. Frances White, a biological anthropologist at the University of Oregon, once watched a female bonobo turn a stick into a kind of knobby “French tickler,” with which she then stimulated herself. “They’re not always family friendly,” Dr. White said. Such erotic antics have earned bonobos a reputation as “hippie apes,” a label that researchers say belies the primate’s strategic intelligence and capacity for brutality. Dr. Parish, who studies bonobos in captivity, has seen the young offspring of dominant females flaunt their inherited power by marching over to female adults, prying their jaws open and extracting the food from their mouths. She also recounted the time that two females attacked a male at the Stuttgart Zoo in Germany and bit his penis in half. Fortunately, she said, “a microsurgeon at the zoo was able to repair the damage, and the male went on to reproduce. ” Nevertheless, bonobos are far less violent than chimpanzees, and female bonobos clearly benefit from life in a constructed sisterhood. Female chimpanzees cannot pick and choose a partner from among the available males, but must mate with all of them. Female bonobos can reject suitors without fearing for their lives. Infanticide is common among chimpanzees, but among bonobos. The outstanding question for researchers is how the female solidarity routine started. Male chimpanzees remain in their natal home, so their bonds are built on the standard evolutionary principle of kin selection. Female chimpanzees end up surrounded by nonrelatives in adulthood, so they mind their own business. Why did female bonobos defy the norm and start cooperating with one another? And why don’t male bonobos forge alliances with other nearby males who are likely their brothers and cousins? Differing ecological conditions may have helped set the stage for the behavioral divergence. By this hypothesis, bonobos evolved in a region with a comparatively abundant and reliable food source, which meant that females could forage in view of one another without coming to blows. The more time they spent foraging, the more affiliative they became, and soon they were applying their displays of mutual respect and tolerance to other tasks, like rebuffing male harassers. Chimpanzees evolved in drier climates, where food was scarce and foraging females had to compete with one another for limited goods. Who has time for friends? As for male bonobos, they may be subordinate themselves to females in cliques, and they may have no interest in hanging out with the guys. But they have a secret social weapon: their mothers. Male bonobos stay with their mothers for life, and as her status grows with age, so does his. Dr. White suggested that senior females cultivate relationships with younger females partly as a matchmaking gambit. “The mother is finding partners for her son,” she said. “Why would a male bother harassing a female when he could have his mother do it for him?” Researchers suggested that the new work has implications for understanding human evolution and the future, especially for women. “We’re equally related to chimps and bonobos, and we have their entire range of behavioral variation available to us,” Dr. White said. “We can be as aggressive as the chimpanzee, or as as the bonobo. ” That female bonobos have found a path to “solidarity and sisterhood,” Dr. Parish said, “should give hope to the human feminist movement. ” | 1 |
Israel’s Blockade of Gaza is Inherently Violent Israel’s Blockade of Gaza is Inherently Violent By 0 7
This fall, the U.S. agreed to provide $38 billion in military aid to Israel over the next ten years, ensuring America’s continued role in funding the occupation of Palestine. Meanwhile, my friends and colleagues here in Gaza live in fear of another significant Israeli attack in the near future.
They have every reason to fear another major escalation — violence is a daily reality in Gaza. In two recent incidents, a rocket was fired from Gaza into Israel without causing damage or injuries, and in both instances Israel responded by bombing targets throughout Gaza.
In August alone, Israel bombed more than 50 locations in the small territory .
The simple story told about these events focuses on action and reaction: Palestinians attacked Israel with a rocket and Israel responded. We hear this logic after nearly every event of this sort, but it’s woefully incomplete.
In both instances, the rockets fired weren’t fired by Hamas, but rather by small radical armed groups at odds with Hamas, which governs Gaza. These groups seek to incite Israeli attacks on Hamas with the goal of destabilizing its control over Gaza, because they see Hamas as too comfortable with the status quo. Palestinian refugees amid the wreckage of their home following the Israeli incursion of 2008-2009. (Photo: Physicians for Human Rights – Israel / Flickr)
Since seizing power in 2007, Hamas has worked to control and limit violence from the territory. Outside of periods of defined military escalation — which tend to be precipitated by Israeli attacks — they have effectively stopped attacks against Israel from Gaza.
This explains why, as noted by the Israeli press, there were only 14 rockets fired from Gaza towards Israel between January and August this year. None were fired by Hamas, so Israel’s decision to target Hamas as a response makes no sense.
Of course, 14 rockets fired from Gaza is 14 too many for those of us committed to ending all violence, and none of this should be taken as an apology for other violence perpetrated by Hamas.
But, as the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territories reports , there were also 45 Israeli military incursions into Gaza this year, resulting in 7 Palestinian deaths and, on average, injuring five Palestinians in Gaza every week.
This is the part of the story that isn’t told.
Gaza also remains under an Israeli-imposed blockade that severely limits travel, trade, and life for Gazans. Despite assurances that restrictions would be lifted in the 2014 Hamas-Israel ceasefire agreement, the blockade remains in effect.
Israel, with support from the U.S. government, claims this decades-long blockade is in place to pressure the people of Gaza to rise up against Hamas and provide security for Israelis.
If those are Israel’s raisons d’etre, then it’s a complete failure. It hasn’t stopped violence, it hasn’t weakened Hamas, and it hasn’t brought Israelis or Palestinians security.
While the blockade hasn’t succeeded in achieving the changes Israel claims to be seeking, its impact on the civilian population of Gaza has been immense.
Over two years after the end of the last large military operation there, much of Gaza remains in ruins.
Of the 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza who were displaced during the 2014 Israeli bombardment, over 65,000 remain homeless, as 70 percent of the homes seriously damaged or destroyed haven’t been rebuilt. This is largely because reconstruction materials remain blocked from entering Gaza.
This important context is too often missing as U.S. pundits and politicians consider the situation in Gaza.
Given the blockade and regular military incursions imposed by Israel, the firing of less than 2 rockets per month by Palestinians cannot be seen as the core reason for violence.
If the U.S. is serious about promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, preventing future violence in Gaza, and guaranteeing security, then it must recognize the violence inherent in the Israeli occupation and end the blockade.
The next attack on Gaza, feared by my friends who live there, is an inevitable reality if nothing changes. | 0 |
PARIS — It’s an auctioneer’s jackpot dream. A man walks in off the street, opens a portfolio of drawings, and there, mixed in with the jumble of routine items, is a work by Leonardo da Vinci. And that, more or less, is what happened to Thaddée Prate, director of old master pictures at the Tajan auction house here, which is to announce on Monday the discovery of a drawing that a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art says is by Leonardo, the Renaissance genius and master draftsman. Tajan values the work at 15 million euros, or about $15. 8 million. On Thursday, this reporter was ushered into Tajan’s private viewing room, where the drawing, of the martyred St. Sebastian, about 7½ inches by 5 inches, stood resplendent in an Italian Renaissance gold frame on an old wooden easel. In March, Mr. Prate recalled being “in a bit of a rush” when a retired doctor visited Tajan with 14 unframed drawings that had been collected by his bibliophile father. (The owner’s name and residence somewhere in “central France” remain a closely guarded secret, at his request.) Mr. Prate spotted a vigorous study of St. Sebastian tied to a tree, inscribed on the mount “Michelange” (Michelangelo). “I had a sense that it was an interesting drawing that required more work,” said the elegantly suited Mr. Prate, speaking in the boardroom of Tajan’s Art Deco premises, near the Paris Opera. Mr. Prate, 55, asked for a second opinion from Patrick de Bayser, an independent dealer and adviser in old master drawings, who examined the St. Sebastian in Paris. Mr. de Bayser asked, “Have you seen the drawing is by a artist?” (Leonardo was .) He also discovered two smaller scientific drawings on the back of the sheet. These diagrammatic studies of candlelight were accompanied by notes written in a minute, Italian Renaissance hand. The two men looked at each other. “I said, ‘You can’t believe this is by Leonardo? ’” Mr. Prate recalls. “But that would have been so incredible. ” Tajan reached out to New York for a third, definitive view from Carmen C. Bambach, a curator of Italian and Spanish drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Bambach was an organizer of the Met’s 2003 exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci, Master Draftsman,” the first in America to take a comprehensive chronological overview of the artist’s works on paper. That show included two studies, from museums in Hamburg, Germany, and Bayonne, France, that related to the “eight St. Sebastians” listed by Leonardo in his “Codex Atlanticus” sketch and notebooks, preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. “My eyes jumped out of their sockets,” Dr. Bambach said in a telephone interview, remembering her first sight of the drawing in Paris with Mr. de Bayser on the last day of March. “It exactly complemented the Hamburg St. Sebastian,” she added, referring to how that study of the saint tied to a tree also included inscribed optical studies on the reverse side, and to how the handwriting of the inscription was consistent in both drawings. “The attribution is quite incontestable,” Dr. Bambach said, even though the drawing has no ownership history. “What we have here is an case. It’s an exciting discovery. ” In Dr. Bambach’s view, the newly discovered drawing is the most highly developed and attractive of the three known studies associated with what may have been a lost painting of St. Sebastian. Unlike its monochromatic Hamburg companion, the Paris St. Sebastian is drawn in two shades of ink, features several alterations to the pose and has a mountainous landscape in the background. “My heart will always pound when I think about that drawing,” Dr. Bambach said. “It has so many changes of ideas, so much energy in the way he explores the figure. It has a furious spontaneity. ” “It’s like glancing over his shoulder,” she said of Leonardo. Dr. Bambach estimates the drawing’s date at 1482 to 1485, during the early phase of Leonardo’s period in Milan, when he painted his first version of “The Virgin of the Rocks,” now in the Louvre. (The Met said it had no agreement with the auction house to buy or to show the artwork.) According to Dr. Bambach, the drawing — which she hopes will be bought by a French museum — represents the first “Leonardo, full stop” discovery (as she put it) in this medium since 2000, when Sotheby’s in London offered a slighter sheet from around 1506 to 1508 that had black chalk and pen studies of Hercules and whirlpools. It failed to sell against a low estimate of 400, 000 pounds, or what was then about $600, 000, but sold later for about $550, 000. The drawing (also attributed by Dr. Bambach) is now jointly owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York collector Leon Black and his wife, Debra Ressler. As for a profile portrait of a young woman, known as “La Bella Principessa,” which eight years ago was valued by the London dealer Simon Dickinson at as much as $150 million, Dr. Bambach commented, “It does not look like a Leonardo. ” A painter, sculptor, architect, scientist and inventor of seemingly limitless ambition (if not finished execution) Leonardo ( ) most formidably embodies the notion of universal genius. This reputation has been translated into formidable financial value for the few of his works that have come up for sale. In 1994, Bill Gates paid $30. 8 million at Christie’s for the “Codex Hammer” notebook, containing 300 drawings and scientific writings. More controversially, in 2013 the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev bought Leonardo’s painting “Christ as Salvator Mundi,” circa 1499, for $127. 5 million from the Swiss businessman and dealer Yves Bouvier, who had recently bought it for $80 million from a consortium of dealers. The current high for a Leonardo drawing sold at auction is $11. 5 million, at Christie’s in 2001, for a silverpoint study of a horse and rider. In September, Mr. Prate and Nicolas de Moustier, director general of the auction house, drove to an undisclosed part of France to deliver the good news to their client. “I hope you’re not shocked?” Mr. Prate recalls asking. “I’m very pleased,” the owner calmly replied. “But I have other interests in life other than money. ” Curators from the Louvre inspected the Tajan drawing in October, without, as usual, being drawn into any official pronouncement. France has the option of declaring the work a “national treasure” to stop its export. The government would then have 30 months to offer a “fair international market value” for the drawing, according to rules protecting French heritage. Alternatively, it can issue the work a passport, allowing its sale globally, which Rodica Seward, Tajan’s owner, hopes will happen. “This reinforces Tajan’s reputation as a boutique auction house,” Ms. Seward, a United States citizen, said in her boardroom here, seated behind a desk that she designed. Trained as an architect before becoming a banker for 20 years, she bought Tajan in 2003. “My friends thought I was mad,” Ms. Seward said. But they might not have thought her so mad if they had had the chance to walk with her and Mr. Prate through Tajan’s private viewing room, where the St. Sebastian stood in its Renaissance gold frame. “If only it could speak,” said an awed Mr. Prate. | 1 |
NFL Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown does not believe Donald Trump to be an “illegitimate president. ” He said Monday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney Co. ” that Trump won the election “fair and square,” and he will be supporting Trump even though he backed Hillary Clinton for president. “[Trump] won, in my opinion, fair and square, and I’m going to support him as president of the United States,” Brown told host Stuart Varney. He also said in the interview, “When you win against all odds and you defeat those who are against you — and I was for Hillary so I’m one of those who Mr. Trump defeated — but he is the of the United States, I’m a citizen. I’m not asking him to do everything. I’m going to pitch in and do some of the things that I can do with the people that I represent. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
Email Ever wonder what’s on the mind of today’s most notable people? Well, don’t miss our unbelievable roundup of the best and most talked about quotes of the day: “ For me, God isn’t some big man sitting on a cloud. He’s medium-sized, hanging onto that cloud for dear life. ” —Denzel Washington On faith “ The people who are around you when you get your advance? Those aren’t your real friends. It’s when you’re out on the Atlantic trying to catch the big kahuna, the Mola mola , the sunfish, and you’re out there all day but you realize fame doesn’t bring you everything and it sure won’t bring a damn sunfish to the starboard bow, and so you cry so much your boat fills with tears and sinks and you yell for help until an endurance swimmer swimming to New York finds you and drags you ashore? That’s your real friend. ” —Meek Mill “ Music is the paper towel we use to soak up the spilled water of silence. ” —Kesha | 0 |
0 |
|
Donald Trump asserted that cyber attacks had “absolutely no effect” on the results of the election, after he received an intelligence briefing at Trump Tower on Friday. [“While Russia, China, other countries, outside groups and people are consistently trying to break through the cyber infrastructure of our governmental institutions, businesses and organizations including the Democrat National Committee, there was absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election including the fact that there was no tampering whatsoever with voting machines,” Trump said in a statement sent to reporters. He added that although there were attempts to hack the RNC, they had the proper security defense to ward off the attacks. Trump was briefed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James B. Comey, and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency and U. S. Cyber Command. After the meeting, Trump appeared eager to put the controversy behind him, praising the intelligence community for their efforts. “I have tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community to our great nation,” he said. He also promised to have an aggressive plan to secure the country from cyber attacks, vowing a plan within 90 days of taking the office of the presidency. “The methods, tools and tactics we use to keep America safe should not be a public discussion that will benefit those who seek to do us harm,” he said. “Two weeks from today I will take the oath of office and America’s safety and security will be my number one priority. ” | 1 |
On Friday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow read Dr. Sebastian Gorka a quote from a Washington Post article about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: “Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly or even make eye contact. ” Gorka laughed and dismissed this assertion as “fake news. ”[“The secretary has been doing sterling work at the meetings of principals and other similar gatherings. He has been working like an incredibly effective CEO, which is what he was. He is driven to represent the nation as our diplomat,” he said. “It’s like the stories that have been broiling now for months and months and months. It’s the generation of those who are either inside the machine or outside the machine who do not wish to recognize what happened on November the 8 and think that they have some special right not only to generate false news, but to somehow question the legitimacy of a duly elected administration. It’s just absurdity, Alex,” said Gorka. Dr. Sebastian Gorka is a deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, former National Security editor for Breitbart News and author of books such as Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
Wed, 26 Oct 2016 13:42 UTC Dead blue whale A dead whale was spotted floating near a beach in Daly City on Wednesday afternoon. Around 12:30 p.m., the whale was found floating about a quarter-mile off shore from Thornton State Beach in Daly City. The whale has now since drifter closer to shore, spokesperson Giancarlo Rulli said. The Marine Mammal Center was notified around 1:00 p.m., however they are unable to do anything until the whale has come ashore. According to the Marine Mammal Center, though the whale is only about a quarter mile offshore, they cannot predict when or where the whale will wash up. Researchers have determined that the whale is a male blue whale. Officials from the center have sent a team member to look at the whale but at this time, the age and size of the whale is unknown. The center, along with its partners including the California Academy of Sciences, have decided to not send a necropsy team out until the next day, on Thursday, as there are only a few hours of daylight left today. With the tide expected to rise Thursday, scientists hope the whale gets pushed up the beach so they will have more access to it, Rulli said. | 0 |
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia announced Friday that he would not retaliate against President Obama’s decision to expel Russian diplomats and impose new sanctions — only hours after his foreign minister recommended doing just that. Mr. Putin, betting on improved relations with the next American president, said he would not eject 35 diplomats or close any diplomatic facilities, rejecting a response to the actions taken on Thursday by the Obama administration. The switch was remarkable, given that Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had just recommended the retaliation in remarks broadcast live on national television. He called for punitive measures mirroring the ones imposed by the Obama administration, which accuses Russia of intimidating American diplomats and hacking institutions like the Democratic National Committee to influence the 2016 election. The two countries have a long history of reciprocal expulsions, and Russian officials had been threatening to retaliate for days. Then Mr. Putin abruptly changed course. “While we reserve the right to take reciprocal measures, we’re not going to downgrade ourselves to the level of irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy,” Mr. Putin said, using a common Russian idiom for quarrelsome and unseemly acts. “In our future steps on the way toward the restoration of States relations, we will proceed from the policy pursued by the administration” of Donald J. Trump. Mr. Putin has a flair for smart, unexpected tactics, and his announcement on Friday appeared to be in keeping with that. To some observers, the sudden shift seemed carefully a way of building up suspense before Mr. Putin’s surprise announcement, helping portray him as a wise leader above the fray. Mr. Putin even said he did not want to close a wooded picnic area on a Moscow River island used by diplomats because he did not want to deprive their children. Then he went one step further, inviting all children of American diplomats accredited in Russia to celebrate the New Year and the Russian Orthodox Christmas with him at the Kremlin. “Putin showed that he is above his own officials, that he doesn’t want to take the retaliatory action suggested by his foreign minister,” said Vladimir Frolov, an international relations analyst and columnist. “This is an attempt to show that he is a figure not just of worldly scale, but of planetary. ” Should Mr. Putin have chosen to retaliate harshly against the United States, he would most likely have deepened the rift between the two countries and left Trump with a nettlesome diplomatic standoff from the moment he arrived in the Oval Office. But by choosing essentially to disregard Mr. Obama’s punitive measures, Mr. Putin can try to disarm his American critics, including members of Congress who consider him an aggressive foe of the United States. That could give Mr. Trump more room to pursue the closer cooperation with Russia that he has advocated. Despite all of the statements from senior officials about the need to respect “reciprocity,” Mr. Putin essentially warned Washington that he was waiting for the Trump administration — a tactic not unlike the one adopted by Israel in its recent rejection of a peace plan laid out by Secretary of State John Kerry. “Moscow wanted Trump to have room to maneuver,” Mr. Frolov added. “This decision is a clear gesture of good will toward him. ” Mr. Putin called it “unfortunate” that the Obama administration chose to end its relationship with Russia in such a way, but he sent a New Year’s greetings to Mr. Obama, his family, Mr. Trump and “all the American people. ” Just hours earlier, Mr. Lavrov had recommended that 31 American diplomats be expelled from Moscow and four from St. Petersburg. He also recommended the closing of two facilities: the picnic area used by diplomats, as well as a warehouse in the southern, industrial part of the Russian capital. “Of course, we cannot leave such mischievous tricks without a response,” Mr. Lavrov said. “Reciprocity is the law of diplomacy and of international relations. ” On Thursday, the Obama administration moved to eject 35 Russians suspected of being intelligence operatives “persona non grata” imposed sanctions on two of Russia’s leading intelligence services and penalized four top officers of one of those services, the powerful military intelligence unit known as the G. R. U. because of its efforts to influence the presidential election. As part of the punishment, the State Department said that it would close two waterfront estates — one in New York, the other in Maryland — that it said were used for Russian intelligence activities. The actions amounted to the strongest American response yet to a cyberattack. United States intelligence agencies have concluded that the G. R. U. with the approval of the Kremlin, ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations, and that the Russian government enabled the publication of the emails it obtained to benefit Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign. In addition to giving the Russian diplomats and their families 72 hours to leave the country, the measures announced by Mr. Obama imposed sanctions on Russia’s two main intelligence services. Washington described the diplomats as intelligence agents working under the cover of diplomacy. Russia announced it would send a special plane to collect the diplomats and their families by the Jan. 1 deadline. Previous sanctions by the United States and its Western allies were levied against broad sectors of the Russian economy and also blacklisted dozens of individuals, some of them close friends of Mr. Putin’s who were considered crucial in the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and in destabilizing Ukraine. The economic sanctions covered three main areas, including blocking Russian access to international credit, cutting off cooperation in advanced oil field technology and stopping arms deals or the sale of technology. Much of their effect stemmed from the fact that they coincided with a sharp drop in global oil prices, hitting Russia with a double blow. Companies had trouble obtaining credit, driving up the cost of borrowing and compounding a deep recession. Over the long run, the effect is likely to be strongest in the oil sector because it dried up most exploration in difficult areas like the Arctic. Russia responded with sanctions of its own, mostly banning agricultural products and certain foods imported from the West. Mr. Putin and other officials have repeatedly crowed that this resulted in a successful campaign of “import substitution. ” Russia also maintained a secret list of Western officials who were no longer allowed into the country. Most, like the former American ambassador Michael McFaul, discovered it only when they applied for visas to Russia. Before Mr. Lavrov spoke, Maria Zakharova, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, took to Facebook to denounce the Obama administration. Ms. Zakharova called the administration “a group of a losers, embittered and . ” “Today, America, the American people, were humiliated by their own president,” she wrote. There is a long history of reciprocal expulsions and other measures between the United States and Russia, even after the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. While Mr. Obama framed the new American measures as a response to Russian hacking during the election, the expulsion of Russian diplomats from Washington and San Francisco was described as a response to continued harassment of American diplomats in Russia. Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, denied that any such harassment had taken place, but American diplomats tell a different story. Many travel around Moscow in cars with red diplomatic license plates that start with 004, denoting United States Embassy vehicles. That makes them easy targets for traffic stops. Embassy employees said they were followed as they moved around the city, and that sometimes, when they were not at home, agents would enter and move the furniture around, just to show that they had been there. Some find it unnerving, while others shrug it off as part of the job. One young father said he was just grateful that his children were too small to realize that the family was being followed. | 1 |
CNN anchor Don Lemon ended a discussion about the price of security for the first family after CNN political analyst Paris Dennard described the story as “fake news. ”[The discussion centered around the cost of President Donald Trump’s trip to Florida, after a report from POLITICO suggested it could cost taxpayers over $3 million. When asked for his opinion, Dennard, who is a regular contributor to CNN and former and served as an advisor to George. W. Bush, said that the “the president is not breaking any laws, and he’s not doing anything. It’s a fake news story. ” Visibly irritated, Lemon demanded that he “please stop it with that stupid talking point, that it is a fake news story. ” “If you don’t want to participate in the news stories on this network, then don’t come on and participate. But don’t call them fake because you don’t agree with them,” he continued. However, Dennard refused to back down on the claim that it is a “fake news” story, at which point Lemon abruptly ended the segment. WATCH: A CNN later spokesperson later told Mediaite: “Don said prior to getting to Paris Denard [sic] ‘this is short and I want to get everyone in.’ He was running up against time to end the show and the conversation went long. That is the reason the show ended as it did. ” The incident is further evidence of rising concern at CNN over rising dissatisfaction with their biased, and sometimes unfactual reporting. Donald Trump has consistently lambasted the network, describing it as part of the “fake news media” who are the “enemy of the American people. ” The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017, You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com. | 1 |
17 mins ago 2 Views 0 Comments 0 Likes Check Keiser Report website for more: http://www.maxkeiser.com/ In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy discuss howls at the moon as the Bank of Japan attempts to taper the Tokyo condo market ponzi. They also discuss the newly announced interventions by the UK government in the nation’s deflating property pyramid. In the second half Max interviews journalist and comedy writer, Charlie Skelton, about his observations on the US elections. He concludes that Hillary is the face in the machine of the Matrix and that the craziness is the system. WATCH all Keiser Report shows here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL768A33676917AE90 (E1-E200) http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC3F29DDAA1BABFCF (E201-E400) http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPszygYHA9K2ZtV_1KphSugBB7iZqbFyz (E401-600) http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPszygYHA9K1GpAv3ZKpNFoEvKaY2QFH_ (E601-E800) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPszygYHA9K19wt4CP0tUgzIxpJDiQDyl (E801-Current) Subscribe Like | 0 |
OAKLAND, Calif. — As the Golden State Warriors closed in on the record for most wins by an N. B. A. team, held then by the Chicago Bulls, the team’s coach, Steve Kerr, sensed trouble. “I think they want the record,” Kerr said of his players in April, when they were still four wins short of the record of 73 victories. “But I think what they’ve probably realized is that maybe all the talk and all the focus on the record has gotten us away from our process and what makes us who we are, what makes us pretty good. ” His anxiety was so pronounced that over the final weeks of the regular season “slippage” became one of his favorite words. He saw slippage when the Warriors were blown out by the lowly Los Angeles Lakers on March 6. He saw slippage when the Warriors barely outlasted the Philadelphia 76ers on March 27. And he saw slippage when the Warriors lost two of three games at home at the start of April, a rare stretch of futility that imperiled the Warriors’ quest to catch the Bulls of the Michael Jordan era. Kerr attempted to explain away such setbacks as the byproduct of a long season spent in the spotlight. They were lauded as perhaps the best basketball team ever. Stephen Curry and some teammates graced the covers of magazines, or were prominently featured in them, even in Golf Digest. The team’s record for (1, 077) led by Curry, inspired talk of the game’s being changed forever. Kerr expressed confidence that his players would regain their familiar rhythm once the N. B. A. playoffs began. But their poor habits also nagged him: too many loose passes and missed assignments as they tiptoed toward the playoffs. “I don’t think you can just flip the switch entirely,” Kerr said at the time. “There is going to be a natural elevation and energy and all that. But it’s the habits you have to clean up, because that stuff doesn’t necessarily turn back on. ” It turns out the rhythm did not return, not completely, certainly not enough to stop the runaway freight train that the Cleveland Cavaliers became over the final three games of the N. B. A. finals. The upset — if any series won by LeBron James could be called that — brought Kerr’s doubts into sharp relief: a record season, yes, but one achieved through a maze of adversity. The worst of it played out on Sunday night. Had Golden State survived in the closing seconds against Cleveland, none of this would matter, of course. The Warriors would have been celebrated for their determination, their moxie, their brilliance. Instead, it is easy to look back now and wonder about the emotional and physical toll of their season. Stalking 73 wins. Going seven games against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals. Losing Draymond Green to a suspension against the Cavaliers. How much did the Warriors have left by the bitter end? “It wasn’t easy what we accomplished,” Curry said after losing to Cleveland, “and it’s not an easy pill to swallow what we didn’t accomplish. ” Klay Thompson, the other half of the duo known as the Splash Brothers, seemed to cast the season’s achievements aside. “It feels like a failure right now,” said Thompson, who combined with Curry to shoot 12 of 36 from the field in Game 7. “It stings more than anything I’ve gone through in my career. ” It is difficult to pinpoint one game from the season that said it all, but the defensive shortcomings flared particularly brightly on March 25, when the Warriors escaped with a victory against the Dallas Mavericks. Kerr described his team’s defense as “horrific. ” The Warriors compensated by sinking a preposterous 21 of 45 . For much of the season, the Warriors produced so much offense that they could survive their lapses on defense. But their margin for error narrowed — because of fatigue, because of injuries, because of waning focus. Kerr harped on his team to keep things simple instead of trying for the home run all the time. The players did not always listen. “When you win, it kind of masks a lot of things,” Harrison Barnes said before the start of the playoffs. At the same time, Kerr chose not to rest any of his stars in the final weeks of the regular season. His players wanted to win 73 games, so he made a pact with them: As long as they were honest about their health, he would let them play. Kerr did so with some trepidation. He would have preferred to find opportunities to sit Curry and others. Instead, the Warriors’ hunt for the record extended to their finale, which they won. More problems surfaced once the playoffs began. In the first round against the Houston Rockets, Curry injured his right ankle and sprained his right knee. Once he returned, he was spectacular at times — he had 40 points in his first game back, against the Portland Trail Blazers in the conference semifinals — but he lacked his usual consistency. Questions about his health would linger all the way through the finals. And then there was Green, whose volatile style had so often fueled his teammates. But in the playoffs, he skirted a fine line between being emotional and reckless. It caught up with him. After he collected too many flagrant fouls, he was suspended for Game 5 of the finals — a game that the Warriors, with a chance to clinch titles, lost at home. “If I don’t put myself in that position and I don’t get suspended for Game 5, are we sitting here champions? Maybe. Maybe not,” Green said late Sunday. “I don’t know. We’ll never know the answer to that question. But the answer that I do know is I won’t put myself in that position again, and that’s all I can really do. ” Kerr was asked whether he felt his team had played its best basketball at the start of the season, back when it reeled off 24 straight wins. He dismissed the question. “That’s really tough to judge how you play and compare November to June,” he said. “I mean, it’s totally different. It’s a physical game. You’re playing great teams. ” Sure enough, for all their challenges in recent weeks, the Warriors still had a chance against the Cavaliers: Game 7 was tied in the final minute. So close to basketball nirvana. Cleveland fans might see poetic justice in how the Warriors were denied it: a this one heaved by Kyrie Irving with 53 seconds remaining. It put Cleveland ahead for good. There would be no magical comeback, and not much magic at all from Curry, who was 6 of 19 for 17 points — one of his most muted performances of the season. In the waning moments of their final game, with their dream of forever greatness dangling by a thread, the Warriors became the team that could not shoot straight. They missed their final nine attempts, a stretch of futility that included seven errant . The Cavaliers were not much better, finishing the game by shooting 1 of 8. But the one they actually made — Irving’s — well, it was enough. Enough to lift the Cavaliers to a victory and the first championship in franchise history. Enough to cement James’s rightful place as an winner. And enough to dismantle much of what Golden State had worked to achieve this season. | 1 |
Email
New Wikileaks email dumps have revealed massive corruption surrounding Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta . In one email dated February 29, 2016, an article sent by Hillary advisor Sara Solow to Podesta and Hillary's foreign policy advisor Jake Sullivan indicates that the Clinton campaign is considering House Speaker Paul Ryan's relative for the Supreme Court.
Ketanji Brown is the subject of the article. She is relate to Paul Ryan by marriage and is a judge on the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The email reads, "She was confirmed by without any Republican opposition in the Senate not once, but *twice*. She was confirmed to her current position in 2013 by unanimous consent – that is, without any stated opposition. She was also previously confirmed unanimously to a seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission (where she became vice chair)."
"Her family is impressive. She is married to a surgeon and has two young daughters. Her father is a retired lawyer and her mother a retired school principal. Her brother was a police officer (in the unit that was the basis for the television show * The Wire *) and is now a law student, and she is related by marriage to Congressman (and Speaker of the House) Paul Ryan."
Earlier this month, he even said he would not campaign for nor support his party's nominee, Donald Trump . In fact, some supporters of Trump have theorized that Ryan was somehow behind or involved in the leak of the tape in which Trump made sexually crude comments about women.
If you claim this is merely circumstantial, then I think there is no hope for you understanding just how corrupt DC has gotten, and this is the very Paul Ryan I warned you about in 2012, which everyone said he was "so conservative." Sadly, many didn't listen and voted for liberal Mitt Romney and him. Perhaps Paul Ryan's records and emails should be leaked and maybe we just might see that he's willing to engage Hillary in a pay-to-play scheme . Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares | 0 |
Sources Claim 'Most' of Saudi Leadership Endorses Plan by Jason Ditz, November 03, 2016 Share This
The UN peace plan for Yemen, which involves the creation of an interim unity government, appeared dead on arrival when it was endorsed by the Shi’ite Houthis as a promising start, but immediately condemned by the Saudi-backed Hadi government. New reports, however, suggest the Saudis may be breathing new life into the matter.
Publicly, the Saudi government has not commented on the plan yet, but those familiar with the situation say that most if not all of the leadership supports the plan , and that they’ve been quietly pushing Hadi in the direction of allowing it as a basis for peace talks.
The plan would allow Hadi to hold a nominal leadership position, but insists it would be entirely a figurehead position with little to no real power. Hadi became Yemen’s president in 2012 in a one candidate vote, and unilaterally extended his two-year term in office beyond that date.
The United Arab Emirates has already publicly backed the peace deal, becoming the first member of the Saudi coalition to do so. Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen in March of 2015, vowing to reinstall Hadi as president after he resigned two months prior. The ongoing war has caused growing international outcry, however, and there is more pressure to resolve the situation. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz | 0 |
WASHINGTON — Melania Trump made her first solo foray in public as first lady on Thursday, visiting a hospital pediatric wing to read to sick children. Mrs. Trump, who has been reluctant to embrace the and role of presidential spouse, began with a brief and simple outing: an afternoon reading of a Dr. Seuss book in honor of the author’s birthday and National Read Across America Day. “So you know what is today?” she asked the children, who wore hospital gowns and gathered in a playroom in the pediatric wing of Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan to see Mrs. Trump. “It’s a reading day. So I came to encourage you to read, and to think about what you want to achieve in life. ” Mrs. Trump, whose aides had arranged for a small pool of reporters and photographers to cover the visit, then proceeded to read “Oh, the Places You’ll Go! ,” a Dr. Seuss classic with an inspirational message that she said was a favorite of hers. “You’ll be as famous as famous can be,” Mrs. Trump read from the book. “With the whole wide world watching you win on TV. ” Mrs. Trump has stayed mostly out of the spotlight since President Trump took office. She has appeared at her husband’s side for a handful of official events, most recently accompanying him to the Capitol on Tuesday for his address to a joint session of Congress. But she has avoided the press and done nothing in public to carve out her own priorities or initiatives as first lady. Michelle Obama made outings with young people a staple of her time as first lady, often making unscheduled stops to spend time with them. On Tuesday, the former first lady was back at it, surprising students in a vocational program at a Washington public school, where she spent more than an hour discussing the importance of pursuing higher education. Mrs. Obama posted a photograph of her visit on Twitter. A photograph of Mrs. Trump’s hospital story time appeared in her Twitter feed on Thursday. Mrs. Trump has said she is interested in working to combat cyberbullying, but has yet to start such a program. And while she has named a chief of staff and a social secretary, the White House has not announced the hiring of other key players in the East Wing, such as a communications director, a press secretary or other senior staff members. Mrs. Trump has made it known she does not intend to be much of a presence in Washington at least in the short term she has opted to reside in New York while the couple’s son, Barron, finishes his school year. On Thursday, she donned large black sunglasses and stepped into a car that was part of a small motorcade waiting outside Trump Tower to take her to the hospital about a mile and a half away. “I hope you’re all feeling well,” Mrs. Trump told the assembled children. After she finished reading the book, Mrs. Trump gave it to a young girl who had been listening, saying, “I encourage you all to read a lot — to get educated. ” | 1 |
The Washington Post reported :
The Democratic National Committee has filed papers in federal court against the Republican National Committee, accusing it of violating a 1982 court order intended to prevent voter intimidation.
The motion filed in New Jersey says the RNC has supported the efforts of presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign “to intimidate and discourage minority voters from voting in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Trump has recently been urging his supporters to monitor polling places on Election Day.
Democrats aren’t going to stand by and let Trump supporters waltz into polling places in heavily Democratic areas to intimidate voters.
Trump’s call for his supporters to go to polling places that aren’t their own to watch voters is a clear violation of the consent decree.
The Republican Party, which has completely abandoned the idea of winning elections based on ideas, is firmly standing behind their nominee because the same party that was too weak to stop Trump during the primary is certainly not going to stand in the way of what might be their only chance of winning.
People should not be afraid to go to the polls and vote. No matter who you are voting for, Democrats have your back. The Republican Party has been trying to suppress the vote and intimidate voters for years.
Democrats are on to their tricks, and as the lawsuit demonstrates, Trump and the GOP are not going to get away with intimidating voters. | 0 |
Japan’s Population Declines in 2015 for First Time Since 1920 Japan Times, October 27, 2016
Japan’s population stood at 127,094,745 as of Oct. 1, 2015, the final results of the census showed, down 0.8 percent from the previous census five years earlier and marking the first decline since the survey began in 1920.
Of the total population, including non-Japanese residents, those aged 65 or older accounted for a record-high 26.6 percent, while those below 15 years old fell to a record-low 12.6 percent, the internal affairs ministry said.
The government data showed that the number of people 65 or older rose 3.6 percentage points from the previous census in 2010 to 33,465,441. In contrast, those 14 or younger fell by 0.6 points to 15,886,810.
Comparing the new census figures against U.N. estimates, Japan remains the 10th-most populous nation. However, among the top 20 countries, it was the only one whose population declined between 2010 and 2015.
The latest results by the census, conducted every five years, also showed that the population is concentrated in Tokyo and its vicinity.
Of the 47 prefectures, the capital and neighboring Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures accounted for 28.4 percent of the total population.
The population rose only in eight prefectures–the four above as well as Aichi, Shiga, Fukuoka and Okinawa.
The population of Japanese nationals totaled 124,283,901, while the number of non-Japanese residents in the country totaled 1,752,368, the government data showed.
By nationality, Chinese nationals accounted for the largest number of expatriates at 511,118, followed by people from both South Korea and North Korea together at 376,954.
Of the country’s 1,719 municipalities, the populations in 1,419 of them decreased, according to the census.
The male population totaled 61,841,738, while the female population stood at 65,253,007.
Tokyo had the lowest number of people in a household at 1.99, falling below 2 for the first time since the government began compiling such information in 1970, the data showed. The national average of members per household is 2.33.
The preliminary figures for the census, released in February, showed the country’s population fell by 947,305 from 128,057,352 in 2010. | 0 |
Anonymous: America’s Last Hope-You Have Been Warned
America is at the end of her rope. Never before in the history of the country have the forces between good and evil been so clearly delineated.
There are great changes going on in America right now. They are happening so quickly that nobody can keep up with what is happening.
Disinformation abounds everywhere. War and rumors of war, all false. Coup’s and and counter coups. Much of what is written on these topics are totally false and unintelligent speculation. Later today, I am going to bring out what I have known for three days and they don’t match much of the idle speculation. Stay tuned, soon all will be revealed.
Anonymous speaks so eloquently about the choices that lie ahead for all of us. The following video should be viewed by all. | 0 |
YANGON, Myanmar — Thirty people were killed during a rebel group’s attacks on a town in eastern Myanmar on Monday, the government said, in an escalation of a conflict that had already forced tens of thousands of refugees to flee into neighboring China. The office of Myanmar’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, said in a statement Monday evening that the rebel group, known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, had attacked a hotel, casinos and police and army posts in the town of Laukkai, in Shan State. The group is composed of fighters from the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese group that has strong linguistic and trading ties to China. “Based on initial information, many innocent civilians, including a teacher, were killed because of attacks by the M. N. D. A. A. ,” the statement said, using the rebel group’s initials. It added that 20 of the 30 bodies were badly burned and therefore unidentifiable, and that the other victims were civilians and traffic police officers. In a separate statement on Monday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said, “I would like to strongly urge all the armed groups to abandon armed attacks that can bring about nothing but sorrows and sufferings on the innocent local tribes and races, and to join the dialogue for national peace. ” Video clips circulating online and in Myanmar’s news media on Tuesday showed burning buildings in Laukkai and rebel fighters exchanging fire with the military. Ashin Kaysara, a monk who lives on the Chinese side of the border, said in an interview on Tuesday that refugees had crossed into China since the fighting began and were staying with relatives or in religious buildings, including his monastery. Ko Maung Kyaw, a witness in Laukkai, said in an interview that he had seen uniformed Kokang fighters attack the sites in Laukkai on Monday with grenades and other weapons, destroying a hotel, and that the sounds of fighting had continued until about 7 a. m. on Tuesday. “I’m not staying here any longer,” he said. Myanmar Army tanks were patrolling the town’s streets, he added, and bus tickets to Lashio, another town in Shan State, had risen overnight to about $73 from $6. The attacks came as the government doubles down on an effort to broker peace with many of the armed ethnic groups that have long operated in Myanmar’s hinterlands. The next round of talks in a nationwide peace dialogue that began last summer in Naypyidaw, the capital, is scheduled to take place this month. Myanmar’s previous, government signed a agreement with eight armed ethnic groups in 2015, but many questions were left unresolved, such as how the central government and the ethnic regions would share power. Another problem was that the agreement, which primarily included armed groups near Myanmar’s border with Thailand, did not cover groups in a wide stretch of territory along the Chinese border, including the Kokang rebels. The Kokang conflict is especially delicate because it touches on Myanmar’s strained relationship with China, which once staunchly supported the junta that held Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for 15 years. Wariness toward Chinese officials and investors now runs high across Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. The Kokang rebels are led by Peng Jiasheng, who until 1989 received support from the Communist Party of Burma, a of the Chinese Communist Party. The rebels signed a agreement with the Myanmar Army in 1989, after splitting from the Communist Party of Burma, but the truce ended when government troops overran the Kokang in 2009. U Min Zaw Oo, a political analyst in Yangon who advises a government peace commission, said that he believed the rebel group currently had about 1, 000 to 1, 500 fighters and that it targeted casinos in Laukkai controlled by rivals in the Kokang community who are loyal to the Myanmar government. On Tuesday in Beijing, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, said that, to his knowledge, none of those killed in the recent fighting in the Kokang region were Chinese citizens. He said that some residents from the Myanmar side of the border had recently fled to safety in China and that the Chinese government had been helping them out of a sense of humanitarian concern. “China is highly concerned about the military clashes recently in the Kokang region,” Mr. Geng said at a regular news briefing. He called for a adding that “the parties involved should resolve their differences in a peaceful manner through dialogue and deliberation. ” Mr. Min Zaw Oo, the analyst, said that the fighting on Monday appeared to have been less intense than a clash in the Kokang region in 2015, in which dozens of government soldiers and police officers were killed and many members of the Kokang ethnic group fled to China. As many as 60, 000 Kokang refugees are said to live in the southwestern Chinese border province of Yunnan. Mr. Min Zaw Oo, citing conversations with military sources, said Kokang rebels were now retreating on foot toward the Chinese border, a few miles from Laukkai. But the attacks in Laukkai on Monday underscored how the Kokang rebels and other armed groups along the border with China were actively trying to subvert the peace process, he said, even as groups along the Thai border have actively engaged in it. “I think that pattern may continue for a few more years,” he said. | 1 |
Dow higher as Boeing gains offset Apple's fall 'The fact of the matter is the oil market is rebalancing itself' Published: 2 mins ago
(CNBC) — U.S. stock closed mostly lower on Wednesday as earnings season continued, while solid economic data helped financials and oil extended its losing streak despite bullish supply data.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 21 points after briefly dropping more than 100 points, with Boeing contributing gains to the tune of 38 points, offsetting sharp losses in Apple, which took about 20 points off the index.
The S&P 500 momentarily eked above breakeven before holding 0.22 percent lower, with real estate falling 1.32 percent to lead decliners while industrials and financials outperformed. The Nasdaq lagged, falling 0.64 percent as Apple shed about 2.7 percent. | 0 |
pay-for-play that the Clinton campaign has taken. Here’s a great video by my friends from Truthstream Media with even more revelations. Wikileaks says they have 50,000 of Podesta’s private emails.If they keep releasing them in batches, there’s a distinct possibility that we will get some on election day itself. I wonder if Wikileaks is keeping the best for last? The desperate attempt to silence Julian Assange The efforts to shut up Assange have led all sorts of ugly places. If you can’t drone him ( like Hillary Clinton suggested ), then frame him and accuse him of pedophilia. Wikileaks has provided a timeline and supporting links for the sustained efforts to discredit Assange. May , when self-claimed dating agency “ToddAndClare” (T&C) approach saying they were contacted by the Russian government. Sep 3 , T&C email Assange’s Swedish lawyer Per Samuelson offering one million dollars for Assange to appear in a video advertisement for the “dating agency” ToddAndClare.com (See attachment). This is the first contact. Sep 15 , email sent from a member of Mr. Assange’s defence team to [email protected] requesting further details (See attachment). Sep 19 , [email protected] email with elaborate bonafides, proposed agreement and the claim that the source of the US$1 million is the Russian government. The email states that T&C was approached by Russian representatives in May 2016 and that “The source of the $1,000,000 is the Russian government” . The email then goes on to “verify” bonafides by giving a detailed description of the interior of the house and desk of Mr Assange’s lawyer, Helena Kennedy, who is a member of the UK Parliament, including a reference to a photo of Tony Blair (Kennedy states that the Blair reference is accurate, although out-of-date). Sep 20 , a representative of Mr Assange’s defence team writes to [email protected] stating that the proposal appears to be an “elaborate scam designed to entrap Mr Assange’s reputation into unwanted and unwarranted publicity”. writes stating that “The offer expires at midnight, October 31 st 2016.” Late Sep , WikiLeaks announces a press conference for Oct 4 for its ten year anniversary. Late Sep , Press widely misreport that WikiLeaks is going to launch its “October Suprise” against Hillary Clinton on 4 October, misinterpreting its press conference call Oct 4 , T&C files its “Assange pedophile” libel through the UN’s Global Compact system, alleging that there is an active criminal investigation in the Bahamas against Julian Assange for the abuse of an eight year old girl and claiming to have chat logs and photos. The allegation appears on the UN website with a UN Gobal Compact letterhead and is contextualised with a complex backstory. The request targets the UN WGAD (part of the UN Human Rights system) which found that Mr Assange is being illegally detained by the United Kingdom and Sweden. Oct 4 , T&C files claim through the UK courts, apparently using it as a method to place the pedophile accusation into the public record (See attachment). Oct 4 , WikiLeaks holds a press conference, where it becomes clear that its publishing of Clinton-related documents will occur later. Oct 5 , T&C’s UK court claim arrives at Ecuadorian embassy in London Oct 7 , WikiLeaks commenses its release of the Podesta Emails Oct 11 , T&C pushes out its Assange pedophile claim through the PRWeb newswire service. Oct 12 , UN Global Compact delists T&C , citing “integrity” issues. Oct 12 , T&C issues a press release opposing the UN delisting with an elaborate story, claiming that Julian Assange is threatening US citizens (T&C). Oct 17 , Investigative report into Toddandclare.com prepared for Mr Assange’s lawyers is concluded, finding “T&C Network Solutions exhibits the characteristics of a highly suspicious and likely fabricated business entity” (See attachment “FINAL REPORT T&C 17 Oct 2016”). Oct 18 , The pedophile part of the plot is launched through US Democrat-aligned website DailyKos and pushed by pro-Clinton twitter accounts. Now, I’m no stranger to the tinfoil, but this seems to me the most blatant attempt to discredit someone that I’ve ever seen. The timing is quite the coincidence, don’t you think? For more Assange, here are some of the conspiracy theories that have been going ’round the internet lately. Assange has made some incredibly powerful enemies. His longevity is far from certain. And then there was that day that the US internet got hacked. First, there was this tweet by Wikileaks, which was pinned on Twitter all day. Zero Hedge reported : The “police” presence apparently began to amass earlier this week just as Wikileaks confirmed that the Ecuadorian had agreed to cut Julian Assange’s internet access after a little political pressure from John Kerry…and as an allegedly bogus plot, with links to the Clinton campaign, was revealed that attempted to link Julian Assange to a pedophilia ring. Shortly after the Tweet appeared, the internet went down over much of the United States. Dozens of websites such as Twitter, Reddit, Amazon, Netflix, the New York Times and Spotify, as well as general internet service in certain areas of the country, were all down for part of the day (the entire list is at this link) . A DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack was blamed for the outage. Ironically, NorseCorp , the company that has the real-time cyber attack map, was also down for most of the day. This happened not once, but twice. The FBI and the DHS are investigating the cyber attack so I’m sure we’ll get the *truth* soon. Rumors abound, including blaming Russia (of course, and after VP Biden’s idiotic threat to cyber attack them , could you really blame them?), that it was our own government hoping to cover up some even they’d like to distract us from, or, interestingly, that it was a hacker group who did this in defense of Julian Assange. (Wikileaks seems to think that too – see the screenshot below of their Tweet.) But…another group altogether has taken credit for the massive hack. SHTFplan reports that this is the beginning of WW3 – which could be fought online : A hacking collective calling itself “New World Hackers” are taking credit – and they are based out of Russia and China, so there is little doubt that it will fuel the narrative for more war, tighter security and an age of online instability as the new world (where the dollar is no longer king) is sorted out. New World Hackers responded to a request for an interview with Anon Intel Group . Their message to the world? “Stay educated.” Anything to add to Survival Saturday? What do you think of Assange and Wikileaks? Love him or hate him? Why? Share your opinion and any supporting links in the comments below! Please join the discussion! Submit your review | 0 |
On the night of Nov. 16, a group of executives gathered in a private dining room of the restaurant La Chine at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Midtown Manhattan. The table was laden with Chinese delicacies and $2, 100 bottles of Château Lafite Rothschild. At one end sat Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of the Waldorf’s owner, Anbang Insurance Group, a Chinese financial behemoth with estimated assets of $285 billion and an ownership structure shrouded in mystery. Close by sat Jared Kushner, a major New York real estate investor whose Donald J. Trump, had just been elected president of the United States. It was a mutually auspicious moment. Mr. Wu and Mr. Kushner — who is married to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and is one of his closest advisers — were nearing agreement on a joint venture in Manhattan: the redevelopment of 666 Fifth Avenue, the fading crown jewel of the Kushner family empire. Anbang, which has close ties to the Chinese state, has seen its aggressive efforts to buy up hotels in the United States slowed amid concerns raised by Obama administration officials who review foreign investments for national security risk. Now, according to two people with knowledge of the Mr. Wu toasted Mr. Trump and declared his desire to meet the whose ascension, he was sure, would be good for global business. Since the election, intense scrutiny has been trained on Mr. Trump’s company and the potential conflicts of interest he will face. But with Mr. Kushner laying the groundwork for his own White House role, the meeting at the Waldorf shines a light on his family’s business, Kushner Companies, and on the ethical thicket he would have to navigate while advising his on policy that could affect his bottom line. Unlike the Trump Organization, which has shifted its focus from acquisition to branding of the Trump name, the Kushner family business, led by Mr. Kushner, is a major real estate investor across the New York area and beyond. The company has participated in roughly $7 billion in acquisitions in the last decade, many of them backed by opaque foreign money, as well as financial institutions Mr. Kushner’s will soon have a hand in regulating. The Anbang talks, which have not previously been reported, began roughly six months ago — “Well before the ’s victory,” Mr. Kushner’s spokeswoman, Risa Heller, noted. That was, however, just as Mr. Trump clinched the Republican nomination. While the talks are far along, representatives for Mr. Kushner said some points remained unresolved. Ms. Heller declined to outline the financial terms under discussion. Mr. Kushner, who declined to be interviewed for this article, has hired a leading Washington law firm, WilmerHale, to advise him on how to comply with federal ethics laws should he join the White House staff as an adviser to the president. The firm has concluded that one potential sticking point, a federal law, is not applicable, though not all ethics experts agree. While the law prohibits federal officials from hiring relatives for agencies they lead, Mr. Kushner’s lawyers argue, among other things, that the White House is not an agency and is therefore exempt. As for conflicts of interest, Mr. Kushner would be required to make limited financial disclosures, which could give the public a clearer picture of his holdings. And, unlike Mr. Trump, who as president will be exempt from laws, he would have to recuse himself from decisions with a “direct and predictable effect” on his financial interests. Jamie S. Gorelick, a WilmerHale partner who served in the Clinton administration, said that while plans were not final, Mr. Kushner was taking significant steps to extricate himself from the family business. “Mr. Kushner is committed to complying with federal ethics laws, and we have been consulting with the Office of Government Ethics regarding the steps he would take,” she said. He will resign as chief executive of Kushner Companies, and though the law does not require it, she said he would divest “substantial assets. ” She did not name them, but Ms. Heller said they would include his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue. Just how meaningful that plan is remains to be seen. Mr. Kushner’s representatives declined to detail his personal financial interest in Kushner Companies’ properties, and they said he intended to keep his interest in other properties beyond 666 Fifth Avenue. He also has a stake, through a family investment vehicle, in a private equity firm run by his brother, Joshua, with investments of its own. Mr. Kushner, who turns 36 on Tuesday, has emerged as one of the most powerful figures in Mr. Trump’s orbit. Already he is involved in steering policy, making personnel choices and serving as the middleman between foreign leaders, the White House and the in ways that could affect his business, even as companies like Anbang see opportunity in entering into new ventures with the ’s . Mr. Kushner played a pivotal role in persuading Mr. Trump, who made the Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs a bête noire of his presidential campaign, to appoint the firm’s president, Gary D. Cohn, as his chief economic adviser, according to several people involved in the transition. (Like a number of people interviewed for this article, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal matters.) Goldman Sachs has lent the Kushner Companies money and is an investor in a real estate technology company by Mr. Kushner and his brother. Mr. Trump has said that his an Orthodox Jew, will play a central role in dealings with Israel, describing him as so talented that he could help “do peace in the Middle East. ” Mr. Kushner’s company has received multiple loans from Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim. The incoming Trump administration will inherit a Justice Department investigation into allegations that the bank helped wealthy Americans evade taxes. Indeed, despite a lack of foreign policy experience, Mr. Kushner is emerging as an important figure at a crucial moment for some of America’s most complicated diplomatic relationships. Such is his influence in the geopolitical realm that transition officials have told the Obama White House that foreign policy matters that need to be brought to Mr. Trump’s attention should be relayed through his according to a person close to the transition and a government official with direct knowledge of the arrangement. So when the Chinese ambassador to the United States called the White House in early December to express what one official called China’s “deep displeasure” at Mr. Trump’s break with longstanding diplomatic tradition by speaking by phone with the president of Taiwan, the White House did not call the ’s national security team. Instead, it relayed that information through Mr. Kushner, whose company was not only in the midst of discussions with Anbang but also has Chinese investors. Ethics experts said that while the law is narrowly drawn, Mr. Kushner’s mix of roles leads inevitably to ethical questions. Matthew T. Sanderson, a lawyer at Caplin Drysdale and former general counsel to Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, said deals like the one with Anbang “might not be illegal under the rules, but raise a strong appearance that a foreign entity is using Mr. Kushner’s business to try to influence U. S. policy. ” Without knowing details of Mr. Kushner’s holdings and divestiture plans, he said, the merits of his proposal are hard to assess. Even if he divests his stake in certain properties, Mr. Sanderson added, “it strikes me as a ” that “still poses a real issue and would be a drag on Mr. Trump’s presidency and cause the American people to question Mr. Kushner’s role in policy making. ” Like the Mr. Kushner built on the fortune of a successful father. In the 1980s, his father, Charles Kushner, took over the New construction business started by his own father, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Charles expanded into office buildings and apartments, eventually assembling a $1 billion real estate business and becoming a leading Democratic donor, contributing to politicians in New Jersey and New York and winning appointment to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. But the company was upended when Charles became engulfed in a nasty family feud over how the business’s proceeds were to be distributed. The fight, which played out in a federal courthouse in Newark, resulted in a plea deal for Charles, who in 2005 was sentenced to two years in prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. The family infighting was so bitter that, at one point, Charles hired a prostitute to seduce his videotaped the encounter and sent the footage to his sister. Jared, 23 at the time of his father’s conviction, had recently graduated from Harvard. He was studying for an M. B. A. and law degree at New York University in 2006 when he bought The New York Observer, at the time an influential weekly newspaper known for its coverage of the city’s elite and real estate. It is unclear exactly when he assumed control of the family business. The company now says he became chief executive in 2008, but contemporaneous news accounts rarely describe him that way until 2012. Nevertheless, Mr. Kushner quickly became the company’s public face as it expanded across the Hudson River into Manhattan, much as Mr. Trump had left Queens for the big city decades before. Charles Kushner was released from federal custody in August 2006. He immediately resumed a significant role in the business and remains heavily involved today. Still, it was with Jared as headliner that the company soon made its biggest play ever: $1. 8 billion for the skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue that would remain at the center of its story to this day. It was the highest price ever paid for a single office building in the United States — and more than three times what its seller had paid six years earlier. Around this time, Mr. Kushner met the woman he would marry: Ivanka Trump. “” the headlines blared, as the New York tabloids celebrated a match made in real estate heaven. Everything was looking up, until suddenly it wasn’t. Within a year after the deal, the overheated lending market seized up and Kushner Companies struggled to repay its considerable loans — and to hold on to 666 Fifth Avenue. To the rescue over the next few years came the Carlyle Group, a giant private equity firm Vornado Realty Trust, then a of two of Mr. Trump’s largest properties and Inditex, owner of Zara, the fashion retailer founded by Amancio Ortega, the Spanish tycoon who is one of the world’s wealthiest men. In the end, Mr. Kushner’s company survived, and he and Ms. Trump became fixtures on the international circuit. In August, they were spotted with Wendi Deng, an of Rupert Murdoch, on the yacht Rising Sun, owned by the entertainment mogul David Geffen. Several weeks later, they were photographed watching the United States Open tennis finals with the art collector Dasha Zhukova, wife of the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a member of President Vladimir V. Putin’s inner circle. Since 2012, Kushner Companies has been on a buying spree. It has acquired at least 120 properties, mostly a mix of existing commercial and residential buildings in New York and New Jersey, according to data compiled by Real Capital Analytics, a research firm. Recent deals include the $340 million acquisition of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ headquarters in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, and $345 million for a nearby plot of undeveloped land. Mr. Kushner’s company also bought several floors of the old New York Times building for $295 million in 2015 from Lev Leviev, an Israeli who is chairman of one of the largest real estate development companies in Russia. Increasingly, the company is branching out across the country — to Philadelphia Baltimore Toledo, Ohio and Kansas City, Mo. In Chicago, it owns the building that houses the Midwest headquarters of ATT. In all, the company owns more than 20, 000 apartments and approximately 14 million square feet of office space. As the Kushners have expanded their businesses, they have also, by necessity, expanded their universe of investors and creditors. Lenders have included private equity giants like Blackstone, the French bank Natixis and Goldman Sachs. Another lender is Deutsche Bank, which recently reached a $7. 2 billion settlement with the Justice Department over its sale of toxic mortgage securities. But it remains under investigation over allegations that it disguised trades that helped Russian clients move money offshore. Beyond real estate, Mr. Kushner has moved into the Wall Street, health care and tech spaces. He has an indirect investment in Thrive Capital, a venture capital firm valued at about $1. 5 billion that is run by his brother, Joshua. The company has made more than 100 investments in dozens of companies, both in the United States and abroad. Among them is Oscar, a health insurance company founded in 2012 to take advantage of the Affordable Care Act, which Mr. Trump has vowed to dismantle. Oscar’s investors have included Li who is one of Hong Kong’s richest men, and China’s Ping An Insurance, which has close ties to relatives of former Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China. The Kushner brothers have counted the Russian billionaire tech investor Yuri Milner and the Chinese billionaire founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, as investors in another endeavor — Cadre, a real estate investment company they started with a friend. Goldman Sachs has invested in both tech ventures. But the money behind many of Mr. Kushner’s investments remains a mystery. While the company lists dozens of partners on its website, it does not disclose the individuals behind those companies. One of the newest Kushner projects — a luxury apartment tower that opened in November in Jersey City — got nearly a quarter of its financing, about $50 million, from Chinese investors who are not publicly identified. The investors are beneficiaries of a federal program that grants visas and a path to permanent residency in exchange for investments of $500, 000. The program, known as has become popular with real estate developers as a cheap form of financing in fiscal year 2015, the State Department issued 9, 764 of the visas — overwhelmingly to applicants from China. But the program, which must be renewed periodically by Congress, has lately come under fire. The Government Accountability Office has issued several reports raising concerns about what it termed the program’s insufficient background checks and lax safeguards against illicit financing. One applicant, the agency found, failed to report potential financial ties to a string of Chinese brothels. Then there are the Kushners’ continuing negotiations with Anbang’s Mr. Wu, one of the most politically connected men in China. In 2015, Mr. Kushner began pursuing a grand vision for 666 Fifth Avenue. The renowned architect Zaha Hadid was asked to come up with a design to resculpt the office building, adding apartments, a hotel and a mall and nearly tripling its height to 1, 400 feet. But the plan needed money, and while Mr. Kushner had managed to hang on to his family’s flagship building, it still had a lot of debt, with a $1. 1 billion loan coming due in 2019, and a good portion of the commercial office space vacant. Anbang, which got its start as an auto insurance company in 2004, had become one of the most aggressive Chinese buyers of United States real estate, and had begun investing in hotels. But it had encountered problems of its own its byzantine ownership structure had given rise to concern on Wall Street and in Washington. The Times reported last year that Anbang is owned by a few dozen companies, which in turn are owned by a number of shell companies that are controlled by roughly 100 people, many of whom have ties to a county in China that is the home of Mr. Wu, whose own power stems in part from marriage. In his case he married Zhuo Ran, a granddaughter of Deng Xiaoping, the leader who brought China out of the chaos of the Mao era. Mr. Wu also counts as a central business partner the son of a People’s Liberation Army marshal, and he has recruited several former government insurance regulators to serve on his board. Anbang’s structure has stoked such suspicion about its true ownership that some Wall Street firms, including Morgan Stanley, have opted not to advise the company on United States mergers and acquisitions because they cannot get the information needed to satisfy their “know your client” guidelines. Anbang’s deep ties to the Chinese state have also led to a break in presidential protocol. Presidents have long stayed at the Waldorf, but when Mr. Obama visited New York for the opening of a session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015, he decided to seek other accommodations. American officials were vague about the reasons for the change at the time a senior national security official cited security, counterintelligence and cybersurveillance concerns. National security concerns have also complicated Anbang’s efforts to acquire other properties in the United States. One deal, to buy the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, fell apart in October amid concerns from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which comprises the heads of nine federal agencies and is charged with reviewing the national security risks of transactions involving foreign governments or companies. The Hotel del Coronado is near a naval base, and deals involving proximity to national security infrastructure typically receive heightened scrutiny. Anbang was, however, able to acquire the other hotels in the same collection. Last year, Anbang tried to purchase the Starwood Hotels chain, outbidding Marriott with a $14 billion offer. It was widely reported that the deal would be subject to review by the committee. But though the parties expressed confidence that it would pass muster, ultimately Anbang walked away from the deal before submitting the kind of detailed inside information that process would entail. And while Anbang’s planned $1. 57 billion purchase of Des Fidelity Guaranty Life, first announced in November 2015, was cleared by the committee, also known as Cfius, it stalled after the New York State Department of Financial Services demanded more information about Anbang’s shareholding structure. But Anbang was nothing if not savvy. Company officials had cultivated a relationship with Benjamin M. Lawsky, who had earlier led the financial services agency, from May 2011 to June 2015. It was Mr. Lawsky, by then a consultant, who introduced Anbang to Kushner Companies, according to people with knowledge of how the discussions came about. Mr. Lawsky declined to comment. Mr. Kushner led the negotiations, his spokeswoman, Ms. Heller, confirmed. Kushner Companies would disclose little else about the joint venture, except to say that Anbang would become one of the equity partners in the building’s redevelopment if an agreement is finalized. Anbang declined to comment. It was just coincidence that Mr. Kushner’s Nov. 16 dinner at the Waldorf with Mr. Wu took place the week after the election, Ms. Heller said, adding that it had been in the works for a while. By the time of the meeting, Mr. Kushner had decided to hand off certain business relationships, including the one with Anbang, to others at Kushner Companies, according to Ms. Heller, and it was for that reason that he invited his father and Laurent Morali, the president of Kushner Companies. She said he planned to sell his stake in 666 Fifth before the closing of any Anbang deal, but she declined to name the potential buyers or the price Mr. Kushner hoped to get. Ms. Heller stressed in her statement that the United States has “not found Anbang to be a enterprise” — an important technical point, given that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause prohibits the acceptance of payments and gifts from foreign governments. Should it consummate its deal with Anbang, she said, Kushner Companies will seek any necessary approvals from the federal government. She expressed confidence that any deal would pass muster with the foreign investment committee, citing the fact that it did not block the Chinese company from buying the Waldorf Astoria. Come Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated, that committee will be made up of his cabinet members, and the process is such that the president has the final say. It is a process with which Mr. Trump has some familiarity. During the campaign, he repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton for supporting, as secretary of state and member of the foreign investment committee, a deal that benefited donors to her family’s charitable foundation while giving the Russians control of about 20 percent of America’s capacity. On China, Mr. Trump has talked a tough game, accusing Beijing of currency manipulation and raising the possibility of a trade war. But whether that is only a negotiating tactic remains to be seen. The has his own financial entanglements with China: He owns a 30 percent stake in a partnership that owes roughly $950 million to a group of lenders that includes the Bank of China, and one of his biggest tenants at Trump Tower is another bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. With Anbang a magnet for controversy, Mr. Kushner has kept the negotiations under wraps. But a week after the Nov. 16 dinner at the Waldorf, Mr. Kushner’s father and Mr. Wu met at the hotel for lunch. After the elder Mr. Kushner departed, Mr. Wu was clearly elated. “I love you guys,” he exclaimed in English to his remaining entourage, according to one person present. | 1 |
Most members of the Main Stream Media like to think of themselves as . And so, as part of their mellow feelings toward the planet, enjoy shopping at Whole Foods indeed, many are so refined in their thinking that they are vegans. So of course they support gun control, oppose the death penalty and the Pentagon budget, and pride themselves on voting for “peace” candidates. And yet when it comes right down to it, in their own line of work, they are plenty militant, even warlike. And that goes double if the target is Donald Trump. [First of Two Parts … Yes, if Trump is in the picture, then journos easily slip into the language, and the thinking, of combat and war. This makes sense, because, for better or for worse, the vocabulary of fighting suffuses everyday speech, and “nice” reporters are no exception. In particular, when humans wish to organize themselves to do something, they tend to adopt military forms the word “campaign,” for example, was used to describe military operations long before it was used to describe political operations. A case in point is the headline that appeared in the of the January 13 edition of The New York Times: “Outgunned, Outmaneuvered and in Need of a Game Plan. ” Later, perhaps at the prodding of groups, that headline was softened to, “As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him” Still, the word “strategy” is there in the header, reaching, as it does, deep into military history. Could Trump really be doing all that? It sure looks that way. After all, if the MSM is waging war on Trump, Trump is also waging war on the MSM. Indeed, we might add, Trump is doing a better job — he’s winning. And why is he winning? Because he’s smarter and tougher. Most obviously, there’s Trump’s Twitter feed, which now numbers 20 million followers. As he has said, possessing an audience that big is like owning The New York Times, only without the financial losses. Moreover, including all forms of social media, his audience totals some 50 million. And yet even that big number understates his impact, because his messages always echo in the news. It’s fair to say that even before Trump is inaugurated as president, he has proven that when he wants to get a point across, everyone in the country gets it. So here we might be tempted to interpolate the wisdom of the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, who declared, “He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. ” And Trump has been prepared. And yes, sheer gumption matters, too. It was Trump the man who stared down Megyn Kelly, the Pope, all his Republican rivals, and Hillary Clinton. And most recently, Trump won the confrontation over the “dirty dossier,” the passel of allegations leaked by the “Intelligence Community” last week and published, in all its inglorious detail, by BuzzFeed. In his January 11 press conference, held in the middle of the resulting media firestorm, Trump showed no fear as he took on virtually the entire press corps. He denied all the allegations, adding that reporters should be ashamed of themselves for even thinking of bringing up such an unverified dump. He refused to take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta, labeling the entire network as “fake news,” and he lambasted BuzzFeed as a “failing pile of garbage. ” And in fact, soon the MSM was scampering away from the dossier legend Bob Woodward agreed with Trump, calling it a “garbage document. ” And then, on Twitter, Trump hit back even harder, comparing the attack on him to some sort of atrocity out of Nazi Germany. Needless to say, this turn of events has been disturbing to diehard Trump haters such as Rutenberg. As he wrote to his brothers and sisters in the Fourth Estate, the next time they were going to do battle with Trump, they had to have a stronger plan. And speaking of the MSM as a whole, Rutenberg added, “It better figure things out, fast, because it has found itself at the edge of the cliff. ” In the meantime, amidst the MSM disarray, Trump is still on the offensive. Here’s the headline from the January 15 New York Times: “Trump Team Considers Moving Press Corps, Alarming Reporters. ” That is, the Trump communications shop is considering a plan to move the White House press corps from its current location in the West Wing to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. In the words of Sean Spicer, the incoming White House press secretary: | 1 |
Home / Badge Abuse / Police Family Fakes Robbery, Vandalizes Own Home to Blame it On Black Lives Matter Police Family Fakes Robbery, Vandalizes Own Home to Blame it On Black Lives Matter Matt Agorist October 31, 2016 Leave a comment
Millbury, MA — If you want to scam your insurance company while painting a group in a negative light who wants your husband and his peers to be held accountable for beating and killing unarmed black people, you can simply fake a robbery on your police officer’s home and blame it on Black Lives Matter. But, you have to do it better than Maria Daly, who was busted last week for that very act.
According to CBS Boston, police say on October 17 Maria Daly reported a burglary at the family home, saying jewelry and money had been stolen. She also reportedly said her house was tagged with graffiti that appeared to reference the Black Lives Matter movement.
After investigators looked at the supposed crime scene, however, they quickly determined the entire account was false.
“Something wasn’t quite right,” said Millbury Police Chief Donald Desorcy. “I think that was pretty obvious and as a result of that investigation, the officers did their due diligence and followed through with the investigation that we had.”
“Basically we came to the conclusion that it was all fabricated,” said Desorcy. “There was no intruder, there was no burglary.”
After Daly robbed and vandalized her own home, she reported it to police and then went on social media to decry the ‘hatred’ against her husband from Black Lives Matter.
“We woke up to not only our house being robbed while we were sleeping , but to see this hatred for no reason,” she said.
Naturally, chief Desorcy quickly exonerated Daly’s police officer husband, noting that he had no role in the deception. Whatever you say chief.
“She must have tagged the place herself,” one neighbor said. “I don’t know why you’d do that if you’re gonna stage a robbery, I mean really come on, you’re a cop’s wife. You should know better.”
Maria Daly faces charges of filing a false police report and misleading a police investigation, according to CBS Boston.
People vandalizing their own property to blame Black Lives Matter is not an isolated incident.
A man who accused Black Lives Matter activists of vandalizing and spray-painting his car was recently arrested because police believe that he vandalized the car himself to stage a hoax and to scam his insurance company. Scott Lattin, a self-described supporter of police, reported in September of 2015, that his truck was torn apart and tagged with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” Lattin alleged that his vehicle was targeted because he had a number of pro-police stickers and symbols displayed.
Lattin’s story received national press, and he even appeared on a number of news programs where he showed the damage that was done to his truck. However, shortly after the hype, Whitney police arrested Lattin on a misdemeanor charge of making a false police report.
“We had initial video when the officers took the report and then when we saw your story on Channel 4. When we looked at those two videos, there were some differences in those and that led us to take the investigation into a different direction,” Whitney Police Chief Chris Bentley said, adding that the case was “very disturbing.”
Lattin was apparently so excited about going on TV he further vandalized his own truck, more so than what was initially reported. When police noticed the extra damage on the TV report, they knew he was lying. Share | 0 |
US Insiders Not Russia Leaked Clinton Emails By WashingtonsBlog
November 03, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - Weve repeatedly shown that its much more likely that American insiders not Russian hackers leaked the Clinton emails.
Today, the NSA executive who created the agencys mass surveillance program for digital information, who served as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a legend within the agency and the NSAs best-ever analyst and code-breaker, who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted Soviet invasions before they happened (in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Unions command system, which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic weapons) told Washingtons Blog:
My vote all along has been on an insider passing all these emails to Wikileaks.
If it were the Russians, NSA would have a trace route to them and not equivocate on who did it. Its like using Trace Route to map the path of all the packets on the network. In the program Treasuremap NSA has hundreds of trace route programs embedded in switches in Europe and hundreds more around the world. So, this set-up should have detected where the packets went and when they went there.
Binney has previously explained to us that a Russian hack would have looked very different, and that he thought the hack may have been conducted by an NSA employee who was upset at Clintons careless handling of Americas most sensitive intelligence.
The former intelligence analyst, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and chancellor of the University of Dundee (Craig Murray) who is close friends with Wikileaks Julian Assange said he knows with 100% certainty that the Russians arent behind the leaks.
Murray said today:
The source of these emails and leaks has nothing to do with Russia at all. I discovered what the source was when I attended [a] whistleblower award in Washington. The source of these emails comes from within official circles in Washington DC. You should look to Washington not to Moscow .
Prominent investment advisor and economic forecaster Martin Armstrong writes today:
All our indications from behind the curtain are suggesting that there are many within the intelligence sector and law enforcement sector who are deeply troubled with the Clintons. They are trying to release documents and info to stop the Clinton Inc. Machine. Thats all we can say on this topic right now. Suffice it to say, there is a real internal battle going on in Washington.
And the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under numerous administrations both Democratic and Republican (Steve Pieczenik ) said recently that a group of officers from various U.S. intelligence and military agencies have staged a counter-coup to save America from corruption, and are the source of the leaked emails:
Interesting times, indeed
http://www.washingtonsblog.com | 0 |
Putin awards Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica with Order of Friendship October 27, 2016 TASS serbia , vladimir putin , movies Emir Kusturica was born in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia. He initiated the International the Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival and a short documentaries festival in Visegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Source: Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin has awarded a number of cultural workers with Orders and Medals, one of them being Serbian movie director Emir Kusturica. The related decree was published on the official legal information website on Oct. 27.
"Emir Kusturica, director of the Rasta International production company, citizen of the Republic of Serbia, is being awarded with the Order of Friendship for his significant contribution to promoting friendship and cooperation between peoples, preserving and promoting the Russian language and culture in foreign countries," the presidential decree says. Writer Prilepin to build a literary village a la Kusturica's Drevngrad
Emir Kusturica was born on Nov. 24, 1954 in Sarajevo, former Yugoslavia. He initiated the International the Kustendorf International Film and Music Festival and a short documentaries festival in Visegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2005, he was President of the Cannes Film Festival Jury, in 2011 he presided over the jury of the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival official selection.
Kusturica has been given many awards for his activities, including the Order of Arts and Literature (France, 2007), Order of the Legion of Honor (France, 2011), Order of St. Sava (Serbian Orthodox Church, 2012), Order of St. King Milutin (Serbian Orthodox Church, 2014), Order of St. Stephen (Serbian Orthodox Church, 2016). In 2009, he received the Unity of Orthodox Nations International Foundation Award. | 0 |
Breitbart London editor in chief Raheem Kassam joined Sean Hannity to slam the media reaction to comments about Sweden made by U. S. President Donald Trump calling the journalists “partisan ”. [Kassam joined a panel of two other guests to talk about the relationship of Mr Trump and the mainstream media, which he has repeatedly called out and criticised. Trump’s comments on the state of Sweden and it’s societal fragmentation due to mass migration provoked mockery from Swedish politicians and many others in the media, but Kassam hit back against this, having just returned to the United States from a trip to Sweden’s “No Go Zones” just last week. “The president was absolutely manifestly correct on Sweden. I was there just last week in Rosengard in Malmo, in Husby and Rinkeby the suburbs of Stockholm and what I saw was absolutely terrifying,” Kassam said. On Tuesday Kassam wrote at length about his experiences travelling through the areas that police have labelled as “ zones” and wrote, “Within minutes of exiting a cab outside central Husby, I was surrounded by drug dealers pushing “hashish” and “marijuana”. Within a few seconds more we witness two van loads of Swedish police appearing to negotiate one man’s arrest from a building guarded by burly men. ” Though he remained unscathed, Kassam said the reason was likely due to his appearance and his acting innocuous, adding: “but for young women, for police and other emergency services, you take your life into your hands when you enter these areas. ” Regarding the journalists who have reported that everything is fine in Sweden Kassam fired back saying, “I can’t tell whether these journalists now are just partisan or cretinous liars or who knows? But the fact of the matter is they haven’t been there, they haven’t seen what’s going on. ” He then hit out at the lack of integration of the large migrant populations who live in the various zones and the culture in Sweden that has allowed migrants to “ghettoise” in their communities. “The Swedish government is effectively forcing them to do so by putting them in these housing tenements where they all live together,” he said. “You can tell [Trump is] right because [the media] came out and said he was wrong within seconds of him saying this. That means they haven’t looked into it, they haven’t researched it, they haven’t read the books on it,” he noted. Shortly after the Swedish government released a statement criticising Trump’s comments the suburb of Rinkeby erupted into riots with multiple cars being set on fire. According to journalists on the scene, the area looked like a war zone. To explain the real state of Sweden and it’s problems caused by mass migration Breitbart London published a list of ten reasons Sweden’s “multicultural utopia” has been a massive failure. Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com | 1 |
WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Wednesday rejected appeals that they need new leaders to win back disaffected voters, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to an eighth term as House leader over a Rust Belt congressman who said the party had lost its connection to the American working class. Ms. Pelosi’s victory over Representative Tim Ryan, a congressman from a district anchored in Youngstown, Ohio, ensures that the party will be led in the next Congress by the established “coastal” Democrats who have increasingly defined it — Ms. Pelosi, 76, who represents San Francisco, and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, 66, who has held various leadership posts since 2005. The leadership elections, conducted by secret ballot behind closed doors, stamped out calls for new leaders. But while Ms. Pelosi won, 134 to 63, Mr. Ryan’s significant share of the total served as a measure of internal discontent and in some ways a repudiation of Ms. Pelosi’s leadership. “I think there’s a lot of ” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York. “And a lot of really wanting to have a plan. ” For years, support for Ms. Pelosi has run so deep that few would even consider challenging her. In 2010, after a wave of Tea Party Republicans swept Democrats out of power, she lost just 43 votes. Ms. Pelosi, whose victory was mockingly cheered by Republicans as good news for them, dismissed the idea that House Democrats could no longer win with her at the helm. And she vowed that Democrats would continue to stand as a foil to Donald J. Trump’s administration. “We know how to win elections,” Ms. Pelosi said. “We’ve done it in the past. We will do it again by making that differentiation. ” Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon, who backed Mr. Ryan, said after the vote that unless Democrats changed course and adopted “a working man and woman’s agenda,” they should expect defeat. “I’m very worried we just signed the Democratic Party’s death certificate for the next decade and a half,” Mr. Schrader said. Democrats also Representative Steny H. Hoyer, 77, of Maryland as whip, the No. 2 position, as well as Representative James E. Clyburn, 76, of South Carolina in the No. 3 spot as the assistant Democratic leader. Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn have been part of the Democratic leadership team since 2003 and 2007. Both ran unopposed. Representative Joseph Crowley of New York was also elected chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and in a narrow victory, 98 to 96, Representative Linda T. Sánchez of California defeated another California Democrat, Representative Barbara Lee, to become vice chairwoman. After a dismal Election Day for Democrats, the fight for Ms. Pelosi’s post had become a proxy battle for the future of the party, with House Democrats agonizing over how to reconnect with the voters who abandoned them. “We got wiped out in the Midwest, and we’re toxic in rural America,” aides said Mr. Ryan told his colleagues behind closed doors before the vote. “Ultimately, we’re responsible. ” But in an interview Tuesday, Mr. Ryan suggested few ideas for how to appeal to voters beyond essentially crowdsourcing the task to more House Democrats, and he offered no indication that working with the Republican majority on any particular policy compromises would be a priority. The Democratic leaders seemed short on concrete strategies, too, committing generally to refocus their message on economic issues. Many also vowed to stand in opposition to the Trump administration, gambling that Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans would disappoint voters and prompt a return to the Democratic Party they rejected. Some of the more specific strategies considered included starting a more aggressive recruitment campaign for Democratic candidates from more conservative areas, as well as increasing their outreach to traditionally “red” districts. “Just because you’re only getting 30 percent of the vote in some area doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there,” said Representative Cedric L. Richmond of Louisiana. “You should go there and engage people and tell them what you believe in. ” Disappointed by the outcome of the leadership election, a handful of Democrats who had backed Mr. Ryan vowed to press forward with a proposal to turn some jobs, such as the chairman of the party’s campaign arm, into elected positions. That plan is expected to meet resistance from Ms. Pelosi, who retains the power to appoint people to those positions, though some Democrats have expressed an interest in the idea. Last week Ms. Pelosi selected Representative Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico to again lead the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, even though House Democrats picked up just six seats in this election. Though he collected only a dozen or so public endorsements, Mr. Ryan mounted an unlikely challenge to Ms. Pelosi, long considered a legislative and powerhouse. Driven by the conviction that Democrats need a new leader, he tried to harness discontent with a leadership team that has failed three times to reclaim the majority since being swept out in 2010. Trying to quell calls to replace her, Ms. Pelosi announced her nominations last week for a handful of other positions, and proposed that three members from Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York share the leadership duties of the party’s messaging committee, offering more regional diversity. She also released plans to incorporate more junior members into leadership roles, among other ideas, such as including a freshman Democrat in the leadership team’s regular meetings. But each new idea has underscored the fact that Ms. Pelosi refuses to relinquish much power and has cultivated a large, loyal following that does not expect her to. It is from that sizable collection of House Democrats that she draws her picks for smaller leadership posts, making her a powerful ally and, for those like Mr. Ryan who have challenged her, a formidable opponent. “She has a lot of friends,” Mr. Ryan said. “This is her caucus, clearly. ” | 1 |
After yesterday correcting predicting that the GDP number would beat estimates and telling KWN readers to buy the initial dip in gold because it would mark a low for the correction, here is what a former associate of George Soros told King World News today .
Victor Sperandeo manages over $3 billion, has been in the business 45 years, and has worked with famous individuals such as Leon Cooperman and George Soros. Below is what Sperandeo had to say .
Victor Sperandeo: “The GDP number came in at 2.9 percent, and after an initial dip, gold is acting terrific. If you look at gold and silver, they should be trading down and yet they are trading higher. This is very strong action in the gold market technically and this setup is very bullish. Gold is now set up to trade above $1,400 and then above $2,000.
And if you look at interest rates, they are rising all over the world and the stock market has topped. And in Europe, people are switching from the Swedish krona to the Norwegian krone. This action in the currency markets is a further indication that the EU is in trouble. Norway is not part of the EU, even though they have trade pacts with them. The reality, Eric, is that people are fleeing the EU into countries not affiliated with the EU. This is another point where gold wins because if the EU collapses, then the world goes into a depression.”
***ALSO RELEASED: In The Coming Financial Wipeout, This Will Figure In A Prominently, And Not In A Good Way | 0 |
A Australian man has been charged with committing more than 900 offenses after he was accused of pretending to be the pop star Justin Bieber to solicit explicit online photographs from children, the Queensland Police Service said on Thursday. The police said that the victims included dozens of Mr. Bieber’s fans in Australia, Britain and the United States. The Canadian pop singer, whose rise to stardom was driven in large part by support from adoring young fans, is on tour in Australia. The suspect, who has not been identified by name, was already facing charges in Queensland State of possessing material exploiting children, and of using the internet and social media to entrap children under age 16, the police said. He now faces a further 931 criminal charges for offenses including rape, the indecent treatment of children and “making material” that the police said stretched back at least a decade. The police raided the home of the suspect after he initially refused to allow access to his social media accounts. Investigators examined his computer, the police said, and found that he was using applications including Facebook and Skype to communicate with his victims and lure them into sending him explicit images. Detective Inspector Jon Rouse, who works on a Queensland Police Service task force devoted to combating the sexual exploitation of children online, described the offenses as “frankly horrendous. ” He said it was imperative that the parents of Bieber fans be vigilant. “This investigation demonstrates both the vulnerability of children that are utilizing social media and communication applications, and the global reach and skill that offenders have to groom and seduce victims,” Inspector Rouse said in a statement. “The fact that so many children could believe that they were communicating with this particular celebrity highlights the need for a serious rethink about the way that we as a society educate our children about online safety. ” The case comes amid intensifying concern across the globe that children are being sexually exploited online. In Denmark, a man recently went on trial accused of ordering the rape or sexual abuse of 346 Filipino children. At least one of the victims was as young as 3. Prosecutors said the man, a retiree living on the outskirts of Copenhagen, had paid for live, online sex shows from the Philippines. According to the international police organization Interpol, a majority of crimes against children usually take place within the home or the family circle. But Interpol has attributed a surge in offenses to the internet, because it gives predators easy access to abusive material as well as a means to contact children via chat rooms or social networking sites. A recent study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted that social networking sites included an abundance of biographical information on potential victims that could be exploited by abusers, while children often lacked discretion and relied on a sometimes false sense of privacy and safety. “Offenders are able to gain easier access to larger and new populations of children through the use of online forums, email, social networks and other communication tools,” the study said. The report also found that child abusers can have relatively high education levels, making them more adept at using technology. | 1 |
Texas Governor Greg Abbott moved quickly against the Travis County Sheriff who announced late last week that she would be changing her department’s policy on cooperating with federal immigration officials. [“As Sheriff your primary duty is to ensure the safety of the residents of Travis County,” Abbott wrote in a letter to Sheriff Sally Hernandez. “However, your recent policy directive forbidding Travis County Sherriff’s Office (TCSO) employees from cooperating with U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (except in the most limited of circumstances) betrays your oath and the residents of Travis County. I strongly urge you to reverse that policy before its effective date of February 1, 2017. ” Abbott called the decision by Texas’ capital county sheriff “dangerous” and “shortsighted. ” In referring to her announcement, the Texas governor said it was “not a pronouncement of sound public policy it is a dangerous game of political Russian roulette — with the lives of Texans at stake. ” Moreover, the governor’s letter stated: “Your shortsighted policy ignores those astounding figures and would permit TCSO employees to comply with an ICE detainer request in only the most limited of circumstances. Under your reckless policy, for example, dangerous criminal aliens convicted of felonies like murder aggravated assault human trafficking, including child sex trafficking aggravated kidnapping inducing sexual performance by a child or indecency with a child dangerous gang activities and the manufacture or delivery of deadly substances such as heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, GHB, PCP, and ketamine will be turned loose into Travis County without permitting ICE the opportunity to collect them. ” The Texas Legislature is already in the process of dealing with sanctuary cities and counties. Texas State Senator Charles Perry a bill requiring local law enforcement agencies in the state to uphold current immigration law. The filing of SB 4 by Senator Charles Perry ( ) on Tuesday follows the announcement by Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that ending sanctuary cities in Texas would be a priority for the 85th Legislative Session which begins in January 2017. “By electing a Republican president and Republican majorities in Congress, the American people made it clear that solving our illegal immigration crisis must be a priority,” Senator Charles Perry said in a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas. “That starts by eliminating sanctuary cities, securing our border, and enforcing the immigration laws we currently have on the books. We cannot sit idly by and allow local policies to undercut efforts made at the federal and state level. ” Lt. Governor Patrick said, “No city in Texas should be allowed to ignore the law. We will end this practice once and for all this session. ” Governor Abbott addressed the legislative session stating: “During the pending legislative session, I will be working with the Texas legislature to do more to protect our citizens from misguided and dangerous sanctuary policies like yours. Your reckless actions endangering the safety of Texans will provide powerful testimony for the need to strengthen Texas law. It will make clear that conditioning state funding on compliance with federal immigration laws is not enough. Rather, Texas must enact tough penalties that punish those who would put themselves above the law — and even above the community they purportedly serve. ” This is not the first Texas county sheriff to be confronted by Abbott over sanctuary policies. Stating that such policies will “no longer be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott told Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez to change her position or face losing state law enforcement grants. Valdez announced in October 2015 that she would be considering immigration detainer requests only on a basis. “Your refusal to fully participate in a federal law enforcement program intended to keep dangerous criminals off the streets leaves the State no choice but to take whatever actions are necessary to protect our fellow Texans,” Abbott said at the time. “Now more than ever, it is essential that state, federal, and local law enforcement work collaboratively to protect our fellow Texans and to ensure that our laws are upheld, not disregarded. ” The move by the two Texas sheriffs could also put their counties in danger of losing federal law enforcement grants, Breitbart Texas previously reported. “99 percent is not good enough,” Congressman John Culberson told Breitbart Texas. “These jurisdictions must cooperate 100 percent in order to qualify for these DOJ grants. They must choose between protecting illegal aliens and receiving federal funds. ” Breitbart Texas reached out to Sheriff Hernandez for a response to the governor’s letter and threat of stopping state funds to her office. No response was available by publish time. 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. Governor Greg Abbott’s Letter to Sheriff Sally Hernandez Over Sanctuary Policies by Bob Price on Scribd, | 1 |
A group of “ ” are planning to forcefully “shut down” Breitbart News Senior Editor MILO’s event at UC Berkeley on Wednesday, branding him a “tool of Trump’s fascist government,” while criticizing free speech, which they put in quotation marks, for allowing MILO to express his political beliefs uncensored. [“Milo is a tool of Trump’s fascist government: He has no right to speak at Cal or anywhere else! Shut Him Down,” declared the protest announcement email, which was forwarded to Breitbart Tech. “Milo Yiannopoulos, mouthpiece of is coming to Cal this Wednesday as part of his ‘Dangerous Faggot’ campus tour. Milo rose to fame voicing disdain for human rights, vicious nationalism, xenophobia, misogyny, and unapologetic support for Donald Trump, which he claims he is allowed to spew in public because of ‘free speech’,” they continued. “He claims to be ‘dangerous’ to a ‘stifling liberal culture’ of ‘political correctness.’ He tries to leverage his identity (that he is gay and has a Black boyfriend) as some kind of excuse. In fact he is a fascist, and students at campuses along his tour have righteously fought, and sometimes succeeded, in shutting down his speaking gigs. ” “At UC Berkeley professors, and students and professors at campuses across the country, have raised that what Milo is doing is hate speech, which causes direct harm to students and campus life, and that is not ‘free speech’ and should not be allowed,” claimed the student . “The UC Berkeley administration has not fully responded to this, and is letting Milo’s speech go forward. This is wrong. But there are even larger issues at stake:” 1. People who protest Milo are not opposing free speech, they are opposing a fascist America, which is the actual, real, and gravely serious threat to basic rights of speech, assembly, and intellectual life. Milo Yiannopoulos is an editor for Breitbart. He is a tool of a government that accuses the press of being “fake news” when they deviate from or criticize the Trump lies that has already begun criminalizing protest, demonizing dissent, and attacking science. Trump has advocated severe penalties for flag burning, which is protected speech. What Milo is working for is not free speech, but to normalize, legitimize, and help consolidate the regime — which is already marching down the path of crushing all dissent and all ideas that oppose it. 2. Students who oppose Milo are strengthening the role of universities as places where dissent, critical thinking and the search for truth can flourish. Milo’s bad boy attack on ‘political correctness’ is a ruse. In fact, Milo the government he serves don’t like the ‘political correctness’ that has some currency in universities today because they want to replace it with their own, fascist, ‘political correctness.’ This is a government that opposes science, and openly discards facts and then defends its lies as ‘alternative facts.’ In under a week, they’ve moved to wipe out all mention of climate science climate data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website! Legitimizing Milo’s tour is part of changing universities and intellectual life and science to serve fascist order. Students who fight to shut down Milo strengthen the struggle against this order and strengthen dissent, critical thinking and genuine intellectual inquiry. Think of what is going on in the world — just this past week, this government has banned refugees, attacked Muslim immigrants, greenlighted the destructive Dakota Access Pipeline, slammed shut access to abortion for women all over the world, and threatened both the press and the UN to fall into line or face consequences. “Think of what would go on inside that room February 1 at UC Berkeley, if it is allowed to go down,” the leftists pleaded. “UCB, birthplace of the Free Speech Movement, tolerates a fascist rally, held in the name of ‘free speech.’ Inside that room, racists and will be screaming ‘Build that wall! ,’ laughing at rape statistics and sharing ICE phone numbers to aid the government with deportations. ” “Milo is seeking to use the campuses to serve a larger fascist transformation of America and its entire culture,” they concluded. “Students are right to SHUT IT DOWN because yes, it’s dangerous. Fascism is dangerous to humanity. And you, if you oppose this with everything you’ve got, will have the honor of being dangerous to fascism. ” The group, who operate under the name “Refuse Fascism,” plan to meet at the MLK Student Union on campus at 5pm, February 1. On their official Twitter account, messages declaring that fascists “will not be tolerated,” and violent retweeted pictures of President Trump bleeding can be seen. UC Berkeley previously doxed the private information of several student organizers for the event, even posting one student’s workplace address while falsely accusing him of being a “white nationalist. ” Despite the “ ” attempt at directing harassment towards the College Republicans and MILO event organizers, it was revealed that several of the affected students were not even associated with the group or event — despite having their personal information posted online by the group while being branded “white nationalists. ” The did not issue an apology. Following a demand by dozens of UC Berkeley professors to have MILO banned from the campus based on his political views, a group of Berkeley Free Speech Movement veterans defended the Breitbart senior editor, criticizing those professors and students who sought to use fascist tactics in an attempt to block his speech. “Under the terms of [the free speech] resolution, even the worst kind of bigot, including Yiannopoulos, must be allowed to speak on campus. So the UC administration was acting in accord with those principles when it refused to ban Yiannopoulos,” the group of veterans declared. “We were thus disappointed that so many Berkeley faculty signed an open letter supporting such a ban and criticizing the UC administration for refusing to ban Yiannopoulos. ” MILO and the David Horowitz Freedom Center have partnered to launch a campaign against “sanctuary campuses” that shelter illegal immigrants from being deported. The campaign will be launched with a speech from MILO at UC Berkeley. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
We Are Change
Donald Trump on Saturday was quickly ushered off the stage by Secret Service agents in the middle of a campaign speech in Nevada after an incident in the crowd near the front of the stage.
Secret Service rushes Trump off stage at Reno rally https://t.co/n82d9jXopX
— Chrissy (@omgitsmechrissy) November 6, 2016
Video shows that Trump was in the middle of his speech when the incident occurred. He was looking into the crowd, his hand over his eyes to block the glare from the stage lights, when Secret Service agents grabbed him and escorted him off the stage. Trump ducked his head as he left the stage. The crowd panicked with frightened looks on their faces, as the Secret Service and police tactical units rushed in to quickly arrest the man. Early unconfirmed reports suggest a man was armed in the crowd according to some witnesses. The man was then detained by police officers, Secret Service agents and SWAT armed with assault rifles and taken to a side room for questioning. Trump returned to the stage minutes later and proceeded to continue his speech before thanking the Secret Service and police. “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped. We will never be stopped. I want to thank the Secret Service. These guys are fantastic.”
~Donald Trump, said.
(THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY AND WILL BE UPDATED AS NEW DETAILS BECOME AVAILABLE.) The post #BREAKING: TRUMP USHERED OFF STAGE IN NV SUSPECT DETAINED appeared first on We Are Change .
| 0 |
Election fraud exposed on Alex Jones Show Oct. 31 2016, by Bev Harris with her "Fraction Magic" presentation on election computer fraud. http://www.infowars.com/watch-alex-jones-show/ | 0 |
agreed. | 0 |
The world is about to change drastically . Will you be ready for it?
The Future Doesn’t Need Us… Or So We’ve Been Told.
With the rise of technology and the real-time pressures of an online, global economy, humans will have to be very clever – and very careful – not to be left behind by the future.
From the perspective of those in charge, human labor is losing its value, and people are becoming a liability.
This documentary reveals the real motivation behind the secretive effort to reduce the population and bring resource use into strict, centralized control.
Could it be that the biggest threat we face isn’t just automation and robots destroying jobs, but the larger sense that humans could become obsolete altogether? | 0 |
Just how is Hillary Kerr, the founder of a digital media company in Los Angeles? She can tell you what song was playing five years ago on the jukebox at the bar where she somewhat randomly met the man who became her husband. It was “These Days,” the version sung by Nico, the German made famous by Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Actually, the song had been playing just before she met Jonathan Leahy, now 38, on that December night in 2011 at the 4100 Bar in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. Ms. Kerr can’t remember exactly what was playing when they met because at that moment she was jumping up and down “like Tigger,” as she put it. In answering the usual questions, Mr. Leahy told her he was a music supervisor for “Girls,” the HBO show created by and starring Lena Dunham. That was enough to get Ms. Kerr bouncing. “Your music has changed my life!” she told Mr. Leahy. Mr. Leahy, who is quiet but not shy (at least he doesn’t jump up and down upon meeting people) was mesmerized. “My main reaction,” he said, “was it’s a lot easier to talk to beautiful women in a bar when you’re working on a hit show. ” They exchanged email addresses, more an act of politeness than promise. Then their soundtrack went quiet for almost a year. Both Mr. Leahy and Ms. Kerr had active social lives, but they were focused on their careers. Mr. Leahy, who grew up in Laconia, N. H. graduated from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. in 2000 and landed in Los Angeles later that year. Now he is a music supervisor with Aperture Music and is joined by Manish Raval and Tom Wolfe in being responsible for the music on “Girls. ” The team has also worked on films including “Trainwreck” and television series such as “New Girl. ” In addition, Mr. Leahy is the music supervisor for “Survivor’s Remorse” on Starz. Ms. Kerr grew up in the La Jolla section of San Diego, graduated from the University of Southern California in 2000 and eventually made her way to New York, where she took a job as an assistant at Elle magazine. In 2005 she moved back to the West Coast, to Los Angeles, and with a fellow Elle alum, Katherine Power, created a company best known for its website, Who What Wear, which casts an eye on celebrity culture and fashion it now has 13 million monthly unique visitors. Ms. Kerr and Ms. Power also started the Who What Wear clothing and accessories line sold at Target. It was nine months after their initial meeting that Mr. Leahy emailed Ms. Kerr. He had a friend who wanted to get into the fashion industry. Ms. Kerr, Mr. Leahy and his friend met for a long, boozy brunch. They began to email and text a bit. “There was banter,” Ms. Kerr said, but neither knew the interest or intention of the other. A few months later, she texted to ask if he could help her score a ticket to see the band Lord Huron. Mr. Leahy happens to be a friend of Ben Schneider, the band’s lead singer, and had an extra ticket. “This was one of those moments where the universe conspires to make you seem cooler than you actually are,” Mr. Leahy said. He and Ms. Kerr met up at the show. That is when Mr. Leahy and Ms. Kerr moved into the ambiguous “mixtape era,” in which for months they emailed and texted each other with coy “are we just friends or what” texts revolving around music. For example, Ms. Kerr was visiting New York and texted Mr. Leahy a request for “walking around SoHo music. ” He sent her a link to “Love Me Again,” by John Newman. It has a club vibe but romantic lyrics. “I wanted to read into it,” Ms. Kerr said, but she figured (correctly, it turns out) that her new friend was a bit of a clueless guy who didn’t spend much time thinking about how a woman might react to such a song being shared with her. Another time he emailed her a link to a Fleetwood Mac version of “Need Your Love So Bad. ” After listening to it, Ms. Kerr said, “I called my friend Katie. ” “At that time,” she continued, “I just referred to him as ‘the supervisor.’ She knew I had a crush on him. She said, ‘How can it not mean something? ’” Mr. Leahy acknowledged that it might be difficult for a person to think he was not sending Ms. Kerr a message with this song. “I sort of thought, ‘Maybe it’s too much. ’” But he shared it with her anyway. (This is the same man who sent her the song “BedBedBedBedBed, Vacationer Remix,” by Deleted Scenes, “during the friend phase,” Ms. Kerr said.) Ms. Kerr played the game, too. She made Mr. Leahy a mix CD (handwritten liner notes and all) that she titled “Feynman Diagrams for All,” after Mr. Leahy told her in a text conversation that he thought the idea of Feynman diagrams — in which physicists map out the interactions of subatomic particles — was romantic. On the mix, Ms. Kerr included the Mazzy Star song “I’ve Been Let Down. ” It was “a bit of an Easter egg of my actual feelings,” she said. Around this time, Ms. Kerr texted Mr. Leahy a photo of the drink menu from a bar, the Roger Room. She had focused on a drink named for the song “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis,” which happens to be Mr. Leahy’s favorite Tom Waits tune. “This made me rethink things a bit,” he said, adding, “Hillary Kerr was clearly not to be trifled with. ” In early 2014, Mr. Leahy invited her to a Bleachers concert. The band’s lead singer is Jack Antonoff, who is Ms. Dunham’s boyfriend. Ms. Dunham was at the concert as well, and on meeting Ms. Kerr, she said, “I’ve heard so much about you. ” Ms. Kerr and Mr. Leahy shared their first kiss that night. He proposed to her on Polihale Beach in Kauai, Hawaii, on Jan. 1, 2016. On Dec. 10, 125 friends and relatives gathered in Palm Springs, Calif. at the Colony Palms Hotel, which was opened in 1936 by the reputed mobster Al Wertheimer and whose poolside guests have included Frank Sinatra, Ronald Reagan, Kirk Douglas and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Ms. Kerr walked down a grassy aisle in a courtyard wearing a structured lace Reem Acra dress, strapless with a bustier and a full skirt. Four musicians played “Once, With Feeling,” an instrumental song Mr. Leahy wrote for Ms. Kerr. . Just minutes into the cocktail reception, a few of Ms. Kerr’s best friends descended upon her. Jen Atkin, the celebrity hairstylist and social media star, started fussing with the flower she had sewn into the bride’s hair. Joey Maalouf, the celebrity makeup artist who is a creator of the service the Glam App, whipped out a tube of lip gloss and reapplied it to the bride’s pucker. He had done her makeup. “The look we went for is sickeningly stunning and perfect,” he said. Guests mingled over drinks by the pool, which was framed by banquette tables lit from above by strings of bulbs. The sky turned pink before the stars appeared, and guests snapped photos and shared them with the hundreds of thousands who follow these members of the illuminati (#imwithkerr and #letsgetleahyed). “This looks like it’s art directed,” Eva Chen, the head of fashion partnerships for Instagram, said as she took it all in. She had worked as an assistant at Elle with Ms. Kerr. Friends of both the bride and the groom celebrated what they saw as a great match, based on passion not only for each other but also for music. Leigh Belz Ray, the features and news director at InStyle, was another former Elle colleague who made the trip. “Hillary loves music, and it’s not just a casual thing,” Ms. Ray said. “We used to say the ultimate fantasy was to become a music director, and now she’s married to one. ” After a romantic first dance to Solomon Burke’s “If You Need Me,” Mr. and Mrs. Leahy (she will use her maiden name professionally) settled into several hours of serious dancing to songs spun by a D. J. And before they left for their Hawaiian honeymoon, Mr. Leahy completed his first important act as husband. He pulled together many of the songs that could be considered the soundtrack to their romance and made his wife a mixtape. When Dec. 10, 2016 Where Colony Palms Hotel, Palm Springs, Calif. Flora The bride and groom were married under a white birch trellis, because white birch is the state tree of New Hampshire, where Mr. Leahy grew up and where his parents, Richard and Marie Leahy, reside. The structure was wrapped in white peonies, Sahara roses and camellia greens. Readings Mr. Leahy’s family is Roman Catholic Ms. Kerr’s parents, John and Carole Kerr, are more spiritual than religiously observant. Many of the guests had an artistic bent. The bride and groom planned accordingly. Marshall Goldsmith, an executive coach, author and lifelong family friend of Ms. Kerr, officiated. Friends and relatives stood to read poems from James Kavanaugh and Mary Oliver, as well as a passage from the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling legalizing marriage. “A little Catholic priest, a little lesbian Pulitzer Prize winner, a little equal rights for all,” Ms. Kerr explained after the ceremony. | 1 |
Pin
( ANTIMEDIA ) Before the presidential election, some Americans expressed hope that Donald Trump, if elected, would scale back U.S. militarism and the federal government’s habit of instigating and supporting regime change abroad. This hope came despite Trump’s promise to expand the scope of the American military.
On the campaign trail, Trump criticized the Iraq war and nation-building. Since his election, he has garnered positive feedback from Russia, signaling cooling of tensions between the two large powers and highlighting a stark difference between Trump and his competitor, Hillary Clinton. But the president-elect’s impending choices for his cabinet and advisers should raise alarm for anyone interested in diminishing the U.S. military’s presence around the world.
Here are five figures who shatter the perception that Donald Trump will be a “peace” president:
1. Vice President-elect Mike Pence – Much of the nation is reeling over Pence’s regressive views on homosexuality and abortion, but one of his most damning stances is his support for traditional neoconservative foreign policy. When he was a House representative, Pence voted in favor of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq — the same one Trump has criticized. Pence has indicated the same type of hawkishness in his stance on Syria, which also contradicts Trump’s.
“ If Russia…continues to be involved in this barbaric attack on civilians in Aleppo, the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike military targets of the Assad regime ,” Pence said during one of the vice presidential debates this election cycle. Interestingly, his rhetoric sounds much like that of Hillary Clinton , who drew the support of many pro-war Republicans this year.
With Joe Biden as his predecessor, it’s easy to assume Pence will have little tangible power, especially under a colossal personality like Trump. That being said, he recently said he views Dick Cheney as his role model. Cheney, one of the key architects and profiteers of the Iraq war, was largely believed to pull the strings of the Bush presidency. As President Obama previously joked :
“ A few weeks ago Dick Cheney said he thinks I’m the worst president of his lifetime, which is interesting, because I think Dick Cheney is the worst president of my lifetime .”
2. Rudy Giuliani — Rudy Giuliani is on Trump’s presidential transition team, and earlier this week he was he rumored to be up for the role of secretary of state. The New York Times reported Tuesday that Giuliani, who enthusiastically backed Trump’s campaign, is vying for the role of top diplomat and that Trump is inclined to reward his loyalty. Sign up for the free Anti-Media newsletter the establishment doesn't want you to receive
Giuliani, who was mayor of New York City during the 9/11 attacks in 2001, has long espoused hawkish policy in favor of security, often referencing the historic attacks as justification for his views.
His lack of regard for rule of law is apparent in his recent statement that “anything’s legal” in war. He is apparently unaware of the Geneva Conventions . Giuliani was also a staunch proponent of the Iraq War and, unfortunately, fails to see the consequences of perpetual overseas intervention.
Ron Paul attempted to explain these consequences during a 2008 presidential debate when both he and Giuliani were running for president.
“ We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us ,” Paul urged, attempting to explain that the United States’ ongoing bombing of the Middle East sows resentment and inspires terror attacks.
Giuliani ultimately insisted on adding to the conversation and was quick to invoke fear mongering and emotion surrounding 9/11:
“ That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that .”
Paul did not retract that comment and rather, went on to explain the CIA’s concept of blowback and the United States’ meddling in Iran in 1953.
Eight years later at the Republican national convention, Giuliani appeared to have ignored Paul’s warning, choosing instead to focus on the dangers of Islamic extremism without addressing the root causes but inserting plenty of 9/11 references. He promised terrorists that America is “coming for you.”
Considering Hillary Clinton was able to leverage a war in Libya , weapons sales to regimes that donated to her foundation, and the failed policy of arming radical Syrian rebels in their fight against Assad, a Giuliani State Department could have violent ramifications.
3. John Bolton – Trump’s other potential secretary of state also adheres to establishment Republican party foreign policy. Bolton served as George W. Bush’s undersecretary, and in 2002, made wildly inaccurate claims about the impending Iraq war. As noted by the Atlantic :
“ Bolton was both a booster, and a minor architect, of the war in Iraq. As George W. Bush’s undersecretary of state in late 2002, he told the BBC that ‘We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq.’ He added that ‘the Iraqi people would be unique in history if they didn’t welcome the overthrow of this dictatorial regime,’ and that although building a democracy would prove a ‘difficult task,’ the people of Iraq ‘are fully competent to do it.’ So competent, in fact, that ‘the American role [in post-war Iraq] actually will be fairly minimal.’ ”
As Senator Rand Paul detailed in an op-ed explaining why he will oppose a Bolton appointment should it come to pass:
“ Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years — particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president.
“ John Bolton more often stood with Hillary Clinton and against what Donald Trump has advised .”
Bolton recently advocated war with Iran and is a member of the Council on Foreign relations, a foreign policy think tank. Dick Cheney is a member of the council and Hillary Clinton has lauded it for its leadership, which is guided by a litany of corporations , including Lockheed Martin, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase & Co., and Exxon Mobil Corporation.
As Paul also noted, Bolton shares many policy aims with Clinton:
“ In 2011, Bolton bashed Obama ‘for his refusal to directly target Gaddafi’ and declared, ‘there is a strategic interest in toppling Gaddafi… But Obama missed it.’ In fact, Obama actually took Bolton’s advice and bombed the Libyan dictator into the next world. Secretary of State Clinton bragged , ‘We came, we saw, he died .’”
A Bolton State Department is, like a hypothetical Giuliani one, a recipe for continued aggression and reckless foreign policy.
4. James Woolsey – Few things scream “establishment” louder than appointing a former CIA director and key member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) to serve as a senior national security adviser.
PNAC was a pro-war think tank made up of prominent neoconservatives. It has since been disbanded, but archived versions of their website reveal the organization’s foundationally militaristic objectives). Woolsey has carried their torch.
According to the Intercept , Woolsey was a key supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq long before it transpired:
“ Woolsey signed a letter in 1998 calling on Clinton to depose Saddam Hussein and only hours after the 9/11 attacks appeared on CNN and blamed the attacks on Iraq. Woolsey has continued to insist on such a connection despite the complete lack of evidence to support his argument. He also blames Iran. ”
The Intercept added:
“ He chairs the leadership council at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a hawkish national security nonprofit, and is a venture partner with Lux Capital Management, which invests in emerging technologies like drones , satellite imaging, and artificial intelligence. ”
Interestingly, Woolsey also served as Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, the firm where whistleblower Edward Snowden worked before exposing the NSA’s secret surveillance programs.
Woolsey has said Snowden should be “ hanged by the neck until he’s dead, rather than merely electrocuted. ”
So there’s that.
5. General Mike Flynn – Some have expressed optimism that Donald Trump included General Mike Flynn on his transition team and as a potential member of his administration. Flynn deviates from other militaristic members of Trump’s new team in that he’s willing to acknowledge the Iraq war was a mistake and has criticized Obama’s drone wars. Flynn played an active role in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
As he said last year:
“ When 9/11 occurred, all the emotions took over, and our response was, ‘Where did those bastards come from? Let’s go kill them. Let’s go get them.’ Instead of asking why they attacked us, we asked where they came from. Then we strategically marched in the wrong direction. ”
Even so, Flynn has criticized the Iran deal, and as the Intercept noted:
“ What Flynn appears to view as speaking honestly has a tendency to veer into dangerous and Islamophobic terrain. Earlier this year, he called for the destruction of Raqqa, the Syrian city captured by the Islamic State where tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped .”
Flynn has condemned elements of war, but his military mindset prevails. As the Intercept also observed:
“ Militarily, the campaign Flynn envisions would be ‘similar to the effort during World War II or the Cold War’ and would be guided by a single leader answering to the president. ”
Flynn may have issues gaining a key role in a Trump administration because of his previous role as Director of Intelligence for the Pentagon (he was ousted in 2014), as well as his consulting firm’s ties to a close ally of Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who has imposed authoritarian policies in Turkey.
According to the Wall Street Journal , Trump also recently added Frank Gaffney — a longtime hawk with a penchant for condemning Islam — to his transition team. The Trump campaign asserts he is not officially a member and is simply offering advice.
Though some may point to Trump’s potential partnership with Vladimir Putin as hope that some international conflicts may be resolved, Trump has willfully chosen to surround himself with establishment figures who contradict the foreign policy points he seemed to espouse — namely, the failures of regime change and the Iraq War. In fact, these individuals actually lean toward Hillary Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy agenda.
Unfortunately, Trump’s campaign promises to “bomb the hell” out of ISIS belie a chronically establishment foreign policy outlook — one sure to produce more terrorists in the indefinite, nebulous war against an ideology continually catalyzed by aggressive American militarism.
This article ( 5 Trump Advisors Who Prove He’s More Like Hillary Clinton Than You Thought ) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Carey Wedler and theAntiMedia.org . Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to . | 0 |
Consumer sentiment unexpectedly dropped in June to the lowest level since the presidential election in November, according to the University of Michigan’s monthly survey. [The widely watched consumer sentiment metric fell to 94. 5 in June from 97. 1 in May. Economists had expected a slight increase. Prior to the testimony of former Federal Bureau of Investigation chief James Comey, sentiment had been headed in the expected direction. It was averaging a score of 97. 7, the University of Michigan researchers said. Then Comey testified and consumer sentiment plunged. Since June 8, the index registered a score of 86. 7, a huge 11 point decline. The decline was observed across the political spectrum but was more pronounced among Republicans and independents. “While this break corresponds with James Comey’s testimony, only a few consumers spontaneously referred to him or his testimony when asked to explain their views. Importantly, the decline was observed across all political parties, but the loss in confidence among Republicans since June 8th was larger than among Democrats (9. 2 vs. 6. 8 ) with Independents showing the greatest falloff (11. 5 ),” the University of Michigan researchers said. In short, following the Comey testimony, consumers are far less optimistic about the economy. | 1 |
CLEVELAND — The tensest exchange yet between the police and protesters at the Republican National Convention unfolded Wednesday afternoon with officers arresting several people after some of them tried to burn a United States flag near the site of the convention. Just before 4 p. m. demonstrators spread word that someone would be burning a flag near the entrance to the Quicken Loans Arena, where the convention is being held. Soon after, a group of people, some claiming to be members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. came to the area with a flag and someone began to light it on fire, several witnesses said. As the flag’s edge began to singe, the police called out for assistance and officers swarmed through the area on foot, on bicycle and on horses. One officer clutched the flag while others began handcuffing demonstrators. Nearby, officers on bicycles and horses pushed the crowd back and tried to calm the scene. Matt Harkins, 22, a reporter for WVBR, a radio station at Cornell University, who witnessed the first moments of the encounter, said the flag was “singeing. ” He added that soon after a mist filled the air. “I almost passed out,” Mr. Harkins, of Erie, Pa. said. “It was putrid. It smelled sour. ” Later, officers shouted “move, move, move” while using their bicycles to push back people in the crowd and form a barrier around those getting arrested. Minutes after the arrests, the Cleveland Police Department said in a Twitter message, “Firefighters extinguished and took the flag that protesters attempted to destroy. ” The department said two officers were assaulted and suffered minor injuries. Those who were arrested were wearing black with red and orange lettering that read, “Revolution nothing less!” As they were led away in handcuffs. s Calvin D. Williams, the chief of the Cleveland Police Department, said on Wednesday evening that about 18 people were arrested and that two had been charged with felonies and 15 with misdemeanors. The charges included failure to disperse, inciting violence and assault. The two police officers had “minor bumps and bruises,” the chief said. Burning a flag is permitted by law, Chief Williams said, and the officers intervened with fire extinguishers because the person who set fire to the flag “lit himself on fire” and then, while trying to fend off the police, “got a couple of other people lit on fire. ” Chief Williams said that he did not know of anyone who had been treated for burns. The arrests followed a mostly peaceful day of protests, with police standing nearby but not interfering much with the demonstrations. In the morning, Code Pink, an antiwar group led by women, staged a “beauty pageant” to voice their opposition to Mr. Trump’s candidacy and accuse him of unfairly stereotyping various groups. Later, a coalition of groups built a “wall” made of posters around the entrance of the Quicken Loans Arena to criticize Mr. Trump’s plan to build a wall across the border with Mexico. Activists, who locked arms and formed a long line, shouted “wall off Trump,” “undocumented, unafraid” and “there ain’t no debate, Trump equals hate. ” | 1 |
Domino’s presenta la nueva pizza de ayer recalentada LA PREPARAN EL DÍA ANTERIOR, LA RECALIENTAN Y LA SIRVEN A DOMICILIO Este sitio web utiliza cookies para analizar cómo es utilizado el sitio. Las cookies no te pueden identificar. Si continuas navegando supone la aceptación de la Política de Cookies. Estoy de acuerdo. Más info. | 0 |
Why Can't Hillary Clinton Stop Telling Stupid Lies? November 2,
The biggest mystery about Hillary Clinton isn't any of her scandals. Those are obvious. It's her lies. Not the usual kind of lies. The lies about corruption and greed. The pretense that she agrees with whomever she's talking to at any given time. It's the stupid lies. The ridiculous lies. The lies only a crazy person would tell.
This is a stupid lie that took all of 6 seconds to be exposed. Hillary's own book mentions that she wasn't in New York City. She was enough of a public figure that the lie would never hold up.
So why tell it?
This isn't the first time Hillary Clinton got caught senselessly telling stupid lies. There was the famous airport under fire incident. There was her name and Chelsea jogging on 9/11 and negotiating peace in Northern Ireland. Politicians often lie, but Hillary Clinton is unique in telling senseless lies that seem to have no rational purpose except to get caught. | 0 |
Written by Daniel McAdams Friday November 18, 2016 Are we seeing an opening to better US/Russia relations? One of president-elect Donald Trump's first moves after victory was a telephone conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin. But turning away from the past several years of deteriorating relations will not be an easy task even if the incoming president makes it a priority. The Trump/Putin call sent shockwaves through Capitol Hill, with certain Senators warning the incoming president against further moves toward rapprochement. What's next? RPI's Daniel McAdams joins Crosstalk to give his views: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given. | 0 |
Members of Congress have said that if Hillary Clinton is elected President next week they will start proceedings to have her impeached.
Via YourNewsWire
As Hillary Clinton’s campaign implodes amid the FBI actively pursuing five separate probes, including one into claims that the Clinton Foundation is connected to a Washington pedophile ring, there is still a possibility that Democrats will stubbornly vote her in on Tuesday.
Yesterday during an interview on Fox News, Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul explained the process. “If the investigation goes forward and it looks like an indictment is pending, at that point in time under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would engage in an impeachment trial.
It would go to the Senate and impeachment proceedings and removal would take place,” McCaul told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer. “I would hate to see this country thrown into a constitutional crisis because of Hillary Clinton’s behavior.”
This again brings up the prospect of whether President Obama will pardon Clinton before she takes her oath of office. Meanwhile, the Oversight Committee is already bracing for years of investigationsshould Clinton move into the Oval Office.
| 0 |
The videotaped sucker punch that staggered the white nationalist Richard Spencer on Inauguration Day quickly inspired mockery on social media. But it echoed loudly in an escalating confrontation between extreme ends of the political spectrum. With groups edging into the mainstream with the rise of President Trump, and anarchists are vowing to confront them at every turn, and by any means necessary — including violence. In Berkeley, Calif. on Wednesday night, masked protesters set fires, smashed windows and stormed buildings on the campus of the University of California to shut down a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, an inflammatory Breitbart News editor and a provocateur already barred from Twitter. Five people were injured, administrators canceled the event, and the university police locked down the campus for hours. That followed a bloody melee in Seattle on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, when demonstrators — their faces concealed to minimize the risk of arrest — tried to prevent a speech by Mr. Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington, and a was shot and seriously wounded by a supporter of Mr. Yiannopoulos. The outbreaks of destruction and violence since Mr. Trump’s inauguration have earned contempt from Republicans — including Trump supporters who say it is exactly why they voted for his promises of law and order — and condemnation from Democrats like Berkeley’s mayor, Jesse Arreguín. He called Wednesday’s display “contrary to progressive values” and said it “provided the ultranationalist far right exactly the images they want” to try to discredit peaceful protesters of Mr. Trump’s policies. But anarchists and who often make up a small but disproportionately portion of protesters, defend the mayhem they create as a necessary response to an emergency. “Yes, what the black bloc did last night was destructive to property,” Eric Laursen, a writer in Massachusetts who has helped publicize anarchist protests, said, using another name for the demonstrators. “But do you just let someone like Milo go wherever he wants and spread his hate? That kind of argument can devolve into ‘just sit on your hands and wait for it to pass.’ And it doesn’t. ” Anarchists also say their recent efforts have been wildly successful, both by focusing attention on their most urgent argument — that Mr. Trump poses a fascist threat — and by enticing others to join their movement. “The number of people who have been showing up to meetings, the number of meetings, and the number of plans for future actions is through the roof,” Legba Carrefour, who helped organize the Disrupt J20 protests on Inauguration Day in Washington, said in an interview. “Gained 1, 000 followers in the last week,” trumpeted @NYCAntifa, an Twitter account in New York, on Jan. 24. “Pretty crazy for us as we’ve been active for many years with minimal attention. SMASH FASCISM!” The movement even claims to be finding adherents far afield of major population centers. A participant in CrimethInc, a anarchist network, pointed to rising attendance at its meetings and activity cropping up in new places like Omaha. “The Left ignores us. The Right demonizes us,” the anarchist website It’s Going Down boasted on Twitter. “Everyday we grow stronger. ” Little known to practitioners of mainstream American politics, militant make up a secretive culture closely associated with anarchists. Both reject social hierarchies as undemocratic and eschew the political parties as hopelessly corrupt, according to interviews with a dozen anarchists around the country. While some anarchists espouse nonviolence, others view property damage and even physical attacks on the far right as important tactics. While extreme groups have been enthusiastic supporters of Mr. Trump, express deep disdain for the Democratic Party. And it is mutual, by and large: They amount to the left’s unwanted revolutionary stepchild, disowned for their tactics and ideology by all but the most radical politicians. Anarchists came to the fore in 1999, when they mounted a huge demonstration in Seattle against the World Trade Organization, which they denounce — along with Nafta and other pacts — as a plutocratic group that exploits the poor. Enthusiasm for the movement dipped after the election of President Barack Obama. But it revived as they played a role in some of the most consequential protests during his two terms, starting Occupy Wall Street and serving as foot soldiers in demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock in North Dakota and in Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson, Mo. and elsewhere. “We’ve had an enormous cultural and political impact,” said David Graeber, a professor at the London School of Economics who helped organize the Occupy protests and has been credited with coining its “we are the 99 percent” slogan. He said the movement had elevated income inequality to the top of the Democratic political agenda, despite not electing anyone or enacting any legislation. But he said Mr. Trump’s victory had proved that anarchists’ diagnosis of society’s ills was correct. “We tried to warn you, with Occupy,” Dr. Graeber said. “We understood that people were sick of the political system, which is fundamentally corrupt. People want something radically different. ” Mr. Trump’s tirades against trade deals, globalization and a Washington elite he views as corrupt mirror arguments that anarchists have been making for decades. But his claim that he alone can fix America’s problems flies in the face of anarchists’ conviction that only direct action by ordinary people can produce a fair system. “Fascism fetishizes having a strong leader who is decisive and tells everyone what to do,” Mr. Laursen, the writer, said. “That’s what we are seeing with Trump. ” Fueled in part by Mr. Trump’s political success, violent clashes between the far right and far left erupted several times during the presidential campaign. In Anaheim, Calif. last February, three people were stabbed in a brawl after disrupted a Ku Klux Klan rally. And in Sacramento in June, at least five people were stabbed and eight wounded when hundreds of counterprotesters, including clashed with skinheads at a rally. But the confrontations seemed to shift into a new gear on the eve of Mr. Trump’s inauguration. On Jan. 19, tried to block the entrance to the “DeploraBall,” a party for Trump supporters. The next day, 230 people were arrested after anarchists dressed in black broke the windows of a bank with baseball bats and set a limousine on fire. (Mr. Spencer, the white nationalist, whose assailant was not arrested, was not the only person struck: A videographer was struck in the chest with a flagpole — he was unharmed — as he tried to interview marching anarchists about what the word “community” meant to them.) One of those arrested, a anarchist who insisted on anonymity to avoid aiding in his own prosecution, said the goal of the protests — to get television stations to cut away from the inauguration, even for a moment — had been met. “Certainly, it has brought more attention to people who were against Trump and what he stands for,” the man said by telephone. The question now is whether anarchists’ efforts against Mr. Trump — whether merely colorful and spirited, or lawless and potentially lethal — will earn their fringe movement a bigger presence in the battle of ideas in years to come. “It’s true that a lot of people who consider themselves liberals or progressives still cling to the idea that you can effect social and economic change in the context of the state, through electoral politics,” Mr. Laursen said. “But more and more, it is going to become necessary for people on the left to think like anarchists if they are going to get anywhere. ” If the Berkeley disturbances have invited widespread denunciations, the punch of Mr. Spencer inflamed emotions on both the left and the right wing. Mr. Spencer has offered a reward for anyone who can identify his attacker, who wore the telltale clothing and of the anarchist “black bloc. ” But anarchists in Philadelphia have already begun raising funds for the man’s legal defense should he ever be caught. Under the hashtag #PunchRichardSpencerAgain, and anarchists across the country are vowing to continue the fight. “May all your punches hit Nazis,” read a headline on It’s Going Down on Sunday. A few days earlier, the website gleefully announced on Twitter that Mr. Spencer was planning a tour of college campuses, adding, “Everyone will get their chance!” | 1 |
By Sarah Jones on Fri, Oct 28th, 2016 at 11:05 pm Matthew Miller, self described "Recovering flack from DOJ, DSCC", schooled Republican FBI Director James Comey for violating his power and lambasted him for commenting on a case within 60 days of an election. Share on Twitter Print This Post
Former DOJ spokesman for Eric Holder Matthew Miller, a self described “recovering flack from DOJ, DSCC”, schooled Republican FBI Director James Comey for violating his power and lambasted him for commenting on a case within 60 days of an election.
“The department and the FBI have very strict rules about when they can comment on ongoing cases and Director Comey has violated those rules going back to his original press conference when he closed the case,” Miller said on CNN. “But this latest example violates a long standing practice which is that the department goes out of its way not to do anything that can be seen as trying to influence an election in the closing days of an election, and usually they interpret the closing days to be seen as the last 60 days let alone the last 11 days.”
Watch here:
Miller also held school on Twitter about Comey’s abuse of power, which has led to Hillary Clinton having to defend against a negative: I wrote a piece in July on why Comey's public comments about Clinton were such an inappropriate abuse of power. 1/ https://t.co/G8croz4qWZ
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 He flagrantly violated DOJ rules with his press conference. Then went on to break new ground discussing details of the case to Congress…2/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 Followed by quickly releasing FBI 302's, something they rarely do, and which I doubt they will do for future high-profile cases. 3/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 Each time, he either violated or seriously stretched DOJ rule & precedent. Press conference was the original sin, & it begat the rest. 4/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 But today's disclosure might be worst abuse yet. DOJ goes out of its way to avoid publicly discussing investigations close to election. 5/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 Not just public discussion either. Often won't send subpoenas or take other steps that might leak until after an election is over…6/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 Why? Because voters have no way to interpret FBI/DOJ activity in a neutral way. Who is the target of an investigation? What conduct? 7/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 This might be totally benign & not even involve Clinton. But no way for press or voters to know that. Easy for opponent to make hay over. 8/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 Which takes us back to the original rule: you don't comment on ongoing investigations. Then multiply that times ten close to an election. 9/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 For whatever reason (& there are many theories), Comey continues to ignore that. But only for Clinton. 10/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016 FBI is undoubtedly investigating links between the Russian hack, Manafort, & the Trump campaign. But aren't commenting on it. Good! 11/
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) October 28, 2016
Miller points out, “This just smells worse and worse the more we learn”, linking to this: Emails "were not to or from Clinton" and appeared like info FBI already had. WTF??? https://t.co/YS6jWfwGzi
— Ken Gude (@KenGude) October 29, 2016
The problem with Comey’s actions isn’t that he is investigating Hillary Clinton; the problem is he is violating long standing rules that prohibit federal employees from doing anything that could be seen as political near an election. It is an established rule that ongoing investigations aren’t commented on for obvious reasons.
This is quite simply not done. Comey’s reasons for doing this are unclear, and perhaps when he provides more information his decision will make more sense. But it’s troubling that we are seeing such a consistent breakdown of tradition and rules/agreements of law surrounding the Trump campaign, which seems to have lowered the bar all around.
FBI Director James Comey Schooled by Former DOJ Spokesman for Abusing His Power added by Sarah Jones on Fri, Oct 28th, 2016 | 0 |
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday denied knowing who leaked to the media former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s classified conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak after she brought it up to the White House counsel. [Responding to a question by Sen. Lindsey Graham ( ) on whether she or Director of National Intelligence James Clapper knew who leaked that conversation to the Washington Post, Clapper said, “That’s a great question. ” “Nor do I know the answer to that,” Yates said. Yates said she had notified White House Counsel Don McGahn on January 26 about Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak in December, since she was concerned it put Flynn in a compromised position with Russia. Yates said Flynn had told Vice President Mike Pence that he had not discussed U. S. sanctions on Moscow with Kislyak, when he actually had, putting him in a potential blackmail situation with Russia. “We told him that the vice president and him were entitled to know,” she said. She said she was also concerned the American people were being misled. She said she had several conversations with McGahn, and that she had taken a senior member of the Justice Department national security division who was overseeing the matter with her to see McGahn, and that one of McGahn’s aides was present during those conversations. Although she denied leaking classified information to the media, or authorizing anyone else to leak to the media, she said Flynn’s conversations was a subject of debate at the Department of Justice before she left her position as acting attorney general. Someone leaked the contents of the classified call between Flynn and Kislyak to the Washington Post, which published an article on it on February 9. Flynn later stepped down after it was revealed he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. | 1 |
Here's something interesting from The Unz Review... Recipient Name Recipient Email =>
My prediction above. Based on a few minutes scanning online. Also, I suspect that Trump supported is being overestimated. Low confidence that I’m adding value with my opinion.
After finishing Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain I’m struck by the fact that the author had to make some criticisms of Edward Said’s Orientalism , because Orientalism is so weak on both details and overall theoretical framework. That’s why I dismissed it fifteen years ago when I read it, but today I have to say that Orientalism is the model of scholarly sophistication compared to what prevails today in postcolonial theory. | 0 |
WESTCLIFFE, Colo. — As people around the world stepped into their backyards or onto rooftops to peer up at the annual spectacle of the Perseid meteor shower early on Friday morning, few of them had a view like Wilson Jarvis and Steve Linderer. At 2:30 a. m. as the light show was peaking, the two men sat on a grassy bluff here in the Wet Mountain Valley of southern Colorado, swaddled in blankets against the chilly mountain air and looking up at the stars in the torrent of the Milky Way. Every few seconds, a tiny chunk of space ice cast off by Comet would blaze through Earth’s atmosphere, silently streaking through the darkness. “There’s one!” the men called out. “And another!” “I saw that. ” Night skies like this one are disappearing across much of the world, nibbled away by the glow of city lights. American skies are no different. Four out of five Americans live in places where they can no longer see the Milky Way. But here, the tiny neighboring ranching and railroad towns of Westcliffe (population 568) and Silver Cliff (population 587) have decided to tap into the dwindling natural resource of darkness. The old silver mines that once made Silver Cliff Colorado’s town are long closed, and many ranchers are retiring. But there is still the night. So for more than a decade, the two towns and a local nonprofit have been dialing down the dimmer switch. They have replaced streetlights and passed rules requiring that outdoor lights point down. The group built a small observatory with star guides who tee up its telescope and take people on a tour of the night. They coax homeowners to hood their porch lamps or dim a bright light outside their house. “People out of ignorance go with whatever’s cheap or whatever’s brightest,” said Ed Stewart, a board member of the local group. “You multiply that by 200, 300, and there goes the sky. ” He said advocates met with homeowners’ associations and held stargazing parties to sell the virtues of the night. When they gaze over the valley and see winking floodlights on a ranch or home in the hills, they see their next targets of persuasion. “You can’t just go up to someone and say, you’ve got a bad light, and legislate the problem away,” he said. “People resist that, especially in Colorado. ” The mayor of Westcliffe, Christy Patterson, said she once got a phone call complaining that her garage light was too bright. “I didn’t even have the light on,” she said. In 2012, Mr. Stewart said a new store opened in town that flouted the area’s nighttime sensitivities and became a glowing eyesore. He said people in the community wrote letters to the editor, urging the store’s manager to change the lighting until, finally, the store relented. “We feel like they’re a part of the community now,” Mr. Stewart said. Last year, the International Association, a nonprofit working to stop light pollution, rewarded their efforts by designating the two towns among a handful of communities. Lovers of the night cheered — they had put their community on the map by blotting themselves out. A trickle of amateur stargazers have taken notice and have started to visit, telescopes in tow. When you drive into either town, the streets are not . Streetlights and porch lights glow along the main street, where photos of ranches are posted on the front windows of real estate offices. But viewed from the mountain pass above the towns, Westcliffe and Silver Cliff look less like an island of light than a constellation in the dark valley. “There aren’t many towns, even small towns, where you can stand in town limits and see the Milky Way like that,” Mr. Linderer, 69, said from his camping chair. He and his wife, Margaret, who baked chocolate chip cookie squares for Friday’s stargazing, moved here a decade ago. “I moved here because of this,” said Mr. Jarvis, 71, who retired here from Houston three years ago. “So did I,” said Mr. Linderer. To the west, toward the Sangre de Cristo range, a pack of coyotes yipped as another streak flashed across the sky. | 1 |
Amid a New York Times report — denied by the White House — that President Trump tried during a private meeting to convince Director Comey to drop an investigation into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, it may be instructive to recall reports of Obama administration officials allegedly meddling in Comey’s FBI affairs. [In one case, White House officials, according to one source speaking to the news media, reportedly “shut it down,” referring to a request by Comey to go public with FBI information regarding alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The reports come despite Obama administration attempts to portray Comey’s role as head of the FBI as independent of any influence from the executive branch. Indeed, when Obama first met with Comey to discuss the possibility of appointing him to lead the FBI, a source with knowledge of the meeting told CNN that the president made it a point not to meet with Comey again for fear of creating the appearance of influence. “This was (Obama’s) policy with the FBI director and with judicial appointees,” the source said to CNN. “He felt the White House should have a clear separation from the FBI about ongoing investigations — there should never be any intimation that the President or the White House staff was leaning in and trying to influence live investigations by the FBI,” the source said. Fast forward to March, when Newsweek reported that Comey wanted to first go public as early as the summer of 2016 about the agency’s information on alleged Russian interference in the presidential campaign. However, Obama administration officials blocked Comey from making public statements, according to two sources with knowledge of the matter speaking to Newsweek. “The White House shut it down,” one source told the magazine, explaining that Comey had pitched the idea of writing an oped about the subject during a White House Situation Room meeting in June or July. “He had a draft of it or an outline. He held up a piece of paper in a meeting and said, ‘I want to go forward. What do people think of this? ’” the source said. The source told Newsweek the meeting was attended by Secretary of State John Kerry, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Continued the report: But many in the room didn’t like the idea, and White House officials thought the announcement should be a coordinated message backed by multiple agencies, the source says. “An doesn’t have the same stature. It comes from one person. ” This is not the only time a member of the Obama administration reportedly influenced a decision by Comey. According to an extensive report in the New York Times, Attorney General Lynch, an Obama appointee, convinced Comey to use the word “matter” instead of “investigation” when the FBI director publicly addressed the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. This despite the Justice Department knowing the FBI probe was not only an official investigation but a criminal investigation. Comey reportedly caved in and called the investigation a “matter” even though, according to the Times, Comey was aware of the existence of a document written by a Democratic operative that allegedly indicated Lynch would have protected Clinton in the email probe. The newspaper reported that “Mr. Comey believed (Lynch) had subtly helped play down the Clinton investigation. ” The Times reported on a meeting between FBI and Justice officials at which, according to the newspaper’s characterization, “Lynch told him (Comey) to be even more circumspect: Do not even call it an investigation, she said, according to three people who attended the meeting. Call it a ‘matter. ’” Continued the Times’ report: Ms. Lynch reasoned that the word “investigation” would raise other questions: What charges were being investigated? Who was the target? But most important, she believed that the department should stick by its policy of not confirming investigations. It was a decision. But Mr. Comey and other F. B. I. officials regarded it as disingenuous in an investigation that was so widely known. And Mr. Comey was concerned that a Democratic attorney general was asking him to be misleading and line up his talking points with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, according to people who spoke with him afterward. As the meeting broke up, George Z. Toscas, a national security prosecutor, ribbed Mr. Comey. “I guess you’re the Federal Bureau of Matters now,” Mr. Toscas said, according to two people who were there. Even though Comey reportedly had concerns about Lynch’s motivations, he went along and did not call the criminal investigation an investigation. “I am confident we have the resources and the personnel assigned to the matter,” Comey stated mere days after the meeting with Lynch. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With additional research by Joshua Klein. | 1 |
Sad to say, but the America of the past that you're referring to doesn't exist anymore. Trump is trying to stop the societal destruction, but take a look around you. | 0 |
Since the end of the Cold War, a variety of leaked diplomatic cables, captured operatives and acts of espionage, like this summer’s hack of the Democratic National Committee, have served as reminders that Russia and the United States continue to routinely spy on each other. On Thursday, the United States said it would expel 35 officials, the largest number of diplomats forced to leave since 2001, in retaliation for what American spy agencies said was Russian interference in the presidential election. A day later, Russian officials threatened to expel American diplomats in a but President Vladimir V. Putin said American embassy staff would be permitted to stay. The United States expelled two Russian diplomats in retaliation for a bizarre episode outside the United States Embassy in Moscow, in which a Russian police officer attacked an American diplomat. Russian television broadcast a short clip of the scuffle and said the American was an undercover Central Intelligence Agency operative who had refused to show identification before entering the embassy. The State Department said the American was an “accredited diplomat” who had been assaulted as part of systematic harassment of American embassy staff by the Russian authorities. In May 2013, the Russian government ordered an American Embassy official, identified as Ryan C. Fogle, to leave the country. His expulsion followed an almost comical arrest in which he was caught carrying two wigs — one blond and one brown — a Moscow street atlas, $130, 000 in cash and a letter offering “up to $1 million a year for cooperation. ” In 2010, 10 Russians accused of being members of a sleeper cell were deported after pleading guilty to conspiracy in a federal court in Manhattan. As part of a deal, the spies were swapped for four Russian prisoners, three of whom were serving sentences on treason convictions. The case, which was often compared to the plot of a spy novel, included evidence of letters written in invisible ink, buried cash and a beauty whose romantic exploits and risqué photographs made for tabloid fodder. In March 2001, the United States expelled 50 Russian diplomats in the wake of the arrest of Mr. Hanssen, who was a counterintelligence expert at the F. B. I. and had spied for Moscow for more than 15 years. American officials said Mr. Hanssen had been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars after he volunteered to turn over United States secrets to Russia, and they blamed the Kremlin for not turning him down or turning him in. In response, Russian officials kicked out several American diplomats. Shortly after the arrest of Aldrich H. Ames, a career C. I. A. officer who turned out to be a double agent, United States officials expelled a senior Russian diplomat, Aleksandr Lyskenko, whom they called a top officer of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. According to the State Department, Mr. Lyskenko was “in a position to be responsible” for Mr. Ames’s activities as a very productive mole. Although Mr. Ames’s treachery was almost certainly the most damaging breach of American intelligence since World War II — Moscow executed several operatives whom he had betrayed — Washington’s response was considerably less severe than it would have been in Soviet times, or now. In the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Clinton administration, eager to encourage friendly relations and reform, supported the new government of President Boris N. Yeltsin. Before Mr. Lyskenko was told to leave the country, in February 1994, the Americans even gave the Russians the option of voluntarily sending him back home. Soviet diplomats were expelled by President Ronald Reagan in November 1986 in an effort to curb espionage activities. Similarly, the authorities in Moscow ordered 260 Soviet employees of the United States Embassy in Moscow to stop working. It was the largest number of diplomatic officials to be expelled by the United States at once. The conflict arose after a Soviet employee of the United Nations, Gennadi F. Zakharov, was arrested on espionage charges. The Russians responded by arresting Nicholas S. Daniloff, the Moscow correspondent for U. S. News World Report, and accusing him of spying. Mr. Daniloff was released two weeks later. | 1 |
According to a new Wikileaks email leak , a Clinton staffer has been caught “ sacrificing a chicken in the backyard to Moloch “.
Chicken is a code-word for children, babies among pedophile and satanic ranks.
Moloch is a Demon to which the ancient Jewish people of the past were caught by Moses while they were sacrificing their own babies when he was on top of Mount Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments from God.
Moses was so angry and upset that he broke the first set of the 10 Commandments! He condemned and damned everyone. He later went to the mountain again and got a second set of of the 10 Commandments.
In Leviticus 18:21 God forbid the chosen people to do such a horrible thing:
Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Moloch, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
God also ordered in Leviticus 20:2 to 20:5 that any follower of Moloch must be put to death:
Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Moloch is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him.
I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Moloch, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name.
If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Moloch and if they fail to put him to death,
I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Moloch.
This is NOT a joke people, this is serious SATANIST stuff and either you believe in God or not, it’s your problem, but what matters is that these people DO BELIEVE IN WHAT THEY DO!
16 years ago, on 15 July 2000 Alex Jones was the first and only to date, to ever infiltrate and secretly videotape the Bohemian Grove . Guess what they were doing there… Mock (or real?!?) sacrifices of children to Demon Moloch.
| 0 |
Home / #Solutions / Dave Matthews Plays for Standing Rock Camp — Announces ‘Stand with Standing Rock’ Benefit Concert Dave Matthews Plays for Standing Rock Camp — Announces ‘Stand with Standing Rock’ Benefit Concert Jay Syrmopoulos November 2, 2016 1 Comment
Cannon Ball, ND – Rock star Dave Matthews made an impromptu appearance at Standing Rock, performing for a small group at an overflow encampment. Footage of the undated performance was uploaded to YouTube on October 16, and shows Matthews performing his poignant song “Don’t Drink the Water.” Earlier in the day, Matthews had performed at Standing Rock Elementary as part of a program to promote the importance of art in schools. “Just to be part of maybe helping inspire them to see the greatness inside of each of them, you know. And maybe inspire them to be everything that they could be,” said Dave Matthews.
Yesterday, Matthews announced that he will be hosting a “Stand With Standing Rock” benefit concert November 27 in Washington, D.C., in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s continued fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The controversial oil pipeline would traverse tribal lands in both North and South Dakota and travel under the Missouri River – which potentially threatens the Standing Rock Sioux’s source of clean water. “How can we continue to allow oil money to dictate our environmental and social policies?” asked Matthews. “The people of Standing Rock, and those who are supporting them, are standing up for their children and all of our children. We are letting the Dakota pipeline silence their voices. Not only are they desecrating sacred lands, but they also threaten to poison the Missouri River.”
Proceeds from the benefit concert will go toward support of the Standing Rock Tribe’s fight against the DAPL, providing funding for supplies, legal assistance and other necessities.
Hundreds of tribes from across the nation have gathered to protest the oil pipeline, in what has been called “the largest gathering of Native Americans in more than 100 years.”
Matthews is the latest celebrity to use his star power to bring increased attention to the plight of the Standing Rock Sioux, as actor Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Incredible Hulk, recently visited the camps and presented them with mobile solar trailers .
Prior to that, actress Shailene Woodley, who plays a hero revolutionary in the “Divergent” film series, was arrested and charged with criminal trespass and engaging in a riot for protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Woodley was specifically targeted by law enforcement, as she was the only person arrested among the group of protestors — even though engaging in the exact same peaceful protest as the other water protectors. Was livestreaming on Facebook at the time of her arrest to 45,000 people.
“This pipeline is a black snake that traverses four states and 200 waterways with fracked Bakken oil,” said Ruffalo, co-founder of The Solutions Project, a venture that works to transition society to clean and renewable energy. “We know from experience that pipelines leak, explode, pollute and poison land and water. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The reality of the situation is that the Standing Rock tribe is fighting to protect their source of clean water. The Dakota Access Pipeline puts the tribe’s clean water supply, as well as that of millions of others, in danger, as the pipeline is scheduled to go directly under the Missouri River.
Seeing these multi-millionaire celebrities taking a stand for the Standing Rock Sioux is an example for all individuals; celebrity, and non-celebrity alike. Rather than simply donating money to a cause, these men and women are utilizing and leveraging their celebrity to bring much needed attention to the continued injustices being perpetuated against the Native American community.
It’s clear that Matthews, Ruffalo and Woodley have taken a page out of Gandhi’s book, and are “being the change they wish to see in the world.”
Please share this inspiring human story — and take a stand for Standing Rock! Share | 0 |
The American Medical Association defines an “alcoholic” as someone who: Has a prolonged period of frequent, heavy alcohol use. Is unable to control drinking once it has begun. Has withdrawal symptoms when the individual stops using alcohol. Needs to use more and more alcohol to achieve the same effects. Has a variety of social and/or legal problems arising from alcohol use.
By that definition, Hillary Clinton is an alcoholic. Exhibit A
In an email to Hillary’s campaign chairman John Podesta on August 8, 2015, Director of Communications for Hillary’s campaign Jennifer Palmieri wrote, referring to Hillary:
“I think you should call her and sober her up some.”
Here’s a screenshot of the email released by WikiLeaks : Exhibit B
On Feb. 23, 2015, Hillary’s spokesman Nick Merrill sent an email (presumably to Hillary’s campaign staff) with the subject: “HRC Clips” (news clips on Hillary Rodham Clinton). The news clips that day included an article by Benjamin Bell for ABC News titled, “One Thing That Might Surprise You About Hillary Clinton,” which Merrill reproduced in its entirety in his email.
Bell’s article was an interview with New York Times national political reporter Amy Chozick, on whether Hillary Clinton would announce she’s running for the presidency. One of the questions Bell asked Chozick was: “Covering [Hillary] Clinton, what is one thing that has surprised you about her?”
Chozick answered:
“Hmm. She likes to drink. We were on the campaign trail in 2008 and the press thought she was just taking shots to pander to voters in Pennsylvania. Um, no.”
Here’s a composite screenshot of the relevant part of Merrill’s email, from WikiLeaks : Exhibit C
According to the National Enquirer , “top staffers” of Hillary’s campaign told the Enquirer “they even began this year’s presidential campaign by secretly planning a stint in rehab for Hillary.” But any rehab therapy “quickly failed amid the pressures of the campaign” and “the effort of making a deal over an FBI probe into her e-mail scandal”.
A source said, “The stress of her political career, the never-ending scandals and her worsening health plunged her into a life-threatening booze hell. She turned to drink to drown her fears. Hillary tries to hide her problem, like she lies about so many things.” A “close friend” of Hillary added, “ Hillary has been drinking heavily for years to forget her miserable marriage to serial cheater Bill. She’s also hit the bottle to cope with other stress, as well as the boredom of flying all over the world when she was Secretary of State.”
One “Hillary insider” told the Enquirer that Hillary “has blackouts and wakes up wondering where she is and what she has done ” and that “She’s not fit to be President”.
Certainly, Hillary must be drunk when she obscenely ground against the twerking black woman (see below) because no sane person in her then position as U.S. Secretary of State would behave like this in public.
~Eowyn | 0 |
Transcripts November 3, 2016 Obama: ‘It’s Because of You That a Marine Can Serve His Country Without Hiding the Husband He Loves’
Speaking at the University of North Carolina this afternoon, President Barack Obama told voters it was because of them that millions of people had health care who did not have it before and Marines could enter publicly into same-sex marriages.
“It is because of you that millions of people have health care today that didn’t have it before,” Obama said. “It is because of you that millions of young people are going to college that couldn’t afford it before. It’s because of you that a Marine can serve his country without hiding the husband he loves. It is because of you that more young immigrants came out of the shadows and are serving our country.” | 0 |
Screen legend Sir Michael Caine weighed in on Britain’s decision last year to separate from the European Union, saying his own vote to leave was about “freedom. ”[“I voted for Brexit … what it is with me, I’d rather be a poor master than a rich servant,” the Going in Style star told Sky News, adding that his support for Britain’s independence “wasn’t about the racism, immigrants or anything, it was about freedom. ” Last week, the United Kingdom officially filed to leave the European Union. Caine, a said “politics is always chaotic. ” “In politics you’re always going into areas you’ve never been before, so you’re going to get lost and then you’re going to find your way, and then it’ll be alright,” he said of Europe’s historic vote. Caine is currently promoting his last film Going in Style, which follows three lifelong friends who rob a bank after it stops paying out their pensions. “I’m playing Brian Reader, who when he did that robbery was 73,” Caine said. “I knew I was going to get a phone call, I said to my wife ‘here’s my next part, I think’. ” And if you were wondering, don’t expect the star to stop acting anytime soon. “People always say ‘are you going to retire?’ and of course the movie business retires you,” Caine said, adding “You get paid a fortune for kissing the most beautiful women in the world, not a bad job is it?” Caine isn’t the only British celebrity to have revealed he voted for Brexit. Last month, Roger Daltrey, founder and lead singer of the English rock band The Who, reiterated his support for Britain’s independence from the European Union. “We are getting out, and when the dust settles I think that it’ll be seen that it’s the right thing for this country to have done, that’s for sure,” Daltrey told NME. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
(FRANCE) (AFP) — A huge fire tore through at least half of the migrant camp outside the northern French city of Dunkirk on Monday night, an AFP correspondent reported. [Firefighters said at least ten people had been injured in the blaze, which witnesses said broke out after a row between migrants. The camp was home to some 1, 500 people by the end of March, living in wooden huts. Local officials said the blaze had affected around 20 of the huts, each of which accommodates four people, as firefighters continued to battle the flames. A massive plume of smoke rose from the camp into the night sky and was visible from several kilometres away. French officials had said in that security forces were planning to start dismantling the camp following clashes at the site. The population of the camp has swelled since the destruction last October of the squalid “Jungle” camp near Calais, about 40 kilometres (25 miles) away. For more than a decade France’s northern coast has been a magnet for refugees and migrants trying to reach Britain, with French authorities repeatedly tearing down camps in the region. Migrants gather along the northern coast in France seeking to break into trucks heading to Britain or pay smugglers to help them get across the Channel. There have been several violent incidents at the camp, with police intervening last month after five men were injured in a fight. Another man was stabbed in November. | 1 |
INDIANAPOLIS — Less than a month ago, Senator Ted Cruz seemed to have done it. He had won Wisconsin. Former rivals were holding their noses to support him. He was dominating delegate elections, positioning himself for what seemed increasingly likely to be a floor fight at the Republican convention in July, as the campaign of Donald J. Trump fell into internal disarray. “Tonight is a turning point,” Mr. Cruz said on primary night in Milwaukee. “It is a rallying cry. ” It was neither. On Tuesday, Mr. Cruz ended his campaign, his loss in Indiana extinguishing any chance of denying Mr. Trump the nomination. “Together we left it all on the field in Indiana,” Mr. Cruz told supporters here as cries of “Nooo!” rained from the crowd. “We gave it everything we’ve got. But the voters chose another path. ” Yet to dismiss Mr. Cruz as an would diminish his unlikely feat in outlasting nearly every rival: His calls for conservative purity were, for better or worse, the most consistent message in the field, his rage against the “Washington cartel” a signal of the nation’s view of its leaders. In a year when many voters flocked to the candidate they hoped could startle Washington into submission, Mr. Cruz galvanized millions of supporters drawn to his more ideological conservatism, quoting founding documents and texts. He was the most candidate to even sniff the nomination in at least a . Long before Mr. Trump careered into the race, Mr. Cruz staked perhaps the loudest claim to the boiling national anger among conservatives in the age of President Obama. He was . “Ted Cruz’s theory of the race was that conservatives were angry,” said Ben Domenech, the publisher of The Federalist, a conservative online journal. “It turns out that everyone was angry. ” For a candidate who appeared, just a few weeks ago, to have a plausible path to the nomination, the descent came quickly. The calendar did not help. Hours after his Wisconsin victory, he charged headlong into New York City, earning Bronx jeers that foretold a hostile reception across a Eastern states that were never a natural fit for him. “Manhattan has spoken!” Mr. Cruz joked bitterly in Indiana. “Everyone give up and go home. ” But the problems ran deeper. Given an opening to unite the party in opposition to a man many see as an existential threat to it, Mr. Cruz was unable to consolidate support, leaving Republican leaders lurching toward a fateful bet: Live with the risk of a Trump nomination rather than elevate a figure they loathe. His advisers insisted that he was a more versatile candidate than past Iowa caucus winners like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, but he failed to sufficiently expand his appeal much beyond the party’s most religious and ideological voters. His surrogates in Indiana looked much the same as in Iowa, with testimonials from the radio host Glenn Beck and Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas. “Conservatives are uniting,” Mr. Cruz said often on the campaign trail, long after it felt true. But his efforts were undercut, in large measure, by his toxic relationships with Senate colleagues and a manifest indifference to repairing them. Soon, the indignities mounted. He named Carly Fiorina his prospective running mate, despite trailing by several hundred delegates, briefly rousing a partly full Indianapolis pavilion. He earned scorn in Indiana for referring to a basketball rim as a “ring. ” He was heckled by a young boy in La Porte and several men in Marion. “Sir, with all respect,” Mr. Cruz pleaded, after approaching one of them for a chat on Monday, “Donald Trump is deceiving you. He is playing you for a chump. ” On Tuesday morning, he at last unburdened himself in full, promising to tell reporters “what I really think of Donald Trump” for the first time. “This man is a pathological liar,” Mr. Cruz said, ticking off Mr. Trump’s distortions, his infidelities, his penchant for conspiracy theories. “The man is utterly amoral. ” It is possible there is nothing more Mr. Cruz could have done. Mr. Trump has proved immune to political gravity. He has been largely impervious to attacks, once Mr. Cruz backed away from his monthslong embrace and began hammering him. Most critically, Mr. Trump’s success in early states across the South, thought to be Mr. Cruz’s firewall, forced a rewrite of the Cruz campaign playbook on the fly. But while few politicians have better absorbed the lessons of the party’s rightward tilt in recent years, Mr. Cruz found himself outmaneuvered on issues like trade and national defense by an outsider whose political antenna had a crisper signal. Even on immigration — where Mr. Cruz’s grasp of the party’s id helped vanquish a foe, Marco Rubio, who came to regret embracing a pathway to citizenship — Mr. Trump managed to go bigger and louder. That Mr. Cruz lasted this long anyway was a triumph of management guile and considerable hustle: No Republican campaign more effectively marshaled its finances, holding the most cash on hand for much of the race, and no candidate worked harder than he did, frequently dashing through six events a day in Iowa. With a showman’s itch and a singular manner of speaking — the long pauses, the controlled twang, the easy deployment of words like “élan” and “hosannas” on the stump — Mr. Cruz registered at times like an actor playing the role of presidential candidate. He often resorted to gimmickry, from movie scenes to lawyerly theatrics to his grandest stunt of all: adding Mrs. Fiorina to an imagined ticket. But these last few, flailing weeks belied a campaign that for months had followed its initial strategy to the letter. Mr. Cruz and his advisers often likened the election to a college basketball tournament bracket, where opponents like Scott Walker and Mr. Rubio were to be muscled out one by one. (They also griped that Gov. John Kasich of Ohio failed to leave the court, despite the score.) When Mr. Cruz entered the race, his team openly cheered its meager position, roughly 5 percent in the polls, reasoning that he could energize his core supporters first. “You have to own a base in the Republican primary,” his campaign manager, Jeff Roe, said the day Mr. Cruz announced his run at an evangelical university last year. “If you own the base, then you can grow it. ” Mr. Cruz’s most consequential choice might have come last year when he defended Mr. Trump as a credible outsider and a force for good in the race as rivals began taking swings. As late as December, he celebrated Mr. Trump as “terrific,” rising quietly in the polls as Mr. Trump absorbed the slings and arrows directed to a . Even after Mr. Trump began disparaging Mr. Cruz’s Canadian birth, the senator initially resisted a barrage. Eventually, his broadsides were frequent and scattershot: Mr. Trump was too unsteady, too shifty, too consumed by social media, too much like Hillary Clinton. Recently, as Mr. Cruz’s growth seemed to reach its outer bounds, he leaned increasingly on this sort of messaging potpourri. He tried positioning himself as the party’s champion of women. He cast himself as the heir to President Obama’s generational promise, debuting a new slogan — “Yes, we will!” — that was quickly abandoned. Then there was his habit of declaring as fact things he wished to be true. Mr. Cruz often described the “hard ceiling” of support that Mr. Trump would surely brush up against, estimating it to be 35 to 40 percent. “Donald has been a minority candidate, a fringe candidate,” Mr. Cruz told reporters last week. The next day, Mr. Trump received at least 54 percent of the vote in all five primaries. And if Mr. Trump’s chosen moniker for Mr. Cruz (“Lyin’ Ted”) was not quite as instantly devastating as some of his others (“ ” Jeb Bush, “Little Marco” Rubio) the Cruz campaign contributed to lending it a ring of truth — not least because of his abrupt antagonism toward Mr. Trump after reams of praise. While Mr. Cruz steadied himself, rebounding in his home state of Texas and winning several smaller contests and delegate conventions, his successes were too few. Even in victory, Mr. Cruz spoke often in apocalyptic terms. Facing defeat, his pleas grew pained. “If Indiana does not act,” he said hours before Tuesday’s vote, “this country could well plunge into the abyss. ” | 1 |
source Add To The Conversation Using Facebook Comments | 0 |
In reality, Julian Assange will never be safe anywhere. | 0 |
WASHINGTON — President Obama, dedicating the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Saturday, said it would tell an American story, one of “suffering and delight, one of fear, but also of hope, of wandering in the wilderness, and then seeing, out on the horizon, a glimmer of the Promised Land. ” Speaking to dignitaries and thousands of people watching from the National Mall, Mr. Obama said the museum would document the stories of Americans who are often overlooked in history books — “the president but also the slave, the industrialist but also the porter, the keeper of the status quo, but also the activist seeking to overthrow that status quo. ” On a day rich in symbolism, under a gray sky that seemed to capture the ambiguity of the black American experience, Mr. Obama warned that the museum would not be a panacea for the nation’s racial struggles, which, even today, inflame the streets of cities like Charlotte, N. C. “A museum alone will not alleviate poverty in every inner city,” he said. “It won’t eliminate gun violence from all our neighborhoods, or immediately ensure that justice is always colorblind. ” But Mr. Obama said the museum’s exhibits would put those problems into a larger context, allowing people to see the progress as well as the shortcomings in American society. He said he hoped it would encourage a dialogue among Americans on difficult issues like the systemic racism in law enforcement or the violence toward police officers. “Hopefully,” the president said, “this museum can help us talk to each other, and more importantly listen to each other, and most importantly see each other. ” “Perhaps they can help a white visitor understand the pain and anger of a demonstrator in Ferguson and Charlotte,” Mr. Obama said. And perhaps, he said, it could help a black visitor see the efforts of police officers who, “in fits and starts, are struggling to understand and trying to do the right thing. ” Acts of protest, Mr. Obama said, are acts of patriotism, whether it was sitting at a lunch counter in the South in the 1960s or wearing a emblazoned with the words “I can’t breathe,” as Eric Garner, gasping facedown on a sidewalk in Staten Island, said before he died. Mr. Obama has articulated these themes before, most notably in his speech on the 50th anniversary of the protest march in Selma, Ala. But on Saturday, his tone was less anguished or exhortatory than it has been in the past. He was clearly rejoicing in the glorious history contained in this newest outpost of the Smithsonian Institution. “We’ve shown the world we can float like butterflies and sting like bees,” Mr. Obama said, not even needing to mention the author of that boast, Muhammad Ali, who died three months ago. he said, can “rock like Jimi” and “stir the pot like Richard Pryor. ” “We’re not a burden on America or a stain on America, or an object of pity or charity for America,” the president added. “We’re America. ” Mr. Obama officially opened the museum by ringing a large bell from an black church in Virginia, in an echo of bells rung to mark the emancipation of the slaves. He spoke against the majestic bronze backdrop of the museum, a kind of inverted ziggurat not far from the Washington Monument. In its shadow, viewers were spread across the lawn and pressed against a fence, listening intently to the president. His speech was the centerpiece of a solemn, yet quietly jubilant, ceremony featuring the civil rights leader John Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, as well as celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Robert DeNiro, Patti LaBelle and Stevie Wonder, who joked of the museum, “I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m going to. ” Ms. LaBelle got a huge roar from the crowd when, at the end of her emotional rendition of the civil rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come,” she added the words, “Hillary Clinton. ” There was a panoply of dignitaries, including George W. Bush, who signed the legislation authorizing the building of the museum, and his wife, Laura, who spoke of her early brainstorming discussions with the museum’s director, Lonnie Bunch. Bill Clinton watched from the front row, sitting alongside Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson sat nearby. “This museum tells the truth that a country founded on the principles of liberty held thousands in chains,” Mr. Bush declared. “Even today, the journey towards justice is not compete. But this museum will inspire us to go farther and get there faster. ” The museum, Mr. Bush said, celebrated several of his heroes, including the musician Chuck Berry, the baseball player Willie Mays and the Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. spoke of the legacy of racism, enshrined in Jim Crow laws, and how the fight for justice flowed through — and was sometimes set back by — landmark court rulings, from the Dred Scott case to Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. To understand the real Dred Scott, Chief Justice Roberts said, one should visit this museum. Donna Sampson Rawlings, 59, of Ashton, Md. who watched the ceremony on a screen on the Mall, said the event brought back memories of her father, and of “all the people who weren’t here who did things to get us here. ” She said she had toured the museum last week during a special program. Many of the visitors were older, she said, and “I had to step back and think, ‘This is their lives. ’” “If you’re 80 years old, you went through so much of this,” she added. “Seeing it is, for them, emotional. It’s something they never thought they’d see. ” “These are the stories that we talk about that nobody knows,” she said. Johnnie Wilson, of Springfield, Va. said he had fought in Vietnam “for the nation’s rights, knowing that back home we didn’t have the rights. ” He said the museum compensated for what he believed was a sanitized version of history taught in schools. “Throughout the time we’ve been on these shores, we’ve made major contributions to America,” he said. “We’re really part of an American history that isn’t told like it should be in classrooms. ” Mr. Obama, who was given a sneak peek of the museum recently with his family, spoke during his speech of a stone slaver’s block on exhibit, marked only as the site of a speech by Andrew Jackson in 1830. It was, the president said, “a stone where day after day for years, men and women were torn from their spouse or their child, shackled and bound, and bought and sold, and bid like cattle, on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. ” The museum, Mr. Obama said, would make visitors face uncomfortable truths. But it would also capture the essential greatness of the United States — the perpetual struggle to live up to its highest ideals. Mr. Obama spoke emotionally of his many flights on Marine One across the Mall, past the alabaster spire of the Washington Monument and the lighted figure of Abraham Lincoln, sheltered in his memorial. He said he had watched the museum rise from the ground and thought of the days when he and his family would return to visit it as private citizens. “We’ll walk away that much more in love with this country,” he said, “the only place on earth where this story could have unfolded. ” | 1 |
An organization partnered with groups that calls itself the Revolutionary Love Project distributed an actual script with talking points for citizens to use when meeting with constituents in town halls, including during last week’s Congressional recess. [The script provides language suggestions that accuse the Trump administration of “xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia. ” It asks activists to use the descriptors to petition their representatives to “forcefully condemn” and support legislation opposing President Trump’s immigration and border security agendas. The script is entitled, “#NoBanNoWallNoRaids Talking Points for Congressional Townhalls. ” It ends with contact information for activists from two groups heavily financed by billionaire George Soros — Avideh Moussavian at the National Immigration Law Center and Deepa Iyer at the Center for Social Inclusion. Contacted by Breitbart News, Moussavian confirmed his group “contributed” to the script “in response to overwhelming concern and fear stemming from the January 27th executive order that sought to ban the entry of refugees and Muslims and in response to mounting questions from community members about how to express these concerns to policy makers. ” Despite Moussavian’s claims, Trump’s executive order did not seek to ban Muslims from entering the U. S. It temporarily halted the refugee program while the flawed security screening process could be reworked. The script for activists is meant to aid a project driven by the George MoveOn. org group declaring the week of February — the first congressional recess of the 115th Congress — to be “Resistance Recess. ” The project called on activists to show up at “elected officials’ events, town halls, and other public appearances to make it clear to those who represent us in Congress, as well as to the media, that tolerance of the Trump Administration’s hurtful policies is intolerable, that indifference or idleness is not acceptable, that complacency is politically toxic. ” A blast email from the Revolutionary Love Project urged supporters to use the talking points “script” to “voice your concern” when meeting last week with constituents during the Congressional recess. The actual script recommends that activists say the following in stages: Stage 1: Who You Are. My name is ______ and I’m a resident of _______. Add a description of your connection to the community. Stage 2: Your Concerns. I am particularly concerned about the Administration’s efforts to target and criminalize immigrants, refugees and people entering our country from countries. I want you as a representative of our district to understand the impact of Trump’s executive orders and to take action. The script provides talking points and urges activists to use the language to “buttress your concerns. ” The talking points deploy key words like “xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia” as suggested descriptions of Trump’s temporary refugee halt as well as the administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Here are some talking points provided: *Trump’s executive orders to deport undocumented immigrants, to punish sanctuary cities for defending the Constitution, to ban people from seven countries, and to shut the door on refugees all have one thing in common: they are rooted in hate, bigotry and a desire to instill fear rather than promote unity. We call this xenophobia, racism, and Islamophobia. *Each of these executive orders is based on the false premise that immigrants pose a threat to us. They are hateful attacks not only on those newly arriving or seeking entry into the U. S. but to those of us, including U. S. citizens, who have raised families here, paid taxes for years and who have made enormous sacrifices and contributions. *The policy changes called for in the executive orders are extremist, costly and ineffective, and they will not make us safer. They have wreaked havoc and confusion in airports across the globe and at home, in our schools, workplaces, and backyards. *We are witnessing a massive militarization of our deportation force, and a supersizing of interior and border patrol agents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are occurring in homes and workplaces, and the climate of fear as a result of rumored and reported raids are paralyzing our communities. Parents are afraid to send their children to school. Pregnant mothers are afraid to get basic nutrition assistance and prenatal care. We are separating families, hurting our economy and targeting the most vulnerable, without accountability from our federal government that is causing this devastation. The script asks representatives to “forcefully condemn” Trump’s immigration and border security agendas and to “support legislation in Congress that would block implementation and nullify the effects of these orders and prevent any funding for them. ” The National Immigration Law Center, which is listed on the talking points memo, was party to a lawsuit last month that temporarily blocked Trump’s original executive order. The National Immigration Law Center has received numerous grants from Soros’s Open Society earmarked for general support. The second group listed on the talking points memo, the Center for Social Inclusion, is also the recipient of numerous Open Society grants. The Revolutionary Love Project, which distributed the script, is partnered with numerous groups, including T’ruah and Trinity United Church of Christ, which was formerly led by Jeremiah Wright Jr. Barack Obama’s infamous radical pastor for nearly twenty years. The Project is partnered with the organizers of last month’s Women’s March. Soros reportedly has ties to more than 50 “partners” of that march. Also, this journalist first reported on the march leaders’ close associations with Soros. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook. With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott. | 1 |
(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Trump’s latest meeting with a foreign leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, went smoothly. They pledged cooperation on trade, investment and border security. And, joined by Ivanka Trump, they met with female executives and announced an initiative to assist women in business. In private talks, Mr. Trudeau was expected to welcome the prospect of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, a move that could test his commitment to internationalist principles. _____ 2. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan was greeted with higher approval ratings when he returned home from his weekend golf outing with Mr. Trump in Florida. But there was surprise in the United States as it became clear that the two leaders discussed their response to North Korea’s missile test in full view of diners at Mr. Trump’s resort, with aides pointing the lights from their smartphones at briefing documents. North Korea claims its launch shows progress toward capabilities. The National Security Council, normally the president’s main arm to develop foreign policy, is in turmoil from top to bottom. Michael Flynn was said to have resigned as national security adviser following reports that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence over his contacts with Russia. _____ 3. On the homefront, Mr. Trump’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, the financier Steven Mnuchin, was confirmed by the Senate. And Republicans are hitting a roadblock in their quest to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act: Constituents upset that there is no plan to replace it have made themselves heard at public meetings in California, Utah and Wisconsin. “I’d be lying to you if I told you it was fun,” said Representative Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, who faced a frustrated crowd on Saturday. _____ 4. Inside Trump Tower, the president’s sons talked to The Times about pressing on with global deals — and rebutting waves of criticism over ethical concerns. “His DNA will always be in the company in a big way,” Eric Trump said during nearly five hours of interviews over two days last week. “His DNA built the company. His DNA also built us. We’re extensions of him in so many ways. ” _____ 5. More harrowing details about the suffering of civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo: Canisters of chlorine gas, a banned weapon, were dumped on residential areas at least eight times in the final weeks of the battle to retake the city from rebels, Human Rights Watch reported. And a separate analysis drawing on satellite images, security videos, social media and TV footage indicates that Russia, contrary to its repeated claims, bombed a major hospital in the city multiple times. _____ 6. A California dam’s spillway appears to have stabilized, but evacuation orders remain in place for more than 180, 000 people as state authorities try to make emergency repairs before more rains come. Emergency shelters filled with residents while workers and experts swarmed the Oroville Dam, the tallest in the United States. “The big fear, again, is that potential for catastrophic failure,” one official said. _____ 7. Modern goddesses ruled the Grammys: Adele and Beyoncé brought dramatic spectacles. The big story after the show, though, was the of Beyoncé in the top categories. “It was #GrammysSoWhite come to life,” our critic writes. We rounded up the best and worst of the performances, and here’s the red carpet. _____ 8. The American College of Physicians offers a new way to take care of your lower back pain: Wait it out. Take some aspirin if you really need it. Concerned about the epidemic of opioid addiction, the group says patients should try exercise, acupuncture, massage or yoga before resorting to prescription drugs. _____ 9. The dairy industry wants us to call almond, soy and coconut milk … something else. Dairy farmers are calling on Congress to stop makers of increasingly popular alternatives from labeling them yogurt, milk or cheese, saying consumers could mistakenly equate their nutritional profiles. Our reporter wonders: “What about other nondairy products with dairy names? Will milk of magnesia, cocoa butter, cream of wheat and peanut butter have to change their names as well?” _____ 10. Finally, a reminder you may not need: Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. We’d like to draw your attention to one of our most popular articles ever: “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love. ” In our latest Modern Love podcast, the actor David Oyelowo reads “Seeing the World Through My Wife’s Eyes,” about a man whose spouse helps him cope when he loses his sight. And our “Committed” series explores the history of wedding announcements in The Times, with updates on noteworthy couples, milestones like the first gay wedding announcements and some pretty amazing wedding fashions, like those big pouffy ’80s gowns. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com. | 1 |
Iranian products on display in Kiev Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:33AM Iran's Export Capabilities Exhibition in Kiev. © Press TV
Lena SavchukPress TV, Kiev
The Ukrainian capital Kiev is hosting Iran Export Capabilities Exhibition. Many Iranian companies have attended the event to showcase their products and services and find business partners in Ukraine. Loading ... | 0 |
The Los Angeles Times reported early Sunday morning that Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic leaders in the state legislature made $1 billion in side deals to ensure the passage of a hike in the state gasoline tax last week. [The Times said: … Brown and legislative dealers promised nearly $1 billion for the pet projects of lawmakers who had been sitting on the fence before they were persuaded to vote for the bill. The funding “arrangements,” as Brown called them, helped the governor and legislators break a Sacramento stalemate on transportation funding. Some legislators said the taints the legislative process, but Brown defended the deals as justified, a moderate investment compared with the payoff of a bill that will generate $5. 2 billion annually in the first 10 years for road repairs, and billions more in future years. One of the more prominent deals was the one that secured the vote of State Sen. Anthony Canella ( ) who was the only Republican in either chamber to support the measure, which includes raised fees at the Department of Motor Vehicles. That side deal turns out to have been the costliest of all, amounting to $400 million in pork for “the extension of the Altamont Corridor Express, a commuter rail line between the Bay Area and Central Valley. ” Canella’s vote was crucial, because moderate State Sen. Steve Glazer ( ) opposed the gas tax, explaining in a statement published by the East Bay Times that it was unnecessary to raise taxes rather than spending from the costly rail project. Canella was unrepentant, telling the Los Angeles Times: “I got the things I asked for, so apparently I made the most compelling case. ” Despite the pork for his home district, Cannella seemed to realize that his vote would be unpopular, tweeting on April 6 that he was avoiding social media. I think I’m going to stay off social media today … — Anthony Cannella (@AnthonyCannella) April 6, 2017, The gas tax required a vote in each chamber to pass. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak. | 1 |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gov. Robert Bentley resigned Monday, his power and popularity diminished by a sex scandal that staggered the state, brought him to the brink of impeachment and prompted a series of criminal investigations. Ellen Brooks, a special prosecutor, said Mr. Bentley quit in connection with a plea agreement on two misdemeanor charges: failing to file a major contribution report and knowingly converting campaign contributions to personal use. He pleaded guilty Monday afternoon. It was a stunning downfall for the governor, a Republican who acknowledged in March 2016 that he had made sexually charged remarks to his senior political adviser, Rebekah Caldwell Mason. “I have decided it is time for me to step down as Alabama’s governor,” Mr. Bentley said at the State Capitol. He did not mention the charges to which he pleaded guilty, or the deal with prosecutors that mandated his resignation. His exit from government and guilty pleas followed mounting calls for his resignation, especially after a report that was made public on Friday said he had fostered “an atmosphere of intimidation” and compelled state employees to help him cover up his relationship with Ms. Mason. Impeachment hearings — the first in Alabama in more than a century — began Monday morning, when the State House was consumed by rumors that the governor would soon quit. Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey succeeded Mr. Bentley. A former state treasurer, she is the second woman to hold the office. She is a graduate of Auburn University and was a high school teacher and a bank officer before working for the Legislature. “The Ivey administration will be open, it will be transparent and it will be honest,” Ms. Ivey said. Mr. Bentley, 74, repeatedly denied having a physical relationship with Ms. Mason and long insisted that he had not broken any laws, but he was a subject of multiple investigations, including reviews by the F. B. I. and the Alabama attorney general’s office. On Wednesday, the Alabama Ethics Commission said it had probable cause to find that Mr. Bentley had committed felonies, and it asked a district attorney to consider prosecuting him. Two days later, a lawyer hired by the Alabama House of Representatives released a report portraying Mr. Bentley as deceitful and desperate before his relationship with Ms. Mason made him a punch line. The report said Mr. Bentley had offered little cooperation to legislative investigators, and it alleged that the governor’s critics had been subjected to coercion, including harassing messages and the threat of prosecution. The report described how Mr. Bentley tried to use a member of his security detail to break up with Ms. Mason on his behalf and how he demanded that Ms. Mason be allowed to travel in official vehicles after she left the state’s payroll. It also explored Mr. Bentley’s efforts to keep audio recordings of suggestive conversations with Ms. Mason from the public. In one such conversation, which rippled across the internet last year, the governor described embracing Ms. Mason and placing his hands on her breasts. By the weekend, legislative leaders had demanded that the governor quit, echoing a faction of members in his own party who spent months vocally opposing him. On Sunday night, the steering committee of the Alabama Republican Party made a similar call. And by sunset Monday, Mr. Bentley was out of power. In court documents, the Alabama attorney general’s office said Mr. Bentley had failed to disclose a $50, 000 personal loan to his campaign account. The office also said Mr. Bentley had allowed nearly $9, 000 of campaign money to be used for Ms. Mason’s lawyers. Mr. Bentley was sentenced to a suspended jail term, fined $7, 000, placed on probation and ordered to complete community service. In an email on Monday, Ms. Mason declined to comment. Yet until Mr. Bentley’s court appearance, it was unclear that he would actually abandon the job to which he was easily in 2014. Hours before the special counsel’s report became public on Friday, Mr. Bentley repeated his familiar pledge not to resign, and he pleaded for an end to the debate that stemmed from his personal conduct. “The people of this state have never asked to be told of or shown the intimate and embarrassing details of my personal life and my personal struggles,” the governor said outside the Capitol. “Those who are taking pleasure in humiliating and in shaming me, shaming my family, shaming my friends, well, I really don’t understand why they want to do that. ” Within days, Mr. Bentley resigned. The decision punctuated a sordid drama that exploded last year, prompting renewed scrutiny of his 2015 divorce from Dianne Bentley, his wife of 50 years. Mr. Bentley’s complaints and apologies over more than a year did little to quell public outrage in Alabama, where he had cultivated a reputation as an ethically sound public official. Now, he is the first Alabama governor to quit since 1837, when Clement Comer Clay left Montgomery to become a United States senator. (In 1993, Guy Hunt was automatically removed from office after being convicted of an ethics charge he was later pardoned.) Mr. Bentley’s resignation is the third major transfer of power in Alabama government since June, when the House speaker, Michael G. Hubbard, was convicted of ethics charges and forced from office. Later in the year, Chief Justice Roy S. Moore was suspended for the balance of his term for violating judicial ethics standards. Mr. Bentley, a dermatologist, was a legislative backbencher until he stunned Alabama with his successful campaign for governor in 2010. In the early months of his tenure, he was widely praised for his response to a tornado outbreak that devastated much of the state. His policy legacy, at least among many Republicans, will be mixed. He opposed marriage and, within months of taking office, approved what was then one of the country’s most aggressive immigration laws. But he also called for higher taxes and, in 2015, surprised many people when he unilaterally ordered four Confederate flags lowered on the grounds of the State Capitol. He also refused to endorse Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign. But Mr. Bentley’s personal conduct placed some of the greatest stress on his ties to members of his own party, and those conflicts worsened as he clung to power. “It’s sad watching anyone fall,” State Representative Corey Harbison, a Republican, said Monday. “I hate that it all happened, but I’m thankful that the governor stepped aside. We can begin to put this behind us. ” | 1 |
The FBI arrested the wife of Omar Mateen, the jihadi responsible for a massacre at Orlando’s Pulse night club last year, on Monday morning in San Francisco on charges of obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting the attempted provision of material support to a foreign terrorist organization. [Salman will make a court appearance on Tuesday, her lawyer told ABC News. She was indicted in Tampa, Florida and is expected to relocate there to face charges in the case. Mateen killed 49 people at an Orlando, Florida nightclub on June 12, 2016 and left more than 50 others injured. During the prolonged attack on the Pulse nightclub, Mateen called pledged allegiance to ISIS and spoke of the Boston Marathon Islamic terrorist bombers. Mateen was eventually shot and killed in a standoff with law enforcement. After the attack, reports revealed allegations that Mateen attended the Islamic Center Fort Pierce for 13 years or more. Salman had told the Washington Post that her husband “wasn’t very religious. ” A Florida gun shop owner had also alerted the FBI after a suspicious man came in inquiring about body armor, which the owner refused to sell it to him. The FBI had investigated Mateen in the past as a potential terrorist. Media reports initially put heavy emphasis on reporting that Mateen may have been mentally ill or harbored repressed homosexual tendencies. The FBI found no evidence of the latter, instead finding evidence he may have had a romantic relationship with a woman other than his wife. Authorities eventually released the seventeen pages of transcripts from Mateen’s phone call on the night of the massacre, which revealed that he ranted about America’s fight against the Islamic State. Breitbart News previously reported on these transcripts and specific motives Mateen spelled out in his rant. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 1 |
It can be toilsome getting children into one cleaning habit. Nevertheless, there are seven that will show off the splendors of the treats and tricks exclusive to Halloween. Children of all ages can help clean up the house every day, unknowingly.
7 Halloween Treats That Trick Children Into Cleaning:
1. LolliPop Ghosts You will need:
Lollipops Fast food napkin Roll of black ribbon Black marker This is a resourceful way to recycle fast food napkins. To make lollipop ghosts for Halloween, fold one at a time over an unopened lollipop, tie black ribbon beneath the candy and draw two eyes and a mouth to get a unique ghost expression.
2. Spooky Village Deluxe You will need:
Empty Milk Cartons (the cardboard kind) Empty Cereal Boxes Black and White Construction Paper Stapler Scissors Cereal boxes and milk cartons can quickly be turned into a Spooky Village background. Cut the cereal box in half and gluing black construction paper to either side causing a dark and gloomy effect. Do this by coating washed and dried milk cartons with glue, white construction paper can be used to cover all logos and wording on the containers. Cut-outs of rectangles, squares and triangles can be used to the houses for the roof, windows, and doors. Excess pieces of the construction paper can be transformed into haunting ghosts throughout the spooky village.
3. Pumpkin Jar Lights You will need:
Orange paint Paper plate Newspaper Candles Empty Jars Black marker Empty jars sitting in the recycling bin can become resourceful Halloween light jars. Begin placing the orange paint on the paper plate. Then roll the jars in the paint, then place on paper to dry. Once dry, insert a candle, and add slits for eyes in black magic marker.
4. Soda Can Mummies You will need:
Soda cans Masking Tape Black magic marker Rinse soda cans thoroughly before setting out to dry, then wrap layers of masking tape around the whole can covering all designs, lastly add eyes with the black magic marker.
5. Halloween Eggs You will need:
Eggs Large pot Bowls Food Coloring Assorted colored markers Boil eggs in a large pot of water for 30 minutes, let cool in cold water for 10-15 minutes, dry off eggs with a paper towel, then dip eggs into bowls of food coloring for the desired coloration. Lay eggs on a napkin to dry, once dry, add scary designs using assorted colored markers.
6. Monster Leaf-Filled Bags You will need:
A Rake Leaves Halloween trash bags or Black trash bags Whiteout Children will not even realize they are cleaning up the yard when gathering leaves and stuffing them into Halloween decorated or black trash bags. Whiteout can accent the eyes and mouth on the black trash bags. Tie a knot in all bags once filled, and place them throughout the front and back yards for decoration.
7. Halloween Tye-Dye T-Shirts You will need:
Old T-shirt (stained okay) Food coloring Circular aluminum pan Water Fill the bottom of the aluminum pan with water, just to cover the surface, and then roll the t-shirt up and bend to fit into the pan. Apply desired food colors in swirls above the shirt. Next spin the pan and t-shirt by placing dominant hand in the middle of the pan, moving hand in circular motion. Count to 20 and unroll shirt to hang and dry.
All seven treats that can trick children into cleaning during Halloween may be store bought or substituted with household items inexpensively.
By Jhayla D. Tyson
Edited by Cathy Milne
Sources:
CNN: Halloween Crafts Made From Household Items
Times Leader: Be Scary but Safe this Halloween
Top & Feature Image Courtesy of U.S. Army Garrison Red Cloud’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
First Inline Image Courtesy of Alice’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Second Inline Image Courtesy of Greg Goebel’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License crafts , halloween , recycling , spot | 0 |
North Dakota is ablaze as a result of protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the protests have escalated quickly into violence and multiple arrests. How did this happen and who is behind it?
Here are 8 things you need to know about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. | 0 |
Can nuclear war break out on the Korean Peninsula? 02.11.2016 Print version Font Size Does China support Pyongyang? Can the Chinese intervene in a possible conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the United States? Senior officer at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of the Far East, Yevgeny Kim, gave an interview to Pravda.Ru, in which we spoke about North Korea's nuclear program and the possibility of the denuclearization of South-East Asia. "North Korea is a closed and little known country in many ways. Yet, who raised the question of a nuclear threat? After all, there are American atomic bombs in South Korea." "China has been involved in this actively during the recent years, but one should not attach much importance to it. The mandate of the six-party talks was about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The question is not only about the elimination of nuclear weapons in North Korea . One should remove US nuclear bombs from South Korea and exclude a possibility for any type of nuclear weapons to appear on the Korean Peninsula on the whole. "US nuclear-powered submarines with nuclear weapons, US aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons and US aircraft with nuclear weapons violate the regime of the nuclear-free zone in South Korea. Look at the Goa Declaration that was signed by the leaders of Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. There are more than one hundred articles in this lengthy declaration, but it contains no word about the North Korean nuclear issue."Last year's BRICS declaration did not mention anything about the the North Korean nuclear issue. Therefore, the leaders of the five countries do not believe that North Korea is guilty of this problem." "Vladimir Putin said once that no one will touch a country if this country has a nuclear bomb. If it does not have a nuclear bomb, this country may experience the fate of Libya. What is Russia's stance on North Korea? Does Russia recognize the right of North Korea to have a nuclear bomb?" "The Americans would have shipped air defense systems to South Korea regardless of what kind of weapons North Korea would have had - nuclear or not. Russia is one of the great powers that has nuclear weapons, but Russia is not interested in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Of course, Russia would not like to see the emergence of new nuclear powers in the world. "At the same time, Russia understands why other countries have nuclear weapons. Russia always says that all countries should proceed from the interests of equal security. Why should the USA be worried about the presence of nuclear weapons in North Korea? North Korea cannot attack the USA. Even if North Korea has launched missiles into space , it does not mean that those missiles can carry nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons have to be delivered to the territory of another state, and a missile has to reenter the atmosphere, where plasma can destroy it, but the missile has to remain guidable in such conditions to deliver its nuclear weapons to the target. North Korea does not have the technology." "Why does China keep silence?" "China understands the reason, for which North Korea has to develop its nuclear weapons. The Chinese realize that the Americans deploy air defense complexes to contain China and Russia, not North Korea. The Americans do not even hide the fact that they have another nuclear warhead to be delivered to Germany. Nowadays, one can test and further improve nuclear weapons without a physical explosion, and North Korea would need to switch to methods of mathematical analysis." "What will determine the economic development of North Korea - Sangun or reforms?" "Reforms, definitely. Sangun - the policy of the supremacy of the army - appeared in the mid-1990s, when the country was in dire straits. The country was forced to unite as a military camp and create the mobilization economy. Sangun made it possible to overcome a very difficult period in the history of North Korea, and the country continued its development, where rigid military control was not required. Now they conduct reforms." "Do you think a nuclear war may break out on the Korean Peninsula?" "No, a nuclear war will not break out on the Korean peninsula, as North Korea will not use military weapons first. The Americans have a theory of pre-emptive nuclear strike on North Korea, and Russia too, by the way. North Korea does not have such a theory." Interviewed by Said Gafurov Read article on the Russian version of Pravda.Ru North Korea threatens USA with 'unique' war | 0 |
Antidoping officials from at least 10 nations and 20 athlete groups are preparing the extraordinary step of requesting that the entire Russian delegation be barred from the Summer Olympics over allegations of a doping program, according to email correspondence obtained by The New York Times. The antidoping officials and athletes were expected to pressure Olympic leaders on the matter as soon as Monday — less than three weeks before the opening ceremony in Rio. They were waiting for the results of an investigation into claims published in The Times of a doping program conducted by Russian officials at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia’s former antidoping lab director, told The Times in May that he followed government orders to cover up the widespread use of drugs by dozens of Russian Olympians at the Sochi Games. At least 15 of them won medals, he said. Russian officials have dismissed allegations of a doping program as a Western conspiracy intended to smear Russia. The country’s track and field team has already been barred from the Rio Games for doping violations calls for sanctions against Russian athletes in every sport would be unprecedented and would likely escalate the geopolitical debate. At least 10 national antidoping organizations — including those in the United States, Germany, Spain, Japan, Switzerland and Canada — and more than 20 athlete groups representing Olympians from around the world have banded together as they anticipate validation of Dr. Rodchenkov’s claims. The chief executive of the Institute of National Organizations, a trade group to which dozens of nations’ antidoping agencies belong, urged all members to sign on to the request on Friday, according to an email reviewed by The Times. “It seems very likely that the Report will confirm what will be one of the biggest doping scandals in history, implicating the Russian Government in a massive conspiracy against the clean athletes of the world,” wrote Joseph de Pencier, the chief executive of the national antidoping trade association. “This will be a ‘watershed moment’ for clean sport. ” In an interview on Saturday, Travis Tygart, head of the United States Agency, said: “We’re not asking for the worst, and obviously we hope there’s no doping going on by states. But if we’re not preparing for all potential outcomes, then we’re not fulfilling our promise to clean athletes. ” Reuters first reported on Saturday that United States and Canadian antidoping officials were planning to call for a wider ban of Russian athletes at the Rio Games. Mr. Tygart and other antidoping officials said they had not seen the report, which was commissioned by the World Agency and prepared by a Canadian lawyer, Richard McLaren. It is expected to be released on Monday morning in Toronto. Mr. McLaren has indicated that his inquiry will prove true what Dr. Rodchenkov told The Times last spring. Last month, Mr. McLaren delivered a preliminary report to global track and field officials as they were scrutinizing Russia he called Dr. Rodchenkov’s detailed account of swapping out urine at Sochi with the help of Russia’s intelligence service “credible and verifiable,” adding that he had evidence to confirm that “the ministry of sport was involved in instructing the laboratory to not report positive sample results. ” After that report, track and field’s governing body barred Russian athletes from the Games, leaving a “narrow crack in the door” for Russian athletes who had been subjected to rigorous outside Russia to petition to compete in Rio, but under a neutral flag. So far, two Russian athletes have been given dispensation. One of them, Yuliya Stepanova, fled Russia in 2014 after alleging widespread doping. President Vladimir V. Putin has called her a “Judas” for betraying the country. “If McLaren produces clear, convincing, irrefutable evidence that there has been systemic doping in Russian sport,” said Paul Melia, Canada’s top antidoping official, “the appropriate sanction would be for the I. O. C. to ban the Russian Olympic Committee from taking a team to Rio. ” Anticipating confirmation of Dr. Rodchenkov’s account, the group of dozens of antidoping officials are considering addressing Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, and the organization’s executive board members. They are preparing to request that the ban applied to Russia’s track and field athletes be applied across sports, with opportunities for athletes to appeal and possibly be given permission to compete under a neutral flag. Since Dr. Rodchenkov outlined an elaborate doping scheme at the Sochi Games, the I. O. C. has repeatedly called for “the right balance between collective responsibility and individual justice. ” It is unclear if Mr. Bach would be persuaded by the antidoping organizations’ request to bar the entire Russian delegation. In May Mr. Bach said he would apply a “ ” policy and would not rule out bans against Russia across entire sports, like track and field. But last month he defended the Russian Olympic Committee, distancing the organization from the sports ministry. Dr. Rodchenkov, however, said he took direct orders from Russia’s deputy sports minister, Yuri Nagornykh, who is a member of Russia’s Olympic Committee. United States lawmakers from the House of Representatives and Senate have expressed concern about Dr. Rodhchenkov’s allegations. Last month, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation said the scandal called into question the “strength and credibility” of the antidoping system. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce echoed that this month, urging Mr. Bach to seize “crucial and timely opportunities” to clean up global sports. “The failure to do so is simply irresponsible, and we will not remain silent,” the lawmakers wrote. Both the Senate and House committees have United States government jurisdiction over international sports, and the United States has contributed tens of millions of dollars to the World Agency since the early 2000s. Russia’s sports ministry has admitted to doping problems in recent months but denied government involvement. In an interview with The Times in Moscow this month, Vitaly Mutko, Russia’s sports minister, diminished the power of Mr. McLaren’s commission and WADA, which have the ability to make recommendations such as the ones the antidoping officials and athletes are prepared to do. The I. O. C. and sports federations have ultimate authority over who competes at the Games. “Recommendations?” Mr. Mutko said. “It’s about the decisions. With respect to the commission, they do not determine the fate of world sport. ” | 1 |
Anonymous has released a video that incriminates Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin for having ties to terrorists who funded the 9/11 attacks.
Via YourNewsWire
The hacktivist group known as Anonymous presents evidence in the video below that incriminates Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin for having deep ties to the terrorists who funded the 9/11 tragedy.
Video Below. Hillary Clinton’s political career has been shrouded in lies,conspiracies and crimes that her and Bill have always managed to get out, unscathed. Well, no more! The terrorists who funded 9/11 also donated very generously to the infamous Clinton Foundation.
This latest exposure by Anonymous is a serious issue that voters need to take into consideration before voting next week. Where does Hillary Clinton’s loyalties lie and with whom?
| 0 |
Print
[Ed. – Videos are starting to come out, like the one here . Reportedly, it took 40 police officers to gain control of the situation.]
An Israeli speaker’s talk at a London college campus scheduled for this week was canceled on Wednesday. Why? Because, according to the cancelation notice sent by the student union, “there had been controversy” when he spoke at the campus two years prior, and the hosting organization failed to disclose that when the room was booked for the talk.
After cries of suppression of speech and vehement protests, the university stepped in and “un”canceled the talk. Hen Mazzig’s talk at University College, London, was reinstated. It would take place, as scheduled, on Thursday evening, Oct. 27.
The response by the anti-Israel mob was swift and the attack was vicious. A protest was called. Outside the room where Mazzig was scheduled to speak, livid demonstrators screamed for murder and the end of Israel. “Intifada, Intifada!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” They barred the entrance to the talk while pummeling the doors and windows, leering malevolently. Two thugs yanked open a window, hurling themselves into the room, launching several students inside into panic attacks. A woman inside kept repeating: “This is like the Warsaw Ghetto!” | 0 |
ST. PAUL — A dashiki. A trench coat. A sequined slip dress. A velvet blazer. Shirts, scarves and necklaces. Football jerseys, neckties, boas and silk robes. Hair dye and wigs. Nail polish and eye shadow and lipstick. Purple popped up in all sorts of places at the Xcel Energy Center here Thursday night, on Prince loyalists who had come from all over the city and all over the world for “The Official Prince Tribute Concert,” envisioned by his estate as a grand celebration of the legacy of a transformative rock and pop icon, who died April 21 of an accidental overdose of painkillers. Here, just next to Minneapolis, the city he honed his skills in and never strayed far from — his residential and recording complex, Paisley Park, is in nearby Chanhassen and is being converted into a museum — he is a god, and also a local kid done good. He is so much a part of the area’s fabric that it made utter sense that almost everyone in the crowd of 17, 000 was keen to show off a little bit of inner Prince. That strong sense of ownership also highlighted the tension that underscored this decidedly uneven concert, and eventually almost undermined it — between Prince as a local hero and Prince as a global superstar. Judging by the execution of the concert, hometown Prince was the clear victor, or at least the more achievable inspiration. For almost five hours, the New Power Generation — one of Prince’s backing bands — held steady court while several Prince collaborators known best to intimates and committed fans, and a handful of more widely known performers, including Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan, celebrated Prince with covers of his songs. But when this concert was originally announced in July, it was scheduled for U. S. Bank Stadium, a football arena three times the size of the Xcel Energy Center. It also promised to emphasize Prince’s vast influence in the pop mainstream with performances by more contemporary stars like Christina Aguilera and John Mayer. But both of them withdrew from the downsized show this week under dubious circumstances. What remained was haphazard and inconsistent, a concert that told no coherent story about Prince apart from the fact that he was widely admired and almost impossible to emulate. Some gamely tried: Luke James, whose falsetto on “Do Me, Baby” attracted the first lusty shrieks of the night, and Bilal, the most impressive male singer here not named Stevie, who woke up of the way through “The Beautiful Ones” and kept putting his limber voice to work through “If I Was Your Girlfriend” (though his performance couldn’t hold a candle to his riveting Prince tribute at the BET Awards in June). A pair of vocally ambitious young female soul singers, Tori Kelly and Jessie J, tried for similar energy. There is something tepid about Ms. Kelly’s brilliance — it’s familiar in shape but has no flash. And Jessie J is all pyrotechnics and no depth. Neither fared well here. Ms. Kelly’s “Let’s Get Crazy” was stagnant, and she wilted on “Take Me With U,” a duet with Mr. Wonder. The Portuguese fado singer Ana Moura played a perplexing set, including a version of “Little Red Corvette” that overlooked many of the words. Early in the night came a baffling appearance by Nicole Scherzinger, former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, though it was less arbitrary than the repeated bits throughout the concert of Doug E. Fresh, the 1980s beatboxer who had little in common with anyone else onstage. Even Chaka Khan felt unmoored, singing her own “Sweet Thing” and Prince’s “1999” with the same misty approach. Everyone’s set was brief — sometimes mercifully, often frustratingly. The show opened with two excellent Minneapolis stalwart bands: Mint Condition, inheritors of the Prince sound, and Morris Day the Time, Prince collaborators and antagonists (who were to perform a show at the storied Minneapolis club First Avenue later in the night). Both were gone too soon. Much of the heavy lifting fell to elders: Mr. Wonder, wearing a purple shirt and a purple kerchief in his blazer, who performed a gobsmacking version of Donny Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” and later was visibly weeping during the “Purple Rain” encore. And the extremely spry André Cymone, a teenage friend and bandmate of Prince’s who was the most visible performer here, with strong versions of “Uptown,” “Controversy” and “The Ladder,” a duet with Cassandra O’Neal. (His guitar playing was much louder and more dexterous than his singing, though.) Mr. Cymone was one of several standouts from Prince’s extended orbit — others included Judith Hill (on “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? ”) Liv Warfield (on “Hot Thing”) and Saeeda Wright (on “7”) — performers who reinforced the image of Prince as progenitor of a whole city’s worth of sounds. Even though the gaps between these moments and the rest of the show were large, the concert had a steady consistency throughout — onstage, Minneapolis was claiming its son, and in the audience, locals were grieving the loss of a neighbor. | 1 |
On Jan. 4, 11 years and 26 days after I walked out of an animal shelter in New Jersey with a little white and brown dog attached to the end of a leash, she died. On this day, an undiagnosed tumor pressed down on Emily’s brain and told her that she needed to escape, which made her usually soft, cuddly and often napping body go wild, endangering herself and me. The humane thing to do was put her down. I don’t think anything could have prepared me for that moment, or the searing grief that followed. But if I could go back in time to console myself, I would tell myself these six things: Most people will say the wrong thing. They will talk about dogs they knew and loved and put down, too, or, if they haven’t walked through this long, lonely tunnel yet, about how they can’t possibly imagine losing their very alive pet, which reminds you that yours is dead. They will also ask how old she was, and when you say 15, they will say, “Well, it was a good long life,” as if the ending of it would be less painful because of how long you were together. They may tell you other dog death stories, too, like the one about the dog who was so excited to be home from vacation that he bolted out of the car and was immediately run over while the whole family watched — stories that imply it could have been worse. They will shove shelter listings for other Jack Russell terriers at you, as if another dog could slip into that perfect little spot left by your beloved pet. Guilt overwhelms. I still tell myself that I killed Emily, despite the veterinarian telling me, after her body had been taken away, while I gripped both a counter and a vet tech to keep from collapsing, that all four of her paws had been bloodied as she had clawed at the floor, the door and the ground during her manic and desperate attempt to get away from my home. There is guilt, too, over the relief of no longer having to take care of a dog who was on multiple medications and who had arthritis, two defective heart valves and pulmonary hypertension. You will become unmoored. I adopted Emily soon after I became a freelance writer, and I wrote three books with her by my side. She was the metronome to my life. With her gone, I floated through a space she no longer occupied but haunted with every little white hair found on my blankets, on the floor, in my shoes. Once, in the first week following her death, I came up from the basement and looked at the spot where she would usually be waiting. I called for her with the foolish notion that she’d appear at the top of the stairs. But of course, no: just another sledgehammer reminder that she was really gone. Grief is exhausting. Last fall, I ran two marathons and an ultramarathon. After Emily died, I couldn’t drag myself through three miles, not to mention find the energy to get out of bed, put on clothes that were not my pajamas and shower at regular intervals. I pushed off assignments because the idea of putting my fingers to the keyboard was inconceivable when Emily wasn’t sleeping on her bed in the corner of my office. These were wretched, days, surrounded by a deafening silence. I went back into therapy after she died and was told I was depressed, which wasn’t surprising, as I had started to slip into bed at 8:30 p. m. and not get up until half a day later. Losing a companion and your routine all at once, especially if you’re single like me, could throw anyone into a tailspin. It will get better. You won’t want to hear it, or believe it, because the pain is so suffocating. It does ease, though, almost without you noticing it. But still, it slaps back. This may happen at predictable moments, such as when you decide to sell her crate, and sometimes not. Soon after Emily died, I got on a plane and went to Florida to bake out the pain with poolside sessions punctuated by midday drinks. It worked, somewhat, but on my last night there, my face cracked open at the World of Disney store when I saw a mug with the character Stitch that said “brave” on one side and “loyal” on the other. Only the cashier noticed that I paid with tears and snot running down my face. I then ran out of the store to stare at a lake. These days, I get up, I brush my teeth, I write, I run. I smile now and laugh sometimes. The pain still catches me, though, and I can now more clearly see why: I loved that dog, and in giving a scared, abused, imperfect Emily a home, she loved me back, and together our lives both bloomed. The loss of that joy is why the pain is so acute — and why, at some point in the maybe not so distant future, I’ll go back to that animal shelter with a leash, and do it all over again. | 1 |
Soon 15 NATO Nations Which Do Not Border Russia Will Have Troops on the Russian Border
Why does Luxembourg need to have troops stationed a hundred miles from Russia's second city?
From the news :
More Nato members have pledged to contribute to four battalions stationed in Poland and the Baltic states as the military alliance continues to build its presence on its eastern flank, Nato's secretary general said on October 26.
Albania , Italy , Poland and Slovenia will contribute to the Canada -led battalion in Latvia. Belgium , Croatia , France , Luxembourg , Netherlands and Norway will contribute to Germany -led battalion in Lithuania. Denmark and France will strengthen the UK -led battalion in Estonia, while Romania and the UK will add weight to the US -led battalion in Poland.
In other words very soon 15 NATO nations (bolded) which do not share a border with Russia will have troops stationed abroad, on the Russian border. Additionally Poland and Norway which share a short border with Russia will also station troops abroad in Lithuania and Latvia.
In total a coalition of 20 NATO nations will be parked in the Baltics in a way that encircles the Russian Kaliningrad exclave and puts a portion of the NATO troops just 100 miles from Saint Petersburg -- Russia's second city and historic capital. -- A city where some 1 million civilians were starved to death during the WWII siege put up by Germany which is now returned to the region.
Of the 20 NATO nations now on Russia's vulnerable northwestern flank Germany, Italy amd Romania famously invaded it in the 1940s causing 25 million deaths , including 15 million deaths of civilians and prisoners of war .
The Russians will also remember that with the German invaders came quisling troops from a number of other nations now again on its borders. The French came with SS Charlemagne, the Danish and Norwegians with SS Viking and Nordland, the Dutch with SS Nederland, the Croats with the 369th Regiment, the Belgians with SS Wallonien and Flandern.
In the alternate reality inhabited by western functionaries Russia is about to invade the Baltics neccesitating the build-up there, which is to include a permanent presence of 4,000 troops backed up by a 'rapid reaction force' of 40,000 .
On the other hand, c ombined NATO militaries are about 4 times the size the Russian military. Even without counting the US and Canada, the European NATO countries alone have 3 times the population of Russia and 10 times its GDP.
Additionally Russia did not do anything to grab the Baltic countries whether before they joined NATO in 2004 or since. -- This despite the long-standing mistreatment of the Russian minority in Estonia and Latvia actually being worse in the 1990s than today. -- And certainly there are no Russian troops of the border of Albania, UK, Canada or Germany.
So really, is this a defensive deployment, or a move to intimidate and dominate Russia by a far richer, and more powerful bloc? | 0 |
ST. PAUL — President Obama, reacting with the same horror as many Americans to a grisly video of a bloody, dying man in Minnesota who was shot by the police, begged the nation to confront the racial disparities in law enforcement while acknowledging the dangers that officers face. “When incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us,” Mr. Obama said in a statement on Thursday after arriving in Warsaw for a NATO summit. “This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about. ” A few hours earlier, Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, who seemed shaken by the video showing the man, Philando Castile, as he died, also pointed to the role of race. “Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white?” he asked. “I don’t think it would have. ” The statements capped a wrenching day that started with widespread replays of the extraordinary video of Mr. Castile’s final moments and the aftermath of the shooting, which his girlfriend had narrated as they occurred live on Facebook. There were demonstrations and a vigil for Mr. Castile, with appearances by members of his family, in St. Paul. But the shooting reverberated far beyond the state. In Dallas, gunfire broke out Thursday evening at a demonstration, turning a vocal but peaceful rally into chaos as two snipers shot at police officers, killing five of them, the police said. Mr. Dayton and members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation asked for the Justice Department to investigate the death of Mr. Castile, 32, who died hours after the department took over the investigation into the fatal police shooting, also captured on video, in Baton Rouge, La. The governor said he had spoken with White House and Justice Department officials. But the department responded that for now, it would leave the investigation to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and would offer assistance. The shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota follow a long string of deaths of black people at the hands of the police — in Staten Island Cleveland Baltimore Ferguson, Mo. and North Charleston, S. C. among others — that have stoked outrage around the country. The encounters, many of them at least partly caught on video, have led to intense debate about race relations and law enforcement. Mr. Obama, in Warsaw, said he felt compelled to follow up a Facebook message with a personal statement about the killings, though he said he could not comment directly on them. “But what I can say is that all of us, as Americans, should be troubled by these shootings, because these are not isolated incidents,” he said. “They’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system. ” The president cited the nation’s tortured racial history and current statistics on unequal treatment of the races. Sounding wistful, he said, “maybe in my children’s lifetimes, all the vestiges of that past will have been cured. ” Mr. Castile’s deadly encounter with the police occurred Wednesday night at 9 p. m. in the small city of Falcon Heights, just northwest of St. Paul. The graphic video showed Mr. Castile, who had been shot several times, slumping toward the woman who was recording the scene. As she did so, her daughter sat in the back seat and an officer stood just outside the driver’s side window, still aiming his gun at the mortally wounded man at range. The video is all the more shocking for the calm, clear narration of the woman, Diamond Reynolds, and the fact that she was streaming it live on Facebook. On the video, Ms. Reynolds, who said Mr. Castile was her boyfriend, gives her account of what happened, saying again and again that he had informed the officer that he was carrying a gun, and that he was just reaching for his driver’s license and registration — as the officer had requested — when the officer opened fire. She estimated, at various times, that three, four or five shots were fired. “Please, Officer, don’t tell me that you just did this to him,” she said. “You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his license and registration, sir. ” Ms. Reynolds’s daughter appears several times in the video. Near the end of the clip, as the two are sitting in the back of a police car and Ms. Reynolds becomes increasingly distraught, the girl comforts her mother. “It’s O. K. Mommy,” she says. “It’s O. K. I’m right here with you. ” Late Thursday night, Minnesota authorities identified the officer who fired as Jeronimo Yanez. They said he is on administrative leave as the investigation continues. Another officer who did not shoot but was on the scene is also on leave. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office ruled Mr. Castile’s manner of death to be a homicide, meaning he was killed by another person. In a short statement, the medical examiner said Mr. Castile sustained multiple gunshot wounds and died at 9:37 p. m. in a hospital emergency room, about 20 minutes after he was shot. Mr. Castile had worked in the nutrition services department of St. Paul Public Schools since 2002, and became a supervisor two years ago, the district said in a statement. In recent years, he worked at J. J. Hill Montessori Magnet School, which is part of the district. “He was one of the people you’ve ever met,” said Antonio Johnson, a first cousin of Mr. Castile’s. “This kid has never been in an argument. You could try to argue with him, and he was so nonconfrontational that he’d just laugh. ” Danny Givens, a nondenominational pastor who said he was a friend of Mr. Castile’s, said, “Philando was a very man, personable, smile would light up a room, eyes that just speak volumes of love. ” In its statement, the school district said: “He had a cheerful disposition and his colleagues enjoyed working with him. He was quick to greet former with a smile and hug. ” In the day after the shooting, Ms. Reynolds and her video supplied the only public accounts of the lethal encounter. Officials said they could not offer any details, though they did confirm that a gun — presumably Mr. Castile’s — was recovered from the scene. Mona Dohman, the state commissioner of public safety, who oversees the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, declined to say whether Mr. Castile had a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Mr. Dayton said he was struck by the fact that the video did not show officers making any attempt to render first aid to the dying man, but that they handcuffed Ms. Reynolds and placed her and her daughter in the back of a police car. “The stark treatment I find just absolutely appalling at all levels,” he said. The video of the shooting passed rapidly among Twitter, Facebook and YouTube users, becoming significant news online. The terms #FalconHeightsShooting and #PhilandoCastile were trending on Twitter as news of the encounter spread. Hillary Clinton wrote on Twitter: “America woke up to yet another tragedy of a life cut down too soon. Black Lives Matter. ” Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Ms. Reynolds said that Mr. Castile, had just come from having his hair done for his birthday when they were pulled over on Larpenteur Avenue, a major thoroughfare through Falcon Heights, a predominantly white and city of 5, 500 residents. The two officers who stopped them were from the nearby city of St. Anthony, which provides police services under contract to Falcon Heights, One officer approached Mr. Castile, who was driving, and said he had a broken taillight, Ms. Reynolds said. “He tells us to put our hands in the air, we have our hands in the air,” she said. “At the time as our hands is in the air, he asked for license and registration,” which Mr. Castile carried in a wallet in his back pocket. As he is reaching for his back pocket wallet, to produce his license and registration, “he lets the officer know, ‘Officer, I have a firearm on me,’ ” she said. “I began to yell, ‘But he’s licensed to carry.’ After that, he began to take off shots — bah, bah, bah, bah, ‘Don’t move! Don’t move!’ But how can you not move when you’re asking for license and registration? It’s either you want my hands in the air or you want my identification. ” The video, some versions of which were reversed, making it appear that Mr. Castile was in the passenger seat, begins with images of Mr. Castile, who appears to be moaning and moving slightly, his left arm and left side bloody. Ms. Reynolds, who uses the name Lavish Reynolds on Facebook, then pans the camera to her face and says “They killed my boyfriend. ” In the background, one of the officers can be heard shouting: “I told him not to reach for it. I told him to get his hands up. ” Mr. Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, told CNN that she had taught her son to be extremely cautious when encountering members of law enforcement. “If you get stopped by the police, comply,” Ms. Castile said. “Comply, comply, comply. ” “My son was a citizen, and he did nothing wrong,” she said. “He’s no thug. ” She added, “I think he was just black in the wrong place. ” | 1 |
Chairman Of The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jason Chaffetz, Says He Will Vote For TRUMP. by IWB · October 27, 2016 Tweet
by Pamela Williams
Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, tweeted Wednesday night he will vote for Donald Trump for President. He went on to say, “Hillary IS that bad”, and he should know. He has worked on the Benghazi Committee, as well as the investigation into her use of a private email server and the deletion of more than 30,000 emails from that account.
Chaffetz is the Representative from Utah, and he is as reputable as anyone you will find in today’s corrupt government. He did find confusion as to whom he would vote for, as he was disappointed with Trump when the widely distributed “sex tape” came out. It threw him, but he simply cannot vote for Hillary, as he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt she is bad to the bone and will lead this Country into further destruction. I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump , but I am voting for him. HRC is that bad. HRC is bad for the USA.
— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 27, 2016
Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz, who hails from the newly-minted toss-up state of Utah, seemingly has had a change of heart: He now says he will indeed vote for Donald Trump .
“I will not defend or endorse @realDonaldTrump, but I am voting for him. HRC is that bad. HRC is bad for the USA,” Chaffetz tweeted Wednesday night. | 0 |
By wmw_admin on October 27, 2016 Eli Lake — Bloomberg Oct 26, 2016
The next president has an opportunity in the Middle East to reassure wavering allies, to tell them: “We’re back and we’re going to lead again.”
That sounds like something you might hear this month in an alternate reality, from the Rubio-Cheney campaign. After all, President Barack Obama would argue that he is already leading in the Middle East.
But that is a quote from Michael Morell, a former deputy and acting director of the CIA and an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. He said this on Tuesday at the Center for American Progress, a think tank founded by the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta, and headed today by the policy director of the 2008 Clinton campaign, Neera Tanden.
Morell, who is likely to be tapped for a senior post in a Clinton administration, outlined a more robust role for the U.S. to counter Iran in the Middle East. For example, Morell said the U.S. should consider a new set of sanctions against Iran to punish its “malign behavior in the region.” The Obama administration, on the other hand, has opposed efforts from Congress to impose new sanctions on Iran after the nuclear deal that lifted many of them.
Morell also proposed a new policy for the U.S. Navy to board Iranian ships that are assisting its proxy war in Yemen. “Ships leave Iran on a regular basis carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen,” he said. “I would have no problem from a policy perspective of having the U.S. Navy boarding their ships and if there are weapons on them to turn those ships around.”
In fairness, Morell said this raised questions of international maritime law. He also recommended countering Iran as part of a new strategy that calls on U.S. allies in the Middle East to do more to tamp down the threat of jihadist ideology and reform weak and corrupt governing systems.
But it’s striking how different Morell’s approach to Iran is from that of the president he once served. After the Iran nuclear deal, the U.S. hosted summits for Persian Gulf states to discuss their concerns about an emboldened Iran and its support for militias in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen and for the government in Syria. But the main lever of Obama’s policy for reassuring these allies has been a new suite of arms sales — without a new policy framework to counter Iranian influence.
Indeed, Obama has barely countered Iranian aggression in the region at all. In Iraq, the U.S. has from time to time provided air cover to operations by Iran-supported Shiite militias against the Islamic State. In Syria, the U.S. has sought an agreement with Russia to coordinate airstrikes — as Russia supports the same factions as Iran — and has pressured the rebels it once supported to accept negotiations with the Syrian regime that would not result in its dictator’s immediate removal from power.
Secretary of State John Kerry meanwhile has tried to assure European banks that it’s safe now to invest in Iran. The Obama administration has approved a sale that would allow Boeing to sell planes to Iranian airlines sanctioned for supporting the regime in Syria.
Morell’s approach matches the one laid out in June by Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s top national security adviser. He told the Truman Security Project: “We need to be raising the costs to Iran for its destabilizing behavior and we need to be raising the confidence of our Sunni partners.”
These ideas are also in line with a report from the Center for American Progress released this week that proposes a new strategy for the Middle East. That report says plainly that the nuclear deal reached in 2015 “does not make Iran a regional partner for the United States” and that “Iran continues to pose a threat to U.S. interests and values in the Middle East and around the world.”
Not surprisingly, the report has already drawn criticism from the Iran agreement’s supporters and the left wing of the Democratic Party. Writing in the Nation, former Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich speculated that the report was influenced by defense contractors who contributed to the Center for American Progress. Progressive journalist Jim Lobe skewered the report for squandering an opportunity to cooperate with Iran.
All of this suggests that if Clinton wins the presidency next month, she will be taking on not only Iranian aggression abroad, but also Iran’s apologists back in Washington. | 0 |
Comment on this Article Via Your Facebook Account Comment on this Article Via Your Disqus Account Follow Us on Facebook! | 0 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.