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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Government soldiers made advances in the center of the besieged city of Aleppo on Tuesday, as heavy aerial bombardments by Syria and its ally Russia extended into a fifth day, media organizations said. Syrian state television reported that troops loyal to the government of President Bashar had captured the neighborhood of Farafra, near the city’s medieval citadel. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring organization based in London, confirmed that government forces had pushed into the center of Aleppo as part of their siege of areas in the eastern part of what was once Syria’s commercial capital. Airstrikes on Tuesday afternoon killed at least 23 people, including nine children, in the Sha’ar and Mashhad neighborhoods in eastern Aleppo, the observatory reported. The ground offensive, if confirmed, would be a major development in the battle for Aleppo, where fighting has raged off and on since 2012. However, social media accounts associated with opposition fighters said the government was exaggerating the magnitude of its advances. Insurgents from groups that identify themselves as the Free Syrian Army said they had blocked government forces trying to advance on the eastern sections of Aleppo’s Old City. Rebels have been fortifying the eastern neighborhoods under their control for years, and any ground offensive would probably be long and grinding, international officials have said. The Syrian military has not demonstrated an ability to quickly take and hold large territories, even with help from thousands of foreign militiamen commanded by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, including fighters from the militant group Hezbollah and from Iraq, as well as a small number of Russian ground troops and heavy application of Russian and Syrian air power. Over the last week, Aleppo has been the site of some of the most ferocious fighting in Syria’s civil war, after the collapse of a negotiated by the United States and Russia. Mohamed Abu Jaafar Kahil, the head of a medical charity, said in an electronic message that conditions in Aleppo were desperate. “Hospitals have no more room to receive even one more case, due to the huge number of casualties, of wounded and of martyrs who died today at the hands of barbaric Russian warplanes backed by Syrian warplanes,” he said. Mr. Kahil recounted “nonstop bombing” by rockets and other artillery, including cluster munitions, which maim and kill indiscriminately. He estimated that dozens had died and hundreds had been wounded. Dr. Mohamed a radiologist reached via the messaging app Viber, described a dire situation at the hospital where he worked. “We’re running short of drugs we’re running short of respirators,” he said. “We don’t have baby milk, especially for newborns. ” Bassem Ayoub, an Aleppo resident, said food and medical supplies were running out. “Every day is worse than the last,” he said. “Every day I leave my house, I keep in mind that I might not be back. All the people are doing the same here. We’re living day by day. ” Humanitarian organizations were trying to repair a water pumping station serving the eastern part of the city. Hanaa Singer, the Unicef representative for Syria, said officials were worried that the supply of drinking water might run out, putting 100, 000 children at risk of dehydration. There was no progress on diplomatic efforts to halt the bloodshed. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel denounced the violence but expressed skepticism that a zone, one of the ideas for stanching the violence, could be instituted. “What we currently see on the ground is very, very brutal and clearly targeting civilians,” she told reporters in Berlin, according to The Associated Press. She added that the recent attacks amounted to a “deep, deep setback. ” “It clearly now is up to the Assad regime, and also Russia, to take a step to improve the chances for a and humanitarian aid,” she said. The conflict in Syria has by some estimates left 500, 000 people dead, displaced half the population and, according to the United Nations, has sent more than 4. 8 million people into neighboring countries as refugees. The United States has accepted about 12, 500 Syrian refugees over the past year, Anne C. Richard, the senior State Department official for refugee issues, said on Tuesday. That exceeds the goal set by President Obama of admitting as least 10, 000 during the fiscal year. But it is a tiny fraction of the total number of refugees. Ms. Richard also announced that the United States would provide more than $364 million in additional aid, of which is to be provided to Syrians who are inside the country. That brings the total humanitarian assistance the United States has provided during the conflict to more than $5. 9 billion. Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate for president, has called the program to admit Syrian refugees a security risk and has said it should be suspended. Defending the program, Ms. Richard said the vetting was “extremely rigorous” and added that the State Department wanted to bring in a higher number of Syrian refugees next year, though there was not a specific target. | 1 |
Robby Mook, the manager for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, urged staff to attack National Nurses United (NNU) as “fringe” and suggested they were “not a ‘real’ union,” according to emails published by WikiLeaks.
NNU gave Bernie Sanders one of his biggest union endorsements. The nurses union also invested a lot of time and resources into get out the vote efforts and hosted a major People’s Summit in June that brought all the forces, which were supportive of the Sanders campaign, together in Chicago to explore how to carry on a people’s agenda after the election.
RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of NNU, responded, “The Clinton team’s attack on nurses as ‘fringe’ and not a ‘real union’ is deplorable, but hardly a shock. It’s a window in how they seek to vilify any critics, as evidenced in other emails showing Clinton’s mocking disdain for environmental activists.”
DeMoro continued, “Apparently, a ‘real union’ is only one that falls lock step within the Democratic Party establishment and ‘fringe’ when it fails to embrace partnerships with Wall Street and other corporate interests.”
“Sadly, it’s also a preview of what we can expect in the next four years and a reminder that—from day one of the Clinton administration—NNU and our allies will need to make our voices loudly heard to advocate for social, economic, and political justice for patients and all people.”
On August 9, 2015, the labor outreach director, Nikki Budzinski, indicated NNU would endorse Sanders. It was the first national labor endorsement the campaign failed to win.
Mook replied, “On the nurses—can we be ready [with] background for the press team on how fringe they are? Also have they praised HRC before?”
“I would be wary of trying to attack them as fringe,” Budzinski advised. However, she said the press would “love this story” and “finding a creative way to shake it I think is worth the effort.”
Mook agreed and added, “I’m just worried less experienced reporters won’t understand that they’re not a ‘real’ union.”
NNU is, in fact, a “real” union. It is an AFL-CIO member union. It is also the largest union of registered nurses in the United States.
In July 2015, Mook favored lobbying NNU leadership to prevent them from endorsing Bernie. That pressure clearly failed.
The campaign pit the nurses of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) against the nurses of NNU, trotting them out to deaden the impact of NNU’s support for Sanders. Campaign chairman John Podesta even seemed to welcome AFT president Randi Weingarten’s pledge to “go after NNU and there [sic] high and mighty sanctimonious conduct.”
Individuals connected to the campaign continued to keep track of NNU and their efforts to support Sanders. Tina Flournoy of AFT notified the campaign when NNU sent out a press release condemning the Democratic National Committee for its attempt to rig the primary process by denying Sanders access to a master list of voters.
Clinton campaign staff likely considered NNU “fringe” because the nurses union took a principled stand on the Affordable Care Act (ACA). They pushed for single-payer healthcare and still refuse to settle for anything less than Medicare for All.
At a Democratic Platform Committee meeting in June, DeMoro criticized the ACA, as well as the Clinton campaign’s proposals for incremental market-based reform that would barely address human needs.
Clinton and DNC appointees to the Platform Committee blocked the Democratic Party from including language that would have suggested the party supports expanding Medicare to cover all Americans.
“The Affordable Care Act, while an improvement, is not good enough. It is structurally deficient [and] leaves healthcare as a system based on profit and ability to pay rather than patient need,” NNU declared in a statement after the platform committee voted down the single-payer language.
It still means tens of millions of American have no “health coverage or ‘insurance’” because they cannot afford “high out of pocket costs.” Plus, the law has systemic problems which undermine quality of care, and it is easy for the health care industry to game the system, NNU added.
President Barack Obama’s administration confirmed premiums under the ACA will go up about 25 percent. Many Americans will only have one insurance provider to choose from when buying insurance through exchanges.
The spike further undermines the arguments of progressive establishment figures, who insist the ACA must be defended at all costs, including against calls to establish a universal health care system that would truly put people before profits.
Finally, some of the worst attacks from Democrats and the Obama administration came in 2009 and 2010 against groups and organizations, which did not immediately fall in line and support the ACA. They lashed out those committed to single-payer healthcare or a much weaker reform, the public option.
The conduct of the Clinton campaign suggests this type of disdain for principled challenges from progressives will continue under a Clinton administration, and in fact, a Clinton administration may be more crude and vicious in their efforts to stamp out dissent.
The post “Not A ‘Real’ Union”: Emails Show Clinton Campaign Attacks On Nurses appeared first on Shadowproof .
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Gender studies is a fake academic industry populated by charlatans, deranged activists and gullible idiots. [Now, a pair of enterprising hoaxers has proved it scientifically by persuading an academic journal to and publish their paper claiming that the penis is not really a male genital organ but a social construct. The paper, published by Cogent Social Sciences — “a multidisciplinary open access journal offering high quality peer review across the social sciences” — also claims that penises are responsible for causing climate change. The two hoaxers are Peter Boghossian, a faculty member in the Philosophy department at Portland State University, and James Lindsay, who has a doctorate in math and a background in physics. They were hoping to emulate probably the most famous academic hoax in recent years: the Sokal Hoax — named after NYU and UCL physics professor Alan Sokal — who in 1996 persuaded an academic journal called Social Text to accept a paper titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”. Sokal’s paper — comprising pages of but meaningless jargon — was written in part to demonstrate that humanities journals will publish pretty much anything so long as it sounds like “proper leftist thought” and partly in order to send up the absurdity of so much social science. So, for this new spoof, Boghossian and Lindsay were careful to throw in lots of signifier phrases to indicate fashionable bias: We intended to test the hypothesis that flattery of the academic Left’s moral architecture in general, and of the moral orthodoxy in gender studies in particular, is the overwhelming determiner of publication in an academic journal in the field. That is, we sought to demonstrate that a desire for a certain moral view of the world to be validated could overcome the critical assessment required for legitimate scholarship. Particularly, we suspected that gender studies is crippled academically by an overriding belief that maleness is the root of all evil. On the evidence, our suspicion was justified. They also took care to make it completely incomprehensible. We didn’t try to make the paper coherent instead, we stuffed it full of jargon (like “discursive” and “isomorphism”) nonsense (like arguing that hypermasculine men are both inside and outside of certain discourses at the same time) phrases (like “ society”) lewd references to slang terms for the penis, insulting phrasing regarding men (including referring to some men who choose not to have children as being “unable to coerce a mate”) and allusions to rape (we stated that “manspreading,” a complaint levied against men for sitting with their legs spread wide, is “akin to raping the empty space around him”). After completing the paper, we read it carefully to ensure it didn’t say anything meaningful, and as neither one of us could determine what it is actually about, we deemed it a success. Some of it was written with the help of the Postmodern Generator — “a website coded in the 1990s by Andrew Bulhak featuring an algorithm, based on NYU physicist Alan Sokal’s method of hoaxing a cultural studies journal called Social Text, that returns a different fake postmodern ‘paper’ every time the page is reloaded. ” This paragraph, for example, looks impressive but is literally meaningless: Inasmuch as masculinity is essentially performative, so too is the conceptual penis. The penis, in the words of Judith Butler, “can only be understood through reference to what is barred from the signifier within the domain of corporeal legibility” (Butler, 1993). The penis should not be understood as an honest expression of the performer’s intent should it be presented in a performance of masculinity or hypermasculinity. Thus, the isomorphism between the conceptual penis and what’s referred to throughout discursive feminist literature as “toxic hypermasculinity,” is one defined upon a vector of male cultural machismo braggadocio, with the conceptual penis playing the roles of subject, object, and verb of action. The result of this trichotomy of roles is to place hypermasculine men both within and outside of competing discourses whose dynamics, as seen via discourse analysis, enact a systematic interplay of power in which hypermasculine men use the conceptual penis to move themselves from powerless subject positions to powerful ones (confer: Foucault, 1972). None of it should have survived more than a moment’s scrutiny by serious academics. But it was by two experts in the field who, after suggesting only a few changes, passed it for publication: Cogent Social Sciences eventually accepted “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct. ” The reviewers were amazingly encouraging, giving us very high marks in nearly every category. For example, one reviewer graded our thesis statement “sound” and praised it thusly, “It capturs [sic] the issue of hypermasculinity through a and nonlinear process” (which we take to mean that it wanders aimlessly through many layers of jargon and nonsense). The other reviewer marked the thesis, along with the entire paper, “outstanding” in every applicable category. They didn’t accept the paper outright, however. Cogent Social Sciences’ Reviewer #2 offered us a few relatively easy fixes to make our paper “better. ” We effortlessly completed them in about two hours, putting in a little more nonsense about “manspreading” (which we alleged to be a cause of climate change) and “ contests. ” No claim made in the paper was considered too ludicrous by the : not even the one claiming that the penis is “the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change. ” You read that right. We argued that climate change is “conceptually” caused by penises. How do we defend that assertion? Like this: Destructive, unsustainable hegemonically male approaches to pressing environmental policy and action are the predictable results of a raping of nature by a mindset. This mindset is best captured by recognizing the role of [sic] the conceptual penis holds over masculine psychology. When it is applied to our natural environment, especially virgin environments that can be cheaply despoiled for their material resources and left dilapidated and diminished when our patriarchal approaches to economic gain have stolen their inherent worth, the extrapolation of the rape culture inherent in the conceptual penis becomes clear. The fact that such complete drivel was published in a social science journal, the hoaxers argue, raises serious questions about the value of fields like gender studies and the state of academic publishing generally: “The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct” should not have been published on its merits because it was actively written to avoid having any merits whatsoever. The paper is academically worthless nonsense. But they do not hold out much hope for it having any more effect on the bullshit in the social sciences industry than Sokal’s hoax did — because leftist stupidity in academe is so heavily entrenched. As a matter of deeper concern, there is unfortunately some reason to believe that our hoax will not break the relevant spell. First, Alan Sokal’s hoax, now more than 20 years old, did not prevent the continuation of bizarre postmodernist “scholarship. ” In particular, it did not lead to a general tightening of standards that would have blocked our own hoax. Second, people rarely give up on their moral attachments and ideological commitments just because they’re shown to be out of alignment with reality. | 1 |
Pokemon GO Revelations/ Open Lines Pokemon GO Revelations/ Open Lines Date Friday - November 18, 2016 Host Jimmy Church
Filling in for George, Jimmy Church ( ) will be joined by Bryan Lunduke , a technology journalist for Network World, an author of nerdy books, podcaster, and creator of absurd videos. He'll discuss how the Pokemon GO app was developed by In-Q-Tel corporation which is the venture capital firm of the CIA, and how downloading the app, opens phones and provides the CIA access to all the personal data they contain. Followed by Open Lines in the latter half. Website(s): | 0 |
During a speech on the House floor on Monday, Representative Hakeem Jeffries ( ) argued that while not all Trump voters are racists, “every racist in America voted for Donald Trump. ” Jeffries said, “Since January 20th, we’ve seen a disturbing increase here in America in and acts. And the question is, is this just a coincidence, or could it possibly have something to do with the election of the 45th president of the United States of America? Now, in part, what we’re seeing is connected to a historic backlash that has often occurred throughout this journey that we’ve been on here in America, that whenever we make significant progress, there’s always a backlash amongst some in America who’ve got a problem with the fact that we’ve done things designed to be more consistent with our values of liberty and justice for all, equal protection under the law. ” After listing historical examples of this, Jeffries stated, ” And then, of course, we’ve got Barack Obama, who was elected in what many of us viewed as an incredible step in the right direction, having gone from the outhouse to the White House. Eight years of tremendous progress in moving this country forward, followed by the election of Donald Trump, a man who spent five years perpetrating the racist lie that Barack Obama was not born in the United States of America. And many of us are wondering, why were so many people who worship at the altar of white supremacy drawn to Donald Trump’s campaign? What was it about this individual that so many folks dripping in hatred flocked to his candidacy? That’s not to say that every American who voted for Donald Trump is a racist. We do know that every racist in America voted for Donald Trump. that’s a problem. ” He concluded, “And so, again, I just ask the question in closing, is this all a big coincidence? We know part of it is the backlash that has often occurred whenever we’ve made progress in America, but this president has a responsibility to address the rise in hate crimes that have taken place on his watch, whether or not his election is directly connected to it. ” ( Grabien) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett | 1 |
November 4, 2016 GOP senators warn negotiators: US climate goals might not last
A group of Republican senators on Thursday advised American negotiators to warn their international counterparts that President Obama’s climate goals might not survive the next administration.
In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry, the senators, led by Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), noted that American commitments to the international Paris climate deal aren’t binding and could be undone by an unfriendly Congress or Republican presidential administration.
“Joining international agreements using ‘sole executive agreement authority’ leaves the door open for any future administration to alter its course,” the senators wrote. “Understanding this is especially important in the context of climate change policies, because Congress’s unwillingness to support the president’s international efforts is not the result of gridlock — it is the result of explicit opposition.” | 0 |
The Port of New Orleans is quickly running out of food. The Russians and the Chinese are buying up a good portion of America’s grain and food. Inside sources are saying that China is preparing to buy up all beef. What is behind these actions. Could it have anything to do with an impending War between China and Russia and the United States.
The threat is greater than one can imagine. The details are in the following video.
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While President Trump’s order banning immigration from several Muslim countries led to protests at several American airports, the news was often met with satisfaction and approval in those precincts that Mr. Trump carried in the November election. And the protests themselves were viewed with irritation by some, including conservatives who were otherwise critical of Mr. Trump’s order. “People at airports are on tight schedules and are henpecked enough as it is,” Jay Cost, a senior writer for the Weekly Standard, said on Twitter. ”It is uncivil and rude. ” Dan McLaughlin, a securities lawyer in New York, in an article for National Review, wrote that the anger over the new policy was “seriously misplaced,” and he argued that the policy was far less radical than critics had made it seem. “His policy may be terrible public relations for the United States,” Mr. McLaughlin wrote. “But it is fairly narrow and well within the recent tradition of immigration actions taken by the Obama administration. ” Others said that the policy, which went into effect on Friday night, had already been effective. Mark Kern, a video game designer turned conservative political pundit who has supported video surveillance of mosques, voiced his approval. He said that Mr. Trump’s decisive action was a welcome change. “If we sit and debate and prevaricate, remember Europe did this too, and now wishes it hadn’t,” he wrote in one Tweet. He added later, “Luckily we now have a POTUS who does not waver or hesitate to do what is needed. And despite hysteria to the contrary, lawfully. ” The conservative pundit Tomi Lahren, who supports Mr. Trump, wrote in an email that, “It’s not intolerant or unloving to put Americans and American safety first. Every nation has the right to protect its people first. ” “Somehow the left doesn’t seem to understand or agree with that right,” she said. The response on the right was far from monolithic. The Koch brothers condemned the order as the “wrong approach” and so did writers at their libertarian the Cato Institute. John Podhoretz, the conservative commentator, reaffirmed that he thought Islamic terrorism posed a threat, but he wrote that the policy was not “based in fact. ” In fact, Mr. Podhoretz wrote, the order resembled what he characterized as a liberal solution to major problems — a grand, gesture that the president was using to rally his base. “They are making horrible policy for naked political advantage based in disingenuousness,” he concluded. “And that’s no way to run a country. ” A Quinnipiac poll taken in before Mr. Trump issued the order, found that 48 percent of Americans were in favor of “suspending immigration from terror prone regions, even if it means turning away refugees. ” Mr. Trump’s order immediately closed the nation to refugees and to people from some predominantly Muslim countries including Iraq, Syria and Iran. In the same poll, 53 percent of respondents were in favor of requiring Muslim immigrants to register with the federal government. A member of Mr. Trump’s transition team, Kris Kobach, had suggested before the new president took office that a national registry for immigrants from countries plagued by terrorism might be reinstated. A spokesman for Mr. Trump at the time, Jason Miller, later clarified that the registry would not track individuals based on their religion. Reuters reported that while protests filled airports where travelers were being held, many other people around the country were nonchalant about the order and puzzled by the protests. Louise Ingram, 69, of Troy, Ala. told Reuters that while she was not opposed to immigrants, “I just want to make sure they are safe to come in. ” “A country is not a country if it doesn’t have borders,” said Steve Hirsch, 63, who was at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, where hundreds of people were protesting, to pick someone up this weekend. On Mr. Trump’s official Facebook page, his supporters thanked him for the action. One user, Jason Juno Lee, who identifies himself as a Marine, posted a comment comparing the United States after the order to a safely locked house. “I lock my doors every night,” he wrote. “I don’t lock them because I ‘hate’ the people outside. I lock them because I love the people inside!” Another user named Wes Schmaltz was more concise: “Thank you President Trump for doing exactly what you were elected to do. ” | 1 |
the influencing machine and magnus olsens blood. page: 1 First off i just heard of this about 2 months ago. His blood is clumping up and they found crystals that seem engineered in the blood using an electron microscope. then today i read this.. remote influencing.. As we all know all electronic circuits need power, in the case of Remote Influencing Psychotronic Generators provide this power. Tim Rifat has developed the Psychotronic Generator from simple Pavlita generators to the far future Bone Generators(TM) using your own skull and bones as Psychotronic Crystal Generators. These Bone Generators(TM) change the Quantum Wave Function of reality, Remote Influencing. The science of Remote Influencing is based on quantum mechanics only Tim Rifat has developed science to explain Remote Influencing. The process is to decohere the Quantum Wave Function, decollapse it and return it to it's quantum vacuum grand state, modify the Quantum Wave Function to the remote influenced event, collapse it using hyperinfinity so it manifests as your remote influenced event. (see www.supernaturalspirit.com Services for full explanation). In effect we zap the thing to be changed make it vanish and remanifest it as the event we went in laymans language; this takes energy supplied by Psychotronic Amplifiers in your Psychotronic Bone Generators(TM) as well as hyperinfinity the operator that holds the new event in being supplied by your Bone Generators(TM). Only one event can be carried out at a time (explained on www.psychicpowergambling.com) so Tim Rifat has arranged to quantum mechanically change your skeleton into Bone Psychotronic Generators(TM) for one specific event and give you the energy and Psychotronic Fuel with the hyperinfinity to manifest 12 of these singular events after which your Bone Generators which are acting as Psychotronic Batteries run out of energy. ive experienced temporal effects both physical and mental in being attacked by some kind of possibly similar technology. i have no dount im on a similar program as magnus. i get tortured bad. thats all ill say. | 0 |
BALTIMORE — After two prosecutions without a conviction since the fatal arrest of Freddie Gray, opening arguments are set to begin Thursday in the trial of Caesar R. Goodson Jr. the only officer charged with murder in connection with the death and the driver of the police wagon in which Mr. Gray suffered the spinal injury that killed him. The combination of the two unsuccessful prosecutions and the murder charge has raised the stakes substantially in the trial of the third of six officers charged in the death of Mr. Gray, 25, a black man whose death spurred riots, looting and arson. “These are the most serious charges,” said Warren S. Alperstein, a defense lawyer here who has represented police officers and has been closely following the cases but is not directly involved in them. “This is, arguably, the case for the state. It would be a devastating blow if the state was unable to secure a conviction. ” The trial comes as prosecutors aim to shift the narrative away from the mistrial of one officer involved in the case and, just over two weeks ago, another one’s acquittal on all charges. But legal experts say it will be exceedingly difficult for prosecutors to secure a conviction for murder. Some activists in Baltimore say their faith in the judicial process is already worn. “The average person doesn’t really expect anything,” said Dayvon Love, the director of public policy for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, an advocacy organization. “They expect the officers to get acquitted. They don’t expect any accountability. ” In addition to the failed prosecutions, the trials have left lingering questions about how Mr. Gray ended up with a functionally severed spine, critics say. “The world wants to know what happened to Freddie Gray,” said Darlene Cain, a nurse’s assistant whose son was shot and killed by a Baltimore police officer in 2008, and who has urged greater accountability from officers who use force. “How did a young person, healthy, talking and standing at one moment, and then at the next time, he’s not living?” Officer Goodson, 47, a Baltimore police veteran who, like Mr. Gray, is black, faces seven charges in total, including three charges of manslaughter, and a charge of depraved heart murder — a rare charge for a police officer, even as scrutiny of law enforcement grows. “We’re seeing a huge increase in trials for officers for any criminal offense, but I’ve never seen a murder trial for an officer without video or eyewitness testimony,” said Geoffrey P. Alpert, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina who has focused on the use of force by the police. He added, “It’s been an uphill battle in the other two trials, and this is going to be the toughest. ” The case will be decided not by a jury, but by Judge Barry G. Williams, who acquitted another officer, Edward M. Nero, late last month. Judge Williams, once an attorney in the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, is also black, and he won accolades from members of the legal community — including Billy Murphy, the lawyer for Mr. Gray’s family — for not bowing to public pressure in deciding Officer Nero’s case. But he has been accused in some quarters of making a narrow ruling that did not reckon with the larger questions of the case. Officer Goodson’s side of the story has never been officially told he is the only charged officer who did not give a statement to police investigators. Court filings have hinted that the prosecution may suggest Mr. Gray was taken for a rough ride, with Officer Goodson intentionally driving the van in a dangerous fashion. They have indicated plans to call a witness who can discuss the practice. But legal observers say it is not yet clear what, if any, evidence they have to prove that is what happened on April 12, 2015, when Mr. Gray was arrested. “The open question with regard to the Goodson trial is, will we hear more about the practice of giving rough rides?” said David Jaros, a professor of law at the University of Baltimore, who said that such a theory could explain why prosecutors chose to charge Officer Goodson with murder. “Absent a rough ride,” Mr. Jaros said, “it is much harder to understand the prosecution’s decision to pursue that particular charge, which requires a wanton and reckless disregard for human life that is so significant that it is akin to intentional murder. ” What is known is that Officer Goodson responded to the arrest of Mr. Gray on a bright morning last April. Mr. Gray had fled, apparently unprompted, from police officers in the Sandtown neighborhood of West Baltimore. Mr. Gray was eventually placed — in handcuffs and leg shackles but no seatbelt — in Officer Goodson’s transport wagon, which made several stops in the neighborhood before arriving at the Western District police station. There, Mr. Gray was found unresponsive. He died of a spinal injury a week later. Protests here grew so violent that Gov. Larry Hogan called in the National Guard. With armored trucks still rolling through the city, the state’s top prosecutor, Marilyn J. Mosby, announced charges against six police officers — three black, three white. Late last month, Officer Nero was acquitted on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and two counts of misconduct connected to his role in Mr. Gray’s arrest. And in December, a jury failed to reach a verdict in the case of Officer William G. Porter, who faced charges including manslaughter and reckless endangerment. Prosecutors eventually secured an unusual ruling from the state’s highest court — a procedure that caused delays in all of the trials — to let Officer Porter testify against Officer Goodson while his own retrial is pending. “Officer Porter’s testimony will be crucial,” said Douglas Colbert, a professor of law at the University of Maryland, who has been supportive of the prosecution, adding, “He minimally suggested going to the hospital. ” Regardless of the role of a rough ride, the case may turn on what prosecutors can show about Officer Goodson’s state of mind while he drove Mr. Gray through West Baltimore. They are expected to argue that he had custody of Mr. Gray, and was responsible to keep him safe by using the seatbelt and obtaining medical help when he needed it — and knew he could be putting Mr. Gray in danger by not doing so. Defense lawyers are expected to paint Officer Goodson as a veteran with a clean record who acted in line with accepted departmental practice when he did not buckle Mr. Gray in. “There’s an irony that the officer’s best defense is really an indictment of how people are generally treated in the system,” Mr. Jaros said. | 1 |
Feminist Laci Green has faced backlash from activists, radical feminists, and former friends after she was revealed to be in a relationship with popular YouTuber Chris Ray Gun. [Though the community welcomed Green’s openness to engaging in more open debate with people who disagree with her views in a recent video, the feminist YouTuber revealed on Twitter that social justice warriors angry with her had allegedly doxed her and harassed her family. shoutout to whichever sjw asshole leaked my private info on facebook sent a torrent of people to harass me and my family for ”colonizing”. — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 7, 2017, “Nobody has the right to tell you who you can date, who you can love, who to share your body with,” posted Green this week, after she was attacked for dating someone with different political beliefs. “Your body and your life belong to you. ” nobody has the right to tell you who you can date, who you can love, who to share your body with. your body and your life belong to you. 💚 — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 5, 2017, “My, how quickly some feminists who claim to be anti or anti turn around and do just that,” she continued. “Amazing. ” my, how quickly some feminists who claim to be anti or anti turn around and do just that. amazing. — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 6, 2017, In a video titled “Taking the red pill?” last month, Green revealed that she had started to talk to people of different opinions and was planning to host debates with . Green, who hosted MTV’s digital series Braless and was named by TIME as one of the “30 Most Influential People on the Internet” in 2016, was immediately attacked by leftist activists following the video, and a video titled “Caught between extremes” and has since generated even more backlash following the announcement of her relationship. sorry but I gotta ask: are you dating chris? I know you’re probably tired of seeing this but the uncert … — yup. ❤️ https: . — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 5, 2017, Oh holy shit, Laci Green completely lost it. Holy fucking hell. Peak white cis feminism. And the just LOVE it. — Grinsekatze (@Natanji) May 11, 2017, laci green is a (pardon my french) dumb white feminist and her claim to intersectionality is invalid and whack as fuck, — mia (@144px) May 12, 2017, anyway laci green is a perfect example of how white women can easily put aside the struggles of others to befriend racists, — mia (@144px) May 12, 2017, I don’t want to make friends with antifeminists. Far more productive to befriend someone at YouTube who could delete all their channels. — Steve Shives (@steve_shives) May 12, 2017, Don’t date . Don’t date gamergate. Don’t date white supremacist. No, not even if you like them. In their words: Fuck your feelings. — Zinnia Jones (@ZJemptv) June 5, 2017, Steve Shives, who is known online for the large amount of Twitter users he has blocked, claimed that Green’s embrace of open debate and discussion was the “embrace” of “white supremacy. ” Mic drop from @theLLAG on Laci Green’s embrace of antifeminism and white supremacy. pic. twitter. — Steve Shives (@steve_shives) June 3, 2017, Actor Benjamin O’Keefe added that Green’s desire for civilized debate between both sides of the political spectrum equated to “not giving a fuck about: her friends, women, people of color, interacial [sic] couples, trans people, [and] Muslim people. ” Not giving a fuck about: her friends, women, people of color, interacial couples, trans people, Muslim people. https: . — Benjamin O’Keefe (@benjaminokeefe) June 5, 2017, During a discussion with one Twitter user, Green declared that “people [with] very liberal values are being pegged ‘nazis’ and ‘white supremacists’ for [different] opinions. ” in my view, it’s not listening. people w very liberal values are being pegged ”nazis” and ”white supremacists” for diff opinions. — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 5, 2017, “To many people, this approach is profoundly alienating,” she continued. “It operates on fear, shame, and censorship rather than open dialogue room to grow. ” to many people, this approach is profoundly alienating. it operates on fear, shame, and censorship rather than open dialogue room to grow. — Laci Green (@gogreen18) June 5, 2017, This is not the first time Green has been harassed for diverging from social justice dogma, having previously allegedly received death threats for using the word “tranny” in 2009, according to Daily Dot. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook. | 1 |
Almost everyone who has lived in Manhattan has had the dream. Wandering through your apartment, you see a door nobody has noticed before. On the other side, you find that you have been living all along with extra rooms: enough space for an office, a guest bedroom, a painting studio, a closet, a tiki bar, a library. That sensation is what you get walking into Agern for the first time. Just off a corridor in Grand Central Terminal that you’ve probably rushed down hundreds of times, behind a set of doors locked for longer than most New Yorkers can remember, a restaurant has appeared. In the three months since it opened, Agern has made both the train station and the city’s dining landscape into roomier, more interesting places. There are no windows, and the front entrance, at the top of a short flight of stairs, is marked by a small sign that’s easy to walk past. This makes Agern ( ) feel like a quiet harbor away from the eddies and currents of commuters outside. Hours can slip away. In the modern Scandinavian dining room, pale wood, charcoal seat cushions and wall tiles in mossy Grand Central green create a calming mood. It’s like a spa with tasting menus and cocktails. The primary owner is the Danish restaurateur Claus Meyer, one of the founders of Noma, in Copenhagen, and of its New Nordic cooking style. New Nordic is not so much a cuisine as a philosophy. Its followers value traditional methods like curing and smoking, and seek out forgotten or overlooked ingredients from nearby. Mr. Meyer recruited Gunnar Gislason, the chef of the New Nordic restaurant Dill, in Reykjavik, Iceland, to run the kitchen. Mr. Gislason has imported Dill’s philosophy but not, for the most part, its Icelandic provisions, like the dried sheep droppings over which fish is smoked. Buying food raised around New York, he and his chef de cuisine, Joseph Yardley, treat the city as another Scandinavian capital: . Sign on for the Field and Forest menu, a vegetarian excursion through seven courses with a salvo of finger foods (the $120 price, like all the prices at Agern, includes service) and the plants you eat are mostly those you could buy at Union Square Greenmarket. What the kitchen does to them gives them an unfamiliar and often transporting cast. There was, for instance, a potato salad that caused double and triple takes. The potatoes had a restrained but durable smokiness. They were served with shaved rhubarb, ramps and feathery red seaweed, which carried a memory of the ocean. Finally, long yellow bands of cured egg yolk had the salty, intensifying effect of bottarga. That salad has been replaced by one with lemon cucumbers and fleshy summer melon, but the cured egg remains, giving the fruit and vegetables a depth I didn’t expect. Preserved blackberries, tart and a little salty, brought a welcome sharpness to endive salad, dressed with mild and creamy havgus cheese and chopped almonds. Sweet corn and fresh chanterelles are a classic summer match, but I had no idea how wonderful they could taste with the addition of tarragon and golden raspberries. The Land and Sea menu costs $25 more. In the New Nordic spirit, the animal flesh is not supplied by overworked and unsustainable ingredients. It comes from more humble stuff. Rather than foie gras, there is beef heart, chopped into red filaments that provide ballast and iron to a salad of skinny asparagus stems and garlic scapes with tart green slices of unripe strawberries. Instead of bluefin tuna, you eat skate, cooked gingerly to keep the appealing gelatinous softness, under celery and batons of apple. Heirloom pork is not the loin but the neck, imbued (too strongly?) with rosemary and served with a crisp, simple, creamy and very good salad of green beans. The two menus are not that far apart. Sometimes they are separated by a single ingredient: A few briny spoonfuls of trout eggs get the potato salad admitted to the Land and Sea menu. From time to time, they converge on an identical dish like the unaccountably delicious potato fry bread, a fritter of sourdough mixed with mashed potatoes, or the roasted beet. The last time I ate at Agern, this had become “our famous beet. ” It does seem to have been consciously designed to be talked about. It’s carved on a cart next to the table after being liberated from the crust it’s baked in. The crust is supposed to give the beet the flavor it would pick up over a wood fire, but it didn’t taste smoky to me. My first bite was impossibly salty, too. But after that, its natural flavors were deeply concentrated, and the underlying beet salad, flecked with fresh horseradish and fried caraway seeds, was stunning on its own. So was the tiny loaf of rye bread, wonderful with beets mashed into it and even more wonderful under a thick coat of butter. These loaves are baked by Rhonda Crosson, and I think they are at least as good as her big rounds of sourdough, and those are exceptional. Agern’s pastry chef, Rebecca Eichenbaum, showed how resourceful she could be in her last job, at Wassail, where she spun elaborate desserts out of parsnips and carrots. She is no less inventive at Agern, but the results are a little less effortful, even as she tops ripe berries with a kombucha ice made from rose petals or doubles up on the tartness of sorrel sherbet with curls of barely sweetened rhubarb. Many of these can be ordered individually, a considerate option from a restaurant where on the wrong night the tasting menus can inch forward like the local to New Haven. My last meal lasted more than four hours, for no discernible reason. There may be travelers, or even nontravelers, who would be happy with two courses and dessert. I’d suggest, though, that they stay away from the $68 “ hung beef” whatever flavor it picked up from hanging was stamped out by horseradish cream and horseradish leaves. In Denmark, Mr. Meyer is also active in delis, bakeries, a coffee roaster and other concerns. Last year, he moved to New York, and he is adapting to his new home with the same entrepreneurial energy. In Brooklyn, he has opened a bakery and a coffee roaster under the direction of a star of the Copenhagen caffeine scene named Omar Maagaard. Mr. Maagaard’s beans are brewed into Agern’s espresso and which made me think for the first time that the people who compare coffee to great wine are not completely barking mad. And I say this having lived through five excruciating minutes during which coffee was brewed drop by drop atop a digital scale. (For tableside drama, digital scales run a distant third to sharp knives and open flames.) Following the spirit, most of the other drinks are grown in the United States. Chad Walsh has put together a list of domestic wines, beers, spirits, cider and mead. (Strange things are happening in mead, a beverage that is pretty strange to begin with.) As you leave, you’re handed a cloth sack or two. Inside you may find a small sourdough loaf with a jar of butter or bright, freshly cooked raspberry jam. Or a bottle of coffee. They could be advertisements for Mr. Meyer’s tentacular operations, I suppose, but ads rarely taste so good the next day. | 1 |
Putin tells the West of its own problems 28.10.2016 Source: Kremlin.ru On October 17, President Vladimir Putin , when visiting Sochi, delivered a speech at the plenary session of Valdai International Discussion Club. Most of his speech was dedicated to Russia's foreign policy and r elations with Western countries . America is not a banana country, but a great superpower Print version Font Size All the talks about Russia's alleged interference in the US election process are nothing but hysteria, he said. "The list of mythical and concocted problems includes the ongoing hysteria - I can not call it otherwise - about Russia's influence on the course of the current election of the American president," Putin said, TASS reports. According to Putin, the United States is currently facing a plethora of problems - from the enormous public debt to police violence. "Yet, it appears that the US elites have nothing to say to their people, to calm down the society. It is much easier to divert people's attention to so-called Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence, and so on." "Does anyone really think that Russia can somehow influence the choice of the American people? Is America a banana country or what? America is a great superpower, correct me, if I'm wrong," Putin said. Putin regrets Russia can not maintain a powerful propaganda machine comparable to Western media. "I'll tell you, dear colleagues, I'd like to have such a propaganda machine in Russia. But it is, unfortunately, not the case. We have no such global media outlets like CNN, the BBC and others. We have no such opportunities yet," RIA Novosti quoted President Putin as saying. Vladimir Putin said that US presidential candidate Donald Trump represents the interests of ordinary Americans who are tired of the elites that have been in power in the United States for decades. "As for Mr. Trump, he chose, apparently, his own way to reach out to voters' hearts. What kind of a way is it? Of course, he behaves extravagantly, we all see it, but I think that all that is not so pointless," Putin said. "He represents the interests of ordinary people, who criticize those who have been in power for decades," he said adding that Trump represents the interests of "those who do not like the transfer of power by inheritance."One of the participants of the meeting said, making references to reports in Western mass media, that Russia supports Donald Trump in the American presidential election.In Putin's view, such an opinion has been formed by those who defend Hillary Clinton's interests in the presidential race. "How do they do it? First off, they create an image of the enemy in the form of Russia, and then announce that Trump is our favorite. This is absolute nonsense and a way of political struggle, a way to manipulate public opinion on the eve of the presidential election in the United States," said Putin. Russia can attack NATO countries? Speculations about Russia being a military threat to NATO are ridiculous, the Russian president said. "In the West, they constantly invent fictional mythical threats like Russia's military threat. But the fact is, Russia is not going to attack anyone, this is ridiculous. I have read your analytical materials - not only the materials of those present in this room, but the materials by analysts from the United States, from Europe - this is impossible, simply silly and unrealistic. In Europe alone, there are 300 million, all are members of NATO, the United States is a 600-million-strong nation, and Russia has about 146 million people. This is simply funny to just talk about it," Putin said. According to him, the true leadership in the modern world is not about the efforts to invent ephemeral threats and then use them to subjugate others. A true leader needs to see real problems and take efforts to solve them. "This is how Russia understands her role today in world affairs," said Putin.Putin also criticized NATO for not adapting the alliance to the new conditions that have emerged in the world since the Cold War. "The structures created during the Cold War have apparently outlived themselves. NATO is not adapting itself to the new conditions, even though they talk about it all the time," the president said. NATO strengthens defenses in the countries located along the border with Russia, amid growing concerns about the strengthening of Moscow's military potential . The decision on the deployment of NATO's four additional battalions in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries (Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) was adopted at the NATO summit on July 8, 2016, in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. Terrorists are always smarter and stronger Using terrorists in one's political interests is "a very dangerous game," the Russian leader said in his speech. "Once again, I want to address to such players: in this case, extremists are smarter, wiser and stronger than you, and when you play with them, you will always lose," Putin said. "The terrorist attacks of recent years in Boston and other American cities, in Paris, Brussels, Nice, in German cities, and, unfortunately, in our country, have shown that terrorists no longer need either cells or organizational structures - they can act alone, independently, it is enough to only motivate them ideologically and set them against their enemy - against us all," the Russian president said. Aleppo and Mosul Putin rejected the criticism of Russia for the bombings of Aleppo and reminded of civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. The president compared the siege of Aleppo with the offensive on Mosul, which the Iraqi army has been conducting with the participation of the United States. According to Putin, terrorists shot about 200 people there while trying to stop the advance of the Iraqi army. "Let's not forget it," the Russian president said.As Putin said, in Aleppo one needs to destroy the nest of the terrorists, while doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. "If you do not want to touch anything, then one should not attack Mosul either, let's just leave everything as it is," Putin said. Putin also said that civilians are killed not only in Aleppo, but also in Yemen and Afghanistan, where they kill people right at their wedding parties. "I think bells should be tolling for all of those innocent victims," he said. Putin stated that it will not be possible to stop the bloodshed and start a political process in Syria. "It would seem that after long negotiations, enormous efforts and complex trade-offs, the united front against terrorism has finally started forming, but that did not happen. Our personal agreements with the President of the United States did not work," Interfax quoted Putin as saying. Today, if some countries benefit from certain standards or rules, they force other countries and everyone else to obey them too. However, if these standards subsequently become an obstacle, "they throw them in a bin, say that they have become obsolete and then set new rules." This strategy was used to attack Belgrade, Iraq, then in Afghanistan and Libya. The operation was launched without the appropriate resolution from the UN Security Council. Some superpowers, Putin said, in an attempt to take advantage of the international situation, have broken the international legal regime that prohibited the deployment of new missile defense systems. They have also created international terrorist groups and supplied weapons to them, even though the brutality of those groups makes millions of people leave their homes and migrate, plunging other countries into chaos. "We can see the freedom of trade being sacrificed and so-called sanctions being used to put political pressure. Bypassing the World Trade Organization, they are trying to form closed economic alliances with rigid rules and barriers, where main beneficiaries are their own transnational corporations," Putin said. "It is obvious that economic cooperation should be mutually beneficial and based on common universal principles, so that each state could become a full-fledged participant in global economic life, - said Putin. - In the medium term, the trend for the regionalization of world economy will continue, but regional trade agreements should complement and develop, rather than substitute universal norms and rules." Pravda.Ru | 0 |
by Dean Daniels / November 7, 2016 / POLITICS /
In the summer of 2015 before the current presidential race ignited, and two weeks before Trump announced his candidacy, DML gave a compelling speech during his tour in the state of Massachusetts. In front of an audience at a small town synagogue, the award-winning businessman and conservative commentator laid out the key component that he believed would catapult any presidential candidate above all the others: “putting Americans first.”
DML emphasizes during his “Americans first” speech that the number one issue in America is immigration. He explains in crystal clear detail how immigration, both legal and illegal, goes beyond party identification. He says “it’s not a Democrat or Republican issue — it’s an American issue.”
Having traveled the country by car exploring the idea of running for president himself, DML got a real sense for what concerned Americans most. Therefore, he knew before the rest of us that the ideal candidate of 2016 would be someone who has the audacity and the courage to tell the American people he or she will commit to the deportation of illegal immigrants.
“Remember, it’s not an anti-immigration; it’s an anti-illegal immigration; and it’s about being pro-America.”
While putting Americans first would have been DML’s campaign theme had he chosen to run for the highest office in the land, this strategy was instead adopted by none other than Donald J.Trump. This is one major reason why DML has supported Trump since day one.
Trump has done more than proven DML correct. Trump has proven how powerful the “ Americans first” ideology is during a day and age when progressive politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are catering to foreign workers and corporate donors at the expense of the American people who are left to rot on the back burner.
Watch an excerpt from the speech, and then check out DML’s electoral map and how he sees Trump winning on Tuesday.
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US Supreme Court justice groped female lawyer in 1999: Report US Supreme Court justice groped female lawyer in 1999: Report By 0 40
A female lawyer has accused US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexually assaulting her in 1999, a report says.
Moira Smith, who works as a corporate lawyer with an Alaska energy company, said the judge made unwanted sexual advances on her during a dinner party when she was 23-year-old, the National Law Journal reported on Thursday.
She said Thomas grabbed and squeezed her buttocks several times during the party in Falls Church, Virginia.
“Justice Thomas touched me inappropriately and without my consent,” Smith said.
“He groped me while I was setting the table, suggesting I should sit ‘right next to him,’” Smith said.
“He was 5 or 6 inches down and he got a good handful and he kept squeezing me and pulling me close to him,” she stated, according to the Journal .
In a statement to the National Law Journal , Thomas, 68, dismissed the allegation as “preposterous”, saying that the incident “never happened.”
Smith, currently vice… | 0 |
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Selwyn Duke – Sex crimes with children, child exploitation, money laundering, perjury, and pay to play, reads the partial list of crimes that, say New York City Police Department sources, could “put Hillary and her crew away for life.”Shocking evidence of such criminality has been found on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer, say the sources, which was seized from him by NYC officials investigating his allegedly having sent sexually explicit texts to a 15-year-old girl. Moreover, Hillary Clinton’s “crew” supposedly includes not just close aide and confidante Huma Abedin and her husband, Weiner, but other aides and insiders — and even members of Congress. Reports True Pundit :
NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to: • Money laundering • Sex crimes with minors (children) • Perjury • Pay to play through Clinton Foundation • Obstruction of justice • Other felony crimes
NYPD detectives and a [sic] NYPD Chief, the department’s highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices.
“What’s in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach,” the NYPD Chief said. “There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that.”
These revelations would explain why Director Comey reopened the investigation into Clinton’s mishandling of classified information, a move that shook the political world and caused Comey to come under fire. As the NYPD chief put it, the new e-mails contents truly are “alarming.”
True Pundit also reports FBI sources as stating that Abedin and Weiner are both trying to cut immunity deals with federal officials and that, if they didn’t cooperate, they’d face long prison sentences. Abedin’s turning state’s evidence would no doubt be devastating for Clinton, as the two women have for years been joined at the hip. Abedin has at times been like Clinton’s shadow, has been called her “body woman,” and has even been rumored to be Clinton’s lesbian lover. So Abedin likely knows where, as is said, the bodies are buried.
Of particular note, the new e-mails allegedly contain information revealing that Hillary, Bill Clinton, Weiner, and numerous congressmen took trips to convicted billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private island, where he is said to pimp out underage minors of both sexes to prominent people. The trips were taken aboard Epstein’s Boeing 747, dubbed the “Lolita Express”; the pedophile’s island, in the US Virgin Islands, has been called “ Sex Slave Island .”
These revelations would also explain why Clinton used powerful software called BleachBit to scrub damning information from her private server. According to BleachBit’s website, its program gives criminals and others the ability to “shred files to hide their contents and prevent data recovery.”
Yet it can’t scrub bumbling perverts from your personal life, and Weiner’s laptop also contains incriminating e-mails revealing the mishandling of classified information by Abedin and Clinton, say the sources. Both women “sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts,” and this information could have been “accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers … of unknown individuals,” writes True Pundit .
Consequently, FBI sources say the new Clinton investigation has been broadened and now includes matters such as how, informs True Pundit : • Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner’s email • Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails. • Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records • Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents • [a] private consultant managed Weiner’s site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain’s listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
This story just adds more intrigue to a presidential campaign that is truly unprecedented, with a torrent of WikiLeaks and Project Veritas revelations and now Clinton’s Weiner woes. From vote fraud to inciting violence to child sex abuse to pay-for-play to perjury, it’s becoming clear to many that the Democratic Party — and the Clintons in particular — are essentially a criminal syndicate.
As former assistant FBI director James Kallstrom said in a Sunday interview, “The Clintons, that’s a crime family, basically. It’s like organized crime. I mean the Clinton Foundation is a cesspool…. God forbid we put someone like that [Clinton] in the White House.” And now we know better why, as I wrote Sunday, 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.”
All these revelations raise important questions: How could Hillary Clinton and her cohorts have bumbled so badly that they appear a cross between Inspector Clouseau and Boss Tweed ?
And if Clinton is so careless with her own personal survival, how can she be trusted with national survival?
Part of the explanation is general incompetence, yet there’s another factor: Both Clintons have engaged in continual criminality over the decades — and have been allowed to skate at every turn. This lack of accountability has led to complacency and ever-increasing brazenness, just as with a child never punished for wrongdoing.
So, finally, perhaps, Clinton corruption has reached critical mass. And with Donald Trump ahead 10 points (according to one respected poll) among the 88 percent of voters who have definitely made up their minds, maybe, come late Tuesday evening, some tossing and turning FBI agents will finally be able to enjoy a good night’s rest. SF Source The New American Nov. 2016 Share this: | 0 |
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos wants to apply the same principles used in Amazon’s developing delivery services to bring supplies to the future population of the moon. [After The Washington Post obtained a copy of the confidential “white paper” that Bezos’ space company Blue Origin is passing on to Trump’s transition team, the company verified its authenticity. And while Elon Musk’s SpaceX rushes to beat Trump’s own lunar ambitions, Bezos is focused on the logistics of something a little more permanent than private sightseeing excursions. Blue Origin want to deliver cargo to the moon, paving the way for sustained human colonization of our natural satellite. They’ve even picked a spot for this potential real estate — a cheery little crater near the moon’s south pole, with access to water via ice hidden in the crater’s shadows, and enough consistent sunlight to make use of solar energy. The thought of lunar expansion has managed to whet the appetites of several companies, who are already offering their own ideas for involvement. One such example is Bigelow Aerospace. Its founder, Robert Bigelow, wants to adapt the design of their BEAM habitat, currently docked with the International Space Station. He wants to create an orbital depot to house supplies and medical facilities. According to Bigelow, venturing toward Mars is “premature. ” As for the moon? Bigelow asserts that “We have the technology. We have the ability, and the potential for a terrific business case. ” For his part, Bezos believes that “if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily. ” Bezos says that this project “only be done in partnership with NASA,” and believes that “[Blue Origin’s] liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission. ” He is personally “excited about this,” to the point of investing his own money “alongside NASA,” to make sure they get there. “Blue Moon is all about delivery of mass to the surface of the Moon,” according to the Amazon boss. “Any credible first lunar settlement will require that capability” But all of this is just the beginning of Blue Origin’s ambitions. Their first proposed mission hopes to be just the first in “a series of increasingly capable missions. ” We’ll have to wait to see whether President Trump and his advisors are as excited about the possibilities as Bezos himself. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both. | 1 |
October 28, 2016
A row has broken out over a review of Ken Loach’s new film, “I, Daniel Blake” with several benefit claimants refusing to believe that its author, Toby Young, could possibly have happened. Young’s review in The Mail, in which he described Loach’s representation of common DWP practices such as delaying appeals and giving out benefit sanctions for minor errors as “far fetched”, was met with anger and incredulity in online forums. However, many of the claimants who were involved in researching the film have simply denied that Young was even real.
Said Sarah, 41, who claims ESA for chronic Parkinson’s and has been forced to make several appeals, “Toby Young simply doesn’t ring true. We’re meant to believe that he’s a journalist, but he’s more of a lefty’s version of what a Daily Mail reviewer ought to be like. Where is the research, the information? I can’t really believe that journalism’s that bad, it just isn’t credible.” Jack, 47, who has been sanctioned twice on JSA, was more forthright: “This is a fraud. Everyone knows that it’s easy to impersonate a journalist and the idea that this so-called “Toby Young”, if that is what he’s really called, bears any resemblance to how things are on the ground is simply ludicrous”.
The Daily Mail have hit back, saying Toby Young was “the genuine article” and that “if we didn’t give an outlet to marginalised Oxbridge graduates with appalling senses of entitlement, then there was a real danger that their voices might be drowned out by the cries of the needy and the vulnerable”. Mental health campaigners have also responded angrily, saying that Young was “clearly delusional”, needing “help rather than disbelief”. The DWP have refused to get involved in the row and, when asked to comment, a spokesman merely spat on the ground and gave me a piecing stare. andyiong | 0 |
Top university stole millions from taxpayers by faking global warming research
J. D. Heyes (NaturalNews) The 'global warming/climate change' charade is bad enough in that it is nothing more than a politically motivated "issue" used by globalists of all political stripes to gain more control over the world's population.But now it's costing some citizens scarce tax dollars.As reported by The Daily Caller , a top university in Britain has been caught stealing millions of taxpayer dollars from a federal budget that is chronically in the red just to produce phony global warming data .A global warming research center at the London School of Economics received millions of dollars (pounds) from UK taxpayers after taking credit for research it did not perform.The UK's Daily Mail noted further that the UK government provided £9 million ($11 million in US dollars) in funding to the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy (CCCEP) in exchange for research that was never done. Massive scientific fraud regarding 'global warming' A number of papers that CCCEP claimed to have published to receive government funding were not even about global warming and were written before the organization was even founded, or written by researchers who were not affiliated with the center. Worse, government officials never bothered to check CCCEP's alleged publication lists, saying instead they were "taken on trust," according to a recently released report."It is serious misconduct to claim credit for a paper you haven't supported, and it's fraud to use that in a bid to renew a grant," Professor Richard Tol, a climate economics expert from Sussex University whose research was reportedly stolen by CCCEP, told the Daily Mail . "I've never come across anything like it before. It stinks."The center's chairman since 2008 has been Nick Stern, a well-known global advocate for more policy action supposedly aimed at combating climate change. In addition he is also the president of the British Academy, an invitation-only society that is reserved for the academic elite and which disburses grant money in the millions of pounds to researchers, as well as Lord Stern's own organization.In recent days the CCCEP, which is jointly based at the London School of Economics and the University of Leeds, hosted a gala event that was attended by experts and officials from around the world. The occasion: A celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of the Stern Review, a 700-page report detailing the alleged economic impact of climate change, a review that was commissioned by Tony Blair's government.The massive paper claimed that the world must take immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or face dramatically higher costs in the future. The review exerted a great amount of power and influence on a series of British governments, as well as international organizations.But now the report's contents and conclusions are in serious doubt. Not the first time global warming data has been FAKED Following the Daily Mail 's report, CCCEP spokesman Bob Ward admitted the organization had "made mistakes," in both claiming credit for studies it did not perform and foro papers that were actually researched and published by other academics.Academics and experts whose work was falsely represented were furious, including one who said CCCEP's actions were "a clear case of fraud – using deception for financial gain," The DC reported.Studies receiving financial support from the public sector are not required to disclose it as an ethical conflict of interest, even when financial support is in the millions of dollars. The DC noted that recent studies in the United States, which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses to support the 'scientific' case for its massive new power plant regulations, the Clean Power Plan, saw the agency give $32.1 million, $9.5 million, and $3.65 million in public funds to lead authors – all of whom essentially provided the agency with the 'results' it wanted.As Natural News founder and editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reported in June 2014 , this isn't the first time so-called global warming/climate change data has been faked. Sources: | 0 |
November 8, 2016 - Ruslan Ostashko, PolitRussia - translated by J. Arnoldski -
One of the symbols of the “new Ukraine”, the ex-Georgian president, fugitive, and part-time governor of Odessa, Mikhail Saakashvili, has announced his resignation, which came as a shock and to the dismay of Ukrainian citizens, who for some reason had great political hopes for him. I’ll leave aside the discussion of how Saakashvili’s biography, character, and addiction to hard narcotics couldn't possibly leave anything good to be expected from him. What is more interesting to discuss are the motives behind his resignation and explaining whether this is connected to the American elections.
Before delving into this, let’s immediately eliminate two entirely untenable theories which nevertheless have a number of supporters on social networks.
Untenable theory number one is that Saakashvili has some kind of insider information that the US elections will be won by Hillary Clinton, and that he was warned in advance to secure a good starting position in the new American leadership’s Ukraine strategy. I understand the appeal of this theory, but I can’t agree with it. Saakashvili can hope that Clinton will win, and he can pray for her victory, but he cannot know the results of the US elections or possess any top insider secrets. For those who doubt this, let me remind you of two episodes.
The first episode was in 2008, when Saakashvili was 100% sure that America would completely sign up to back him against Russia. Well, how did that 'insider knowledge' work out?
The second episode was just recently, in this year, when he spoke of his future triumphant return to Georgia, apparently hoping that the Americans would falsify the results of the Georgian parliamentary elections in favor of his party. The Americans could have done this, but they didn’t. His party lost the elections by a landslide.
Thus, the image of Saakashvili as a super insider can be very appealing, but it does not correspond to reality.
The second untenable theory is that Saakashvili left for internal Ukrainian reasons or was forced to leave by ‘disgruntled Odessans.” Contemporary Ukraine is a territory full of national injustice. Local, regional, and national authorities couldn’t care less about dissatisfied citizens, whether in Odessa, Kiev, Zaporozhya, and so on. They also don’t care about their approval ratings. Saakashvili was given Odessa to “eat up,” and the people who took this decision to quarter a US mercenary in Ukraine are clearly not the ones sitting in Kiev.
Given this, it can be supposed that the version that the former Georgian president, famous for his greed, left his post because of tensions within Ukraine is in the least a strange theory.
And now about Saakashvili’s gesture. Apparently, he really needed to officially distance himself from Poroshenko who, from the point of view of many Western experts, has fulfilled almost all of the tasks in Ukraine that he was given. Even better was Saakashvili putting the emphasis on conflict with Poroshenko.
The new US president, whoever it will be, will be forced to do something with this situation, and the fact is not too far off that the decision will be made to do some behind-the-scenes spanking.
The scenario of backstage spanking, reducing salaries, and rinsing dirty laundry in the media is the best thing that could happen to Poroshenko under any new American administration.
Saakashvili is pretending that he has nothing at all to do with what has and is happening in Ukraine. For him, it would be ideal if Washington believed that he has no relation to Poroshenko, doesn’t know Kolomoysky, and has never seen Yatsenyuk, but had instead been somehow dragged into the mess created by the US’ political puppets in Ukraine.
Under these circumstances, distancing himself is a good strategy, but Saakashvili has run into an obstacle. He should have distanced himself earlier. Now this trick might not work.
The former Georgian president is now demonstrating a kind of behavior which is really familiar in Russia and which is difficult to be misconstrued. What does a regional official who has thieved or failed at an important project do when he learns that a check up is soon coming from Moscow? The pattern of behavior has not changed since the times of the USSR, believe me. This official immediately flies to the capital and tries to, so to say, resolve issues in a small circle of interested associates. Saakashvili and his team have failed in two spheres of work, the Georgian and Ukrainian ones. In Georgia, he lost elections, and in Ukraine he failed to create a success story out of Odessa. The Americans needed such success stories and Saakashvili 100% promised them something of the sort.
Now Saakashvili is covering his weak spots and unleashing into the information field the theory that he failed as governor only because of corrupt Kiev and interference by Poroshenko himself and his entourage.
Surely, Saakashvili has already written something in this spirit to Washington and is now simply publicly confirming his position and line of defense. If he gains the nerve, then he could try to ask the new US administration (and he has friends among both the Republicans and the Democrats) for a promotion, to let him steer something in Kiev, or participate in a new political project in Ukraine.
Considering that the Americans love to arrange political shows in which some political puppets are replaced by other political puppets under cries of fighting against corruption, then this might just work out for him.
Saakashvili’s actions are a very bad sign for Poroshenko. Poroshenko has no good way out of the unfolding situation. It may very well be that he has been left with only two paths: one to Rostov and the other to the gallows.
Saakashvili’s actions are also a possible sign that the Americans will radically shake up the Ukrainian political elite and bring real freaks and misfits to the forefront. For us, this is more good than bad. Any sudden movements could finish off the government system in Ukraine and lead to the delegitimization of the regime in Kiev, especially if outright Nazis come to power there.
For us, this collapse of the administrative system and the delegitimization of the government in Ukraine is good, even if Saakashvili earns something out of this.
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=By= Ekaterina Bilnova Editor's Note Does Soros count as a non-state or a quasi-state actor? I am not sure sometimes, but it is indeed worrisome that an individual has the resources and connections to even attempt a color revolution. However, a similar “rocking of the boat” has been taking place in the U.S. with Ayles and the Koch brothers bankrolling a deep right revolution of the government. W ikileaks’ Podesta Files shed light on US billionaire George Soros’ deep concerns about the lack of “freedom” and “constitutional democracy” in Malaysia under Najib Razak. Soros’ concerns may serve as a prelude for a series of “color revolutions” in Southeast Asia, Mathew Maavak of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia assumed in an interview with Sputnik.
The latest set of documents released by Wikileaks indicates that George Soros and his Open Society Foundation are very concerned about the situation in Malaysia, one of the US’ longstanding allies in Southeast Asia.
A memo , sent by Michael Vachon, US billionaire George Soros’“right hand,” on March 6, 2016, to Chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign John Podesta shed light on the Malaysian “corruption crisis” and blamed the country’s Prime Minister Najib Razak for “damaging the US’ credibility in the region.”
“Malaysia could one day be a good ally of the United States in countering Islamic State [Daesh in Arabic] extremism, but not before it has achieved the freedom and constitutional democracy that its people have been denied,” the memo read. However, it seems that the US financial and political elite have yet another reason to be dissatisfied with the Malaysian prime minister, besides his alleged involvement in corruption scandal. “Malaysian Prime Minster Najib Razak heads to China next week to build closer ties and seek investment, which may further dent US aims in Southeast Asia after a push by President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines to bolster China ties,” Reuters reported Thursday. Both Malaysia and the Philippines have long been in dispute with China over the South China Sea . However, Kuala Lumpur may follow in the footsteps of Manila, seeking to ease tensions with Beijing in exchange for economic benefits, the media outlet assumed. So, what did Soros mean by highlighting the need for democratic change in Malaysia? ‘There is no Business like the Revolutions Business’ “First and foremost, one needs to understand Soros and his business model,” Mathew Maavak, a doctoral researcher in Risk Foresight at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and regular contributor to CCTV told Sputnik. “There is no business like the ‘revolutions business.’ It is more lucrative than the show business which can flop due to an unforeseen shortcoming. Revolutions, on the other hand, only need to tap into the evergreen market of public discontent. NGOs and the West-friendly media constitute a major subsidiary of the global social revolutions enterprise. Together, they seek out, identify and amplify public discontent in nations not aligned to the United States. Such US-engineered activisms have never led to more equitable societies; rather they have engendered endless bloodshed and global terrorism,” the researcher emphasized. Maavak dubbed these human rights entities and philanthropists “agitprop entrepreneurs.” “To the agitprop entrepreneur, the returns on revolutionary investments are immense,” he underscored. “A wealthy hedge fund manager can short a targeted market before executing a pre-planned ‘revolution.’ The resultant stock market and currency meltdown would provide self-evidentiary ‘proof’ to an anxious public, exerting more pressure on the government of the day to either capitulate or concede to ‘popular demands’ that are actually drafted abroad, likely by the IMF!” “Therefore, even if a revolution fails, the subsequent economic fallout would render local assets cheap for foreign acquisition,” the researcher remarked. Soros’ Alleged Role in Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 Maavak referred the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which started in Thailand with the financial collapse of the Thai baht, the country’s national currency. “That seemed like Soros business plan for Malaysia and the ASEAN region during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis,” he noted. Indeed, some observers blame George Soros for the slump. South China Morning Post’s columnist Zhou Xin went even further, stressing that Soros, “whose aggressive currency trades were blamed for destroying the Thai and Malaysian economies” in 1997 made yet another attempt to destabilize Asia’s economies by targeting Hong Kong markets in 1998. “The entire region was in turmoil, and the name of George Soros featured prominently in this sordid saga. The ‘Reformasi’ [protest] movement led by sacked [Malaysian] Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim — who had close to ties to Washington hawks — failed to topple the government of the day,” Maavak recalled. The Reformasi, kicked off in September 1998, consisted of civil disobedience, demonstrations, sit-ins, rioting, occupations and online activism, involving thousands across Malaysia protesting against the government. However, despite execrating Soros for his role in shorting the Malaysian currency, the ringgit, and for supporting the Reformasi movement, former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad did little to stem the vast NGO and alternative media networks that were being built by the Open Society Foundation and its affiliates, backed by the US State Department, Maavak pointed out. “There was a good reason for Mahathir’s lack of decisiveness, apart from the occasional arrests and police raids,” Maavak suggested, “Upon stepping down from power, he used these same networks to oust his successor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, and is now using the same Fifth Column to attempt the ouster of current Prime Minister Najib Razak.” A Series of Domino ‘Color Revolutions’ in Southeast Asia “Without chaos in ASEAN, Soros and the transnational capitalist class may stand to lose a lot of money,” the researcher suggested. “They need Najib ousted as a prelude to a series of domino ‘color revolutions’ in the region. In Malaysia, the color chosen was yellow and it is used by the Bersih (Clean) coalition that probably sees [Democratic presidential nominee] Hillary Clinton as the paragon of virtue and transparent governance,” he assumed. Maavak’s prognosis is by no means groundless, given the fact that ASEAN countries have signaled their willingness to strengthen their ties with China, drifting away from Washington. “Washington has suffered geopolitical setbacks in virtually every nation in Asia Pacific,” Tony Cartalucci, a Bangkok-based geopolitical analyst, noted in his recent article for New Eastern Outlook, stressing that the US’ influence is rapidly waning across the Asia Pacific region .
Bidding for hegemony in Asia Pacific US financial and political elite will do whatever it takes to curtail China’s influence and pressure ASEAN economies into obeying Washington, according to Maavak.
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VIDEOS Myths, misconceptions, and outright lies about nutrition are keeping people fat and sick We tend to seek out information that confirms what we already believe instead of considering all points of view
Fatty foods make you fat.
Carbs make you fat.
If you eat 1,200 calories a day, you will lose weight.
Eat whatever you want in moderation.
Low fat and no-fat foods will help you lose weight.
Sugar-free foods will help you lose weight.
The list above provides a few examples of common beliefs about dieting and nutrition.
But the truth is far more complicated. Nutrition just isn’t that simple.
Let’s take another look at those statements.
Fatty foods make you fat. But ..a vocados and almonds are sources of healthful fats.
Carbs make you fat. But …f ruits and vegetables are sources of carbohydrates.
If you eat no more than 1,400 calories a day, you will lose weight. But … are the caloric needs of a 300 lb man and a 110 pound woman the same?
Eat whatever you want, as long as it is in your daily calorie range. So. .. how does one determine how many calories he or she needs? Does this mean eating candy bars all day – as long as I stay in my calorie range – is okay?
Low fat and no-fat foods will help you lose weight. But…does this mean I can eat low fat cookies and chips every day and still be healthy?
Sugar-free foods will help you lose weight. So…I can eat as much of them as I want?
Common beliefs about diet and nutrition are often vague, misleading, and open to interpretation, and can lead to incorrect assumptions, as the examples above show.
And looking to experts for advice doesn’t necessarily make things any easier.
It would seem that, in this age of marvelous technological advancement and state-of-the-art research facilities, we would have the ability to find definitive solutions to the diet-related problems that plague us.
So, why don’t we?
Research Challenges
In a piece for The New York Times titled Why Nutrition Is So Confusing , science and health journalist Gary Taubes explored this question.
Since the 1960s, nutrition science has been dominated by two conflicting observations. One is that we know how to eat healthy and maintain a healthy weight. The other is that the rapidly increasing rates of obesity and diabetes suggest that something about the conventional thinking is simply wrong. In 1960, fewer than 13 percent of Americans were obese, and diabetes had been diagnosed in 1 percent. Today, the percentage of obese Americans has almost tripled; the percentage of Americans with diabetes has increased sevenfold.
I’m reminded of a quote that is often attributed to Albert Einstein:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.
Taubes goes on to explain that in 1960, fewer than 1,100 articles on obesity and diabetes were published in medical literature. As of 2014, over 600,000 articles have been published that attempt to provide useful data on these health conditions.
Yet, here we are, with higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and other diet-related health conditions than ever.
It is possible, Taubes says, that the ever-increasing number of studies and books on dieting, obesity, and diabetes are “the noise generated by a dysfunctional research establishment.”
Science – nutrition science in particular – has limitations, he explains: In nutrition, the hypotheses are speculations about what foods or dietary patterns help or hinder our pursuit of a long and healthy life. The ingenious and severe attempts to refute the hypotheses are the experimental tests — the clinical trials and, to be specific, randomized controlled trials. Because the hypotheses are ultimately about what happens to us over decades, meaningful trials are prohibitively expensive and exceedingly difficult. It means convincing thousands of people to change what they eat for years to decades. Eventually enough heart attacks, cancers and deaths have to happen among the subjects so it can be established whether the dietary intervention was beneficial or detrimental.
Nutrition research also suffers from funding issues. Pharmaceutical companies and the like do not benefit from such studies, so they (understandably) do not want to pay for them. There’s no financial incentive to fund research on the benefits of whole foods.
As a result, Taubes says, …we have a field of sort-of-science in which hypotheses are treated as facts because they’re too hard or expensive to test, and there are so many hypotheses that what journalists like to call “leading authorities” disagree with one another daily.
In the article’s conclusion, Taubes says our current situation is unacceptable, and asks that we challenge ourselves to do what it takes to find answers. Obesity and diabetes are epidemic, and yet the only relevant fact on which relatively unambiguous data exist to support a consensus is that most of us are surely eating too much of something. My vote is sugars and refined grains; we all have our biases. (Author’s note: I am inclined to agree with Taubes regarding sugars and grains…at least for now.)
Even when funding for studies IS available, problems are common, as Julia Belluz tells us in her Vox piece titled I asked 8 researchers why the science of nutrition is so messy. Here’s what they said. Take the Women’s Health Initiative, which featured one of the biggest and most expensive nutrition studies ever done. As part of the study, women were randomly assigned to two groups: One was told to eat a regular diet and the other a low-fat diet. They were then supposed to follow the diet for years. The problem? When researchers collected their data, it was clear that no one did what they were told. The two groups basically had followed similar diets. “They spent billions of dollars,” says Walter Willett, a Harvard physician and nutrition researcher, “and they never tested their hypothesis.”
As most people who have tried to stick to any sort of weight loss protocol can testify, humans just aren’t good at sticking with a diet for more than a few days without slipping. This trait makes short-term studies easier to conduct, but those kinds of studies don’t measure long-term results. We can use the results of short-term studies to infer what long-term health effects may occur, but that requires a lot of guessing and assumption-making.
It is also difficult (if not impossible) to control for what scientists call “confounding factors.” Here’s an example : Say you wanted to compare people who eat a lot of red meat with fish eaters over many decades. One hitch here is that these two groups might have other differences as well. (After all, they weren’t randomly assigned.) Maybe fish eaters tend to be higher-income or better-educated or more health-conscious, on average — and that’s what’s leading to the differences in health outcomes. Maybe red meat eaters are more likely to eat lots of fatty foods or smoke.
People are diverse, and so are food sources and foods themselves – factors which further complicate research. Animal studies have limitations, because, well, animals aren’t humans, and have vast biological and lifestyle differences.
Epidemiology, or the study of the patterns and causes of disease, is extremely difficult to do, as Kamal Patel, director at Examine.com , told Lifehacker : Nutritional epidemiology is a really, really tough thing to study. Harder than most other areas of health. Much harder than it sounds. Some people think “Oh nutrition! I know about food and nutrition! That’s much easier than some analyzing some obscure medication that I can’t even pronounce.” Wrong. Medication effects can be complex, but nutritional epidemiology makes that look like child’s play. … It’s easy to see how the public can get mixed messages. Research results are notoriously unpredictable, since only some of the total number of studies get published. Studies have a higher chance of getting published if they show positive results, and food and supplement manufacturers can keep funding trials until one gets published. Nutrients interact with each other, so the effects of any one nutrient are hard to predict, let alone the effect of any one food in the midst of a diet comprised of dozens or hundreds of foods. So while I don’t agree with everything Michael Pollan says, his message is generally on point: “Nutritionism” is bound to fail. If you obsess about your diet and individual nutrients, you not only lose the benefit of the occasional cronut or Thanksgiving dinner, but you lose the forest for the trees. Natural foods are what’s healthy, nutrients and the controversies they cause are what keeps research dollars flowing and flip-flops popping up every couple weeks. It’s important to get nutrients, but it’s wise to get them mostly through food, and only after that supplement what you need in a very targeted manner.
Poorly designed research, different researchers studying the same effect but using different measurements and reporting outcomes differently, and researchers’ tendency to selectively report positive or “interesting” results all contribute to the already-murky nutrition science waters.
Even well-done studies can produce contradictory results.
Big Food Industry’s Influence
dishonest clever marketing by the “food” industry all contribute to the confusion.
When we have soft drink giant Coca-Cola creating its own “research” group and pasta companies paying for studies that “show” their products are linked to lower BMI (woooo boy was THAT study flawed!), well…you can see there are serious issues to contend with.
****
Misinterpretation and Miscommunication of Findings
If scientists can’t come to a consensus, how can journalists possibly get it right and report it to us – the end users – accurately?
In the article Cancer, the Media, and the Misinterpretation of Studies: A Cautionary Tale , I explained how typographical errors and misinterpretations of findings can lead to flurries of articles with misleading titles and flawed information being distributed to the masses. This is another way that nutritional myths are born.
Truthful claims can sound very similar to misleading or outright false ones, so pay close attention to wording.
Science writer and educator Beth Skwarecki provides us with an excellent example: Vitamins are magical substances that will make you more healthy if you are deficient!” Well, yeah. That’s actually true. “Vitamins are magical substances that will make you more healthy!” Sounds similar, but it’s not the same, and it’s not true in most cases. Then you can substitute various other chemicals or superfoods for the word “vitamins” in that sentence. True claims and misleading ones sound very similar.
****
As you can see, it isn’t that we are lacking information. On the contrary; we are drowning in it , much of it conflicting, some of it flawed, and a lot of it biased.
So, what should we believe?
All of the problems we discussed above might have left you feeling hopeless.
But there’s some light at the end of the tunnel.
The following are generally accepted as true.
Artificial trans fats are dangerous . Saturated fat is not. You need fat in your diet .
Eggs (especially the yolks) are very nutritious. Dietary cholesterol has not been proven to raise blood cholesterol or elevated risk of coronary heart disease.
Butter , once believed to be terrible for health, is filled with vitamins, minerals, and beneficial fatty acids, and has anti-inflammatory properties. Raw, unpasteurized butter and cream contain a unique substance called the Wulzen factor , a hormone-like substance that prevents arthritis and joint stiffness.
Coffee , chocolate , and nuts – all also labeled unhealthful in the past – have been shown to have nutritional benefits.
Sugary beverages (sodas and juices) can damage health and are linked to excess body fat and type 2 diabetes.
Most weight loss supplements will reduce your bank account, but not your body fat.
The scale isn’t very useful for measuring health or body composition, and neither is BMI .
You don’t have to count calories to lose weight. It works for some, but some people prefer tracking macronutrients like protein instead.
Processed food package labels can be misleading and should be viewed with skepticism. Avoiding processed “foods” as much as possible is a good idea, speaking of that. Studies show we eat far too much of them, and we are paying for it dearly.
A few more things to keep in mind…
When reading about diet and nutrition, expect to find conflicting information on most topics. Sometimes the issue truly hasn’t been settled, and sometimes interpretation of the available data varies.
Watch out for confirmation bias : We tend to seek out information that confirms what we already believe instead of considering all points of view. If you have already formed an opinion about something, intentionally search for information that conflicts with your current belief. It will be uncomfortable, but it is crucial to getting at the truth – which is what you want after all, isn’t it?
Look at the sources referenced in articles or books about nutrition. If there aren’t any, be wary. Be VERY wary.
Funding by industry doesn’t always mean a study is biased or flawed, but knowing who paid for the research is one factor you can use while weighing the findings (remember the Coca-Cola and pasta “studies” we talked about earlier?).
Try searching public journals via PubMed or Google Scholar for studies.
Parting Words
Perhaps keeping it simple is the best answer. Maybe we’ve come full circle, and should go back to the basics. You really can’t go wrong with whole foods, exercise, fresh air, sunshine, clean water, and quality sleep .
And of course, question everything – including what you read on this website.
“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.” ― Markus Herz | 0 |
The militant group Boko Haram released a video on Sunday purporting to show the bodies of several kidnapped schoolgirls who fighters claim were killed by Nigerian airstrikes. A masked, camouflaged fighter who appeared in the video said many of the schoolgirls had died in the strikes, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant jihadist groups. The unidentified fighter also demanded the release of imprisoned militants in exchange for the release of the girls. The strikes are part of a broader offensive by the Nigerian military to rid the region of Boko Haram. The abduction of more than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok, a small village in northeastern Nigeria, more than two years ago set off global outrage and a social media campaign using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls that got the attention of Michelle Obama. Hundreds of other girls and boys have also been kidnapped and murdered by the group. There was no immediate comment from the government or the military about the video, although President Muhammadu Buhari said last year that he was open to negotiating with the group. A spokesman for the Bring Back Our Girls campaign said the video appeared to be legitimate, noting that families of those kidnapped had recognized eight of the girls who appeared in the clip. “We are still reaching out to some parents to see if any can recognize more,” said Jeff Okoroafor, the spokesman for the group, which regularly holds rallies in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to demand that the government find and rescue the girls. The video is among a handful that Boko Haram has posted online in recent days, as the militant group appears to have split into two factions, apparently over the killing of other Muslims and whether fellow believers should be spared. The group has targeted mosques and markets with suicide bombers, some of whom are young girls and boys. Hundreds of Muslims have been killed. Boko Haram pledged support to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, last year, and two primary factions have emerged. One faction has been recognized by the Islamic State, which broadcast an interview with a new “governor” of the group, Abu Musab in its online publication. Abubakar Shekau had been leading Boko Haram but had not been heard from in months until the release of a voice recording on Aug. 3. Jacob Zenn, a security analyst and an African affairs specialist at the Jamestown Foundation, a research organization based in Washington, said it appeared that the girls in the video were in the custody of Mr. Shekau’s group. Logos seen in the video and a reference to Mr. Shekau as the leader indicated that it was produced by his faction, he said. Mr. Shekau’s faction “has significant logistics capabilities if it has been able to keep so many of the world’s most girls hidden and captive for more than two years now,” Mr. Zenn said. Many analysts believe the girls have been divided among Boko Haram fighters and are scattered throughout the Sambisa Forest, where the Nigerian military has stepped up its offensive against the militants in a battle that has recently included airstrikes. In the video, the camera pans across a group of girls cloaked in robes with hair coverings. At least one is holding a small child, a troubling reminder of fears that the girls have been forced to marry militants. The video cuts to a fighter in camouflage standing before them, calling on the government to release fighters. He conducts a brief interview with one of the girls, as others are grouped behind them. The last few minutes of the video show what appear to be the bodies of several dead girls. Earlier this year, members of Nigeria’s civilian militia found one of the kidnapped Chibok girls wandering in the forest. The girl, Amina Ali, was found with a baby and man claiming to be her husband, although the government said he was a member of Boko Haram. She told her family that the other girls from Chibok were still in the forest and that six of them had died. | 1 |
MSNBC “AM Joy” host Joy Reid reacted Saturday to House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise’s ( ) shooting, calling it a “delicate” situation because she hopes he recovers but added she cannot ignore his history regarding race, marriage and gun control. “[I]t’s a delicate thing because everybody is wishing the congressman well and hoping that he recovers, but Steve Scalise has a history that we’ve all been forced to sort of ignore on race,” Reid said. “He did come to leadership after some controversy over attending a white nationalist event, which he says he didn’t know what it was. He also a bill to amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. He voted for the House healthcare bill, which as you said would gut health care for millions of people, including three million children, and he a bill to repeal the ban on weapons. Because he is in jeopardy and everybody is pulling for him, are we required in a moral sense to put that aside at the moment?” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 1 |
On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, SiriusXM host Alex Marlow asked former U. N. Ambassador John Bolton about the Trump administration’s evidently softening support for Israeli settlement construction. [“I’m concerned about it. I’m concerned about the fact that the embassy hasn’t been moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” Bolton said. “It has the mark of the kind of thinking you hear at the State Department, that questions like the final status of Jerusalem and the argument that settlements are an obstacle to peace. We’ve been hearing these kinds of arguments for 30 or 40 years, and they appear to have gained some traction. ” “Now, I don’t want to read too much into it,” he added. “I’m not saying it’s the end of the world. But if you look at, for example, all of the campaign promises in effect that candidate Trump made, he’s really done an unbelievable job and showed, I think, he’s not a normal politician, in the number of those promises he’s already begun to fulfill or actually fulfilled. The embassy move is kind of conspicuous at this point, so I worry about it. ” “I understand, and I would certainly advocate that when you’re ready to announce it, you’re going to need some very active diplomacy to calm our European friends down, to talk to our friends in the Arab world, to explain why it is we’re doing it. You need a strategy. You need to be prepared for it. I grant all that. But that doesn’t take forever to do, and we’re now approaching the third week. So I don’t know where the vibes are coming from, but I have to say that the fact that this has slowed down, and the comments about the settlements should lead us to ask, ‘What’s the story?’ I think we need to hear more from the administration on that point,” he said. “The State Department, all you have to do is tap them on the knee, and you get these kinds of responses. So it could be that somehow or another, this kind of thinking has wended its way over to the White House, and some people over there have been attracted to it, for reasons I don’t frankly understand,” Bolton suggested. “I mean, the ‘peace processers,’ as they’ve been called, have been at this for a long time, and ultimately it’s always Israel that has to strike the deal, as it did for Egypt and the Camp David accord, as it’s done with Jordan. Our theories about what’s going to lead to peace or what we think the best way to proceed is, is not necessarily as acutely aware of the sensitivities in the region as Israel is. ” “We’re fortunate, I think, that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who will be coming next week, he and President Trump can sit down and hash all this out. Hopefully, both on Iran and on some of these things like the embassy and the settlements, maybe we’ll see some clarity emerge from that meeting,” he said. Bolton offered a fiery denunciation of British House of Commons Speaker John Bercow for effectively banning President Trump from speaking before Parliament. “This man is an embarrassment to the British Parliament,” he declared. “There are just any number of stories of his behavior. The position of Speaker of the House of Commons is not the same as in our system, the Speaker of the House of Representatives that Paul Ryan holds. It’s much more of a ceremonial position. This fellow Bercow, again for reasons I don’t understand, is a Conservative Party member, but he doesn’t follow the leadership. He’s a completely independent figure. That’s fine. That’s the British constitutional tradition. But somehow, they’ve gotten somebody who seems to think that he has some voice that gives him a role in British politics way beyond his capabilities. ” “I think Theresa May’s government, the prime minister, I’m sure she’s outraged at this and would like to try and find a way to correct it. Hopefully, she will,” he added. Marlow also asked Bolton about a new Rasmussen poll that shows Democrats believe Muslims in the United States are worse off than Christians in the Middle East. “I hadn’t heard of that poll, but that is simply bizarre,” Bolton responded. “If you go to the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom or look at any number of people who have studied this question of the persecution of Christians around the world — former Senator Joe Lieberman refers to it often — you can see the real threat that they’re under. ” “Right in the Middle East now, the Christians in Syria affected by ISIS and the civil war there, they’re the ones we should be granting refugee status to in the United States. But they’re even afraid to come into the refugee camps because the extremists are dominant there, and they’re worried they’ll be in danger even in U. N. refugee camps. So how people can come to that conclusion is beyond me. Maybe they just watch too much MSNBC,” Bolton said. Marlow built on that point to suggest the Rasmussen poll is evidence that Democrats “live in a bubble, and they don’t seem to get any information outside of the establishment press. ” Bolton said he found the results of the poll “inexplicable” as anything but a partisan information bubble. “There’s no reason, no justification for discriminating against anybody simply because of their religion in this country. That’s what we have a First Amendment for. It was vital to the founding of our country. I think most Americans, whatever their feelings about party affiliation, really are prepared to be tolerant of any religion that respects and tolerates other religions, as well. So I think your point about Democrats living in a bubble is absolutely right,” he told Marlow. “That should trouble us. It’s not just that they’re wrong it’s that fundamentally, this is going to have a negative effect on our democracy if people are operating in such a universe,” Bolton warned. John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and founder of his own political action committee, BoltonPAC. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN: | 1 |
The Libertarian Party has been shooting itself in the foot since the beginning with large amounts of misstatements, judgement errors and wrong policies, but now they finally decided to shoot themselves in the head.
What Libertarian VP Bill Weld just did, is going to destroy and bury the Libertarian Party forever. There is no going back from this one.
I mean, WHAT IS ALEPPO??? , I guess I’m having an Aleppo moment (when being asked to name a single foreign leader), sticking his tongue at a woman who interviewed him , having mental collapse reactions on camera , are imbecilic errors which some followers could forgive but no one can forgive this one.
So this is what the Libertarian movement was all about. Total stupidity, betrayal and cuckoldry!
Ron Paul, chief Libertarian cuckold whom we strongly supported back in the past (and you can search and look at our older 2008-2012 articles as proof that we actually DID strongly supported him) endorsed the Libertarian Party first on CNN and then on FOX Business clowns Bill Weld and Gary Johnson who threw a George Washington gun replica in the garbage , pledged to sign TPP , open borders plus many others and now this, clown number 2: Bill Weld directly endorsing Hillary Clinton.
Libertarian vice presidential candidate Bill Weld is under fire from members of his own party and from GOP after espousing support for Democrat presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton. Appearing on MSNBC’s The Rachel Madcow Show Tuesday, Weld told Libertarian voters in the battleground state of North Carolina to instead give their vote to Hillary, claiming “Donald Trump is a threat to the country”. Sure he is! He’s a THREAT to corruption and that’s exactly why the people want him.
“We are making our case that we’re fiscally responsible and socially inclusive and welcoming and we think we got on the merits the best ticket of the three parties if you will. And so we’d like to get there.”
“Having said that as I think you’re aware I see a big difference between the R candidate and the D candidate and I’ve been at some pains to say that I fear for the country if Mr. Trump should be elected. I think it’s a candidacy without any parallel that I can recall. It’s content-free and very much given to stirring up envy and resentment and even hatred. I think it would be a threat to the conduct of our foreign policy and our position in the world at large.”
Stating voters in North Carolina may decide the outcome of the 2016 election, Madcow asked why a Libertarian voter fearing Trump should vote for Hillary rather than Weld and his running mate Gary Johnson.
“I’m here vouching for Mrs. Clinton,” Weld told Maddow, “and I think it’s high time somebody did.”
Earlier this year, Weld said he would dedicate remaining efforts in the campaign toward staving off a Trump presidency.
“The libertarians are reaching levels of cuckoldry never thought possible,” writes Chris Menahan for Information Liberation .
After this one, the Libertarian movement is DEAD, the very heads of the Libertarian movement, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Bill Weld killed the movement! Libertarians are disgusting cucks who like to watch their wives getting kissed by other men (censored version). And this is exactly what they are, cucks! Just watch the photo above, who in the world names their WI-FI “Cuckoo”??? They even spelled WI-FI “Wifi” with small letters and no minus line. Someone who would read it fast without paying too much attention, could end up reading “Wife: Cuckold”. You can’t make this stuff up!
They like to watch the Constitution, morality, ethics, principles being screwed by Hillary Clinton!
Libertarians/cuckservatives: muh principles!
We, the EU Times: Well what’s your principles?
Libertarians/cuckservatives: Open borders, TPP, destruction of 2nd Amendment, Christian oppression and Muslim immigration, pro-abortion, outsourcing of jobs, not standing up to government corruption and vote rigging! Define those principles of yours you cuckolds!
Ron Paul is a disgrace for supporting this cuckoldry! We disavow Ron Paul and we SPIT on all his previous work! We regret ever supporting him! Ron Paul got himself rich with millions of dollars in grassroots donations and when they stole votes from him (and they did steal from Ron Paul) the weakling cuck that he is didn’t had the courage to stand up to himself and to his voters and say or do something. He’s a snake just as bad as Ted Cruz and Glenn Beck!
The Libertarians are DEAD, Long live the Nationalists! Thanks to Trump, we now have a better, improved movement, more authentic and principled than ever before!
Here’s principled libertarian Bill Weld endorsing Hillary Clinton:
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By Nathaniel Mauka Congress overwhelmingly voted for the Patriot Act nearly 16 years ago, and our civil liberties have never been the same since. As... | 0 |
After comedian Kathy Griffin posed with a bludgeoned severed head of President Donald Trump, social media has exploded with reactions to the controversial photo. [The image of Griffin, obtained by TMZ, depicts a gory, severed version of Trump’s head, as the former Fashion Police host stands with a cold expression on her face. Now, social media users have gone online to express their disgust for the image: Of course CNN will probably keep Kathy Griffin on the payroll for their annual New Years Eve coverage, cuz they want Trump dead too. Sad. — Mark Dice (@MarkDice) May 30, 2017, ”Get over the Kathy Griffin picture you ❄️ what’s the matter? It’s just a photo” — people hysterical over a peeing dog statue this morning, — Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) May 30, 2017, Hey @CNN do you condone Kathy Griffin’s views? Will she be hosting New Year’s Eve Live again with @AC360? pic. twitter. — Nick Short (@PoliticalShort) May 30, 2017, NOT FUNNY: Kathy Griffin ’Beheads’ Trump … https: . — DRUDGE REPORT (@DRUDGE_REPORT) May 30, 2017, When did Kathy Griffin join ISIS? https: . — Brittany Pettibone (@BrittPettibone) May 30, 2017, These people are Satanic. Does @andersoncooper perform death rituals with his good friend and Kathy Griffin? Or even sicker stuff? https: . — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 30, 2017, Imagine the meltdown if a conservative celebrity had posed with a of Obama’s decapitated head. https: . — Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) May 30, 2017, Hey @andersoncooper and @cnn — why do you associate with a person who wants to behead Trump? https: . — toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) May 30, 2017, Feminists: ’Peeing pug’ is misogynist extremism, Same Feminists: ’Kathy Griffin beheading Trump is empowering, edgy art’ pic. twitter. — Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) May 30, 2017, If you’re CNN, you announce immediately that Kathy Griffin will no longer be hosting your New Year’s Eve special right now hesitation. https: . — Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) May 30, 2017, . @maggieNYT, will you ask @kathygriffin to go easy on @realDonaldTrump because he has a young son? Or do you only do that for pedophiles? — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 30, 2017, Does @donlemon support this Satanism? What does he and his Kathy Griffin do? @andersoncooper pic. twitter. — Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 30, 2017, Meanwhile, mainstream media reports downplayed the photo of Griffin, shifting the conversation to another topic: Trump is gonna tweet about kathy griffin isn’t he, — Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) May 30, 2017, No promises, but I’m hoping to keep @TheAtlantic free of news about both Chuck Woolery and Kathy Griffin. — Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) May 30, 2017, btw, here’s what one person from who is active on 4chan just sent me re: the Kathy Griffin photo and giving the right ammo : pic. twitter. — Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) May 30, 2017, Is Kathy Griffin the Leader of the Democratic Party? — Tim Dotcom (@timothypmurphy) May 30, 2017, ”Why don’t more libs condemn Kathy Griffin? !” Prob same reason more cons didn’t condemn Nugent? Bc they’re dumb fodder for dumb outrage. — Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) May 30, 2017, I’m already exhausted by the amount of disingenuous moral outrage this will drum up https: . — eve peyser (@evepeyser) May 30, 2017, Griffin has forced her way into the mainstream, hosting CNN’s New Year’s Eve special for the last few years with Anderson Cooper. The spokesperson also enjoyed a long run on Andy Cohen’s Bravo network as the star of the reality show My Life on The . Representatives for CNN and Griffin did not immediately respond to Breitbart News’ request for comment. | 1 |
Early on Tuesday rumors began circulating that President Donald Trump was in talks with the Washington Nationals to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day this month. But, it appears the White House has decided to turn down the invitation. [According to a Politico report, the White House made plans with the team to take the mound for the ceremonial first pitch in the Opening Day game against the Miami Marlins. The report came from Luke Russert, who heard about the discussion from his perch in Florida. But, before end of day, others began reporting that the White House already put the kibosh on the plan. Washington Post sports columnist Barry Svrluga took to his Twitter account to report that Trump won’t be tossing that first pitch after all. Nats say the White House has declined invitation for President Trump to throw out ceremonial first pitch Opening Day. — Barry Svrluga (@barrysvrluga) March 28, 2017, The Donald has done some throwing in the past. In 1992 he and Marla Maples appeared at Pilot Field in Buffalo to toss the pigskin around. He looked pretty good doing it, too. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com. | 1 |
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“We need more and more jobs. Unemployment is way up here,” he said. “He’s hired more employees, more people, than anyone I know in the world.”
I believe in him first of all because he’s a businessman. I think jobs are badly needed.
Hollywood star, Brad Pitt is usually catching some heat through supporters of President Obama after calling his agenda “anti-Christian.”
Pitt talked out about his own Christian beliefs during the 1999 interview. During the interview, he shared his story of how he or she uncovered religion.
As the particular son of a preacher and spending a majority of his time in the church, he grew to become rebellious as a teen.
After what Pitt calls a personal face along with God, he came back in order to the church in his 20s.
“I had this particular tremendous physical and spiritual experience.”
His devotion to his faith has shocked liberal Hollywood plus angered President Obama supporters who support his alleged “anti-Christian agenda.”
As other celebrities live a liberal and free life-style, Pitt has explained that he is proud of his religion
Because of this, Brad has finally come out in support of Donald Trump and his run for Presidency. | 0 |
It is perhaps only fitting that a president who rose to power by harnessing the internet would one of the nation’s leading technology and science magazines on the way out. President Obama will take on that duty in the November issue of Wired, the magazine announced on Tuesday. It will be available on newsstands nationwide on Oct. 25, two weeks before Election Day. By Wired’s estimation, it will be the first time a sitting president has a magazine, a move the editor, Scott Dadich, described as a natural choice, given the nation’s history of innovation. “When the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, they were at the bleeding edge of enlightenment philosophy and technology,” Mr. Dadich said in the announcement. “Franklin was talking about crazy stuff like electricity and communications networks. Paine gave up the copyright to Common Sense so it could get wider publication. Jefferson was radically rethinking design and land use. ” At Mr. Obama’s direction, the issue will focus on the future, the magazine said. Its theme will be frontiers: personal, local, national, international and beyond. (Think precision medicine, urban planning, civil rights, climate change and space travel.) That theme will also serve as the subject of a White House conference, a convening of innovators, to be held in Pittsburgh earlier in October and to be by the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. The president is no stranger to science, technology and Silicon Valley, subjects central to Wired’s coverage. His first presidential campaign is often credited to an effective use of big data and the internet. and he has championed several ambitious initiatives while in office, including plans to map the human brain and to get 20 million people subscribed to internet by 2020. Last year, Mr. Obama famously dined late into the night at the White House with 13 guests, including Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s John Doerr, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems — part of a broader effort to prepare an infrastructure and endowment that would be used for, among other things, a “digital first” presidential library. Mr. Obama also courted support from Silicon Valley professionals, some of whom were rewarded for their efforts. John V. Roos, a major and a former law firm partner there, was appointed ambassador to Japan after Mr. Obama first took office. The Wired arrangement won’t be the president’s first foray into editing, either. In 1990, he became the first black editor in the history of the Harvard Law Review. | 1 |
The head of Venezuela’s opposition coalition in the legislature denounced the violent takeover of a Catholic Mass in late January by armed Chavista gangs known as colectivos, who forced those congregated to listen to a disparaging rant against the Catholic Church instead of prayer. [Jesús Torrealba, the secretary general of Venezuela’s Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) tweeted this week that colectivos stormed into Caracas’s San Pedro Claver Church on January 23 . “The violent government supporters closed the door, prevented the parishioners from leaving, and forced them to listen to a political speech,” Torrealba denounced on Twitter. “The violent colectivos offended the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference and social leaders in the area in their speech. ” 1) GRAVE: La Iglesia San Pedro Claver, Caracas, fue cercada y tomada hoy 29E a la 1pm por paramilitares oficialistas mal llamados colectivos, — Jesus Chuo Torrealba (@ChuoTorrealba) January 29, 2017, 3) Los oficialistas violentos cerraron las puertas, impidieron la salida de los feligreses y los obligaron a escuchar un discurso político, — Jesus Chuo Torrealba (@ChuoTorrealba) January 29, 2017, 4) Los violentos mal llamados “colectivos” ofendieron en su discurso a la Conferencia Episcopal Venezolana y a dirigentes sociales de la zona, — Jesus Chuo Torrealba (@ChuoTorrealba) January 29, 2017, Torrealba concluded, noting that the incident ended after Monsignor Jesús González de Zárate, an official at the church, pleaded with the gangs to allow the Mass to continue. Following reports of the event, the head of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference issued a statement condemning the increasingly common attacks on the part of supporters of the socialist government against the Catholic Church. “These are not isolated occurrences but rather, one gets the impression that these are premeditated events meant to intimidate the Catholic Church,” Monsignor Diego Padrón, the head of the conference, said in remarks on an radio program. The Church, he added, is a target because it “has taken a very clear position before the government, noting its difficulties, problems, and the crisis the nation is currently in. ” Padrón also listed other events that made him believe these were not isolated incidents, including attacks on the homes of multiple clergy members who had openly objected to the socialist government. While the Vatican has not aided the Venezuelan opposition at its highest level — Pope Francis notably met with dictator Nicolás Maduro, but not the wives of his political prisoners — Venezuelan clergy have vocally opposed the growing infringement on human rights and dire economic situation Maduro’s policies have created. The Episcopal Conference loudly protested Maduro’s edict granting the military full control of the nation’s food supply, objecting to the socialist government’s “constant preaching of hate, criminalization and punishment of all dissidents. ” The Conference also attempted to facilitate talks between the MUD and the government, on Pope Francis’s orders. After months of delays and a refusal by the government to release prisoners of conscience, the bishops sent the head of the government a private letter expressing “pain and concern” over “a disturbing delay in the adoption of necessary measures for the concrete application of the agreements. ” The Socialist Party’s Diosdado Cabello responded by publicly calling the letter “disrespectful and irresponsible” after it leaked to international outlets. The MUD ultimately backed out of the Vatican talks, objecting to the Maduro government’s “arrogant and rude response … to the demands formulated in a letter from the Vatican. ” | 1 |
WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Eric K. Fanning on Tuesday as secretary of the Army, making him the openly gay official ever at the Pentagon. The voice vote ended a confirmation process that had been delayed for months by a Republican senator who wanted assurances that detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would not be sent to his state. But as the senator, Pat Roberts of Kansas, explained how his concerns had been resolved, one of his statements indicated that the administration does not believe it will be able to close the prison before President Obama leaves office. Mr. Roberts said on the Senate floor that he had been assured last week by the deputy defense secretary, Robert O. Work, that Mr. Obama would not move Guantánamo detainees to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. because “the clock has run out. ” In a statement, Mr. Work said he had made clear to Mr. Roberts that “we have not taken any location off the table for relocating Guantánamo detainees. ” Still, Mr. Work acknowledged that there was “limited time left” to gain Congress’s support for the administration’s plan to close the prison. There have been signs that time is short. The administration said in February that every potential site the government had studied for housing Guantánamo detainees would need substantial construction work. No contracts have been put out in the three months since then, because Congress has banned bringing detainees into the United States or spending any money to modify a prison to accommodate them. Mr. Fanning, 47, has held posts across the armed services, including as Air Force under secretary and deputy under secretary of the Navy. He has also served as chief of staff to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter. | 1 |
By Mike Maharrey
Today, a new law allowing parents to opt their children out of standardized testing in Alaska goes into effect. The new statute gives parents a powerful tool to push back against Common Core.
Rep. Wes Keller (R-Wasilla) introduced House Bill 156 ( HB156 ) last year. The legislation broadly defines the rights of Alaska parents to direct the education of the children. An important provision in the law allows parents to opt their children out of standardized testing.
(1) recognizing the authority of a parent and allowing a parent to object to and withdraw the child from a standards-based assessment or test required by the state;
The legislation also allows parents to object to and opt their kids out an activity, class, or program.
Shane VanderHart with Truth in American Education explains the significance of the opt-out right .
This doesn’t change Alaska’s standards which are essentially Common Core, but this is a win for parents who were having issues opting their students out of assessments and certain classes, like sex ed. This is something all states should do if they haven’t already. While parents have a natural right to opt their children out of assessments it is so much easier when the government cooperates with parents rather than oppose them.
The House passed HB156 in April by a 22-17 vote. The Senate approved an amended version of the measure 15-5. After some back and forth to reconcile the House and Senate versions, the bill received final passage on May 5.
NEW YORK New York serves as a shining example of the effectiveness of an individual opt-out campaign against Common Core testing programs. Grassroots activists started a movement that spread across the entire state and sent a powerful message against Fed Ed.
The New York Post reported that 20 percent of parents chose to opt their children out from the Common Core standardized testing last year. In the Lower Hudson Valley, the number reported this year was even higher, according to the USA Today :
Some school officials voluntarily reported their figures on Tuesday; others declined, saying the numbers should first be reported to their boards of education; others did not respond at all. Those who responded were responsible for nearly 44,000 students, nearly 10,000 of whom declined to take the test, at a rate of 24 percent.
The Washington Post reported that he number of opt-outs were also high in other areas.
Eighty-six percent of test eligible students in the Long Island district of Comsewogue refused the test, and 89 percent of students in Dolgeville in the Mohawk Valley said “no.”
Newsday reported that 49.7 percent of all Long Island students refused the test even though the Newsday editorial board has repeatedly urged parents to have their children take it.
Massive opt-outs create a path forward for Alaska parents wanting to eliminate Common Core standards and put education back into the hands of state and local bodies where it belongs. Ultimately, if enough students opt out of the testing, it could collapse the Common Core system altogether.
HISTORY Common Core was intended to create nationwide education standards. While touted as a state initiative through the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the U.S. Department of Education was heavily involved behind the scenes.
Up until recently, the DoE tied the grant of waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act to adoption of Common Core, using the standards as powerful strings to influence state educational policy. The Every Student Succeeds Act passed by Congress this year now prohibits the DoE from attempting to “influence, incentivize, or coerce State adoption of the Common Core State Standards … or any other academic standards common to a significant number of States.”
But under the new federal law, states still must comply with College and Career Ready Standards , based on Common Core, as a condition for receiving some federal dollars. It also requires the federal education secretary to approve each state’s plans for standards and assessments.
Even with the federal strings partially cut from Common Core for the time being, it is still imperative for each state to adopt its own standards. The feds can once again use these national standards to meddle in state education at any time if they remain in place. Just as importantly, one-size-fits-all standard simply don’t benefit children. State and local governments should remain in full control of their own educational systems.
Michael Maharrey [ send him email ] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center, where this article first appeared . He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here . He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE | 0 |
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The video appears to show a disc-shaped object flying behind a small gap in the clouds before it quickly vanishes. The footage is believed to have been filmed over North America – but no further details were provided. Tags | 0 |
The uproar at the University of Notre Dame over Vice President Mike Pence’s upcoming commencement address has escalated, as students are now claiming that his presence on campus will make them feel “unsafe. ”[Seniors Imanne Mondane and Jourdyhn Williams have started a whiteboard message campaign to express their concern over the selection of Mike Pence as the university’s commencement speaker. Over the past week, Mondane and Williams have taken photographs of students with quotations from Pence that the two seniors feel are “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic. ” “For me personally, [Pence] represents the larger Trump administration,” Senior Immane Mondane told The Observer, the newspaper of the University of Notre Dame and the nearby St. Mary’s College. “His administration represents something, and for many people on our campus, it makes them feel unsafe to have someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity. ” “I know that during his time as governor of Indiana and also during his campaign trail, along with Trump, he has made offensive statements towards minority groups that affect me, like women and ” Williams claimed. Williams argues that the selection of Pence as the university’s commencement speaker contradicts with the school’s Catholic mission. “I feel that is offensive to such a large population here at Notre Dame, and I also believe it goes against certain Catholic Social Teaching, which is something the University likes to broadcast that it stands behind, but it picks and chooses when it wants to stand behind them,” Williams complained. Encouragingly, Mondane has organized a discussion on her concerns and has invited students of all political persuasions to attend and voice their opinions. “We’re going to have a discussion in the weeks to come,” Mondane said. “Everyone is welcome to the discussion, and we’re going to have an event and advertise, but we really want to get the voices there who may not agree with us and who may take issue with what we’re doing. We both have an equal platform, and we’re on an equal playing field where one narrative isn’t totally dominant of the other. ” 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 |
По словам Керри, Запад остается единым в вопросе сохранения санкций на фоне агрессивной политики России, а после ряда попыток со стороны Москвы вмешаться в предвыборную кампанию в Соединенных Штатах чувство общности, в том числе и в этом вопросе, "по обе стороны Атлантики" только укрепилось.
"Я был в Брюсселе в начале этого месяца и я обнаружил, что чувство общности подходов за Атлантикой демонстрируется каждый день. США и Европа продолжают поддерживать жесткие экономические санкции против России", - сказал Керри, выступая в совете Чикаго по международным отношениям.
Керри заявил, что "наше единство становится еще сильнее", обвинив при этом Россию в том, что она якобы "пытается вмешиваться в функционирование нашей демократической системы".
В начале октября министерство внутренней безопасности США и Нацразведка обвинили Россию в намеренном взломе почтовых серверов американских граждан и политических организаций с целью вмешательства в избирательный процесс в стране.
Российские официальные лица отвергают все обвинения американской стороны. Как пишет Аргументы стороны американских властей неоднократно звучали обвинения, что Россия пытается влиять на политическую ситуацию в США.
В частности, утверждается, что атаки на сервера демократов организованы Кремлем.
Ранее основатель WikiLeaks Джулиан Ассанж пообещал до конца этого года опубликовать "значительные данные" по правительствам трех стран и выборах в США. Об этом он сообщил в ходе видеомоста, который транслируют в Берлине.
Сведения о президентских выборах в Штатах будут обнародованы до их проведения 8 ноября.
Ассанж также добавил, что информация о планах ресурса нанести вред кандидату на пост президента США от Демократической партии Хиллари Клинтон ложная."Было очень много перевирания моих цитат и публикаций WikiLeaks. В этом конкретном случае перевирается цитата о том, что мы хотим навредить Хиллари Клинтон", - сказал он.
Джулиан Ассанж также отметил, что "все заявления о якобы существующих связях между WikiLeaks и Россией абсурдны".
Напомним, 4 октября исполняется 10 лет со дня первой публикации документов на сайте WikiLeaks. Ассанж планировал выйти на балкон посольства Эквадора в Лондоне, где он укрывается от британского правосудия, и сделать заявление. Однако выступление было отменено по соображениям безопасности.
Ранее WikiLeaks обнародовал электронную переписку Демократической партии США. Из опубликованных документов следует, что партийный аппарат демократов во время праймериз работал на Клинтон в ущерб ее конкуренту Берни Сандерсу. Скандал стал причиной отставки руководителя национального комитета Демократической партии.
Как пишет Взгляд, штаб Клинтон в ответ обвинил во взломе серверов Москву , которая якобы хотела помочь на выборах республиканцу Дональду Трампу. Пресс-секретарь российского президента Дмитрий Песков назвал подобные утверждения абсурдными. Сам Трамп отшутился, что просто нравится президенту России Владимиру Путину, и заявил, что все эти письма демократам вообще не следовало писать.
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By Claire Bernish, The Free Thought Project Four stars from the movie, The Avengers, have now joined forces to demand President Barack Obama pay attention to abuses and excessive force being used... | 0 |
In early 2015, scientists monitoring satellite images at Global Forest Watch raised the alarm about the destruction of rain forests in Indonesia. Environmental groups raced to the scene in West Kalimantan province, on the island of Borneo, to find a charred wasteland: smoldering fires, orangutans driven from their nests, and signs of an extensive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. “There was pretty much no forest left,” said Karmele Llano Sánchez, director of the nonprofit International Animal Rescue’s orangutan rescue group, which set out to save the endangered primates. “All the forest had burned. ” Fingers pointed to the Rajawali Group, a sprawling local conglomerate known for its ties to powerful politicians like Malaysia’s prime minister. But lesser known is how some of the world’s largest banks have helped Rajawali — and other global agricultural powerhouses — expand their plantation empires. The year before the clearing of trees in West Kalimantan, Rajawali’s plantation arm secured $235 million in loans — funds that the Indonesian company used to buy out a partner and bolster its landholdings — from banks including Credit Suisse and Bank of America, according to an examination of lending data by The New York Times. The deal forms part of at least $43 billion in loans and underwriting to companies linked to deforestation and forest burning in Southeast Asia alone, according to a tally compiled by the Rainforest Action Network, the Dutch consultancy Profundo and the Indonesian nongovernmental organization TuK Indonesia. More than a third of that sum comes from American, European and Japanese banks, many of which have sustainability pledges that specifically mention deforestation. That figure is almost certainly incomplete because not all financing is made public. It also excludes loans made by the same banks to forestry projects outside Southeast Asia, or financing provided to other, more global players. And it contrasts with efforts by companies like Nestlé and Procter Gamble to distance themselves from suppliers linked to deforestation. And while there has been a growing movement among endowments and pension funds to divest from the industry — and banks have started to back away from financing coal projects — any move away from deforestation has been slower to catch on, experts say. The role of banks has come under the spotlight in recent weeks after environmentalists called out banks like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs for financing the contentious Dakota Access oil pipeline project. The money is aiding a process that scientists say destroys ecosystems, displaces indigenous communities and covers the region each year in a thick, suffocating smog that stretches from Jakarta to Hong Kong. Deforestation — and the fires that frequently accompany it — also generates of total global warming emissions, making forestry loss one of the biggest single contributors to global warming, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Destroying the world’s forests makes fighting climate change almost impossible,” said Andrew W. Mitchell, executive director of the Global Canopy Programme, a forestry think tank. “The finance sector is really lagging behind in realizing that. ” In funding Rajawali’s palm oil plantations, the banks appear to have violated their own sustainability policies. In its forestry and agribusiness policy, adopted in 2008, Credit Suisse says it will not finance or advise companies with operations in “primary tropical moist forests” like those of West Kalimantan. Bank of America says in a banking policy, adopted in 2004, that it will not finance commercial projects that result in the clearing of primary tropical moist forests. The 2014 deal financed Rajawali’s expansion into palm oil by helping the conglomerate buy out a former partner, invest in new palm oil mills and increase its landholdings. Demand for palm oil is surging worldwide, driven by rising incomes in markets like China and India and a switch away from trans fats by Americans and Europeans. Rajawali’s plantations have been accused by environmental and labor groups of deforestation and illegal burning. Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest palm oil producers, and forestry loss there and elsewhere ranks as one of the biggest single contributors to global warming. Sebastian Sharp, a spokesman for Rajawali’s plantation arm, acknowledged that the burning and clearing on its West Kalimantan forest sites might be illegal but said local communities encroaching on its properties and starting the fires were to blame. He said the company did not engage in illegal burning or clearing. Credit Suisse declined to comment on its Rajawali deal or to say whether the deal violated its sustainability policies. A Bank of America spokesman, Bill Halldin, said that the most serious accusations against Rajawali came after the 2014 loan, in which the bank played “a very small role. ” “Today, we would certainly consider more information before making any decision on any client,” he said. Brigitte Seegers, a spokeswoman for ABN Amro, declined to comment. Climate concerns have been brought into sharp relief by the impending presidency of Donald J. Trump, who has called climate change a hoax. Mr. Trump has said he will pull the United States out of the Paris accord, a commitment by 195 countries to take concrete measures to reduce carbon emissions. Daily emissions from Indonesia’s forest fires last year at times exceeded emissions produced by all economic activity in the United States. A recent Harvard and Columbia study estimated that the fires caused at least 100, 000 premature deaths across Southeast Asia. The World Bank estimates that the fires cost Indonesia’s economy $16 billion. Although deforestation has slowed in many parts of the world, notably in the Brazilian Amazon, forest clearing is on the rise in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, in particular, suffers the world’s highest rates of forest loss, an average of almost 2. 1 million acres a year, a study published in 2014 found. About 15 percent of the world’s historical forest cover remains intact, according to the World Resources Institute. The rest has been cleared or degraded or is in fragments. Rajawali originally operated its palm plantation business, Green Eagle Holdings, as a joint venture with the French conglomerate Louis Dreyfus. But starting in 2014, Rajawali took the first step to consolidate the palm oil business under its control, and invest in new infrastructure. Its loans from Western banks were crucial. In January 2014, Green Eagle attracted a $120 million loan from a group of lenders led by ABN Amro. In July of that year, it scored an even bigger loan of $235 million from a syndicate led by Credit Suisse. Bank of America also took part in that loan. The financing allowed Green Eagle to buy out Louis Dreyfus to invest in new palm oil mills and increase its landholdings. In November 2014, Green Eagle merged with another plantation operator, BW Plantation Rajawali is majority shareholder of the resulting company, Eagle High Plantations. The banks issued those loans as Rajawali was being accused of extensive forest and peatland destruction, illegal burning, use of child labor and the use of force against workers at plantations under its control. mapping by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and satellite imagery from Global Forest Watch, show forest loss at two sites in West Kalimantan from 2011 to 2013 and again in 2015, with much of the forest gone by the end of the year. Those sites included around 11, 000 hectares of peat, which, when set alight, can smolder for months underground. Zamzami, who goes by one name, a Greenpeace staff member in Indonesia who visited a Rajawali plantation in West Kalimantan in September 2015, said the burning continued. “It was difficult to breathe because of the smoke,” he said in field notes. “Far away, on the horizon, I could see the forest wall. ” Eagle High is now one of Indonesia’s largest palm oil plantation operators, with more than a million acres in land rights under its control, according to an investors’ presentation dated September 2014. Human rights organizations have reported that children as young as 6 work to support their parents in another plantation in the Papua province. That plantation has promised to support the abolition of child labor by ensuring that there are no children on plantation sites. In December 2015, a worker was shot dead at the plantation by state security forces. It was unclear why state forces were on private property. Mr. Sharp, the Eagle High spokesman, blamed local villagers for the forest clearing and burning on its sites. “It’s being done by local communities, and we have no control over that,” he said. Environmental groups argue that plantation companies are responsible for protecting their sites. Mr. Sharp said that there were instances in which workers brought their children to plantations but that the company was “trying to brainstorm ways in which we can stop them from doing that. ” He also questioned the wisdom of Indonesian labor law. “Why can’t we hire children at 15? Families need income,” he said. Under the country’s law, the minimum age for hazardous work, including jobs on plantations, is 18. The worker who was killed, Marvel Doga, was “drunk and violent, poured petrol everywhere and threatened to set fire, and he had with him a bow and arrow” when nearby state security forces tried to incapacitate him, leading to his death, Mr. Sharp said. He said Eagle High paid “thousands of dollars” to his family in compensation. Credit Suisse and ABN Amro declined to discuss specific deals. Bank of America declined to comment on the accusations. But in a February 2015 research note, Credit Suisse deemed Rajawali’s palm oil push a success. Eagle High’s increased landholdings and land rights signaled “significant headroom for expansion” of palm oil production, Priscilla Tjitra, an equity analyst for the bank, said in a report to clients. “The allocation of finance is so influential in our economy and to our environment,” said Tom Picken of the Rainforest Action Network. “But there’s little way we can hold financial sectors to account. ” The orangutan rescues continue. The world has lost 60 percent of its population of Bornean orangutans since 1950, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In July, the Bornean orangutan was listed as critically endangered. International Animal Rescue, which runs a temporary shelter for about 100 orangutans in West Kalimantan, said its staff had rescued roughly 50 of the primates during the 2015 burning season, twice the number the organization rescues in an average year. “They were all starving, all skinny,” said Ms. Sánchez, the orangutan rescue group’s director. So far this year, about 25 orangutans have been rehabilitated. “The problem is that every time an area is destroyed and orangutans are under real threat, we have to look for areas to release them, and that’s challenging,” she said. “We’re running out of places where we can release these orangutans. ” In September, Rajawali’s plantation arm secured a $192 million loan from Bank Negara Indonesia, a state bank, to refinance the debt held by its plantation subsidiaries and to double the capacity of palm oil refineries in Papua and West Kalimantan. Bank Negara Indonesia’s sustainability policies say that its clients must adopt “minimum environmental, social and governance standards. ” The bank did not respond to requests for comment. | 1 |
The transgender star of the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” Laverne Cox, is set to speak at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus on January 25th, at the same time as MILO’s scheduled event. [Cox’s talk is currently entitled, “Ain’t I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood,” and according to Maura Towey, the chair of CU Boulder’s Distinguished Speakers Board, Cox will “provide an engaging conversation surrounding and oppression. ” Leftists at CU Boulder had attempted to shut down MILO’s event, which is being hosted by the CU College Republicans and the CU chapter of Turning Point USA. A petition in favor of banning MILO from the campus reached around 1000 signatures, and claimed that MILO “is not a journalist according to any respectable definition of that word he is a racist, sexist, reactionary opportunist who makes a comfortable living off sensationalism. ” “To deny him the privilege of speaking at our esteemed university is not to infringe on his (or anyone’s) freedom of speech” it continued. “And deny him the privilege of speaking at our university is exactly what we ought to do. ” However, following a report by Breitbart News, the university administration reassured students that MILO’s event would “go on as planned. ” “We value free speech and respect our student organizations’ decisions on who they want to invite to events at our campus” proclaimed the university in an email to Breitbart News. “Personally, I feel strongly that discrimination and harassment have no place on our campus,” said College Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “With that said, we must support the free exchange of ideas. I would hope that any speaker who comes here can present his or her opinions in a respectful manner. We understand that some topics will be supported by some students and denounced by others. Hosting a speaker on campus does not mean the university endorses or has other viewpoints on that speaker’s message. ” MILO’s speech, which will be one of the last on the Dangerous Faggot Tour, will start at 7PM in the Mathematics Building, with doors opening from 6PM. Like most other dates on the tour, the event is sold out. | 1 |
THE IDIOTBy Elif Batuman423 pages. Penguin Press. $27. Love, as Thomas Pynchon wrote, reviewing Gabriel García Márquez’s novel “Love in the Time of Cholera” in The New York Times Book Review in 1988 and quoting Mickey and Sylvia’s 1956 hit single, love is strange. Elif Batuman’s first novel, “The Idiot,” is in part about the unlikely and consuming crush that Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, develops on an older mathematics student from Hungary during her freshman year at Harvard. It is unclear, for hundreds of pages, whether this crush is requited. Meanwhile the reader, palm crushed into forehead, thinks, “Poor Selin, what are you doing to yourself?” “The Idiot” is set in 1995. Blues Traveler plays on Discmans. Mixtapes are still units of emotional currency. Students type with green cursors on black screens. Email is new, and Selin intuits its power. “Each message contained the one that had come before, and so your own words came back to you — all the words you threw out, they came back,” Batuman writes. “It was like the story of your relations with others, the story of the intersection of your life with other lives, was constantly being recorded and updated and you could check it at any time. ” Anyone who has followed Batuman’s work will not be surprised to learn that Selin first falls for Ivan, the Hungarian student, because she adores his email messages. Batuman is a language freak and geek. You can imagine one of her characters becoming attracted to someone, as did a woman in Norman Rush’s last novel, “Subtle Bodies,” because he was “verbal looking. ” Herself the daughter of Turkish immigrants and a graduate of Harvard, Batuman is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of “The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them” (2010). That book was a witty and melancholy tour de force about reading and love and the pleasures of travel as against tourism. That same voice is poured into “The Idiot. ” It’s memorable to witness Selin, via Batuman, absorb the world around her. Each paragraph is a small anthology of observations. Only Batuman would send a character in search of new clothes and have her think, “what was ‘Cinderella,’ if not an allegory for the fundamental unhappiness of shoe shopping?” Selin notes the “death roar” of an institutional toilet. She observes how, lighting a cigarette, “when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player. ” Small pleasures will have to sustain you over the long haul of this novel. “The Idiot” builds little narrative or emotional force. It is like a beautiful neon sign made without a plug. No glow is cast. We’re told why Selin falls for Ivan. He gives good email. He is also, as one of her friends puts it, “a Hungarian guy who stares at everyone like he’s trying to see through their souls. ” He’s Ivan the enfant terrible. Selin tells us about the force of her longing. “Every sound, every syllable that reached me,” she says, “I wanted to filter through his consciousness. ” But we never feel this longing in our bones. I’m reminded of the acting coach’s dictum that it’s not important that the actor cry it’s important that the audience does. After 100 pages, I was done with Ivan and wanted Selin to be done, too. I wished, as if she were an avatar in a video game, to point her in a different direction. Selin is not done with him. The summer after her freshman year, she travels to the Hungarian countryside to teach English and perhaps to see him on weekends. She consumes a lot of food with sour cream in it. She judges a contest to see which students have the best legs. She frets. Sexual heat is at a minimum. This is too bad, because Batuman has a rich sense of the details of human attachment and lust. Watching Ivan dig into his pockets for coins, for example, Selin thinks: “An amazing sight, someone you’re infatuated with trying to fish something out of a jeans pocket. ” That line beamed me back to my own freshman year at college. “The Idiot” — at the rate Batuman is burning through the titles of Dostoyevsky novels, her next one will be called “Netochka Nezvanova” — reminded me of Martin Amis’s complaint about “Pride and Prejudice. ” That novel’s only flaw, he said, “is the absence of a sex scene between Elizabeth and Darcy. ” There are two things I admire about this novel. One is the touching sense, here as in everything Batuman writes, that books are life. Selin is, convincingly and only slightly pretentiously, the sort of person who buys an overcoat because it reminds her of Gogol’s. She likes learning Spanish because “the donkey had a place in the national literature. ” She delivers this writing advice, after hearing a story about a host placing an unsettling stuffed weasel in a guest room to keep someone company: “If you really wanted to be a writer, you didn’t send away the weasel. ” I also liked Selin’s determination to be “someone trying to live a life unmarred by laziness, cowardice, and conformity. ” She’s an interesting human who, very much like this wry but distant novel, never becomes an enveloping one. Fiction, like love, is strange. | 1 |
Whether you are looking to attract a long-term girlfriend or wife, or you are experimenting with shorter-term liaisons, learning the art of seduction is essential. Reams of content have been written on the topic, both on ROK and elsewhere: indeed, it’s possible to get lost in a tsunami of pick-up advice.
But while it can be useful to absorb successful people’s techniques, a shortcut is to observe their habits and adopt them yourself. To that end, here is a list of the top five habits I’ve observed in men who are great with women.
1. They take every opportunity
Guys who are great with women recognize and take up every opportunity that is presented to them. In this way they are somewhat akin to entrepreneurs. They know that the market is in a constant state of flux, and that change is at the heart of opportunity. As such, like the speculators of pussy they are, they are never afraid to launch a takeover bid, regardless of the circumstances.
Game writers will often advise men that they should be approaching all the time. I would wholeheartedly endorse this. I would also add that however many opportunities you’re taking now, there are always more to be had. I, for example, will try to get my first approach of the day in in the morning while I’m traveling to my office on the subway. There are so many cute girls on their way to work in London (or any reasonably-sized commuter city) and yet guys won’t talk to them, rationalizing that it is too early, she’ll think I’m crazy or whatever. In actual fact, I’ve probably taken more phone numbers and set up more dates through morning approaches than at any other time.
So next time you are out and about and see an attractive girl, be sure to approach her whatever the time or the circumstances. It is only by being present and open to all prospects that you will truly optimize your game.
2. They notice and follow up on IOIs
While most game advice is centered on what the guy should do in order to attract the girl, the fact remains that there will be many times that girls will shoot you so-called ‘indicators of interest’, or IOIs, without you having done anything.
While I would never advise anyone to rely on these as a mainstay, I would counsel that you should always at least do your best to notice them, and to follow up with alacrity. Not only do direct IOIs frequently lead to sex, but also, if you fail to pursue a potentially-interested girl you may find yourself regretting it for a long time afterwards. Men, after all, are the more romantic gender. There are few more lasting self-inflicted wounds than the thought of that beautiful girl who smiled at you at the museum and who you just know you could have dated, had you had the courage to speak to her.
The successful seducer is always on the lookout for IOIs, therefore, and he’ll execute quickly when he gets them, even if it means deviating slightly from his routine. For example, a while back I was on a subway train when I got strong direct eye contact from an attractive, petite and very feminine brunette—just my type. Once you’ve been in the game a while you will learn to distinguish a solid IOI from casual interest, but the best way to describe it is as that “rabbit in the headlights” look that girls give when they are truly smitten.
Well, she was giving me that look and I knew I had to follow up. When she got of the train I went right after her, introduced myself on the platform, took her number and then left. A drink and then several awesome sex sessions ensued later. Had I not taken the time to go after her then we would never have connected.
Remember: always be willing to go after a sure thing, and never leave money on the table.
3. They stand out from the crowd
Every truly successful seducer I have ever known has found ways to differentiate himself and stand out from the crowd. This can manifest itself in many ways, but primarily I’m talking about standing out physically (in terms of what you wear) and standing out in terms of your personality.
While the old concept of “peacocking” is rightly maligned by both men and women these days, there can nevertheless be little argument with the fact that, all else being equal, the better dressed man will be more successful than his slacks-and-sweatshirt counterpart. A former colleague of mine who has slept with more women than anyone else I’ve ever met was particular about his clothes to the point of obsession.
I appreciate that this will immediately cause some people to question his masculinity (“what real man takes so much care over his clothes?”) but remember that narcissism is one of the three “dark triad” characteristics that are like catnip to women (along with Machiavellianism and psychopathy). Therefore, taking time to select a silk pocket square that contrasts dramatically with your blazer plus the right trousers and shoes will help your cause a lot—if you remember that your main aim is to stand out rather than blend in.
Your personality, too, should be larger than life. Don’t be obnoxious, but as a rule of thumb try to ensure that you are louder and have more to say than the other men in the group.
4. They are dominant
There can be no doubt that women are attracted to masculine men, and that means that to be a contender you need to be dominant. Now of course, the massive and blatantly obvious caveat here is that you should also be ultimately respectful and appreciate that no means no. Nevertheless, within these boundaries it will serve you well to ensure that your body language, your tone of voice and your general demeanor communicates dominance – both of the woman you are interacting with as well as any men in your vicinity.
The key thing here is to appear decisive and unwavering—even if secretly you aren’t. For example, after you’ve had a couple of drinks with a girl on a date, try getting up, taking her by the hand and simply leading her to a taxi. When she questions what you’re doing just say “we’re going back to my place to watch a movie.” Doing this will communicate that you have had similar success with women before and that you are not intimidated by her.
Now, in the back of your mind you may well be uncertain that she will acquiesce and that’s fine – just do the actions anyway and see what happens. She’s much more likely to want to go home with you if you demonstrate leadership and even if she doesn’t, she will still respect you more which will pay dividends the next time you meet.
5. They don’t apologize
Highly successful seducers never apologize—or certainly not for minor social infractions anyway. The fact of the matter is you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. If you are the kind of guy who frequently approaches women while demonstrating leadership and a certain kind of cocky-funny humor then the chances are you’re going to offend someone every so often.
Now, I’m not recommending that you should be a dick—be classy and convivial in all your interactions. But the truth of the matter is that the real seducer always ruffles a few feathers in his quest for vaginal Valhalla. If someone gets offended then make a joke but don’t apologize. As long as have acted lawfully then you have nothing to be sorry for.
Remember, an apology is a submission to someone else’s frame—and that is never a good look.
Want to find out how to approach and seduce sexy girls? Buy my bestselling book, The Seven Laws of Seduction . For daily game advice connect with me on Twitter @Troy7Laws
Read More: Why You Don’t Deserve That Perfect 10
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Matthew Boyle, the Breitbart News Washington, DC, editor has made AdWeek’s list of political power players keeping media real in the age of fake news. [From AdWeek: Asked what one word best describes Breitbart’s tenacious political coverage, the site’s political editor echoes none other than Dan Rather. “Courageous,” says Matthew Boyle, who joined Breitbart in 2012 from The Daily Caller. Of Boyle’s work ethos, Breitbart editor in chief Alex Marlow has said he “typifies the ‘fighting spirit’ we value. ” In August, Boyle called out the media on Fox’s Sean Hannity Show for “100 percent using” fallen solider U. S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan and his family “for their political goals. ” “We don’t take orders from anyone except ourselves on what we think we should be focused on,” says Boyle, who worked closely with former Breitbart chairman Steve Bannon, now Trump’s chief strategist. “Steve is a friend and my old boss, and I’ve learned so much from him,” Boyle notes. “He’s an incredibly smart person and I talk to him on occasion, as any good journalist would do, trying to get information out of newsworthy sources. ” Boyle says he plans to be in the business “for a long time” for one simple reason: “Someone has to do the tough work, and the amazing team we have at Breitbart is stepping up in a fantastic way to fill the void left behind by the receding relevancy of waning established legacy operations. It’s an exciting time to be in journalism, and I’m not even 30 years old yet. ” — Chris Ariens, For the rest of the article, click here. | 1 |
Swedish police revealed Sunday the Uzbekistan citizen suspected of driving a stolen lorry into crowds killing four on Friday was a rejected asylum seeker who was wanted for deportation. [The man was due to be expelled from Sweden, reports the country’s newspaper AftonBladet. Police commander Jonas Hysing told the paper “we do not know where they are, so we can not enforce expulsion” speaking of the many migrants who should be deported from the country but the government keeps no records of their whereabouts. The officer also confirmed police were aware that the suspect had expressed an interest and sympathy for the Islamic State online. According to the report, the man applied for a residence permit in 2014, and that it took until 2016 for it to be rejected, with the Asylum board ruling he should be deported. Officers called at his registered address in February 2017 but found he didn’t live there. Two months later it is believed the suspect stole a delivery lorry and drove through crowds and then into a department store in Stockholm, killing four and injuring 15. One of those identified as having died in the attack was a British citizen. Another was Belgian, and two more were Swedish citizens. No identities other than nationalities have yet been made public. Breitbart London reports Sunday that the suspect travelled to Sweden to make money in the construction trade. A source said of the man “He just wanted to make money, that’s why he was in Sweden and worked as a construction worker. His wife and children still live abroad”. This is not the first time in recent history that a rejected asylum seeker due to be deported by the Swedish government has gone on to launch an attack against citizens in the country. Breitbart London reported on the Ikea attack in August 2015 where Eritrean migrant Abraham Ukbagabir took a packet of knives in the shop’s kitchenware department and stabbed two shoppers to death before attempting to kill himself. He later told investigators he struck because he wanted “revenge” against Sweden for having his asylum application rejected. Despite having been so keen to stay in Sweden in 2015, the killer has since complained he doesn’t like Swedish prisons and wants to be transferred to one in Eritrea. | 1 |
The orchestra world’s Black Friday began on Sept. 30 with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra going on strike in the morning and ended across Pennsylvania that evening with the Philadelphia Orchestra walking out as patrons gathered for its gala. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra musicians, who were already on strike, sent their support on Twitter. But three strikes should not be taken to mean that classical music is out. While orchestras across the country face endemic challenges — rising costs and weakening demand, along with difficulty raising money as classical music’s place in the broader culture fades — each ensemble has its own obstacles, and its fortunes are often closely tied to its community’s. That is why some orchestras, including the mighty Los Angeles Philharmonic and the small Grand Rapids Symphony, which announced this year that it raised $40 million for its endowment, are able to thrive while others struggle. “I think orchestras are fundamentally local businesses,” said Thomas W. Morris, who has led both the Cleveland Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Morris added that while the unions representing musicians tend to look at what their peers are paid at comparable orchestras across the country, management typically focuses on what it thinks the local area can support. That is certainly the case in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of America’s best ensembles, known even to people who do not listen to much classical music for its playing in Walt Disney’s classic “Fantasia. ” Seven seasons ago its base pay was higher than at the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony Orchestra, both in cities where the cost of living is substantially higher than in Philadelphia. Then the ensemble, facing a fiscal crisis, sought bankruptcy protection five years ago — betting that the ability to get rid of some of its pension obligations would outweigh any hit taken by its reputation. The musicians saw their pay cut by 14 percent, and, in the fiercely competitive orchestra world, fell behind those peers and dropped to the eighth group in the nation, where they remain, according to Adaptistration, a website that tracks orchestra compensation. “Does it matter to us that last season our base salary was more than 18 percent less than the Boston Symphony, and over 24 percent less than that of the San Francisco Symphony?” the Philadelphia musicians asked in a statement released when they went on strike. “Yes, it does. In order for us to remain a great orchestra, we must be able to attract and retain the best players. ” (The cost of living is significantly higher in Boston and San Francisco than in Philadelphia.) The strike action is likely to direct renewed attention to the orchestra’s decision to seek bankruptcy protection in 2011. In an email she sent to supporters of the orchestra, Allison Vulgamore, the ensemble’s president and chief executive, said, “The talents of our great musicians must be recognized while also balancing the need for the kind of careful financial stewardship that will keep the Philadelphia Orchestra strong and viable for years to come. ” The financial challenge has grown as orchestras that could once count on support from business leaders and industrialists — when the Pittsburgh Symphony was founded at the turn of the last century, Pittsburgh was a booming steel town, and Andrew Carnegie helped support the ensemble — now must struggle to raise money in a very different kind of economy. “It used to be understood that there was a group of good community citizens, usually associated with the big companies in town who had deep ties to the community and a sense of civic responsibility,” Mr. Morris said. “Now companies are changing, they’re owned by holding companies, their headquarters are elsewhere, and CEOs move around. ” Pittsburgh’s musicians went on strike after rejecting a management proposal that they said would cut their pay by 15 percent in the first year, freeze their pensions and reduce the orchestra’s size. The chairman of its board, Devin McGranahan, said in a statement that its deficit and debt had put it on track to “run out of cash and have to close the doors” by spring. But it has not all been doom and gloom in the orchestra world this year. The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, which had a lockout four years ago, agreed to a contract with raises this spring. The Minnesota Orchestra, which recently went through a grueling lockout, has new labor peace and new board leadership, and went on tour to Europe this summer. The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, which had a successful recent campaign, is adding musicians to its roster at a moment when many ensembles are shrinking. Just this month a prominent arts blog asked: “Some Of Our Orchestras Seem To Be Thriving — Is This A New Trend?” Still, real tests remain. The old subscription model that orchestras relied on to fill seats is on the decline as audiences now prefer to make decisions about their leisure time. Some orchestras are struggling with attendance. Cincinnati is renovating its Music Hall, and plans to reduce its capacity by roughly 1, 000 seats from the 3, 417 it once held. But even in shaky economic times the unions representing orchestra musicians hold power because without players, the show cannot go on: Their product, live performance, cannot be outsourced. That has made it difficult for orchestras to curb costs. Robert J. Flanagan, an emeritus professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who wrote the 2012 book “The Perilous Life of Symphony Orchestras,” said that the recent labor unrest showed that the challenges facing many orchestras had not disappeared with the end of the Great Recession. “From the point of view of the musicians, they’ve spent a long time developing their skills, so they tend to look at what people with similar skills are being paid at other orchestras,” he said in an interview. “On the management side, they’re basically stuck with what the community they’re located in is willing to pay. And those two perspectives have very little to do with each other. ” | 1 |
A man arrested at a Donald J. Trump rally in Las Vegas on Saturday told the authorities that he had intended to kill Mr. Trump, according to a complaint filed Monday in United States District Court in Nevada. The man, Michael Steven Sandford, was arrested after trying to grab an officer’s gun from her holster, the complaint said, and had lingered near the officer, telling her he wanted Mr. Trump’s autograph. In an interview after his arrest, the complaint says, Mr. Sandford told the authorities that he “made a conscious effort to come to Las Vegas to kill Trump,” and that he had been “planning to attempt to kill Trump for about a year. ” He also said that he expected to be killed by law enforcement personnel during his attempt on Mr. Trump’s life. Mr. Sandford said that the day before the rally, which was held at the Treasure Island casino, that he visited a nearby gun range to “learn how to shoot a gun” and that it was his first time using a weapon. He said he chose the specific officer because he noticed that her holster was in an “unlocked position. ” Mr. Sandford had a United Kingdom driver’s license when he was arrested and had been living in New Jersey for about a year and a half before driving to California, and eventually Las Vegas He said he had bought a ticket to Mr. Trump’s rally in Phoenix later that day as a backup plan should he not find an opportunity in Las Vegas. All rallies for Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, are protected by the Secret Service and feature full metal scanners at the entrance, along with numerous members of his private security detail throughout the events. The Trump campaign directed all requests for comment to the Secret Service. In an email, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service confirmed that Mr. Sandford was arrested after trying to disarm the officer. She said that the investigation was continuing and that he could face additional charges. | 1 |
Region: USA in the World As an American, someone raised to believe truth and justice will prevail, I am appalled at the foreign and domestic policies of my country’s government. The level and scope of the deceit with which the Obama administration has laid out onto the world stage is embarrassing. For the first time in my 61 years I realize why some figures in our history were ashamed of being known as American. Our leaders have shamed us, done irreparable damage to our heritage and our legacy as a people, and still most of my countrymen sit idle. America today reminds me of a traveling circus, three rings of evil clowns entertaining a peanut gallery of onlookers. Or are we participant clowns? For over the better part of Barack Obama’s presidency we’ve witnessed the most respected nation transformed, step-by-step, into one of the most dreaded empires the world has ever known. 300 million people, all their ancestors, and their future generations will pay the overwhelming cost of Obama’s mistakes and malfeasance in office. While I do not personally believe this man is evil, I am sure the people behind him are. The lies, the impact, the unbelievable devastation these people have unwrapped, it spells the end of a perfect dream for humanity. I wonder as I type this, how many people reading it will realize how true my words are. John Kirby, the spokesperson for the US Department of State is a prototype for all that is wrong with our nation. He is a mirror reflection of Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in turn a further reflection of Barack Obama and the people who stand behind. They lie, cheat, steal, kill, maim, or at best coerce in order to achieve goals their constituency (the people) have no inkling of. All of us knew politicians have always been liars and crooked, but the degree to which we can be betrayed is unheard of today. This press conference on the alleged bombing of Aleppo hospitals by Russia, it is damning, damnable evidence of what I am saying. This is, of course, if one watches intently and then reasons. Compare what Kirby says, with what you have seen or read from the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. Measure the tone and content of this unique message. Bear with me, and I’ll help you convict these warmongers of their crimes. The Circus of Liars I must point out that Barack Obama has had more State Department spokespersons than any president in history. First there was Sean McCormack, from 2005 to 2009, a leftover from the Bush administration. After McCormack’s tour of administration liar in chief, he joined Boeing in 2009 and serves as the as vice president of Communications in Government Operations. McCormack left the Obama administration to more or less help Hillary Clinton and the “click” extend the growth of companies like Boeing. This Washington Post piece (amazingly) condemns both Hillary Clinton and McCormack for their apparent collusion to morph policy into business with, guess who? Why Mother Russia, of course. Philip J. “P.J.” Crowley made his “deal with the devil” from 2009 to 2011. The 2011-2012 recipient of the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership (? The Military ties to State) is a War College bred and reared pentagon puppet. The fact most recent State Department liars are former military begs the question; “Why is our foreign policy institution lined with CIA, spooks, War College graduates and command grade military officers?” Crowley is an interesting example of how our foreign service is infested with war hawks and military industrial minions. To Crowley’s credit, his candidness in the wake of the mistreatment of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, and his subsequent resignation redeemed this old soldier by comparison to his colleagues. He is emblematic of a system that uses good soldiers in order to mislead the people, and to misdirect our policies toward the wrong goals. Crowley is pretty much off the radar now, but somehow still semi-loyal to the Obama-Clinton team. His tweets on Twitter hum the Democratic Party line. He’s now a Fellow at The George Washington University Institute for Public Diplomacy, which means he’s been let out to pasture. Next we come to Victoria Jane Nuland, the pin-up girl of soulless and reprehensible US bureaucrats. From my perspective, as someone who has covered the Ukraine civil war extensively, Nuland in Kiev reminds me of the worst parts of the rise of Nazi Germany. I cannot possibly be bombastic enough in characterizing this Hillary Clinton spawn. It is not my nature to be unkind, or less than a gentleman, but this woman is no lady. Her hacked conversation, with fellow psychopath, US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, lives in infamy amidst volumes of horrid US intentions. “Fuck the EU”, along with the clear regime change the Obama White House was behind, should have spelled resignation for this demonic Washington witch. She, and her colleague Pyatt, are complicit in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children in the Donbass. Nuland, who most agree will be Hillary Clinton’s Secretary of State should he reach office, is the most deadly psychopath the American people could possibly put in charge of our foreign service. For the Russians who still have to deal with her, I am sure 20 minutes looking at her is unbearable. This is America fiddling, while our reputation abroad burns. She is the queen of regime change, she and her husband children of the ideology America needs to forcefully alter world governments. This is the “WOW” persona, the caricature of disastrous Washington policy. Don’t take my word, research Nuland starting here , and see where it leads. Jen Psaki lied so well, and stuck up her nose to the dissenting press so expertly, she graduated the US State Department right up to the White House. Those of us who winced at her nonchalant misrepresentation of facts, also understand she is part of the click that now inhabits the halls of power in Washington. Psaki is part of a country club that runs it all. If the Democrats win in November’s presidential election, people like Psaki will become monsters, an empowered American politburo kin to the worst fascists in history. Psaki is the official cheerleader now, of a White House campaign to create a legacy for the worst president in American history. Catch her Twitter feed her, and figure out why in the world Barack Obama would want to be a Wired Magazine editor for a day. Despite her pallid and docile appearance, make no mistake, this Obama minion is as deadly as Nuland, maybe even more so. I recall Psaki launched a social media attack on Russia that was nearly universally ridiculed as “hash tag diplimacy.” Her “hot mic” comment on her own points on Egypt at a press conference as being “ridiculous”, they remind me of Obama being caught promising then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev he’d “fix” the ABM missiles issue if he won in 2012. What makes this spokesperson so dangerous is her forward enthusiasm, and her seeming happy-go-lucky satisfaction with being part of the biggest lie ever perpetrated. Lying is transfigured into truth, a job well worth doing. Good God. Finally we come to John Kirby, Naval War College trained mouthpiece for Emperor Caligula (look him up and compare to our presidents) and whichever Nero we elect next. A Public Affairs Officer (PAO) at the command level in the US Navy, he’s what many former military people would refer to as a first class boot licker. I’m a squid myself, so I am familiar with the type. Kirby would climb a tree to tell a lie, if ordered to do so, and show righteousness in doing so. Kirby, Kerry, the whole Obama administration is utterly absurd. This recent press conference reveals just how out of bounds US policy is. Furthermore, Kirby’s contention the Syrian war cannot end without airpower being grounded is likewise idiotic. The State Department’s stance on Russia’s hammering of jihadists only makes sense, if the overthrow of Assad and his legitimate government is a goal. John Kirby: Syrian War Won’t End Without Grounding Aircraft – this is the headline that calls our attention to the fact Assad is about to wreck Washington’s plan. Regime change has become such a common term now, that media consumers are immune to what it really means. Since the first Bush took office, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, more governments have been turned upside down than at any time since World War II. And the “Kirbys” of the world are accomplices to massive world chaos. Kirby’s “Russians in body bags” threat has pushed the Kremlin’s panic button now. We have descended into crisis policy, an all or nothing lunacy that can only end in war. Three Rings of Evil Clowns These people are all deplorable. But compared to the linchpins of war they speak for, each is insignificant by comparison. This message for instance, the New York Times headline “U.S. Officials Say Russia Probably Attacked U.N. Humanitarian Convoy”, it did not originate with them. Our new “probably” dogma is a function of a failing freedom, the complete takeover of a free press by western oligarchs that make Russian mafia types seem impotent. Watching this evil circus reminds me of a twisted horror movie, a guttural glimpse at wicked clowns betraying the children they are supposed to love and entertain. The Soros and Rockefeller types, those Rotschilds and the Goldman Sachs sharks, Silicon Valley fakers and Wall Street urchins the Clintons take money off of, the whole mess in our nation’s capital stinks to high heavens. Just how my countrymen stomach it leaves me breathless and clueless at times. America is taking part in a wider broadcast of the movie “The Turman Show” these days. Raised up to believe in freedom of the press and the merits of democracy, my countrymen have been conditioned to rely on their media, their leaders, and the seeming implausibility that one group can take over the world. Well, a group has taken over half of it, and with the proper time and funding, this can be proven. Since me or some other researcher has no such investigative grant, the case against these evil clowns goes untried. The Nation, Slate, Global Research, RT, and myriad independent media attempt to dissent. But trillions of dollars flow back and forth fueling the paranoiac message – Russia is the enemy again! The first ring of circus clowns wield more power than Xerxes, the Bilderbergs probably even believe their own cause – perpetuating the elite order is, after all, a noble genetic cause. In the second ring business types and the oh-so aggressive and ambitious, they will literally do anything to succeed. The Clintons, Bushs, and Obamas out there are the master puppets. Their mission is pretty clear, pay the devil his due and cash in. It’s really as simple as all that. Today’s Washington is a bit like Chicago during Capone’s time. Once the “Man” has you, he’s got you but good. La Cosa Nostra hasn’t got anything on the numbers games along the Potomac. The little crime bosses, grown up from their internships and grant designations, they pepper every institution in America. As they graduate, God knows what goals the Kirbys of the world set out to achieve. In the wider center ring, it’s easy to see the Clinton Foundation workers really do drink Bill and Hillary’s Kool Aid. Mind washed into believing in the ultimate bullshit, naïve middle intellectuals become squirming opportunists, oblivious to the fact they sold out. The “Man” has got them, and early on. Meanwhile, the whole mess is cloaked in the guise of democracy, and hidden underneath people’s fear they’ll be called conspiracy theorists. George Orwell’s 1984 seems to have been written to exclude the possibility complete control could be achieved. But isn’t that how complete control is ultimately achieved? Above the center ring, high up on the flying trapeze liberty defies death. The people are doing a high wire act without a net. We are the third ring of clowns, only we are hesitant to see our role as sellouts too. America is life under the big top, with our favorite pop stars handing out peanuts. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I feel utterly betrayed. Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” . Popular Articles | 0 |
The Blind Prophetess claims Barrack Obama will be the last president of the United States.
Baba Vagan is a cult figure in some circles in the Balkan states because of her uncanny knack for making astonishingly accurate predictions about the future.
Baba Vagan, who is sometimes referred to as the blind prophetess, is credited with predicting the events of September 11th, 2001 in the 1980s. It has been said that she had a vision of ‘American brethren’ being attacked by two steel birds which some believe could have symbolised the two hijacked jet planes which smashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre complex.
Perhaps even more impressively, she also made a prediction that the 44th President of the United States would be an African-American. However, unfortunately for the controversial president-elect Donald Trump, Vagan has said that Barrack Obama would be the last president that America would ever have and that Trump will never actually come to power. Extrapolating from this, supporters of Vagan have suggested that something catastrophic will happen to American civilisation in the space of the next two months and that the ramifications will be so deep that it would irrevocably abolish the office of the presidency. Others have suggested that it means that Trump will eschew the title and role of ‘president’ and instead install himself as a permanent dictator of the United States .
It has been estimated that 85% of Baba Vagan’s prophecies have come to pass. However, sceptics have suggested that her prophecies are so vague that she is credited with being accurate more often than is reasonable. Her supporters have also been criticised for making fraudulent claims about her powers of psychic deduction.
However, for those who are inclined to find out more about the mysterious blind prophetess it may be of interest to know about some of her other predictions for the future. Vagan believes that human beings will have established cities under the oceans in 2130, that there will be a war on Mars in the year 3000 and by 3797 the Earth will be destroyed, but humanity will survive after fleeing to another universe.
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Beside the olive display at Zabar’s, that iconic hub of lox and neurosis on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Linda Donohue was trying to talk herself down. Surely the polls she tracked anxiously were not to be trusted, she said. Surely Donald J. Trump, the man with the garish golden tower across town, would not be allowed to reach the White House. “We have to have more faith in the American public,” said Ms. Donohue, 61, a longtime New Yorker now living in Seattle. A man behind her could not suppress a loud snort. Then Cathi Anderson, who was shopping with Ms. Donohue, mentioned yet another distressing poll, this one from Ohio, which showed Mr. Trump ahead. Ms. Donohue nodded grimly. Just in case her faith in the American electorate was misplaced, Ms. Donohue said, she had retained her Irish citizenship. For both parties, every election can feel like the most vital of a lifetime, the one day standing between a nation and its imminent demise. Among liberals, there is an especially rich tradition of “” as even some practitioners call it, at the faintest sign of shakiness from their candidate. But as Hillary Clinton lurches toward Election Day, her supporters at times seem overwhelmed by a tsunami of unease, exacerbated by Mrs. Clinton’s bout of pneumonia and a acknowledgment of the illness. They are confronting a question they had assumed, just a few weeks ago, they would not need to consider in a race against the most unpopular presidential nominee in modern times: Could Mrs. Clinton actually blow this? “It’s like someone dropped ice water on the head of America,” Julie Gaines, the owner of Fishs Eddy, a home goods store in Manhattan, said of Mr. Trump’s increased odds. “Everyone sobered up. This could happen. ” The creeping dread has accelerated in recent days, reaching critical levels even by Democratic standards. Mrs. Clinton became sick. Several polls tightened to the margin of panic, with Mr. Trump overtaking her in surveys in Ohio and Florida. And even as Democrats hoped on Friday that Mr. Trump’s latest gambit — seeking to distance himself from his long history of “birtherism” — would backfire, there is a fear that no scandal can sink him. A cartoon in The New Yorker captured it best: A woman sits in her psychiatrist’s office, perspiring in distress. The doctor scribbles on a pad. “I’m giving you something for Hillary’s pneumonia,” the caption reads. Supporters of Mrs. Clinton have greeted the moment with varying degrees of alarm, according to interviews with dozens of them across the country. They read warily about the health of her lungs and her field operations. They reassure one another by reminding themselves of President Obama’s two winning campaigns, which encountered similar fits of concern after Labor Day. But even some zealous Clinton defenders have grown frustrated with their candidate, marveling at the prospect of her snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, for which some say they would never forgive her. The campaign’s decision last week not to acknowledge Mrs. Clinton’s pneumonia until two days after a diagnosis, once video surfaced of her stumbling out of a Sept. 11 memorial service on Sunday, has especially rankled. “They kept it from us,” said Sonia Ascher, 74, a former campaign volunteer, sitting with her husband and son at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, N. H. “It was just another thing again, another mistake, which she really can’t afford right now. ” The gloom seems to be spreading. Maurice Doucet, 55, a software engineer from Portland, Ore. wondered aloud on Wednesday how the race had gotten this close, lamenting Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. “The rational side of my brain goes, ‘There’s no way people are actually going to switch sides,’” he said of voters’ movement toward Mr. Trump. “But the emotional side,” he added, his voice trailing off moments later. In Washington Square Park in Manhattan, among smitten college students and acoustic guitars, Guillermo Vidal, 75, grimaced at the thought of a Trump presidency. His friend’s bichon mix, Dipsy, sat on the bench beside him, looking fretful. Mr. Vidal was asked what was troubling Dipsy. “She’s a Democrat,” Mr. Vidal said dryly. Then there are those who traffic in angst professionally, who are straining to consider even the chance of a Trump election. “The possibility of that is too horrifying to broach,” Larry David, the “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star, wrote in an email. “It’s like contemplating your own death. ” Surely Mr. David had done that, too? “I can’t go there,” he said. In liberal enclaves, some modest contingency planning has begun. Threats of relocation are a bipartisan ritual every four years, expanding the audience for Canadian home listings. But this time, voters seem to be taking their research a bit more seriously. Ramona Gant, 28, a graduate student in Chicago, said she had just renewed her passport with the election in mind. Ms. Donohue’s friend at Zabar’s, Ms. Anderson, also of Seattle, mused that Vancouver was not too far up the road. Mike Brennan, 67, from Ventura County, Calif. is keeping an eye on the stock market. “If it looks like it’s going to be close,” said Mr. Brennan, a Republican supporting Mrs. Clinton, “I’ll pull my money out. ” For many Americans, Mr. Trump’s momentum has registered as a more visceral threat, heightening concerns that had festered since his candidacy began. Ahtziry Barrera, 18, a college freshman from Orlando, Fla. arrived in the United States more than a decade ago from Mexico. Under an Obama administration policy known as DACA, which Mrs. Clinton has vowed to protect, Ms. Barrera has been allowed to stay in the country because she entered as a child. “A lot of people were not taking him seriously. ‘Oh, he’s not going to win.’ But it happened,” she said of Mr. Trump’s success in the Republican primary race. “It is a big stress on me, knowing that Nov. 8 is the day I’ll know whether my future is going to be secure or not. ” Some optimists have preached calm, reminding one another of Mrs. Clinton’s organizational advantages and holding out hope that she can best Mr. Trump decisively on a debate stage. While allowing that Mrs. Clinton has not run a perfect race, many of her admirers have cast blame elsewhere, singling out the news media, the Republicans who nominated Mr. Trump and, of course, the man himself. Gloria Steinem, the feminist leader and a Clinton supporter, said in an email that she had sensed a growing worry in recent weeks, fearing that Mr. Trump’s candidacy was becoming “legitimized by ‘media evenhandedness’” that had made his assorted scandals seem more banal. “There are things any campaign could do better, but in this case, I fear it’s like blaming the victim instead of the bully — dissociating in the hope that we won’t be bullied, too,” she wrote. “It’s like saying, ‘If only she hadn’t been walking in that neighborhood. … ’” Others hold tight to an abiding belief, perhaps against their better judgment, that everything will work out. “I still believe in humanity,” said Nadia Johnson, 22, a Brooklyn resident lunching at a Whole Foods this week. She quickly added a request: Ask her again in November. | 1 |
A new report has revealed that sex attacks at Swedish festivals have increased as much as 1000 percent in 2016, a trend which does not appear to be changing.[ organisation The Night Shift say they have documented over a hundred cases of sexual molestation, and that the numbers continue to rise Expressen reports. Over the past year, Sweden has seen a dramatic increase in the number of sex attacks at open air festivals and amusement parks across the country. Grona Lund, an amusement park in Stockholm, was the scene of one sex attack last year, but so far this year there have been at least four according to security manager Fredrik Gemzell. The park, which has only been open since April, is one of the busiest in the country. “All cases are reported to the police. It is young teenage girls who have been victims,” said Gemzell adding, “We have our own security centre, where visitors can call. In addition, we have a security team which patrols the park. It is good that the police reported. It’s an incredible, totally unacceptable behaviour. ” In reaction to the many sex attacks over the last year, Lisen Andréasson Florman formed the Night Shift, an NGO designed to help put pressure on festival organisers to prevent future sex attacks. Despite some festival organisers listening to the complaints and increasing their security, festivals like We are Sthlm still saw 50 sexual assault incidents. Alexandra Larsson was a victim of a sex attack at the Putte i Parken in Karlstad last year. “First, someone touched me on the butt a few times. I turned around and inquired who had done it, but got no answer,” Larrson said. “This was repeated several times. Finally, someone took me on the genitals. Then I got angry and turned around and shouted, ‘Whoever it was, you are an idiot! ’” Larrson was one of 32 young girls who was sexually attacked at the festival according to reports. The youngest was only . Many of the men who have committed sex attacks at the various festivals were described as having a “foreign origin. ” At the Bravalla Festival in Norrkoping another girl, only 15, claimed that foreign men had sexually attacked her and her five friends. Official data from the Swedish government has shown that over the last two years sexual assaults have risen by a massive 70 percent nationwide. Between 13 and 14 percent of women now say they won’t venture out alone at night due to fears they may become victims of an attack. | 1 |
Putin Just Exposed US Election Rigging By Trolling The State Dept. In The Most Hilarious Way Oct 28, 2016 Previous post
Proving he does, indeed, possess both a caustic wit and sharp political acumen, Putin just shut down the raging rigged elections controversy in what could best be called an epic prank to prove the point — Russia requested, and was unsurprisingly denied, permission to monitor the U.S. presidential election.
Think about it. This somewhat tongue-in-cheek offer, although likely made with the expectation of futility, makes several critical points on the true farcical nature of the American electoral process.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner, cited by USA Today , dismissively condemned President Vladimir Putin’s suggestion as a “PR stunt,” and Meg Casper, spokeswoman for Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, noted, “We’ve allowed observers from overseas in the past from other countries, never from Russia,” adding both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security “told us not to do this.”
But the swift rebuke from the U.S. aligns more with its unprecedented since the Cold War anti-Russia propaganda campaign — a sensationalistic and proven fictitious narrative meant to inculcate Americans into believing Russia poses an imminent threat.
In fact, with the Clinton campaign thoroughly capitalizing on the laughable narrative to warn Russia might attempt to rig the elections, and Donald Trump, rightly pointing to the former secretary of state’s efforts to rig the system from within and being accused of having ties to Putin, the State Department’s rebuke seems more a hypocrisy-tinged joke.
As USA Today reports, “Toner noted that U.S. officials participated in a similar observation mission for Russia’s parliamentary elections in September.”
How the U.S. State Department expects anyone to ignore this blatant moral duplicity — It’s Perfectly Acceptable When We Do It, But Not For Someone We Don’t Like — was not made immediately clear.
Russia would, by any measurable standard, have every reason to act as an election observer, despite being “categorically rejected” — all talk of the
FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK | 0 |
Anonymous means the FBI. One of the creators flipped and got all his buddies busted. The FBI is in charge of the IRC and everything they have done since occupy bullshit has been the FBI. If you don’t understand that, you deserve to be arrested as morons. | 0 |
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A federal judge in Ohio has slapped the Trump Campaign and dirty trickster Roger Stone with a restraining order for their minority voter intimidation tactics. Judge James S. Gwin issued an order that prohibits the Trump campaign and Roger Stone or his super PAC “Stop the Steal” from seven illegal activities, listed below. Stone did not make an appearance or send counsel. Amazingly, the Ohio Republican Pary avoided being enjoined by the order.
Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said in a statement to Cleveland.com that “with this decision, Ohioans can feel confident that they will be able to make their voices heard in this election.” Yale educated civil rights lawyer Subodh Chandra gave a play by play of the hearing on twitter, and noted that the Trump campaign had few answers for the judge’s questions. Chandra’s conclusions about the voter suppression hearing reflect the new terrain that the Republican party and Trump campaign have blazed in their open desire to suppress the vote: Graduating @YaleLawSch 22 yrs ago, I never thought I'd be sitting in a fed ct watching a hrng re enforcement of the KKK Act for an election.
— (((Subodh Chandra))) (@SubodhChandra) November 4, 2016
The federal judge’s ruling prohibits the following illegal behaviors by Donald Trump, Roger Stone and “Stop the Steal”:
a. Hindering or delaying a voter or prospective voter from reaching or leaving the polling place fixed for casting the voter’s ballot;
b. Engaging in any unauthorized “poll watching” activities inside of polling places, within one hundred feet of polling places (“the buffer zone”)11, or within ten feet of a voter standing in a line extending beyond the buffer zone.12 Unauthorized “poll watching” includes challenging or questioning voters or prospective voters about their eligibility to vote, or training, organizing, or directing others to do the same;
c. Interrogating, admonishing, interfering with, or verbally harassing voters or prospective voters inside polling places, in the buffer zone, or within ten feet of a voter standing in line outside the buffer zone, or training, organizing, or directing others to do the same;
d. Distributing literature and/or stating to individuals at polling places, in the buffer zone, or within ten feet of a voter standing in line outside the buffer zone, that voter fraud is a crime, or describing the penalties under any Ohio or Federal statute for impermissibly casting a ballot, or training, organizing, or directing individuals to do the same;
e. Gathering or loitering, or otherwise being present without the intention to vote, at polling places, in the buffer zone, or within ten feet of a voter standing in line outside the buffer zone;
f. Following, taking photos of, or otherwise recording voters or prospective voters, those assisting voters or prospective voters, or their vehicles at or around a polling place, or training, organizing, or directing others to do the same;
g. Questioning, and training, organizing, or deputizing any persons to question voters at Ohio polling places, in the buffer zone, or within ten feet of a voter standing in line outside the buffer zone, under the guise of the purported “exit polling” or “citizen journalist” operations organized and encouraged by Defendants Stone and Stop the Steal.
The Republican National Committee was also in court this morning, and a federal judge in Newark heard both sides of the DNC’s national action to stop minority voter intimidation under a 1982 consent decree. Spokesmen for the Democratic lawyers said that they were satisfied with the results of the hearing, and that the judge said he wouldn’t finish ruling today, but that a decision may be disseminated over the weekend in the emergency litigation.
The Republican nominee’s efforts at voter intimidation and a campaign of suppressing the vote are the last refuge of a political loser. More importantly, Trump and Stone’s actions violate the federal laws meant to protect the right to vote, democracy and civil rights in America for all citizens. | 0 |
President Trump and a Congress tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Now, they have to decide whether they want to work with it or sabotage it. Both Mr. Trump and congressional leaders acknowledged on Friday that they would not bring their repeal bill back for a vote any time soon. That means that, as Speaker Paul Ryan said, “we’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future. ” Mr. Ryan and Mr. Trump reiterated their criticisms of the law and set the stage for watching it collapse and blaming the Democrats for the aftermath. “I’ve been saying for the last year and a half that the best thing we can do politically speaking is let Obamacare explode,” Mr. Trump said from the Oval Office. “It is exploding now. ” Mr. Ryan said that Obamacare’s architects would be sad that the bill was allowed to live on, given what he described as its inevitable failure. In fact, Obamacare is not on the verge of “explosion. ” Enrollment in its insurance marketplaces is steady, and several independent analyses suggest that insurance prices have stabilized after a sharp market correction this year. But the structures it set up to provide health insurance to Americans are vulnerable. Insurance companies have struggled to make money in the early years of the new markets, and many have backed out. Others remain tentatively committed and skittish. Mr. Trump will need to decide, quickly, whether his goal is to knock over the markets, or help prop them up. If he decides to topple them, next year could be very messy. Insurers are making their decisions right now about whether to enter the markets for next year and about how much to charge their customers. Signals from the administration in the next few weeks about whether he will help or hurt them will almost certainly guide insurers’ choices. The biggest immediate decision concerns a court dispute between the House and the administration over subsidies to help insurance buyers pay their deductibles and . The House has argued that the money for those subsidies was not properly authorized. The Obama White House fought the case. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump’s lawyers will do the same. The availability of those subsidies, used by a majority of Obamacare customers, is critical for insurers in the markets. Without the subsidies, all the insurers will lose some money, and many smaller carriers will face bankruptcy. If Mr. Trump does not fight the court case, the Obamacare markets in most states will unravel quickly, leaving millions without insurance options on his watch. Many of the beneficiaries are Trump voters. There are smaller decisions ahead, too, about how to administer programs, whether to enforce the law’s individual mandate, and whether to recruit insurers to participate in markets where competition is thin. So far, Mr. Trump’s secretary for health and human services, Tom Price, has taken every opportunity to gloat about the health law’s setbacks, even as he is administering its programs. Mr. Price, perhaps more than Mr. Trump, has long been committed to the Affordable Care Act’s demise. But now he will have to manage the law’s many programs. Obama administration officials called insurers, cajoling and reassuring them. If Mr. Trump wants the markets to be vigorous, he could use his skills to woo insurance companies into the stabilizing markets. If Mr. Trump and Mr. Price can make peace with the health law, there are opportunities to steer it in a more conservative direction. The law gives broad authority to the executive branch to shape health care policy. So far, the health law has been driven by Obama administration priorities, but that could change. A few early regulatory changes have begun that process. The Trump administration plans to make it harder for people to sign up for plans midyear. It has given insurers more wiggle room to raise their deductibles. It may be able to make alterations that loosen up benefit requirements — though it won’t be able to completely eliminate them, as Republicans sought to do at the last minute in the failed bill. The administration will also have enormous power to allow states to reshape their Medicaid programs — and even their local insurance markets — through waivers to existing law. Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was a consultant who helped states write pathbreaking conservative proposals for their Medicaid programs. She is ideally positioned to approve many more such waivers from states, allowing them to impose premiums, and even work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries. A new Obamacare waiver program has just gone into effect: It would allow states to overhaul their entire health insurance markets if they can show that their revised plans would cover as many people. That process could allow Ms. Verma and Mr. Price to approve state plans that hew more closely to the Republican vision for health care. New powers granted under the Affordable Care Act allow the Department of Health and Human Services to make major changes to the Medicare program, through demonstration projects meant to lower costs and improve patient care. The Obama administration set a precedent of imposing “mandatory” projects on large portions of the country to test policy ideas. So far, Mr. Price has looked askance at such efforts. But the provision could give him power to reshape what Medicare pays for and how seniors receive their care. Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, has criticized the Obama administration for stretching its legal authority with some of its Obamacare choices. But those choices have created a precedent for the Trump administration to stretch the health law in its own direction. “If you think Congress is done, and you don’t want to provoke a reaction anymore, then you own this,” he said. “You will be judged as an executive on the performance of Obamacare. ” For years, opposing Obamacare has been a rallying cry for Republicans. But if Republicans can’t repeal Obamacare, they could instead it. There are opportunities for Trumpcare yet. | 1 |
Submit Home This Month Popular 8 Reasons Why You Should Try Photography As A Hobby 8 Reasons Why You Should Try Photography As A Hobby Photography really is one of the most rewarding hobbies a man could pursue Ness Nomadison
Ness is a thirty-something American with almost a decade of experience living and traveling across Asia. He's a strong believer in pursuing one's passions, continual self-improvement, and just being the best man he can be. He runs his own website, NessTheNomad.com . November 21, 2016 Lifestyle
Have you ever had a curiosity in photography, yet you weren’t sure if it’s a hobby really worthy of your limited time? Then this article was written for you, as I was also once in your shoes.
I picked up a DSLR camera for the first time back in 2013, which awoke a passion inside me that I never even knew was there. Three and half years later, I’m here to tell you just a few of the many benefits and realizations I’ve experienced by taking on this timeless hobby. Here are eight reasons photography might just be the most meaningful hobby you’ve overlooked your entire life. 1. An Opportunity to Flex Your Creative Muscle
In order to be balanced human beings, I believe people need to be physically healthy, spiritually awake, and creatively expressive. Photography, just like writing and film, is a selfless way to be creative while also giving something back to the world.
The way we interpret our world changes from individual to individual, and photography provides a medium for people to express themselves. Ask ten different photographers to photograph the same thing – a city for example – and be prepared to see ten wildly different visions of the same subject. In our sensory-overload world, it feels good to create something that’s uniquely you. 2. Appreciate and Understand Your Surroundings More
I now find myself seeing everything around me in rectangular frames–a takeaway from having to frame so many pictures over the years. “Oh, those people over there would fit perfectly into a 3:2 box,” or “that building over there would look perfect boxed in from this angle.” My eyes are now sharper than ever.
But I also find myself observing and appreciating all the little things around me. I always have to keep my camera nearby, because I often want to photograph something I’ve noticed in my daily routine. The pattern on a sewer lid, a reflection in a puddle, birds perched in a tree, and so forth.
My pre-photographer self, just like most of the rest of the world, would have walked right past these things without a care in the world. Yet now I can be entertained from the most minuscule and simple things, especially if my camera is handy. The world is full of photogenic things, if can just teach yourself to notice them. 3. Help Preserve History
Since its inception, photography has always been one of the most moving ways to preserve history in our rapidly changing modern times. Photos touch people in a way other media can’t. Both photography and video are both visual arts, but photographs differ in that they capture merely one frame of what is going on. Yet one frame is all one needs to feel taken back to another time.
With the advent of the smartphone, photography is as accessible as ever. While this sounds good on paper, the truth is our world’s becoming more and more flooded with garbage and narcissistic photographs. Our world needs more adventurous and well-trained photographers out there taking photos of the modern world we live in and the rapid changes it’s undergoing. These are the photos that will be cherished decades down the road, not all the shitty selfies that bog down social media. 4. Travel Experiences Will Be More Meaningful
Photography goes with traveling like bread goes with butter. It took me nearly five years of traveling internationally to finally get serious about doing photography on my trips, and after I got started, I never looked back.
Rather than traveling for escapism and hedonism, I’m traveling to learn about and document our world. As a result, my trips feel much more meaningful and fulfilling than they ever did before. The way you see and come to understand a country as a photographer is quite different than if you weren’t one.
I now divide my history of travel experiences into two separate groups–the trips I had before I owned a DSLR camera, and the trips I had after buying one. Photography is so fun and addicting, that I find myself wanting to go back to all those pre-DSLR camera destinations, even the ones I didn’t enjoy all that much, just so I can re-experience them with a camera in hand. 5. An Opportunity to Meet New People
One thing I always try to do when I travel is meet fellow photographers. Whether they be foreign or local, I appreciate talking to people with an observational eye, as they can provide me with unique insight that non-photographers rarely can.
But photography doesn’t just help you meet other photographers, it helps you meet other people from all walks of life. I’ve had regular people on the street come up and talk to me once they saw I was taking photos. I’ve also met people from online for no other reason than they liked my work.
Being a good photographer can also be a great way to meet women. They’re not gonna start blowing you as soon as they see your awesome pictures, but don’t be surprised if you discover some newfound female admiration once your excellent photography skills are out in the open. And if you can make a woman look beautiful in a photo, she’ll admire you in a way you never imagined. 6. A Blog with an Edge
In the diverse world of independently run blogs, how many bloggers do you know who can both write well and photograph well? I can literally only think of one , and the fact that this blogger is just as good at utilizing a camera as he is at wielding a pen (or rather a keyboard), puts his website in a league of its own in terms of quality content.
Though I still highly respect the good bloggers out there for their amazing writing skills and insights, I think they’re doing both their readers and websites a great disservice by merely using stock photos or shitty shot-with-a-cell-phone photos in their articles.
Readers can definitely tell the difference when a blogger takes all of their own photos with a nice DSLR camera. Start taking nice, DSLR-shot photos and see for yourself how they can enhance your articles. They’ll give you just that much more of an edge over all the other bloggers who don’t. 7. You’ll Also Have an Edge over 98% of Others on Social Media and Dating Sites
Since everyone else is posting lame, smartphone-taken shots all over their social media accounts, your DSLR-shot photos could shine like diamonds in the rough. The same way you stand above 98% of other men by lifting weights regularly, the same advantage can be expected by not taking cheap shortcuts with your social media-bound photography. Your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts will all look better than ever before.
This is also true for dating websites and apps, where most chumps just take some lame mirror selfies with their smartphone and then upload them to their accounts. Dudes with well-taken, nontraditional photos stand out big time. Don’t just take my word for it, as there has actually been plenty of discussion about these benefits over at the Roosh V Forum .
And although they can be very helpful, you don’t actually need another photographer with you to get some good shots of yourself. Rather all you need is your camera, an autofocus lens, a tripod, a remote shutter, and a creative eye. 8. A Resume-enhancing, Marketable Skill
Photography isn’t just mentally rewarding, it can also be financially rewarding if you play your cards right. The field of profitable photography may be vast and highly competitive, but one thing’s for sure – the demand for new photographs is infinite. The world never stops turning after all. Stock, portrait, wedding, wildlife, travel, sports, and news photography are just a few of the most in demand and profitable niches.
But if you really wanna make money selling your photographs, you gotta make a name for yourself by sharpening your skills and networking with the right people. A great photographer who no one knows exists won’t make any money.
My father is an outdoorsman slash wildlife photographer with decades of experience, tens of thousands of photos, and a giant network of contacts from his industry. It seems like magazine and website editors are always knocking on his door, because they know he probably has a nice shot of exactly what they’re looking for. Often all he has to do is dig through his archives, and boom–he’s made 500 bucks. Conclusion
Stop dreaming about it, and just give photography a shot already. Borrow your friend or a family member’s DSLR camera for the weekend, and just get out there and take pictures of anything that strikes your fancy.
Photography takes decades to master, but it all begins with a single click of the shutter button. Yet sometimes all it takes is one little click to realize you’ve been missing out on something very big and meaningful your entire life. You’ll never know until you try. | 0 |
0 комментариев 4 поделились Фото: Fotodom.ru/Коммерсантъ
"Экспертиза биологических материалов с подголовника, изъятого из указанного автомобиля была проведена экспертами ФСБ. Согласно результатам экспертизы, они принадлежат Шадиду Губашеву", — цитирует прокурора Марию Семененко ТАСС.
Она также добавила, что в автомобиле были найдены осколки компакт-диска, на которых обнаружили биоматериалы еще одного обвиняемого — Анзора Губашева.
Однако Шадид Губашев данную информацию отрицает, заявляя, что " никогда не находился в этой машине".
Ранее Pravda. Ru писала, что все фигуранты дела об убийстве политика Бориса Немцова отрицают свою причастность к преступлению . 3 октября на открывшемся в Москве процессе после оглашения обвинительного заключения все подсудимые заявили, что они невиновны.
Отметим, ранее ТАСС писало, что оружие убийства политика, найти так и не удалось. "Оружие, из которого был застрелен Немцов, найдено не было", — сказала прокурор Мария Семененко.
Из обвинительного заключения следует, что приобрел оружие предполагаемый организатор убийства Руслан Мухудинов, который далее передал пистолет Зауру Дадаеву и Анзору Губашеву. Мария Семененко также отметила, что обвиняемые получили за убийство политика не менее 15 миллионов рублей.
По данным прокурора, Немцов был убит четырьмя выстрелами. "Дадаев произвел три выстрела, увидел, что тот (Немцов) начал подниматься, и произвел еще три выстрела. От четырех ранений Немцов скончался. Было три сквозных и два слепых ранения", — сообщила Семененко.
В то же время представители семьи Бориса Немцова считают дело о его убийстве нераскрытым, так как расследование проведено неэффективно. "Необходимо установить заказчиков. Расследование не является эффективным и всесторонним. Не установлен мотив преступления", — заявила адвокат Ольга Михайлова.
По ее словам, организатор и заказчик преступления до сих пор не задержаны. А реальный мотив и цель убийства политика не установлены.
Напомним, Борис Немцов был убит в центре Москвы 27 февраля 2015 года. На скамье подсудимых оказались пять предполагаемых исполнителей преступления: Заур Дадаев, Анзор и Шадид Губашевы, Тамерлан Эскерханов и Хамзат Бахаев. В зависимости от роли и степени участия они обвиняются в совершении преступления.
Предполагаемым заказчиком и организатором убийства следствие считает бывшего офицера батальона "Север" Руслана Мухудинова, который находится в международном розыске. Ему заочно предъявлено обвинение.
Читайте последние новости Pravda.Ru на сегодня Заур Дадаев отказался от убийства Немцова? Поделиться: | 0 |
2375 Views November 18, 2016 8 Comments Guest Posts The Saker
by Larchmonter445
Everyone in the Deep State is threatened by the Trump Presidency. The Deep State understands that power, funding, ideological stratagems and domination of government, media, academia, think tanks and NGOs are in the ‘field of fight’, to use the book title by a prime target the Deep State intends to destroy in order to save itself from Trump. Lt. General (ret.) Michael T. Flynn
Lt. General (ret.) Michael T. Flynn, three-star expert in Military Intelligence, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), counselor to Trump for the last fifteen months, is a vital Trump ally the Deep State is attempting to discredit.
We have seen the one-week ferocious political and media attack on Stephen Bannon, begun the instant that Bannon was named Trump’s number one strategist-advisor. Bannon is the theologian of Drain the Swamp, the Trump policy to rid the system of corruption and catastrophically disastrous policies and bureaucrat enablers.
To understand Steve Bannon, take the time to read this transcription or listen to the audio Q&A from a 2014 event in the Vatican. He lays out his philosophical agenda, and used the 2016 campaign to advance his war on the Elites.
Drain the Swamp pertains to more than getting the corruption out of the system. Steve Bannon
Bannon now has Trump’s full backing to destroy the UniParty, defeat the Globalists, banish the warmongers of the MIC and help the legal prosecution of the corrupt. This is the Revolution to end the domestic Tyranny and the global Hegemon.
The usual weapons of personal destruction have been launched at Bannon to destroy him and to deprive Trump of his most effective counselor and field marshall. Bannon has been branded a racist, an anti-semite, a white supremacist, an Islamophobe and a misogynist. In every forum and media outlet, the meme of Bannon being the worst human on the planet played as intensively as how the Dems attacked Trump during the campaign.
Relentless lies, chorused by every host, talking head, and hater of every value Trump and Bannon had campaigned for were spewed on Bannon’s name. All fabricated, most based on a few headlines written by Milo Yiannopoulos in Breitbart.com, alt right agitprop pieces constructed to collect reader clicks, revenues for Breitbart and fame for Milo. Bannon as chief of Breitbart was then scourged for those headlines. Mockery by Milo used against Steve Bannon.
It was all the Media needed. But the Deep State directed it for good reason. Bannon is the Pale Rider coming to destroy them.
Steve Bannon is dedicated to cleansing government and the financial system controlled by all those who have reigned over the foreign regime changes, the transfer of middle class wealth and income to Wall Street, paper wealth from derivatives to hedge fund and corporate global leaders, trillions to the 0.01% elites, all of whom populate the Ultra Wealthy Class, a new feudalism of billionaires and millionaires.
Bannon’s life long credentials and work with Jews, Blacks, females and Muslims eventually helped stifle the Media excesses. But the vicious branding may stick long after the inauguration.
The fear and loathing of the Deep State is focused on another nemesis and threat in the person of General Flynn. Flynn challenges the Deep State’s incompetence, particularly its lack of results in the fight against terrorism. Flynn dealt with this in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He wrote a white paper on the state of US military Intelligence and the need to fix it.
Flynn also is sickened with the 2012 Benghazi event and coverup, the lies of Clinton and the abandonment by the command structure of CIA, Pentagon, State and NSC. The Syrian war, the attempted coup of Erdogan, and the carnage wrought by bad policies, sheepish leadership and less-than-best methods of Intelligence gathering and usage motivated the General to join Trump.
Flynn is now Trump’s guide into the Presidential raw data Intel reports and briefings. General Flynn is Trump’s personal analyst for interpretation of the data. Flynn has attended every briefing Trump has received. He is in place and the Deep State is out. So, they have mounted their counter-attack as soon as it was clear he would head the reform of the Intelligence community, and serve the newly elected President.
Flynn has recruited over two hundred generals and admirals and twenty-two Medal of Honor recipients to the successful Trump campaign. Now some of the generals are possible cabinet or undersecretary department nominees or agency appointees.
The Deep State is in deep trouble. General Flynn will probably be NSC head and I think he will have real power over fifteen other Intelligence agencies. Flynn may have great power over huge swaths of the MIC. He certainly will assist in the cleaning out of neocons and feckless employees, managers, supervisors and directors.
Against Flynn, the Deep State is using a more traditional model of career attack and personal destruction than it did with Bannon. Multiple articles written to show that Flynn and Putin , Flynn and Russia, Flynn and RT media are part of the Trump gang of pro-Russian contacts connected to the Kremlin .
Below is General Flynn at dinner with President Putin in Moscow. He explains in an interview .
Other Trump-Putin supposed contacts are Carter Page and Paul Manafort, both of whom were attacked by the Media for the Deep State months ago. They resigned under political pressure applied through the media.
In a payback, the Deep State lost some of their own sent to the Trump campaign who were unable to survive first inspection. They were dropped from the Trump campaign transition team.
But, once Trump is sworn in, Carter Page will be back, most likely. He has connections to Gazprom, is well-liked in Moscow, and will be a link for American energy companies and perhaps some joint ventures in the gas field development and pipeline industry. Several friends of Trump are from the gas and oil industry, and the world is a small world when energy is the issue. The Arctic, the eastern Mediterranean, the South China Sea and other large development zones have enormous new fields to be tapped and exploited. Even the Black Sea zone around Crimea has yet-to-be-tapped energy stores.
The primary interest of the Trump foreign policy will be to make America wealthy again. The Eurasian development has already attracted Trump to the OBOR of China and the AIIB infrastructure bank. Probably the entire New Silk Road of China and EAEU of Russia is not going to be without major US participation. The difference now is facilitation, participation, investment and benefits instead of obstruction, destabilization and terrorism used to thwart it all.
To destroy Flynn and weaken Trump with the Intelligence and Military communities, the classic Washington technique of long articles with many negative anonymous sourced comments was used, carefully crafted headlines and paragraph headers, all designed for very negative Google Search feeds.
The latest is about Flynn and Turkish “operatives” . Sounds like they met in dark alleys or underground passageways. Maybe in some Ankara safehouse, eh?
It turns out quite differently. Hilal Mutlu (left) and Ibrahim Kurtulus (center) with Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at Oct. 10, 2016 event. (Youtube screen grab)
But Flynn is obviously being watched closely by CIA/State Dept. They know he is doing the bidding of Trump. And for good reason, Trump needs to know which way Turkey is leaning post-coup? And how sensitive is the Kurd issue in Syria? What are the ramifications of the US and Russia working in tandem against ISIS in Syria? Will Turkey help with safe zones for refugees? Will Turkey leave Syria after the war or does it plan to resist Russia and Assad? What about NATO? What about the Uyghurs Turkey protects, and is China being forced to come with military to put down the Uyghurs inside ISIS? Will the issue of demanding Fethullah Gulen’s extradition continue? Will there be mass death penalties for the imprisoned coup participants and Gulen’s followers?
Flynn had a panoply of possible questions to be answered by the operatives from Erdogan. And the Turks would have questions they wanted answered with some hint of Trump’s positions.
The Deep State are tracking Flynn and the Turks and are now exposing his links as a professional consultant. Nothing illegal. Nothing suspicious. Nothing out of the ordinary. But it was General Flynn, Trump’s guy. Smear him.
How else would this information surface in the Washington Post except from the Deep State? And if you know the history of the Deep State, the WaPo is their first choice for all leaks, briefings in depth, exposes used to undermine officials who cross them or who point to the Deep States’ misdeeds or failures. You won’t find Sy Hersh’s articles in WaPo.
The point of the articles about General Flynn was to shame him, to put down his personality, his lack of obedience to the Obama regime. He was investigated for giving Intel to foreign nations, we are told. He shared Intelligence with the Pakistanis, we are told. Read how his fellow generals talk about him .
Imagine if the Deep State decided that Intelligence should never be shared. Well, the U.S. would have no allies. No nation joins a war effort without Intelligence for their military. Flynn, whose entire thirty-plus year career has been in Intelligence understands that. And he did it. Proudly, he related to the investigators, and it all was dropped except the record and the reporting of it now.
The investigation was actually to cast a black mark on Flynn to be found later, by the uninformed, at the most sensitive of times. In this case, it is to weaken Flynn, to weaken Trump.
“Mike Flynn shares Intel. Mike Flynn acts without checking with what the Deep State wants.” It turns out that Flynn did get approval for all he did. But he simply did the professional thing. He acted in behalf of his specialty, his profession, his oath of duty and the American people who paid him to protect America.
There is something to be gained by studying this meeting with Turkey’s operatives. Flynn’s meeting signals that Trump will not likely arm the Kurds with heavy weapons. That would drive Turkey into the Russian-Iranian embrace fully. A practical solution to defeating ISIS and AQ and ending the Syrian war has to avoid losing Turkey. Trump is not going to be trying to coup anyone. His policy is no regime changes. He also does not like these secret wars of the CIA. If there is to be war, he wants it fought by the military, with a plan for victory. Principally, Trump’s wars will be like President Eisenhower’s. There were none for eight years.
The warmongers and neocons of the Deep State and surface government will try to work over all the Trump nominees in the security and policy arena. Trump has refused to listen to any of them, though a few have been invited in to the goings on. However, we don’t know who is talking to Trump and who is talking to the various panels of experts that will advise who they think he should select. So a few neocons and warmongers like John Bolton and General Keane have made it into Trump Tower. But he eschewed them all these years and throughout the campaign. I doubt they will have any role in policy. He considers them failures.
Expect very deep shakeouts at CIA and State. I think Flynn will use fellow military he knows and trusts as deputies and undersecretaries. General Keith Kellogg and General Ronald Burgess are likely for important positions.
There has to be this cleaning out of the subterranean world of the Deep State. If President Carter got rid of 800 officers when Stansfield Turner tried cleaning out the CIA, I’m betting there are 1500 officers in the CIA who need retirement now.
As for the State Department and the Clinton corruption of pay for play, that is only half the problem. The eighty years of Khazarian dominance of the State Department has created the need that whole thing ought to be shut down except for visas at embassies and consulates. (I’d use the Commerce Department in the interim. Send everyone else from State home. Board up Foggy Bottom for ten years.)
Addendum: General Flynn early in the primary campaign consulted as advisor to five candidates. Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump. He chose Trump as the one who wanted to be President in order to fix the country and make America great again. Now, Trump, Bannon and Flynn are going to drain the swamp, if they can survive.
(Flynn has been named NSC Advisor and will command a staff of 400 from all the other Intel agencies, it has been reported by Fox and AP.)
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We Are Change
Activist and alleged Anonymous hacker Martin Gottesfeld who has been accused of orchestrating an attack on the Boston Children’s Hospital pleaded “not guilty” to charges of conspiracy and intent to cause damage to protected computers.
After he was arraigned, Gottesfeld, who has been on a hunger strike for a month, rose from his chair and fainted in the courtroom.
Gottesfeld, 32, is a human rights advocate and Senior Systems Engineer who was born and raised in Andover, Massachusetts. He is being prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) by Carmen Ortiz’s office . The same people who caused the death of Internet reddit founder pioneer and activist Aaron Swartz.
If convicted,Gottesfeld could face up to twenty-five years in prison and $380,000 in restitution to the tormentors of Justina Pelletier, the patient he was initially fighting to protect. His attorneys are mounting a vigorous defense on his behalf, and need your help.
The CFAA has been cited by digital rights group EFF as being overly broad and so that, “Creative prosecutors have taken advantage of this confusion to bring criminal charges that aren’t really about hacking a computer, but instead target other behavior prosecutors dislike… Compounding this problem is the CFAA’s disproportionately harsh penalty scheme . Even first-time offenses for accessing a protected computer without sufficient “authorization” can be punishable by up to five years in prison each (ten years for repeat offenses), plus fines. Violations of other parts of the CFAA are punishable by up to ten years, 20 years, and even life in prison.” The ACLU agrees and filed suit that it violates everyone’s first amendment rights.
“Marty has dedicated years of his life to fighting for the human rights of institutionalized children. He would often spend 8 hours at his job, come home, and spend another 8 hours campaigning against child abuse. He never profited from his activism,” according to a statement on FreeMartyG.org.
The statement goes on to say:
“In 2013, Marty began a campaign against troubled teen industry institution Logan River Academy. Dozens of survivors left heartwrenching petition comments and some created videos.
Marty’s story first hit main stream media after he and his wife experienced trouble with their boat and were rescued by a Disney Cruise Ship . Since the FBI left out Justina’s name and her suffering from its complaint against him, many outlets merely printed that he allegedly ‘cyber-attacked’ a hospital.
Marty’s family and friends have launched the #FreeMartyG campaign to set the record straight and call on the public to show their support for him.”
Justina Pelletier was tortured by the Boston Children’s Hospital and denied treatment for her mitochondrial disease and her medication, according to former BCH employees. Gottesfeld came to her aide in the form of cyber attacks on the hospitals website for awareness of the case.
Gottesfeld has said he will continue his hunger strike until the presidential candidates pledge to protect institutionalized children from abuse . He also said that he wants overzealous federal prosecutors to halt “political prosecutions” of people accused of crimes he considers harmless.
Gottesfeld also argues that he did not harm patients or expose any private information, so he did not break the CFAA and commit a crime.
Who is Justina Pelletier? That question is answered again by the statement on FreeMartyG.org :
“Justina Pelletier was 14 years old when she arrived at Boston Children’s Hospital E.R. with her mother. Both she and her older sister had been diagnosed with mitochondrial disease, a condition that is often genetic and runs in families. However, doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital felt her symptoms had psychological causes, and just 4 days after meeting her, wanted to stop successful mitochondrial disease treatments prescribed since 2011.
Fearful for her life, Justina’s parents refused to consent to such a radical departure from her well established treatment plan. They tried to discharge their daughter and bring her to previously scheduled appointments with her mitochondrial disease team.
What followed was any family’s nightmare. Unwilling to take “no” for an answer, Boston Children’s Hospital urged state officials to take custody of Justina and enforce their new treatment plan. This kind of thing happens more often than you might think. In fact, Boston Children’s Hospital even has a name for it. They call it a “parentectomy” (see the Wray and T. cases, as well as this open letter from a former federal prosecutor.)
Pelletier’s abuse did not end at the Boston Children’s Hospital. It expanded to a DCF facility in Framingham, Massachusetts when she was transferred to a troubled teen industry facility, Wayside Youth and Family. Her contact with her family was severely limited , it was only after she took to smuggling notes hidden in her art projects describing her suffering that her family figured out.
Jennifer Pelletier describes her little sister’s abuse in the video below, she goes on to say how a worker at DCF harassed her sister in the shower :
“It’s disgusting to harm a human being it’s in humane and these actions that they’ve done to my sister what they’ve been harming her for almost 15 months now all of them should be held accountable and they should almost be treated the same way that my sister has been treated to see how hurtful it’s been they should be all plucked out of their lives and told that people don’t believe in them and have them doubt their own. I don’t get how anybody can treat somebody so in humane this needs to end now and Justina needs to be home before May 24th on her 16th birthday and this needs to end now.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBgds6xVMBc
The case gained international attention and even congress’s attention when the hashtag “#FreeJustina” trended on Twitter. Jim Lyons spoke out on the floor of the House expressing his disdain for the case and presenting an amendment. Jim went on to say that Justina’s parents didn’t neglect their daughter and were innocent. He went on to say that “what we have here is the Department of Children and Family interfering with constitutionally protected parental rights to make medical decisions on behalf of their children.”
Justina Pelletier was eventually allowed to return home. She still hasn’t recovered from the torture though. She and her family have sued Boston Children’s Hospital and four of its doctors for gross negligence and civil rights violations. When the lawsuit was filed, Justina was quoted saying, “It was awful. Just imagine being a psych ward without needing to be in a psych ward.”
Now it’s time to bring Marty Gottesfeld home. He fought for Justina Pelletier and others in the troubled teen industry of private “treatment” centers for years, including fighting to expose Logan River if you can consider donating to my good friends at @FreeAnons to help Marty’s defense fund. Marty has written a book called “Parentectomy” if you wish to read that book and further your knowledge about the troubled teen industry of private treatment centers you can do purchase it on Amazon and support him or here for free in pdf format . You can also listen to Marty answer several questions about his case, his treatment in prison, his hunger strike and his actions in the YouTube playlist below.
It shouldn’t be a crime to expose institutional child abuse even a congressional hearing has acknowledged the abuse below in which parents and survivors testified about the abuse that goes on in these privatized centers. Even the U.S. Government Accountability Office investigated the industry in 2007 and again in 2008 finding these centers abusive. Urge your representatives to pass legislation to curb the worst abuses and demand that places that have multiple notable claims of abuse are investigated and in severe cases shutdown.
#FreeMartyG #ShutDownLoganRiver
MAIL MARTY A LETTER LET HIM KNOW HE’S NOT ALONE IN THIS FIGHT!
Marty Gottesfeld, Inmate #12982104
Donald D. Wyatt Detention Facility
950 High St.
Central Falls, RI 02863 The post Anonymous Hacker Fighting For Justina Pelletier Pleads ‘Not Guilty’ In Children’s Hospital DDoS Attack appeared first on We Are Change .
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WASHINGTON — Terry Branstad, the Iowa governor who has long embraced China as a market for his state’s pork and soybeans, was tapped Wednesday by Donald J. Trump to represent the United States in one of its most complex and increasingly contentious foreign relationships, as his ambassador to China. In choosing Mr. Branstad, 70, an amiable politician who likes to describe President Xi Jinping of China as an “old friend,” Mr. Trump sounded a softer note alongside his unrelenting criticism of China’s economic relationship with the United States. At an event on Wednesday morning at Cipriani restaurant in Manhattan to raise money for his inauguration, Mr. Trump told the audience that Mr. Branstad was a great choice. “He knows them all,” Mr. Trump said three separate times, according to an attendee. The selection was first reported by Bloomberg News. China was quick to embrace the choice, even before Mr. Trump’s announcement. At a regular news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, Lu Kang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described Mr. Branstad as “an old friend of the Chinese people,” a phrase used to describe politicians trusted by Beijing. “We would welcome him playing a bigger role in promoting relations,” Mr. Lu said of Mr. Branstad. As ambassador, Mr. Branstad would find himself in the middle of an increasingly fraught relationship. Mr. Trump campaigned against China, repeatedly describing Chinese imports to the United States as a form of theft. He has proposed a steep tariff on those imports and promised to seek vigorous enforcement of trade rules, such as restrictions on state support for private companies. The selection also comes just days after Mr. Trump spoke with Taiwan’s president by phone, prompting criticism from Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province. Mr. Trump then defended the call in a pair of Twitter messages criticizing China for its trade practices and provocative moves in the South China Sea. Mr. Branstad is unusual in that he would have personal relationships with the leaders of both countries. Like many of the ’s choices for senior positions in his administration, the governor was an early and unwavering supporter of Mr. Trump’s candidacy. One of the governor’s sons, Eric, ran the Trump campaign in Iowa. Another son, Marcus, has gone hunting with Mr. Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr. Robert Hormats, a former under secretary of state in the Obama administration and now a vice chairman of Kissinger Associates, praised the choice. “It’s a good pick because he knows President Xi, he can represent the heartland of the United States, which I think is very positive, and the fact that President Xi has been in his state twice is a very positive thing,” Mr. Hormats said Wednesday in China. “It creates a personal relationship that is very hard to replicate. ” Mr. Branstad, an Iowa native, graduated from the University of Iowa and then served briefly in the Army — yielding a priceless story about his role in arresting Jane Fonda for trespassing at Fort Bragg. A lawyer by training, he entered the Iowa Legislature in 1973 and won election as governor in 1983. He served until 1999, then returned to office in 2011. In between, he was president of Des Moines University. Mr. Branstad first met Mr. Xi in 1985, when as the governor of Iowa he hosted a Chinese delegation that came to study American agricultural practices. The delegation included a official from rural Hebei Province, Mr. Xi. Mr. Xi has fondly recalled that visit. He stayed in Muscatine, a small city in the eastern part of the state, where he was hosted by a couple and slept in their boys’ vacated bedroom, filled with “Star Trek” action figures. In early 2012, Mr. Xi briefly revisited Muscatine as vice president while preparing for his promotion to Communist Party leader later that year. He became the president in 2013. “You can’t even imagine what a deep impression I had from my visit 27 years ago to Muscatine, because you were the first group of Americans that I came into contact with,” he told a group that included Mr. Branstad during his visit there. “My impression of the country came from you. For me, you are America. ” During his second stay in the governor’s mansion, Mr. Branstad has aggressively courted China as a market for Iowa’s produce. He has said little in public about the tensions over territorial disputes, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, and human rights restrictions in China that have shaped relations at the national level. He has visited China several times, most recently on a trade mission in November. Iowa, like the rest of the United States, runs a trade deficit with China. The Chinese buy food from the United States, including Iowa’s corn and pork. But Americans buy far more from China — a range of goods that can be surveyed at Walmart. The United States imported $483 billion in goods and services from China last year, while exporting $116 billion to China. The numbers are similar this year. As governor, Mr. Branstad has sought to increase American exports without criticizing Chinese imports, the standard Republican Party line before Mr. Trump’s ascendence. “I am excited to catch up with our old friend, Xi Jinping,” Mr. Branstad said during a trade mission to China in 2013, which included a meeting with the new Chinese president. “The value of this relationship cannot be overstated. As a result, Iowa is the preferred provider to feed China’s growing population and our agriculture exports to China continue to grow. ” Mr. Trump has taken a very different line on that relationship. He has said repeatedly that China is suppressing the value of its currency, an outdated accusation. In recent years, China has intervened in exchange markets to prop up the value of its currency, manipulation that tends to benefit American exporters. If Mr. Branstad is confirmed by the Senate, Iowa would get its first female governor. Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, 57, would take Mr. Branstad’s place. | 1 |
6 neo-Nazis arrested in Motorola assassination case, SBU plot exposed November 12, 2016 - Fort Russ News - RusVesna - translated by J. Arnoldski - The Ministry of State Security (MGB) of the Donetsk People’s Republic has announced the arrest of six neo-Nazis from Misanthropic Division, whose leaders earlier claimed responsibility for the murder of Sparta battalion commander Arsen Pavlov (Motorola). The counter-espionage department of the ministry has reported that those arrested have already given confessions and evidence of the “circumstances of the committing of such a terroristic and extremist crime.” The neo-Nazis had maintained contact with employees of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and operated on the territory of the DPR in its interests. “It has been established that all terrorist and subversive actions in the DPR and LPR are carried out by the SBU in the framework of an approved operational plan, the purpose of which is to intensify internal contradictions between the leaders of the Donbass republics, creating the preconditions and circumstances for confrontation between them,” the Ministry of State Security emphasized, adding that the detainees are being further investigated. Follow us on Facebook! | 0 |
Searching for an apartment online has long been limited to plugging in what you can afford and where you think you might want to live and then sifting through dozens of listings. But what if you don’t have a neighborhood in mind? In a city as large as New York, there are probably neighborhoods you’ve never heard of. And even a place you think you know can change character within just a few blocks. So many factors are involved: Is it safe? Are there good schools? Is the subway nearby? Where will I take yoga class? And don’t forget the crucial but less tangible concerns: Will my family be happy here? Will we be welcome? You could end up spending hours researching school test scores, interviewing families at the local playground and besieging your friend’s sister’s cousin with questions about what it’s like to live there. Or you could resort to the growing number of apps and online tools that use a combination of big data and smart algorithms that offer to do your research for you at no charge. With names like PlaceILive and PicketFencer, they work like matchmaking services, taking your preferences into account and offering a list of neighborhoods that meet your criteria. PlaceILive, a based in Lithuania, introduced an interactive quiz called Match earlier this year designed to help find your ideal New York City neighborhood. You answer a series of questions — Do you play any sports? Which is your preferred mode of transportation? Do you want quiet, green, residential, diverse, social, hip, artsy, L. G. B. T. ? And then, taking your budget and your office address into account, PlaceILive analyzes and prioritizes 288 neighborhoods, then delivers its top 10 picks. I searched for a for $750, 000 in a quiet, green and safe residential neighborhood with restaurants, schools, car parking and a commute, preferably by subway, from The New York Times, which just happens to be the default address in the office field. In short order the site delivered a top 10 list, with Washington Heights as the No. 1 match, followed by Inwood and Harlem Longwood and Fordham in the Bronx Woodside, Queens East Harlem and Astoria, Elmhurst, and Maspeth in Queens. I could have clicked “more neighborhoods” for more results. While some of those places seemed like there were a couple of neighborhoods I would not have considered on my own, like Longwood in the Bronx, an area I have yet to explore. But Maspeth, which lacks a subway, seemed like a stretch. Google Maps estimated the commute by bus and train would take about 50 minutes. Results draw on statistics from the Census Bureau, New York Police Department crime maps and other open data sources. Clicking on “more details” lists these stats along with resident reviews from the website StreetAdvisor, school ratings from Greatschools. org, a map and pictures of grocery stores, restaurants, bars and other amenities from Foursquare, a destination for reviews of businesses like cafes. Even with all these data points, however, it can be difficult to get a feel for what a neighborhood is like to live in. While StreetAdvisor, which offers neighborhood ratings and reviews from locals, provided some context, some areas, like Longwood, didn’t have any. And some school ratings used by the site were slightly outdated, according to Greatschools. Sarunas Legeckas, a founder of PlaceILive, said the site is working to refine its results and pointed out that if the neighborhoods don’t suit your fancy, you can let the site know by clicking on the X beneath the neighborhood, which will pull up a list of the reasons the neighborhood might not be right for you — such as it’s too trendy, or not hip enough, or it doesn’t have a great commute. “We don’t claim all our results are perfect,” he said. “It’s more like a guidance tool to make you think, to make you explore and maybe point you in a new direction — like looking in Queens instead of Manhattan. ” As more users take the quiz and leave feedback, he added, the tool will get smarter. More robust neighborhood descriptions, albeit for far fewer places, can be found at StreetEasy, the New York City listings site, which introduced more than 30 Neighborhood Guides in June with overviews of some of the most popular places searched on its site. Each guide outlines the area’s overall vibe, including perks, drawbacks, housing stock and median asking rent and sales price, as well as dining options courtesy of the review site Yelp. Bushwick, Brooklyn, for example, is described as “full of converted lofts in old industrial factories, sometimes with great access to outdoor space. ” The mood: “Equal parts Hispanic and hipster bohemian, the neighborhood is both a community and the site of much creativity. ” Best perk: “Seemingly every week, there’s a new restaurant, bar, or art gallery popping up. ” Biggest downside: “Vestiges of the poverty from the 70s and 80s remain. Many buildings are rundown and pockets of crime still exist. ” While there are just 35 searchable neighborhoods compared with the 288 at PlaceILive, StreetEasy’s results are presented in a rich, format that may appeal to those less . Selecting from StreetEasy’s list of neighborhood characteristics like “ ” and “ ” whittles down the number of places. Information on schools, while included in StreetEasy listings pages, is not mentioned in the neighborhood guides given the complexity of school zones, which can vary within a given neighborhood, said Susan Daimler, the general manager of StreetEasy, which is owned by Zillow Group, an online real estate database company. Naked Apartments, a New York City rental site and app, which was acquired by Zillow Group earlier this year, offers a similar Neighborhood Finder on its website that distills your search to apartment size, price, building features (doorman, et cetera) and neighborhood “vibes” including “fun night life” and “cool factor. ” It seems a bit dated compared with StreetEasy’s guides, requiring a series of clicks to find neighborhood descriptions, but includes more destinations in its results. The New York Times introduced a neighborhood recommendation tool based on your budget earlier this year. When a recent search for a for $750, 000 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, resulted in zero listings, for example, clicking “Where Should I Live” pulled up a graph pointing to the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace and Williamsburg as alternatives with listings at that price. PicketFencer, a new site and web app focused on the New York suburbs, was born of David Leibowitz’s frustrations when making the leap from Brooklyn about six years ago. “There were plenty of sites that helped you find a house, but there was nothing for when you need to decide where you want to live in the first place. ” Word of mouth eventually led Mr. Leibowitz’s family to Maplewood, N. J. but the process, he said, “just seemed so lacking in rigor. ” With hundreds of towns outside the city to choose among, all with different commutes, school systems and personalities, he added, “it was hard to make sense of all these variables. ” PicketFencer, which Mr. Leibowitz subsequently founded, made its debut last month. New Yorkers looking to move to the suburbs can filter some 600 towns throughout New Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island and Connecticut by commute time, school ratings, affordability or walkability. Selecting a commute from New York City, for example, school ratings of at least nine out of 10 and a walkability score of at least 70 of 100 produced nine neighborhoods, including Larchmont in Westchester County, New Hyde Park on Long Island, and Cranford, N. J. in Union County. Social content from Instagram, YouTube, Yelp and Twitter provides a snapshot of the town’s personality. And there are links to descriptive articles from The New York Times and other publications. For more PicketFencer also offers to connect users with a real estate agent. But the site still has a way to go in terms of data context. It wasn’t initially clear, for example, what kind of transportation — car, train, bus? — the commute time to New York City is based on or why one town has a walkability score of 70 and another a 90. “We definitely want to do a better job of that,” Mr. Leibowitz said. Clicking an information icon to the left of the filters, he pointed out, explains that commute time is based on “public transportation. ” Even with kinks that need working out, such tools help fill an information gap. Real estate agents, citing laws that prevent them from steering people to or from certain places based on race, religion, sex, marital status and other categories, tend to sidestep many questions about neighborhoods. “I totally appreciate the intent behind the law,” said Frederick Warburg Peters, the chief executive of Warburg Realty in New York. “But the intense fear of offending anyone or making anyone feel possibly excluded goes to such lengths that literally we end up being able not to say anything. People ask us, ‘Are there other young children in the building?’ and we are not supposed to answer. ” Kara I. Rakowski, a partner at the law firm Belkin Burden Wenig Goldman, said if the online tools are involved with the sale, rental and financing of dwellings, by, say, offering listings or selling advertising to brokerage firms, they could be subject to laws. “The fact that they are providing a service to try to assist people in finding the right neighborhood that fits them is great,” she said, but if the service “is really encouraging or discouraging protected classes from those neighborhoods, that could be an issue for them. ” Because it is a data company and does not sell or rent homes, Mr. Legeckas said PlaceILive is not in violation of fair housing laws. Other sites pointed out that they do not display data about or allow searching by any of the categories protected by laws. Some services still rely on the human touch. Alison Bernstein is the founder of Suburban Jungle, a real estate advisory firm that works personally with city dwellers to find the right suburb for their lifestyle. Ms. Bernstein’s territory is what no algorithm will cover, like knowing “what the moms are wearing to ” or that “every kid has a Mandarin tutor at the age of 6. ” “These are all intangible things that you have to live with on a daily basis,” she said, “and no computer program can express that to you. ” To determine a match, clients are assigned a “suburb strategist” who is not a real estate agent and is trained to dig deep, asking, for example, “what is your definition of a good school?” Ms. Bernstein said. “For one family it might be top test scores. For other people that might be a nightmare, because they don’t want a pressure cooker. ” Once a town or towns has been chosen, clients are referred to real estate agents who have been vetted by Suburban Jungle, which receives a portion of the commission should the client buy a home. Bottom line: While the new tools can help focus your search and may help you uncover some neighborhoods you might have overlooked on your own, even the best data cannot substitute for the sensation of walking down a street and feeling that you are home. | 1 |
A recent U. S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report reveals the information technology (IT) used by the government is ineffective to keep tabs on those who overstay visas. Moreover, the lag also causes a delay in determining whether a visa holder poses a national security threat. There is a backlog of more than 1. 2 million visa overstays. [Auditors with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at DHS found that U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigations “may take months” to determine both a visa holder’s status and whether they are a threat to public safety. According to a statement obtained by Breitbart Texas from the DHS Office of Inspector General, the IT scheme that exists presently “forc[es] ICE personnel to laboriously piece together vital information from up to 27 distinct DHS information systems and databases to accurately determine an individual’s overstay status. ” The system lacks “integration and capabilities. ” The result: a stockpile of more than 1. 2 million visa overstay cases. Another problem in keeping track of visa overstays is the absence of a biometric system at the U. S. ports of departure. Immigration experts with the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) reported in September 2013: Tracking the arrival and departure of foreign visitors to the United States is an essential part of immigration control. The need for arrival controls is obvious, but recording departures is also important without it, there is no way to know whether travelers have left when they were supposed to. It is also vital that such exit tracking employs biometric indicators — for instance, the travelers’ photos or fingerprints. Using only biographic information, such as names or passport numbers, provides no assurance that the person departing is the one whose original arrival was recorded. CIS reported that “a biometric system for aliens departing by air or sea is feasible immediately at a reasonable cost. ” Estimates, based on the costs at the time, showed that implementation expenses for the first year would range from $400 million to $600 million. This estimate included significant cost overruns. The immigration think tank suggested that implementation could be covered with a “relatively small fee increase” on those charged to foreign nationals who come to the country via air or sea. They wrote that the expense very likely would not require a congressional appropriation. There are 40 million of these individuals who travel by air. Moreover, CIS reported that as of September 2013, 14 countries already had, or were in the process of getting, biometric systems for air travelers. ICE officials have now been given the responsibility of identifying those who overstay their visa. The workload “would be minimal with a biometric exit” system and this would “enable the agency to focus on enforcing the law rather than diverting hundreds of agents to this task as it does now. ” The program used to be charged with determining visa overstays. ICE was given this responsibility in 2013 when the then program was divested of it. CIS reports that “the executive branch has so far refused to implement such a system. ” Yet, CIS reports Congress directed that an exit system be set up (in eight different statutes since 1996) and the three most recent legislative mandates require a biometric component. Although the cost has likely increased since 2013, many immigration experts would probably urge that so has the risks to Americans. Officials already capture these facial images and fingerprints at airports of entry and consular offices when foreign nationals are seeking to come into the U. S. CIS reports this information is “queried an average of 30, 000 times every day by authorized federal, state, and local government users. ” This information is used by intelligence officers and law enforcement and is shared with other countries to arrest criminals and terrorists who change their names and other information to get safely lost in the U. S. “ICE must equip its personnel with the tools and training they require for the vital work of tracking visitors who overstay their visas,” said Inspector General John Roth. “Timely identification, tracking, and adjudication of potential visa overstays is critical to ICE’s public safety and national security mission. ” Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook. | 1 |
You are here: Home / US / 6 Brutal Truths About Democrats The 2016 Election Has Revealed 6 Brutal Truths About Democrats The 2016 Election Has Revealed October 29, 2016 Pinterest
Seth Connell reports that a new video released from Project Veritas provides evidence that Hillary Clinton herself worked in the operation to rig the election to ensure a win.
This video is the third installment from Project Veritas, which has released two previous undercover videos showing Democratic operatives discussing highly unethical and illegal campaigning activities.
The videos revealed such damaging information that two top Democratic operatives were released from their position; when people from the Clinton camp step down, you know it’s bad . BREAKING: Rigging the Election – Video III: Creamer Confirms @HillaryClinton Involvement https://t.co/ozb1frZ7rR #Veritas @PVeritas_Action
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) October 24, 2016
This third installment includes a shocking number of insights into how the Democratic Party has been running the Clinton campaign. Several of the most memorable quotes from the video include:
“Nobody is really supposed to know about me.”-Aaron Black
“So Brad, and Bob, and Lux, and myself are all part of the old school method where, it doesn’t matter what the freakin’ legal and ethics people say, we need to win this motherf**ker.” -Aaron Black
(In regards to the “Donald Duck” characters showing up at Trump events): “Skalar [Clinton operative] had gone to some buddy of his who is one of her body people and she explained the idea to Hillary. And Hillary just loved it. Let me tell you something, I think she has the right instinct here. This thing is working, is resonating but that story is not exactly what you want to hear about how presidential decision-making happens.” -Robert Creamer
The coordination between the Clinton Camp, the DNC, and Americans United for Change is a rather obvious violation of federal campaign finance laws regarding expenditures. DNC chair Donna Brazile was also involved in the coordination with the Clinton Camp as well.
Additionally, Robert Creamer discussed why the Donald Duck idea had to be owned by AUFC and not by the DNC.
“The duck has to be an Americans United For Change entity. This had to do only with some problem between Donna Brazile and ABC, which is owned by Disney, because they were worried about a trademark issue. That’s why. It’s really silly.”
Later in the video Creamer revealed why that is the case:
“Donna Barzile had a connection with them and she didn’t want to get sued.”
And finally, an explicit admission about Hillary’s desires, straight from Creamer himself:
“We originally launched this duck because Hillary Clinton wants the duck.”
Watch the full video below:
This certainly seems to be illegal campaigning, based on these videos. One of the interns even stated that there was a whole slew of reasons why responsibilities had to be divvied up, because the whole scheme was a mess. And why is that? Because they are violating campaign coordination law, so they have to.
It’s truly unbelievable. A plethora of revelations now show us how corrupt Hillary Clinton and the DNC are, yet there are still millions of people that support them. If these revelations continue, and they still support her, what can you really say?
When corruption penetrates this deeply, and when the citizens still wholeheartedly back those who are driving the corruption, the country is in serious danger.
God help us. | 0 |
Wednesday for his show’s “Opening Monologue,” Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity took aim at NBC News a day after Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” released President Donald Trump’s 2005 taxes. Hannity categorized Maddow’s effort as being part of what he called “the propaganda media” and offered other examples in addition to Maddow of attacks on Trump. Partial transcript as follows: NBC’s corporate jihad against President Donald Trump continues. Plus, a new report from Circa News shows the investigation into a server connected to Donald Trump was, in fact, a politically motivated hit job pushed by a Hillary Clinton donor. By the way, that’s tonight’s “Opening Monologue. ” All right, NBC has now hit a new low by releasing the president’s tax returns, or a small portion of them, last night. But what we’re seeing from the alt left propaganda destroy Donald Trump media — it’s not new. Now that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office, the opposition party press is going to new extremes and lows to try and take down his presidency, and they won’t stop until he’s out of office. Now, I’ve been saying since 2008 right here on this program journalism is dead. Now it’s in the ground, buried, flowers on top. And last night’s political hit job by NBC is just the latest example in the media’s long list of attacks against the president. Here’s just a small sampling. (END VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here you have a deranged president, or a pathologically lying president, lying about the operations of the American government and lying about the previous president of the United States. That’s enough to invoke the 25th Amendment, but Mike Pence and the cabinet are not there yet. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When he said today “America first,” it was not just a racial — I mean, I shouldn’t say racial, the Hitlerian background to it … UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I understand why so many people voted for him. I understand where you were coming from. I understand why you liked him. But this man is lying to you. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trump’s critics, those who are worried about this president and this White House, saw a live special television event brought to you by narcissism, thin skin, chaos and deeply personal grievances. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was a whitelash. This was a whitelash against a changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president in part. And that’s the part where the pain comes. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a really sad night. I’m just going to say it. This is a very sad night for the country. You can’t polish this turd. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t know — are you using the word lie or falsehood? What are you — what are you … UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. (CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, I think you have use — the word — the word — you have to call it what it is. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was interesting because I saw Sean Spicer on FOX News, and he said that you were rude. And I thought … (CROSSTALK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What if you had called him a fake president? (END VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Beyond awful. And when the alt left propaganda media isn’t doing what you just saw and attacking the integrity and mental health of the president, well, they’re running wild all kinds of bizarre conspiracy theories about the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians. Now, what the biased press refuses to tell you — there is zero — no evidence whatsoever that shows any kind of collusion. Well, that didn’t stop the leader of the propaganda media, Rachel Maddow herself, from going off the deep end last night, claiming that in 2005, a Russian oligarch knew that Donald Trump was going to be president, so he bought a property from him in Florida and Trump made a huge profit, more than two times what he paid for it! And as I said last night, Maddow thinks that somehow, maybe Russia knew in 2005 that Donald Trump would be elected president in 2016. Unfortunately, NBC News didn’t think that was possible even on election night. Now, that’s pretty pathetic, and the media should know better, but they’d rather put their radical agenda than telling the truth to the American people. That’s why they never vetted Obama. That’s why they colluded with Hillary. Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor | 1 |
Those Abrams tanks have been cooking off like popcorn all over the world for a while now with both Kornet and Tow missles, especially the Saudis losing lots of them to the Houthis. I think Iraq/perrsmerga said they lost about 4 around Mosel just yesterday alone.
They ain't looking real exceptional at the moment. If its any consolation neither have any other tanks when up against this stuff.
The only one I have seen yet to be able to survive them is the russian T-90. Any earlier than that like the T52 T64 and T-72 have same problems because of the ammo being placed inside the operators compartment and this was moved to outside the compartment in the T-90. I have seen 4-5 of these take direct hits and survive.
Also some tanks with crazy mad-max level homemade slat armor mave made it but not many. | 0 |
Ho'oponopono: Healing For Ourselves & Our World Nov 14, 2016 0 0
We live in a world that is guided by the universal law of cause and effect. What we as individuals, groups of people, communities, societies and countries put out into the world through our thoughts, manifests. What we put into our collective consciousness has an effect. The cause being the thought. Everything is energy. All things have an energetic effect. We are all responsible for the shape of our lives and our world. We are all connected and bound together through this principle. When we hurt one another, whether intentionally or not, it is truly important for us to find forgiveness and healing. “I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”
This is Ho’oponopono. These four sentences. It is a healing tool we can utilize for forgiveness. At this time, we may offer it to our newly elected world leaders, friends, family or a situation such as the turbulent US presidential election. For those of us unfamiliar with Ho’oponopono, these four sentences offered to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, as an example, may feel like an instant trigger of built up internal emotions as many people have been going through anger, fear, hurt, confusion, and sadness both during and after this election. This healing modality can help take us from those feelings to feelings of deep forgiveness, acceptance, love and peace.
“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” – Paul Boese
If there is a need to heal hurtful differences you have had with others around the issue of this election, then you are in right the place right now by reading this piece. What is Ho’oponopono?
Ho’oponopono is the Hawaiian ritual of forgiveness, and it belongs to an ancient system of teachings called Huna (Hu=Knowledge, na=represents Wisdom). The Hawaiian islands also go by ‘The Land of Aloha’, the land of love. It is in this essence and spirit of Aloha that we find Ho’oponopono.
We all share a common path. Along that path, there is only one great universal power that accompanies us, and that is the power of unconditional love. It is the essence of God, and the place where compassion and unity spring forth. Ho’oponopono also means “compassion in action”. It helps us move past the duality behind good and evil, which is where we become separate from one another through judgment and condemnation. Through 4 simple sentences, Ho’oponopono can bring us to inner peace, harmony and unity. It offers us a solution to solving a problem while returning us to our divine plan.
A paradigm shift: “I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.”
“Ho’oponopono is a spiritual-soul method of purification that cleanses us from fears and worries, destructive relationship patterns, and any religious dogmas and paradigms that oppose our personal and spiritual development. It cleans out the blockages in our thoughts and cell structure, for our thoughts are made manifest in our body. This is the paradigm change.”
When we notice disturbances in our harmony and thought process because of a person, event or situation, then we can take this conflict and make a Ho’oponopono: I’m sorry (add the person’s name). We come to a stillness, and connect within our being. We contemplate, recognize and accept the problem, and ask for support through courage and peace. Please forgive me. We view the problem and all of its nuances, and we go within our own heart to seek out any part we may share in the problem. We take on 100% responsibility for the existence of the problem within us, another and our world. (100% responsibility=100% power). This could, for example, be in the form of a past experience where we have been hurt, and we are thus intensifying the current situation with the past. Perhaps we ourselves have made a judgement that has contributed to the conflict. These are all examples of things that require healing from within. I love you. Forgiveness takes place unconditionally, and we pardon ourselves and others. Thank you. With these words we express our faith and trust, and we let go. A prayer of gratitude may be offered to end.
“If we can accept that we are the sum total of all past thoughts, emotions, words, deeds and actions and that our present lives and choices are colored or shaded by this memory bank of the past, then we begin to see how a process of correcting or setting aright can change lives, our families and our society.” – Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona
It has been through Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, who took over the leadership of the Foundation of I Institute, that Ho’oponopono became known throughout the world.
He spent 4 years working in the psychiatric department of the state prison in Hawaii, which had conditions described as “the hell”. Thirty prisoners were confined there. There was a chronic shortage of security and staff. Many employees put in their notice as soon as possible after beginning employment, and even handcuffed prisoners were known to inflict violence upon staff.
While Dr. Hew Len worked there, he never met with a single prisoner. Instead, he spent his days in his office reading their case reports several times daily. With each prisoner’s report, he looked inward, and asked himself what darkness, negativity, power and hatefulness could possibly be within him that it too could be in another, and thus exist in his world. When he found something within himself, he did a Ho’oponopono.
After 1.5 years, the atmosphere and mood of the prison hospital had completely altered. After 18 months, none of the prisoners needed to wear handcuffs, and they walked freely. People came happily to work, and the illnesses declined. Therapeutic conversations could then be held with the inmates, and after 4 years all of the inmates, except for 2, were completely cured. The institution closed.
How was this possible? Through Ho’oponopono, Dr. Hew Len worked to continually cleanse his own heart, and take 100% responsibility for the existence of the prisoners in his life.
This study has been well documented, and Ho’oponopono is now an acknowledged therapy in the USA. There are also more than 50 studies for forgiveness at the diplomatic level.
“You are today where your thoughts have brought you, and tomorrow you will be where your thoughts will bring you.” – James Allen
Another form to do the Ho’oponopono is to begin with I love you for unification at the beginning: “Before the sun goes down, forgive.”– Hawaiian Proverb
Please, take the time to say it aloud. Some people have reported that it has had a miraculous effect when they even whispered it. Looking into your own eyes in a mirror while saying those 4 healing sentences can also be quite a testament to it’s extraordinary effect.
“Forgiveness is not a one-time thing, forgiveness is a lifestyle.” – Dr. Martin Luther King
If we all practice Ho’oponopono, look within, forgive, heal and love, then perhaps we can begin to see a shift in our lives as well as in our governments. Through cleansing what we have witnessed during this election season, there is hope for a deep shift within and without. It’s time to love ourselves and each other more. We all need more love. Let’s open ourselves to Ho’oponopono as a way to heal our inner and outer world.
Deepest love and appreciation to Ulrich E. Dupree for writing the book, ” Ho’oponopono: The Hawaiian Forgiveness Ritual As The Key To Your Life’s Fulfillment”. This little book has been with me for 2 years now. Thus, a lot of the information I have shared in this article has come from it. I am grateful for the balance, peace and healing that it continues to bring into my life.
This is the website of Dr. Ihaleakalal Hew Len.
To read testimonials of peoples’ experiences during and after Ho’oponopono, click here .
Finally, Aloha International has a wonderful list of books and resources (some free) to help understand more about the Huna healing art of Hawaii and Hawaiian Shamanism.
If you have other resources or references that may help people heal through Ho’oponopono and Huna, please leave a link in the comment section for us to all access and, thus, from which we can continue to heal and grow.
Peace begins with me. I am a part of the Universe. When I change, the world changes too. Peace begins with each and every one of us.
“There is only one corner of the Universe you can be sure of improving, and that’s your own self.” – Aldous Huxley
Aloha, ‘I see the divine in you, and I see the divine in myself.’ May we all find the healing we need, and may we all treat ourselves and others with respect, dignity, compassion, acceptance and love. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world. Peace be with me, and peace be with you.
Ulonda Faye is a certified wellness practitioner, holistic esthetician, and Rejuv Miracles Practitioner. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, she offers online and in-person education in holistic skincare, self-love, beauty rituals, and life coaching. | 0 |
Cloud-resembling animal from the apocalypse accompanied by mysterious sounds # Isotrop 0
Chapter 13: 1 I saw a beast coming out of the sea, which had ten horns and seven heads; the horns ten crowns, and upon his heads blasphemous names. 2 And the beast which I saw was similar to a leopard; He had legs like a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion. Tags | 0 |
An airport hangar outside Paris shook with cheers, toasts and in December as diplomats ushered a landmark climate agreement into existence. On Friday morning, world leaders will gather again at the United Nations for a grand ceremony to sign the document. But can they deliver on their promises to fight global warming? After a of failed diplomatic efforts, signs are growing that nations have turned a corner in their political willingness to tackle climate change. Many leaders are pushing to make the Paris agreement legally binding years earlier than originally expected. The falling cost of clean energy is providing a powerful tailwind for their efforts. For all the signs of progress and political will, however, new challenges to implementing the accord have arisen just since December. Outside experts also say the countries’ plans are still far from enough to keep global warming to tolerable levels. No country has shared a detailed, credible strategy to achieve what scientists think is necessary: ending the era of emissions and converting entirely to clean energy no later than the middle of this century. Unless countries develop more ambitious plans, the experts say, the world could ultimately suffer profound consequences, including debilitating heat waves, food shortages and seas. “I think the train has left the station, and the transition is going to happen,” said Guido managing director of a group in Paris and New York, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network, that is analyzing the needed steps. “Whether it will happen in time to head off dangerous climate change is really the question. ” Big uncertainties hung over the climate deal even as the wording was being finalized in Paris, and in some ways, they have only grown since December. President Obama’s domestic climate program was essential in helping him lobby other countries to reach a deal, but it was thrown into turmoil in February when the Supreme Court temporarily shelved his Clean Power Plan. In developing countries, hundreds of power plants are still on the drawing board. And oil and gas companies continue to invest billions of dollars a year searching for new reserves of fossil fuels. All those factors mean that a goal established by the governments of the world in 2009 — limiting the warming of the planet to 3. 6 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius, above the preindustrial level — remains far out of reach. The temperature has risen half that much already, the climate appears to be destabilizing and the great ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are starting to melt. The plans that countries offered in Paris would, even if faithfully carried out, fall far short of cutting emissions enough to meet the goal. Moreover, Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, noted this week that most of those plans run only to 2030, with countries still offering no hint of how they might eradicate greenhouse emissions by the 2050s. “The signing ceremony, the unprecedented number of countries that are going to sign is creating a momentum,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington advocacy group. “But there is still a lot of work to do, not just in the U. S. but around the world, to nail down these domestic actions. ” Looming large over the climate push is the American presidential election. The Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, have promised to build on Mr. Obama’s legacy and to pursue strong climate policies. But the two leading Republicans, Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, have questioned the science of climate change and sharply criticized the Paris agreement. The fight over a nominee to the Supreme Court is, in part, a fight over the fate of the Clean Power Plan, which is intended to limit emissions from power plants in the United States. The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 in February to stall the plan. Justice Antonin Scalia, who voted in the majority, died four days later. The plan still has to move through a June hearing in a federal circuit court, and the deciding vote when it gets to the Supreme Court for a final ruling could well be cast by Justice Scalia’s replacement. Moreover, even if the plan is upheld, some experts have concluded that Mr. Obama is likely to leave office without establishing policies sufficient to ensure the country will meet the pledge he offered in Paris: to reduce American emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent in 2025, compared with their level in 2005. The Rhodium Group, an economic consulting firm, has calculated that Mr. Obama’s plans may reduce emissions by only 23 percent or so. The White House contends that it is still on track to meet those targets, and Brian Deese, the White House climate change advisor, said he and his staff are now preparing models and plans to lay the groundwork for the next president to strengthen the current policies. The signing ceremony on Friday is only an intermediate step. After, countries will still have to present formal ratification documents, and the Paris Agreement will not take effect until 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions have done so. That was originally expected to take at least a couple of years. But some countries are talking about rushing through the final steps, possibly even bringing the agreement into force by the end of this year, before Mr. Obama leaves office on Jan. 20. The French minister of environment and energy, Ségolène Royal, alluded to the importance of the American presidential election during a meeting on Monday with reporters at the United Nations, saying the agreement might be “signed and ratified by the time anybody is elected. ” At that moment, the French ambassador to the United Nations, François Delattre, uttered a stage whisper within the earshot of several reporters. “On espère,” he said, or “One hopes. ” For all the lingering political uncertainty, however, the economics of clean energy appear to be improving so rapidly that a radical acceleration of the energy transition may become possible, if governments push it along with new policies. For instance, some analyses suggest that keeping climate change to a tolerable level will require mass adoption of electric cars by the 2030s, coupled with a transition to a cleaner electricity grid to power the cars. Sales of electric cars are now growing at 60 percent a year, albeit from a tiny base, according to a recent report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Moreover, car companies are promising a wave of electric models with improved range over the next couple of years, including the Tesla Model 3 that inspired more than 300, 000 people to put down deposits over the last three weeks. Even more significant, perhaps, is that most of the capital being spent in the world to build new power plants is being spent on renewables, twice as much in 2015 as on power plants, Bloomberg New Energy Finance found. Most of the existing power plants still run on nonrenewable energy, however, and because the plants last for decades, that is likely to change only slowly. Wind turbines and solar panels are now supplying about 10 percent of the world’s electricity, a figure that has doubled in the last decade. The pace of adoption would need to rise sharply to meet the broad climate goals. As the market for clean power technology has grown, the cost has plummeted, and countries are scrambling to adapt their plans. India has promised a increase in solar power, and bids for giant solar farms there have been coming in so low that many analysts are increasingly convinced that the country can pull it off. The promises rich countries made to secure the Paris agreement included mobilizing billions in financing for poor countries like India. “India’s needs are going to be astronomical if we are going to succeed,” said Dipak Dasgupta, an Indian economist and a former board member of a United Nations fund intended to channel some of the climate money. Whether the money will materialize is one of the great uncertainties about the Paris deal. Mr. Obama has had trouble persuading Republican lawmakers to provide even small sums to advance his international climate agenda, though Congress did approve tax measures in December that would give a big push to wind and solar power in the United States over the next few years. But if the money promised by rich countries is not forthcoming, the poor countries that pledged strong climate action in Paris could easily decide to walk away, one of the many ways the progress reflected in the deal remains fragile — and easily reversible. | 1 |
JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — For most of his adult life, Ahmed Qassim worked among the bearded enforcers of Saudi Arabia. He was a dedicated employee of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — known abroad as the religious police — serving with the troops protecting the Islamic kingdom from Westernization, secularism and anything but the most conservative Islamic practices. Some of that resembled ordinary police work: busting drug dealers and bootleggers in a country that bans alcohol. But the men of “the Commission,” as Saudis call it, spent most of their time maintaining the puritanical public norms that set Saudi Arabia apart not only from the West, but from most of the Muslim world. A key offense was ikhtilat, or unauthorized mixing between men and women. The kingdom’s clerics warn that it could lead to fornication, adultery, broken homes, children born of unmarried couples and societal collapse. For years, Mr. Ghamdi stuck with the program and was eventually put in charge of the Commission for the region of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. Then he had a reckoning and began to question the rules. So he turned to the Quran and the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, considered the exemplars of Islamic conduct. What he found was striking and life altering: There had been plenty of mixing among the first generation of Muslims, and no one had seemed to mind. So he spoke out. In articles and television appearances, he argued that much of what Saudis practiced as religion was in fact Arabian cultural practices that had been mixed up with their faith. There was no need to close shops for prayer, he said, nor to bar women from driving, as Saudi Arabia does. At the time of the Prophet, women rode around on camels, which he said was far more provocative than veiled women piloting S. U. V. s. He even said that while women should conceal their bodies, they needed to cover their faces only if they chose to do so. And to demonstrate the depth of his own conviction, Mr. Ghamdi went on television with his wife, Jawahir, who smiled to the camera, her face bare and adorned with a dusting of makeup. It was like a bomb inside the kingdom’s religious establishment, threatening the social order that granted prominence to the sheikhs and made them the arbiters of right and wrong in all aspects of life. He threatened their control. Mr. Ghamdi’s colleagues at work refused to speak to him. Angry calls poured into his cellphone and anonymous death threats hit him on Twitter. Prominent sheikhs took to the airwaves to denounce him as an ignorant upstart who should be punished, tried — and even tortured. I had come to Saudi Arabia to explore Wahhabism, the Saudi strain of Sunni Islam that is often blamed for fueling intolerance around the world — and nurturing terrorism. I spent weeks in Riyadh, Jidda and other cities speaking with sheikhs, imams, religious professors and many others as I tried to peel back the layers of a closed and private society. For the Western visitor, Saudi Arabia is a baffling mix of modern urbanism, desert culture and the effort to adhere to a rigid interpretation of scriptures that are more than 1, 000 years old. It is a kingdom flooded with oil wealth, skyscrapers, S. U. V.s and shopping malls, where questions about how to invest money, interact with or even treat cats are answered with quotes from the Quran or stories about the Prophet Muhammad. Religion is woven into daily life. Banks employ clerics to ensure they follow Shariah law. Mannequins lack heads because of religious sensitivities to showing the human form. And schoolbooks detail how boys should cut their hair, how girls should cover their bodies and how often a person should trim his or her pubic hair. While Islam is meant to be a complete program for human life, interpretation is key when it comes to practices. The Saudi interpretation is steeped in the conservatism of central Arabia, especially regarding relations between women and men. In public, most women wear baggy black gowns called abayas, designed to hide their forms, as well as veils that cover their hair and faces, with only thin slits for their eyes. Restaurants have separate sections for “families,” meaning groups that include women, and for “singles,” which means men. Many Saudis mix in private, and men and women can usually meet in hotel lobbies with little problem. Others do not want to mix and see gender segregation as part of their cultural identity. In some conservative circles, men go their whole lives without seeing the faces of women other than their immediate family — even their brothers’ wives. Inside the kingdom, all other religions are suppressed. Not only are there no public churches, there is no Church’s Chicken. (It is called Texas Chicken in the kingdom.) When asked about this, Saudis deny that this reflects intolerance. They compare their country to the Vatican, saying it is a unique place for Muslims, with its own rules. Officials I spoke with were upset by the kingdom’s increasingly troubled reputation abroad and said over and over that they supported “moderate Islam. ” But what exactly did they mean by “moderate Islam”? Unpacking that term made it clear how wide the values gap is between Saudi Arabia and its American ally. The kingdom’s “moderate Islam” publicly beheads criminals, punishes apostates and prevents women from traveling abroad without the permission of a male “guardian. ” Don’t even ask about gay rights. Instead of calls for jihad, what I heard were religious leaders insisting that the faithful obey the state. The Saudi royal family is terrified that the jihadist fervor inflaming the region will catch fire at home and threaten its control. So it has marshaled the state’s religious apparatus to condemn the jihadists and proclaim the religious duty of obedience to the rulers. And while it was once common, I heard little disparaging talk about Christians and Jews, although it was open season on Shiites, whose faith is frequently bashed as part of the rivalry with Iran. The only Saudis who suggested I was an infidel were children. Once, a Saudi journalist proudly introduced me to his daughter, whom he had put in private school so she could study English. “What is your name?” I asked. “My name is Dana,” she said. “How old are you?” “I am 9. ” “When is your birthday?” Confused, she switched to Arabic. “We don’t have that in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “That’s an infidel holiday. ” Shocked, her father asked where she had learned that, and she fetched one of her textbooks, flipping to a lesson that listed “forbidden holidays”: Christmas and Thanksgiving. Birthdays had been part of the same lesson. Another time, I met a religious friend for coffee, and he brought his two young sons. When the call to prayer sounded, my friend went to pray. His sons, confused that I did not follow, looked at me and asked, “Are you an infidel?” The first thing many Saudis will tell you about Wahhabism is that it does not exist. “There is no such thing as Wahhabism,” Hisham told me the first time we met. “There is only true Islam. ” The irony is that fewer people have a purer Wahhabi pedigree than Mr. Sheikh, a direct descendant of the cleric who started it all. In the early 18th century, Sheikh Mohammed ibn called for a religious reformation in central Arabia. Feeling that Islam had been corrupted by practices like the veneration of saints and tombs, he called for the stripping away of “innovations” and the return to what he considered the pure religion. He formed an alliance with a chieftain named Mohammed ibn Saud that has underpinned the area’s history ever since. Then the Saud family assumed political leadership while Sheikh and his descendants gave legitimacy to their rule and managed religious affairs. That mix proved potent among the warring Arabian tribes, as Wahhabi clerics provided justification for military conquest in some cases: Those who resisted the House of Saud were not just enemies, but infidels who deserved the sword. The first Saudi state was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1818, and attempts to build another failed until the early 20th century, when King Abdulaziz undertook a campaign that put him in control of most of the Arabian Peninsula. But the king faced a choice: to continue expansionary jihad, which would have invited conflict with the British, or to build a modern state. He chose the latter, even crushing a group of his own warriors who refused to stop fighting. Since then, the alliance between the royal family and the clerics has endured, although the tensions between the quest for ideological purity and the exigencies of modern statehood remain throughout Saudi society. Fast forward to 2016, and the main players have transformed because of time and oil wealth. The royal family has grown from a group of scrappy desert dwellers into a sprawling clan awash in palaces and private jets. The Wahhabi establishment has evolved from a puritan reform movement into a bloated state bureaucracy. It consists of universities that churn out graduates trained in religious disciplines a legal system in which judges apply Shariah law a council of top clerics who advise the king a network of offices that dispense fatwas, or religious opinions a force of religious police who monitor public behavior and tens of thousands of mosque imams who can be tapped to deliver the government’s message from the pulpit. The call to prayer sounds five times a day from mosques and inside of malls so clearly that many Saudis use it to organize their days. “Let’s meet after the sunset prayer,” they would tell me, sometimes unsure what time that was. So I installed an app on my phone that let me look up prayer times and buzzed when the call sounded. And so it was, after the sunset prayer, that I met Mr. Sheikh, a proud descendant of Mohammed ibn . He was a portly man of 42 who wore a long white robe and covered his head with a schmag, or checkered cloth. His beard was long and he had no mustache, in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad, and he squinted through reading glasses perched on his nose while peering at his iPhone. We sat on purple couches in the lobby of a Riyadh hotel and shared dates and coffee while he answered my questions about Islam in Saudi Arabia. “I am an person,” he told me early on. It was clear that he hoped I would become a Muslim. His life had been defined by the religious establishment, but he proved to be a case study in the complexity of terms like “modern” and “traditional” in Saudi Arabia. He had memorized the Quran at a young age and studied with prominent clerics before completing his doctorate in Shariah, with his thesis on how technology changed the application of Shariah. Now he had a successful career and a host of religious jobs. He trained judges for the Shariah courts, advised the minister of Islamic affairs, wrote studies for the clerics who advise the king and served on the Shariah board of the Medgulf insurance company. On Fridays, he preached at a mosque near his mother’s house and welcomed visitors who came to see his uncle, the grand mufti. He had traveled extensively abroad, and when he found out I was American he told me that he loved the United States. He had visited Oregon, New York, Massachusetts and Los Angeles. On one trip, he visited a synagogue. On another, a black church. He had also visited an Amish community, which he found fascinating. A relative of his lived in Montgomery, Ala. and he had spent happy months there, often visiting the local Islamic center. The hardest part, he said, was Ramadan, because there were few eateries open late that did not have bars. “All I had was IHOP,” he said. He said Islam did not forbid doing business or having friendships with Christians or Jews. He opposed Shiite beliefs and practices, but said it was wrong to do as the extremists of the Islamic State and declare takfir, or infidelity, on entire groups. When it came to birthdays, which many Saudi clerics condemn, he said he did not oppose them, although his wife did, so their children did not go to birthday parties. But they had celebrations of their own, he said, showing me a video on his phone of his family gathered around a cake bearing the face of his son Abdullah, 15, who had just memorized the Quran. They lit sparklers and cheered, but did not sing. He was on the fence about music, which many Wahhabis also forbid. He said he had no problem with background music in restaurants, but opposed music that put listeners in a state similar to drunkenness, causing them to jump around and bang their heads. “We have something better,” he said. “You can listen to the Quran. ” Since much of what differentiates Saudi Arabia is the place of women, I wanted to talk to a conservative Saudi woman, which was tricky because most would refuse to meet with any unrelated male — let alone a correspondent from the United States. So I had a female Saudi colleague, Sheikha contact Mr. Sheikh’s wife, Meshael, who said she would meet me. But I asked Mr. Sheikh’s permission. “She is very busy,” he said, and changed the subject. So Ms. Sheikh met Ms. Dosary at a women’s coffee shop in Riyadh, where women can uncover their faces and hair. Her marriage to Mr. Sheikh had been arranged, she said. They met once for less than an hour before they were married, and he had seen her face. “It was hard for me to look at him or to check him out as I was so shy,” she said. They were cousins. He was 21 she was 16. He agreed to her condition for marriage that she continue her studies, and she was now working on a doctorate in education while raising their four children. She disputed the Western idea that Saudi women lack rights. “They believe we are oppressed because we don’t drive, but that is incorrect,” Ms. Sheikh said, adding that driving would be a hassle in Riyadh’s snarled traffic. “Here women are respected and honored in many ways you don’t find in the West,” she continued. She, too, is a descendant of Sheikh and said proudly that her grandfather had founded the kingdom’s religious police. “Praise God that we have the Commission to protect our country,” she said. The primacy of Islam in Saudi life has led to a huge religious sphere that extends beyond the state’s official clerics. Public life is filled with celebrity sheikhs whose moves, comments and conflicts Saudis track just as Americans follow Hollywood actors. There are old sheikhs and young sheikhs, sheikhs who used to be extremists and now preach tolerance, sheikhs whom women find sexy, and a black sheikh who has compared himself to Barack Obama. In the kingdom’s society, they compete for followers on Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat. The grand mufti, the state’s highest religious official, has a regular television show, too. Their embrace of technology runs counter to the history of Wahhabi clerics rejecting nearly everything new as a threat to the religion. Formerly banned items include the telegraph, the radio, the camera, soccer, girls’ education and televisions, whose introduction in the 1960s caused outrage. For Saudis, trying to navigate what is permitted, halal, and what is not, haram, can be challenging. So they turn to clerics for fatwas, or nonbinding religious rulings. While some may get a lot of attention — as when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran called for killing the author Salman Rushdie — most concern the details of religious practice. Others can reveal the sometimes comical contortions that clerics go through to reconcile modernity with their understanding of religion. There was, for example, the cleric who appeared to call for the death of Mickey Mouse, then tried to backtrack. Another prominent cleric issued a clarification that he had not in fact forbidden buffets. That same sheikh was recently asked about people taking photos with cats. He responded that the feline presence was irrelevant the photos were the problem. “Photography is not permitted unless necessary,” he said. “Not with cats, not with dogs, not with wolves, not with anything. ” The government has sought to control the flow of religious opinions with official fatwa institutions. But fatwas have provoked laughter, too, like the fatwa calling spending money on Pokemon products “cooperation in sin and transgression. ” While the government seeks to get more women into the work force, the state fatwa organization preaches on the “danger of women joining men in the workplace,” which it calls “the reason behind the destruction of societies. ” And there are fatwas that arm extremists with religious justification. There is one fatwa, still available in English on a government website and signed by the previous grand mufti, that states, “Whoever refuses to follow the straight path deserves to be killed or enslaved in order to establish justice, maintain security and peace and safeguard lives, honor and property. ” It goes on: “Slavery in Islam is like a purifying machine or sauna in which those who are captured enter to wash off their dirt and then they come out clean, pure and safe, from another door. ” Once while we were having coffee, Mr. Sheikh answered his cellphone, listened seriously and issued a fatwa on the spot. He got such calls frequently. The query had been about where a pilgrim headed to Mecca had to don the white cloths of ritual purity — an easy one. The answer, in this case, was Jidda. Others were harder, and he demurred if he was not sure. Once, a woman asked about fake eyelashes. He told her that he did not know, but thought about it later and decided they were fine, on one condition: “that there is no cheating involved. ” A woman, for example, could put them on before a man came to propose. “And then after they get married, they’re gone!” he said. “That is not permitted. ” One Friday, Mr. Sheikh took me to see his uncle, Grand Mufti Abdulaziz . We entered a vast reception hall near the mufti’s house in Riyadh, with padded benches along the walls where a dozen bearded students sat. In the center, on a raised armchair, sat the mufti, his feet in brown socks and perched on a pillow. The students read religious texts, and the mufti interjected with commentary. He was 75, Mr. Sheikh said, and had been blind since age 14, when a German doctor carried out a failed operation on his eyes. Mr. Sheikh said I could ask him a question, so I asked how he responded to those who compared Wahhabism to the Islamic State. “That is all lies and slander. Daesh is an aggressive, tyrannous group that has no relation,” he said, using another term for the Islamic State. After a pause, he asked, “Why don’t you become a Muslim?” I responded that I was from a Christian family. “The religion you follow has no source,” he said, adding that I should accept the Prophet Muhammad’s revelation. “Your religion is not a religion,” he said. “In the end, you will have to face God. ” The first time I met Mr. Ghamdi, 51, formerly of the religious police, was this year in a sitting room in his apartment in Jidda, the port city on the Red Sea. The room had been outfitted to look like a Bedouin tent. Burgundy fabric adorned the walls, gold tassels hung from the ceiling, and carpets covered the floor, to which Mr. Ghamdi pressed his forehead in prayer during breaks in our conversation. He spoke of how the world of sheikhs, fatwas and the meticulous application of religion to everything had defined his life. But that world — his world — had frozen him out. Little in his background suggested that he would become a religious reformer. While at a university, he quit a job at the customs office in the Jidda port because a sheikh told him that collecting duties was haram. After graduation, he studied religion in his spare time and handled international accounts for a government office — a job requiring travel to countries. “The clerics at that time were releasing fatwas that it was not right to travel to the countries of the infidels unless it was necessary,” Mr. Ghamdi said. So he quit. Then he taught economics at a technical school in Saudi Arabia, but didn’t like that it taught only capitalism and socialism. So he said he had added material on Islamic finance, but the students complained about the extra work, and he left. He finally landed a job that he felt was consistent with his religious convictions, as a member of the Commission in Jidda. Over the next few years, he transferred to Mecca and cycled through different positions. There were occasional prostitution cases, and the force sometimes caught sorcerers — who can be beheaded if convicted in court. But he developed reservations about how the force worked. His colleagues’ religious zeal sometimes led them to overreact, breaking into people’s homes or humiliating detainees. “Let’s say someone drank alcohol,” he said. “That does not represent an attack on the religion, but they exaggerated in how they treated people. ” At one point, Mr. Ghamdi was assigned to review cases and tried to use his position to report abuses and force agents to return items they had wrongfully confiscated, he said. He recalled the case of an older, single man who was reported to receive two young women in his home on the weekends. Since the man did not pray at the mosque, his neighbors suspected he was up to no good, so the Commission raided the house and caught the man — visiting with his daughters. “Often, people were humiliated in inhuman ways, and that humiliation could cause hatred of religion,” Mr. Ghamdi said. In 2005, the head of the Commission for the Mecca region died, and Mr. Ghamdi was promoted. It was a big job, with some 90 stations throughout a large, diverse area containing Islam’s holiest sites. He did his best to keep up, while worrying that the Commission’s focus was misguided. In private, he looked to the scriptures and the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance on what was halal and what was haram, and he documented his findings. “I was surprised because we used to hear from the scholars, ‘Haram, haram, haram,’ but they never talked about the evidence,” he said. Realizing the gravity of such a conclusion for someone in his position, he stayed silent and filed the document away. But his conclusions would, soon, emerge. Around the time he was rethinking his worldview, King Abdullah, then the monarch, announced plans to open a university, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust. What shocked the kingdom’s religious establishment was his decision to not segregate students by gender, nor impose a dress code on women. Kaust followed the precedent of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, which had also been shielded from clerical interference, highlighting one of the great contradictions of Saudi Arabia: Regardless of how much the royal family lauds its Islamic values, when it wants to earn money or innovate, it does not turn to the clerics for advice. It puts up a wall and locks them out. Most clerics kept quiet out of deference to the king. But one member of the top clerical body addressed the issue on a show, warning of the dangers of mixed universities: sexual harassment men and women flirting and getting distracted from their studies husbands growing jealous of their wives rape. “Mixing has many corrupting factors, and its evil is great,” said the cleric, Sheikh Saad adding that if the king had known this was the plan, he would have stopped it. But mixing was in fact the king’s idea, and he was not amused. He dismissed the sheikh with a royal decree. From his office in Mecca, Mr. Ghamdi watched, frustrated that the clerics were not backing a project he felt was good for the kingdom. So after praying about it, he retrieved his report and boiled it down to two long articles that were published in the newspaper Okaz in 2009. They were the first strikes in a yearslong battle between Mr. Ghamdi and the religious establishment. He followed with other articles, went on TV and faced off against other clerics who insulted him and marshaled their own evidence from the scriptures. His colleagues at the Commission shunned him, so he requested — and was swiftly granted — early retirement. Once off the force, he questioned other practices: forcing shops to close during prayer times and urging people to go to the mosque, requiring face veils, barring women from driving. Each comment lit a new inferno. A woman once asked him on Twitter if she could not only show her face, but also wear makeup. Sure, Mr. Ghamdi said, setting off new attacks. Then in 2014, he was to appear on a popular talk show, and the producers filmed a segment about him and his wife, who appeared with her face showing and said she supported him. Harsh responses came from the top of the religious establishment. Many attacked his religious credentials, saying he was not really a sheikh — a dubious accusation since there is no standard qualification to be one. They targeted his résumé, too, saying he had no degree in religion and pointing out, correctly, that his doctorate was from Ambassador University Corporation, a diploma mill that gives degrees based on work experience “in the Middle East. ” “There is no doubt that this man is bad,” said Sheikh Saleh a member of the top clerical body. “It is necessary for the state to assign someone to summon and torture him. ” The grand mufti addressed the issue on his show, saying that the veil was “a necessary order and an Islamic creation” and calling on the kingdom’s television channels to ban content that “corrupts the religion and the morals and values of society. ” If the clerical attacks on Mr. Ghamdi were loud, the blowback from society was more painful. His tribe issued a statement, disowning him and calling him “troubled and confused. ” His cellphone rang day and night with callers shouting at him. He came home to find graffiti on the wall of his house. And a group of men showed up at his door, demanding to “mix” with the family’s women. His sons — he has nine children — called the police. Before the Mr. Ghamdi had also delivered Friday sermons at a mosque in Mecca, earning a government stipend. But the congregation complained after he spoke out, and he was asked to stay home, later losing his pay. Mr. Ghamdi had not broken any laws and never faced legal action. But in Saudi Arabia’s society, the attacks echoed through his family. The relatives of his eldest son’s fiancée called off their wedding, not wanting to associate their family with his. “Are you with your brother or with me?” Mr. Ghamdi said his sister’s husband had asked her. “She said, ‘I am with my brother. ’” They soon divorced. Mr. Ghamdi’s son Ammar, 15, was taunted at school. Ammar said another boy had once asked him: “How did your mom go on TV? That’s not right. You have no manners. ” So Ammar punched him. One evening in Jidda, a university professor invited me to his home for dinner. His wife, a doctor, joined us at the table, her hair covered with a stylish veil. They had recently been married and he joked that they were meant for each other because she was good at cooking and he was good at eating. His wife chuckled and gave him more soup. I asked about Mr. Ghamdi. “From what I read and what I saw, I think he’s right and he stood up for what he believes in,” the professor said. “I admire that. ” The problem, he said, is that tolerance for opposing views is not taught in Saudi society. “Either follow what I say or I will classify you, I will hurt you, I will push you out of the discussion,” he said. “This is . We have many people thinking in different ways. You can fight, but you have to live under the same roof. ” His wife had no problem with mixing or with women working, but did not like that Mr. Ghamdi had caused a scandal by making his views public. The royal family sets the rules, and it was inappropriate for subjects to publicly campaign for changes, she said. “He has to follow the ruler,” she said. “If everyone just comes out with his own opinion, we’ll be in chaos. ” After dinner, a young cleric who works for the security services dropped by. He, too, agreed with Mr. Ghamdi, but would not talk about it openly. The response, he said, is part of the deep conservatism in the clerical establishment that is impeding development. He often gave lectures to security officers, followed by discussions, he said, and a common question he heard was, “Isn’t the military uniform haram?” Many Wahhabi clerics preach against resembling the infidels, leading to confusion. He believed that wearing uniforms was fine, and worried that such narrow thinking made people susceptible to extremism. “It’s like in those American movies when they invent a robot and then they lose control and it attacks them and the remote control stops working,” he said. The next day, the professor thanked me for my visit in a text message. “I’d like to remind u that any story that would uncover the source may hurt us. I trust your discretion,” he wrote, followed by three flowers. All that was left, really, was to to speak with the Commission. What did its leaders and rank and file think about all of this? But for a force portrayed as and all powerful, it proved surprisingly shy. I could not visit Mr. Ghamdi’s former office because are barred from entering Mecca. So I had multiple contacts ask for interviews with relatives who worked for the Commission, but they all declined to speak. I called the Commission’s spokesman, who told me that he was traveling and then stopped answering my calls. I even dropped by the Commission’s headquarters, a boxy, building on a Riyadh highway between a gas station and a car dealership. Its website advertised open hours with the director, so I went to his office, through halls filled with bearded men milling about and slick banners proclaiming “A Policy of Excellence” and “Together Against Corruption. ” “He didn’t come today,” the director’s secretary told me. “Maybe next week. ” On my way out, two men invited me into an office and served me coffee. “How do you like working for the Commission?” I asked. “Everyone who chooses this job loves it,” one said. It was the work of “the entire Islamic nation,” and it felt good “to bring people from the darkness into the light. ” The other man had been on the force for 15 years and said he preferred working in the office. “You rest more in the administration,” he said. “Out there we have problems with people. They call us the religious police. Criminals! Thieves! You never get to rest out in the field. ” A scowling man appeared in the doorway and told me that I was not allowed to talk to anyone. The first man soon left. The second offered me more coffee, then tea, then forced me to take a bottle of water when I left. The first irony of Mr. Ghamdi’s situation is that many Saudis, including members of the royal family and even important clerics, agree with him, although mostly in private. And public mixing of the sexes in some places — hospitals, conferences and in Mecca during the pilgrimage — is common. In some Saudi cities it is not uncommon to see women’s faces, or even their hair. But there is a split in society between the conservatives who want to maintain what they consider the kingdom’s pure Islamic identity and the liberals (in the Saudi context) who want more personal freedoms. Liberals make cases like Mr. Ghamdi’s all the time. But sheikhs don’t, which is why he was branded a traitor. The second irony is that this year, Saudi Arabia instituted some of the reform Mr. Ghamdi had called for. It had been a rough year for the Commission. A video went viral of a girl yelping as she was thrown to the ground outside a Riyadh mall during a confrontation with the Commission, her abaya flying over her head and exposing her legs and torso. For many Saudis, “the Nakheel Mall girl” symbolized the Commission’s overreach. Then the Commission arrested Ali a popular talk show host who often criticized religious figures. Photos appeared online of Mr. Oleyani in handcuffs with bottles of liquor. The photos were clearly staged and apparently had been leaked as a form of character assassination. Many people were outraged. In April, the government responded with a surprise decree defanging the religious police. It denied them the power to arrest, question or pursue subjects, forced them to work with the police and advised them to be “gentle and kind” in their interactions with citizens. Mr. Ghamdi applauded the decision, although he remains an outcast, a sheikh whose positions rendered him unemployable in the Islamic kingdom. These days, he keeps a low profile because he still gets insults when he appears in public. He has no job, but publishes regular newspaper columns, mostly abroad. Near the end of our last conversation, his wife, Jawahir, entered the room, dressed in a black abaya, with her face showing. She shook my hand, exuding a cloud of fragrance, and sat next to her husband. The experience had changed her life in unexpected ways, she said. And like her husband, she had no regrets. “We sent our message, and the goal was not for us to keep appearing and to get famous,” she said. “It was to send a message to society that religion is not customs and traditions. Religion is something else. ” | 1 |
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean court on Thursday blocked a prosecutor’s attempt to arrest Jay Y. Lee, the leader of Samsung, saying there was not enough evidence that Mr. Lee had bribed President Park in a scandal that led to her impeachment. A justice on the Central District Court in Seoul, Cho rejected the prosecutor’s request to issue an arrest warrant, saying said it was “difficult to recognize the need” to incarcerate Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee, a scion and vice chairman of Samsung, one of the world’s biggest conglomerates, was immediately released from a detention center outside Seoul, where he had been waiting for the court to decide whether he should be formally arrested. South Koreans have paid keen attention to the fate of Mr. Lee. Some analysts said his case was a test of whether the country’s relatively youthful democracy and judicial system are ready to crack down on the crimes of conglomerates. No Samsung leader has ever been jailed, though the company has been investigated many times for corruption. The court’s decision is likely to anger many South Koreans who have held weekend rallies calling for Ms. Park’s ouster and the arrest of business tycoons on corruption charges. The special prosecutor called the court decision “very regrettable. ” But he has yet to announce whether he will offer more evidence in a renewed effort to have Mr. Lee arrested. He can also indict Mr. Lee on bribery or lesser charges without arresting him. “We will take necessary steps and persist in our investigation without wavering,” said Lee a spokesman for the special prosecutor, without elaborating. Samsung welcomed the court’s decision. For now, the ruling allows Mr. Lee to continue to lead Samsung. It dealt a blow to the special prosecutor who had tried to build a bribery case against Mr. Lee and Ms. Park. Mr. Lee’s father has twice been convicted of bribery and tax evasion but has never spent a day in prison. Each time, he received a presidential pardon and returned to management. Mr. Lee, 48, was accused of paying $36 million to Ms. Park’s secretive confidante, Choi . The special prosecutor and Mr. Lee’s lawyers have been arguing over how to characterize the money. In November, state prosecutors indicted Ms. Choi on extortion charges, saying she leveraged her connections with Ms. Park to coerce Samsung and scores of other big businesses to contribute tens of millions of dollars to two foundations Ms. Choi controlled or to companies run by her or her associates. They identified Ms. Park as an accomplice, but they brought no charges against the businesses, which they saw as victims of extortion. But the special prosecutor, Park who took over the investigation from state prosecutors last month, has called Samsung’s contributions bribes that were exchanged for political favors from Ms. Park. That includes government support for a merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015, which helped Mr. Lee inherit corporate control from his incapacitated father, the chairman, Lee according to the prosecutor. groups accused the prosecutor of overreaching in an attempt to find a scapegoat to soothe a public infuriated over Ms. Park’s corruption scandal and fed up with decades of collusive ties between the government and the chaebol. Mr. Lee was the most prominent businessman to be ensnared in the special prosecutor’s broadening investigation into the corruption scandal that led to Ms. Park’s impeachment by Parliament last month. Ms. Park’s presidential powers remained suspended, while the Constitutional Court is expected to rule in coming weeks whether she should be reinstated or formally removed from office. “We have been too lenient toward chaebol corruption,” said Moon an opposition politician who leads in polls on contenders to replace Ms. Park if she is removed. Speaking to a group of foreign reporters hours before the court’s decision, Mr. Moon said Samsung was typical of a chaebol whose top boss wielded “imperial powers” over his sprawling business group but was ”seldom held accountable” for corruption or managerial failures. Ms. Park denies any wrongdoing. Mr. Lee and Samsung have also denied bribery they argued that the “donations” Samsung paid out to Ms. Choi were coerced, not meant as a quid pro quo for political favors from Ms. Park. | 1 |
In a 2014 speech at his old high school in Rhode Island, Sean Spicer laid out his personal guidelines for success. Rule No. 4: Take responsibility when you mess up, and you will be rewarded. “I make mistakes everyone does,” Mr. Spicer, now the White House press secretary, told his audience. “How you handle those mistakes is what makes the difference in life. ” This week, Mr. Spicer is trying to take his own advice. One day after he delivered a stunner of a gaffe from the White House lectern — favorably comparing Hitler to President Bashar of Syria, then clumsily referring to Nazi death camps as “Holocaust centers” — Mr. Spicer gave an abject apology on Wednesday, saying, “It really is painful to myself to know that I did something like that. ” “I made a mistake there’s no other way to say it,” Mr. Spicer said, his face taut, during a scheduled interview in Washington. “I got into a topic that I shouldn’t have, and I screwed up. ” Facing a national outcry that included calls for his resignation, Mr. Spicer offered no excuses, describing his remarks as “inexcusable and reprehensible” and acknowledging that the timing — during Passover and the Christian Holy Week — “compounds that kind of mistake. ” “On both a personal and professional level, yesterday was not a very good day in my history,” he told the MSNBC anchor Greta Van Susteren. His appearance, at a forum sponsored by the Newseum, was broadcast live by CNN and MSNBC, just one sign of the intense interest in the press secretary’s remarks. Mr. Spicer, whose tenure as President Trump’s chief spokesman has made him a television sensation and punch line, calls himself his own worst critic. And while he said “it’s an honor” to serve as press secretary, he also marveled to Ms. Van Susteren about the level of scrutiny that the role entails. “No matter what you do, what you wear, it gets amplified to a degree that you couldn’t imagine,” Mr. Spicer said. (The fit of his suit and placement of his lapel pin are just two of the sartorial scandals he has faced so far.) When Ms. Van Susteren moved on to other topics, some of Mr. Spicer’s usual feistiness resurfaced. He complained about the Washington news media’s focus on palace intrigue over policy, and he repeated his laments about journalists’ reliance on anonymous sources. Responding to reporting based on unidentified sources, he said, was like “shooting at a ghost. ” Ms. Van Susteren responded by pointing out that the president often made assertions without providing evidence or the source of his information. Mr. Spicer also criticized the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which the Trump administration is boycotting this year. “I don’t think that just sitting there and watching a bunch of celebrities walk by is somehow an indication of how much you care about or respect the press or the First Amendment,” he said. But asked by Ms. Van Susteren if he enjoyed his job, Mr. Spicer responded, “I love it. ” “I truly do believe it’s an honor to have this job,” he added. “It is a privilege. And if you don’t believe it, then you shouldn’t be here. ” | 1 |
HARARE, Zimbabwe — It is an indirect clue at best, but it is often all they can get: Many Zimbabweans have taken to divining the state of their increasingly frail leader’s health from the movements of his presidential plane. On Saturday morning, anyone with a smartphone could see that Air Zimbabwe Flight 1, as the plane is known, was hugging Africa’s eastern coast on its way home to Harare, the capital, after four days in Dubai. The flight designation, UM1, meant that President Robert Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, was on board. Mr. Mugabe’s trip to the Middle East had been made suddenly, with no explanation from the secretive Zimbabwean government, fueling rumors that the president was deathly ill and desperately seeking medical treatment overseas. The main political opposition helped feed those rumors, with one of its leaders posting online, in a tone of great authority, that Mr. Mugabe had suffered a stroke and that it was unlikely “he can come back from this. ” But ordinary Zimbabweans and journalists were left with hardly any verifiable facts, other than what flight tracking apps could tell them. And it was not the first time. In March, when Mr. Mugabe was traveling in Asia, he canceled a visit to India at the last minute, and the government refused to reveal his whereabouts. The apps showed that his plane was in Singapore, one of the places where he has received medical treatment in recent years. (The government said he had cataract surgery there and was otherwise healthy, but a 2008 American diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks said he had been treated in Singapore for prostate cancer.) The president’s health has been an topic this year for Zimbabweans of all classes, as the effects of age and possible illness have become harder for Mr. Mugabe to hide. Many Zimbabweans, who have known only one leader since gaining independence 36 years ago, are bracing for the future with the same trepidation that many Chinese felt near the end of Mao Zedong’s long rule, or that the Congolese did with Mobutu Sese Seko. They speak about “when the old man goes” or “when nature takes its course. ” The uncertainty of a political order compounds the anxieties. The political class is engulfed in a ferocious fight over succession, and it is far from clear where the security forces, the traditional guarantors of Mr. Mugabe’s power, will stand. In the capital, politicians and diplomats report that Mr. Mugabe has slowed down considerably in the past year. He works only a few hours a day and says little in meetings. Several times, he has been caught on video stumbling or falling asleep at public events. Like most wealthy Zimbabweans, Mr. Mugabe goes abroad for better medical care than he can get at home. That narrows the circle of Zimbabweans who are truly informed about his health — and it means that every time he flies, especially on extended or unannounced trips outside Africa, the rumors fly as well, often claiming that he has died or is at death’s door. “There will never be a thing called a vacuum, so if the officials are not giving information, rumors will fill the vacuum,” said Tendai Biti, the president of an opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party. “The feelings of uncertainty are a byproduct of a very unstable environment created by the president himself. ” “But this is not unique to Zimbabwe,” added Mr. Biti, who served as finance minister in a coalition government from 2009 to 2013. “Mobutu used to die so many times. In Uganda, Idi Amin used to die so many times. In China, Chairman Mao used to die so many times. In Russia, how many times did Brezhnev used to die?” This time, the speculation about Mr. Mugabe seemed to have more foundation than usual. He had been scheduled to go to Ghana in to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Millennium Excellence Foundation for helping to liberate Zimbabwe, but canceled the trip at the last minute. When he resurfaced several days later at an agricultural show, his appearance merely fanned the flames. He seemed to stumble at one point and was apparently wearing slippers rather than shoes with his suit. Mr. Mugabe appeared to bounce back, flying to Kenya on Aug. 26 for a conference, followed by a meeting in Swaziland. After that, however, UM1’s movements began raising alarms in some circles. The plane left Swaziland a day before the conference ended, spent three hours in Harare and then took off again for Dubai, arriving on the morning of Aug. 31. Days of silence ensued. The government said only that Mr. Mugabe was in the Middle East on official business. The Sept. 1 headline on the independent newspaper NewsDay read, “Mystery Over Mugabe Trip. ” “Each time you people don’t know the purpose of the president’s visit, there is always a default explanation that he is ill,” George Charamba, Mr. Mugabe’s spokesman, was quoted in the article as saying. Eddie Cross, a lawmaker with the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, wrote on his blog the next day, “We hear that the Old Man had a stroke. ” He added, “It would have been so much more dignified if he had recognized that his ‘sell by’ date had arrived and he had retired and handed over to a chosen successor. ” UM1 took off again after midnight on Saturday, and by 6 a. m. the tracking apps had it over the waters between Mozambique and Madagascar, headed southwest. Journalists and officials began to gather at Harare’s airport, where the sun shone in a clear sky on a fine spring morning. When the plane landed at 7:58, reporters for the state news media were ushered onto the tarmac. “Yes, it’s true,” Mr. Mugabe told them cheerfully. “I was dead, and I resurrected, as I always do. ” He said he had gone to Dubai to check up on his elder son, Robert Jr. an architecture student. Speculation immediately turned to whether Mr. Mugabe’s allies had churned up false rumors of his death to discredit the independent news media and the political opposition. Zimbabwe’s central intelligence organization has a history of spreading disinformation. Mr. Cross, the opposition lawmaker, said by phone that he had based his blog post on information from intelligence officials, members of the governing party, South African intelligence officials and a minister. Conjuring a scene from the macabre comedy “Weekend at Bernie’s,” Mr. Cross argued that Mr. Mugabe’s allies were propping up a dying president to maintain their hold on power. At the airport, a reporter asked Mr. Mugabe whether he was a ghost. “Once I get back to my country,” he replied, “I am real. ” | 1 |
RIO DE JANEIRO — Simone Manuel won the freestyle on Thursday night, becoming the first woman to win gold in an individual swimming event. Here is a poolside view of her reaction, from the moment she realized she won until she received the gold medal on the podium, and her reflections on the race. “I was super surprised. . .. I don’t think there was a definitive point where I thought I had the race. I don’t remember much of it except the last 15 meters. I think I put my head down earlier than normal and just told myself to get my hand on the wall as fast as I possibly could. ” “The whole time I was trying not to cry. . .. But I think just hearing the national anthem and knowing you put your heart into that race and you represented your country in the best way you know how, I think that meant a lot because that was my first individual win at an international meet and it just felt great. ” “This medal is not just for me, it’s for some of the that have come before me, have been inspirations and mentors to me. ” “Just coming into this race tonight, I kind of tried to take the weight of the black community off my shoulders, which is something I carry with me just being in this position. But I do hope that it kind of goes away. I’m super glad with the fact I can be an inspiration to others and hopefully diversify the sport. But at the same time I would like there to be a day where there are more of us and it’s not Simone, the black swimmer, because the title black swimmer makes it seem like I’m not supposed to be able to win a gold medal or I’m not supposed to be able to break records. That’s not true because I work just as hard as anybody else and I love the sport and I want to win just like everybody else. “ .. | 1 |
The estate of a German Jewish businessman sued the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday in an effort to claim one of its most valuable Picassos, “The Actor,” asserting in court papers that the museum does not hold good title to the painting because the businessman was forced to sell it at a low price after fleeing the Nazis. According to the filing in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, the former owner, Paul Leffmann, had to sell his home and businesses in Cologne, Germany, before he fled with his wife, Alice, to Italy in 1937, as conditions in Europe worsened. Before they left Italy for Switzerland, and finally fled to Brazil, he sold the painting in 1938, the lawsuit says. The sale was made under duress to the Paris art dealers Hugo Perls, a collector of Picasso’s work, and Paul Rosenberg, Picasso’s dealer, for $13, 200, the suit says. In 1941, Thelma Chrysler Foy bought the painting through New York’s Knoedler Gallery for $22, 500, a price the estate says is evidence that the 1938 sale had been at a discount. She donated it to the Met in 1952, where it has been continuously displayed since. The oil on canvas shows an attenuated male figure gesturing with his hands. The Met curators describe it as a “simple yet haunting” work that marked the beginning of Picasso’s interest in “the theatrical world of acrobats and saltimbanques. ” The lawyers for the estate — who estimate a value of more than $100 million for the painting — said in the court filing that the museum “did not disclose or should have known that the painting had been owned by a Jewish refugee, Paul Leffmann, who had disposed of the work only because of Nazi and Fascist persecution. ” The lawyers said they had negotiated with the Met for several years, while the Met investigated the claim, but they had never been able to reach a settlement. “The Leffmanns would not have disposed of this seminal work at that time, but for the Nazi and Fascist persecution to which they had been, and without doubt would continue to be, subjected,” Lawrence M. Kaye of the law firm Herrick, Feinstein said in court papers. In a statement, the Met strenuously denied there were grounds for the claim, asserting that the 1938 sale had been for fair market value and had not been made under duress. The amount the Leffmanns received was, the museum said, “a higher price than any other early Picasso sold by a collector to a dealer during the 1930s. ” The Met said its ownership had never been questioned until Laurel Zuckerman, administrator of the Leffmann estate and of Paul and Alice Leffmann, approached the museum more than 10 years ago. The museum also said the Leffmanns had made no claim on the painting after the war, when they did try to reclaim property they had been forced to sell. Lawyers for the Leffmann estate criticized the Met, saying that for many years it had given an erroneous provenance for the painting, indicating that subsequent to Mr. Leffmann it had been owned by an unnamed German private collector until 1938, and that the Met corrected this only in 2011. The Met said the provenance was not erroneous but was based on the recollection of the buyer Hugo Perls. It reflected the fact that the painting was owned by a German in Switzerland and was updated when more information became available, it said. | 1 |
What times these are for “work”! It’s the title of a song that Rihanna and Drake have made pretty much 2016’s best single, and the partial title of another that Fifth Harmony’s made one of the year’s naughtiest. The entire Beyoncé “Lemonade” experience involves the work of marriage and black womanhood. But no musician’s been more literal about the work he’s doing than Frank Ocean. “Work” because, late last month, he ended four years of obscurity with maximal creative output: new songs, a glossy magazine, one music video, one music tutorial, and four superbly bodegas in four cities. Compliments of Mr. Ocean, the stores gave out the magazine and a CD, whose music was available for download exclusively through Apple and only as a single, entity formerly known as an album. The most instructive piece of Mr. Ocean’s data dump is that 45 minutes. Packaged as a curio called “Endless,” it stars assorted Mr. Oceans (three of him) wearing sweats and sweaters, sending planks of wood through a table saw as airy, new, sporadically inviting music inhabits the soundtrack. It celebrates the making of something. By hand. In a sense, he’s just crafting. He’s also crafting mystique. Were he a different artist, Mr. Ocean might have made a perfunctory appearance at the Video Music Awards on Sunday, if only to say: “Hey — I’ve got this album. Here’s a song from it,” the way Kanye West used his slot for the premiere of a new video. But “Endless” proves that’s not what he’s about. The showmanship of the V. M. A.s seems beside Mr. Ocean’s point. The of his peers illuminates his indifference to it. Mr. Ocean is it’s “Endless” because the work never ends. Mr. Ocean presents himself not as an artist, per se, but as an art student, a hermit laboring in a business that runs on extroversion. As much I might like to see him do a lap of Carpool Karaoke, I’m not going to hold my breath. In this era of meticulous his apparent apartness feels like something to celebrate. Sure, the randomness of the magazine’s content and the vague, plaintive earnestness of some lyrics are more unfashionably adolescent — more Tumblr — than you’d want from a . But his melancholy is a draw. He’s got the No. 1 album in the country, much to the bafflement of a music industry used to artists who want what it wants. He’s both giving away and selling — and selling himself sparingly, decorously. Looks like him, shirtless and wet, on the cover of the new record, “Blonde” (spelled “Blond” on the cover). His head’s down, his face behind his hand, his hair a Joker shade of green. Maybe he’s cracking up maybe he’s breaking down. He spends “Endless” in long shots and a few toiling alongside those clones of himself. Shrunk down to smartphone size, however, the black and white render him a mere design element. It isn’t just that you can’t see him much. You can’t always hear his natural voice, either. Technology on “Blonde” distorts his singing, and usually that’s alluring — like David Bowie in one of his alien phases. But it also sounds like as on “Nikes,” the album’s opening song. In the glittered short video, he sits outside in front of a car, his eyes rimmed in makeup. Elsewhere, he’s lying on the ground in different jump suits — one white and one black and ablaze, eventually being extinguished. He’s human on the one hand, extraterrestrial on the other — the burning man who fell to earth. Who knows what this sense of alienation and the attraction to obscurity mean? It’s not Mr. Ocean’s duty to explain. But some of the breathless anticipation for new Ocean music has everything to do with the singular position he occupies. His coming out, in 2012, as a man who likes men, made him queer. And in the hetero, “no homo” realms of RB and even pop, that admission made him an outlier. It’s also made us desperate to know his next moves: How does a major queer artist stay major? Homosexuality might be normal in this country. But a gay, black, male pop star is treated like an oracle, despite nothing in his discography bespeaking the oracular. It hasn’t been just music we needed from him. Unfairly or not, it’s been symbolism. What’s notable about this new music is how guarded it is, against meaning too much and meeting too many expectations. You can hear pain, confusion, curiosity, dispassion, anomie, defensiveness and need, feelings that were present on his magnificent previous album, from 2012, “Channel Orange. ” But there he housed feelings and moods within somewhat traditional song structures. He built songs around those feelings. The approach on “Blonde” and in “Endless” is deconstructionist. The best song on “Endless” doesn’t even belong to him. It’s a dreamy position paper called “Device Control,” by the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. Emotionally, Mr. Ocean finds loneliness instead of redemption, expressed in spare guitars, keyboards, static, noise and outsourced exasperation. For now, other people seem more interesting to him. This year is the 25th anniversary of “Truth or Dare,” Madonna’s landmark authorized peep show into her touring life. It’s still revealing layers of its star. “Endless” and “Blonde” reject that kind of disclosure. For instance, we don’t know the names of the people who’ve headlined Mr. Ocean’s hurt. He’s not Taylor Swift. He hasn’t made his “Lemonade. ” He doesn’t believe in blind news items. He believes in blinds. These are projects that prize process over persona. Unlike Beyoncé, he didn’t wake up like this. Unlike Beyoncé, he offers carpentry that’s literal: Mr. Ocean is grainin’ on actual wood. He’s all work, no play. And artistically, it makes Frank a dull guy. (Isn’t it worth noting that, in 2013, he lost the best new artist Grammy to the band Fun?) That processing is in the music: the minimalism the rejection of pop the Sonic Youth, Radiohead and Arthur Russell the creative ranginess of Mr. West. If kicky new songs like “Ivy,” “Nights” and “ ” let you think he was headed toward Stevie Wonder, Prince or even Bill Withers: Oops. Mr. Ocean appears to be trying out an aesthetic and, for now, that aesthetic appears to be excessive asceticism. A denial, a denial, a denial. He didn’t invent idiosyncratic independence. He’s just dramatizing it. That makes the gap between now and “Channel Orange” significant. He’s been exploring vocations. What he’s creating in “Endless” turns out to be a set of stairs. So, really, he’s making a statement — first about ascendance (he’s building his way up and out) then about effort: He’s doing it all himself, metaphorically declaring his independence. The steps he’s built aren’t just any steps. They’re like the golden spiral staircase, steps that, mathematically speaking and from a bird’ view, carry the climber farther away from the central axis of origin at a particularly pleasing rate. Mr. Ocean has willed himself from RB curio to major pop star to art student. That might sound like a regression, and musically, maybe so. The songs, the magazine, the stores that gave them away feel like final projects. Obviously, he’s released his first new work in a long time. But you could also say he’s arrived at a different milestone: graduation. | 1 |
President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, according to a statement from the White House. [In a statement from the press office, the White House said Trump acted on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “The FBI is one of our Nation’s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement,” Trump said in a statement announcing Comey’s termination. In a letter to the president Tuesday, Sessions wrote that after an evaluation, he had concluded that “a fresh start is needed at the leadership of the FBI. ” “It is essential that this Department of Justice clearly reaffirm its commitment to longstanding principles that ensure the integrity and fairness of federal investigations and prosecutions,” Sessions wrote. “The Director of the FBI must be someone who follows faithfully the rules and principles of the Department of Justice and who sets the right example for our law enforcement officials and others in the Department. ” In his own memorandum to the Attorney General Tuesday, Rosenstein said the reputation and credibility of the FBI had “suffered substantial damage” in the last year. The deputy attorney general cited Comey’s handling of the investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private email server as a “textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do. ” The president also sent a letter to Comey Tuesday informing him he had been terminated effective immediately. “While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,” Trump wrote. “It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission. ” More docs, letter from AG Sessions on firing FBI Director James Comey … pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 9, 2017, More docs, letter from AG Sessions on firing FBI Director James Comey … pic. twitter. — Michelle Moons (@MichelleDiana) May 9, 2017, Comey did not immediately release a statement confirming his dismissal. Comey was appointed FBI Director by former president Barack Obama in September 2013. He served as deputy attorney general under the George W. Bush administration from December 2003 until August 2005. Prior to that, he was U. S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he prosecuted a number of major terrorism and criminal cases. He also worked in the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia from 1996 to 2001, and had served as general counsel and senior vice president for Lockheed Martin and general counsel for the investment firm Bridgewater Associates. Comey became a controversial figure in the 2016 presidential race for the agency’s handling of the investigation into Clinton’s private email server. He came under fire again days before the November 8 election when he announced the discovery of additional emails related to the investigation. In March, Comey testified that the FBI was investigating the Russian government’s possible interference in the 2016 election, including the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts. ” During his appointment ceremony in October 2013, Comey described the obligation of the FBI as having to balance independence from “all political forces and interests” in the United States with its enforcement of the rule of law and the country’s system of checks and balances. “You see, those three words — Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity — capture the essence of the FBI and its people. And they also explain why I am here,” Comey said at the time, according to a White House transcript. “I wanted to be here to work alongside those people, to represent them, to help them accomplish their mission, and to just be their colleague. ” This is a developing story. Kristina Wong contributed to this report. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum | 1 |
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Join Leonardo DiCaprio as he explores the topic of climate change, and discovers what must be done today to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet.
Before the Flood, directed by Fisher Stevens, captures a three-year personal journey alongside Academy Award-winning actor and U.N. Messenger of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio as he interviews individuals from every facet of society in both developing and developed nations who provide unique, impassioned and pragmatic views on what must be done today and in the future to prevent catastrophic disruption of life on our planet. [watch video below] | 0 |
The Trump administration is committed to overhauling the tax code this year, according White House Economic Advisor Gary Cohn. [Cohn said that overhauling the tax code is one of the top priorities for the Trump administration in 2017, claiming specifically that they have spent an “enormous amount” of time discussing the topic. “I don’t know if it’s August or not,” Cohn said in an interview Friday morning on Bloomberg TV. “Getting it done well and getting it done right is more important than getting it done soon. ” Cohn, who serves at the head of the National Economic Council, claims that Congress will work on putting together “one cohesive” tax plan when it returns from recess in . Trump’s aides have insisted that, unlike the failed effort to repeal Obamacare, the tax code rewrite will be driven by the White House. President Trump claimed he would introduce a “phenomenal” tax plan at the outset of his presidency but has yet to do so, leading some to believe that there is an internal debate over portions of the new code, such as the controversial tax, which would enact a tax on companies’ domestic sales and imported goods. 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 |
Second in a Series … [In our first installment, we noted that in the distant past, China had invented key technologies — for and — and yet had failed effectively to develop them. For China, those choices were a calamity of epic proportions, because other countries soon glommed onto that — and used it against China. As a result, China suffered a decline that stretched over five centuries only in the last few decades has that downslope been reversed — and, as we all know, reversed dramatically. So now let’s consider the possible fate of another country, the United States. In the 20th century, America invented many important technologies we will dwell on two of them. As we shall see, the U. S. chose to develop effectively one of these technologies, but not the other. So could the U. S. today be making the same sort of mistake that China made in the past? We’ll likely know the answer to that question sometime in this century, but even now, the early warning signs are ominous. Let’s start with the technology that we developed effectively: the Internet. On October 28, 1969, the first was sent on the ARPANET link between UCLA and Stanford University. (“ARPA” stood for the Pentagon’s Advance Research Projects Agency, which had financed the effort for the previous six years.) Indeed, for most of the following two decades, the Internet, as it came to be called, was financed entirely by the public sector — the Defense Department, as well as the National Science Foundation. Yet then Uncle Sam chose to do something ingenious: Having deployed public resources to create the Internet, the feds then turned it over to the private sector. Thus by 1989, when a company known as Quantum Computer Services rebranded itself as America Online, the Net was flourishing as a platform for the most brilliant of capitalist exuberance. (As an aside, we might recall that Uncle Sam had earlier used this same model — public investment, followed by privatization — for other key industries, including shipbuilding, radio, aviation, and radar.) Indeed, as to the Internet, the government has long been maintaining its protective watch. For example, back in 1983, the Federal Communications Commission ruled that phone companies (mostly, ATT) could not levy “access charges” on data — as distinct from voice — transmissions. This decision was little noticed at the time, but it was, in fact, a huge deal, as Reed Hundt, chairman of the FCC under President Clinton, conceded in his memoir. As Hundt put it, that “ or accidentally smart” ruling by the FCC in ’83 enabled the Net to blossom. “In the absence of the FCC’s decision,” Hundt wrote, “the Internet would have been so expensive that [founder Marc] Andreesen’s Netscape would not have been a hiccup, much less one of the first bubble stocks of the Internet. ” To tell the story Hundt’s way is to describe the FCC’s role in fostering the Net as an unalloyed good. To tell it another way, the FCC forced ATT to host, on the cheap, a rival industry — namely, digital — on its network. In law, that process of governmental imposition is sometimes referred to as a “taking. ” And yet either way the story is told, we can see the results in the humongous Internet of today: The U. S. made a profound choice, and it had a profound impact. Next we can cite another example of the government giving the Net a boost: In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which included a “safe harbor” provision for Internet Service Providers, immunizing them from legal liability for the actions of Internet users. We can immediately note that most other industries have no similar safe harbor if a consumer misuses their products, the companies can be held legally liable. Indeed, we might pause to reflect on the immensity of this safe harbor provision: If, say, Google were to be held liable for every copyright violation found on its site, it wouldn’t be in business today. To put this matter another way, through deliberate legislation, the government presided over the transfer of billions, if not trillions, of dollars of copyrights, from holders to users. Moreover, firms have generally not been subject to state and local sales taxes, even as, of course, traditional “bricks and mortar” retailers must collect the tax. For better or for worse, this exemption has given companies an enormous advantage over its more traditional rivals. Thus we can see: Internet companies, over the last few decades, have benefited from a kind of “industrial policy. ” Governments at all levels have adopted policies that have favored the Internet industry. Today, while there’s plenty of controversy about Net companies and their effect on America, it’s undeniable that overall, these policies have worked as intended — in 2017, we have a lot of Internet. In fact, nearly nine in ten Americans use the Internet regularly, and Net companies, plus related tech companies, are the richest firms in the U. S. Yet if the Internet began in the U. S. it didn’t stop there: The power of the Net was quickly diffused around the planet. It is, after all, the World Wide Web. Most notably, China’s tech companies, too, are surging. Strictly speaking, that country is not a full part of the WWW, because the government’s Great Firewall of China blocks much access. And yet still, China’s cyberspace is flourishing. To be sure, Internet penetration in China is much less than in the U. S. only about 53 percent. Yet even so, in a country of 1. 37 billion people, Internet users amount to more than 700 million. In other words, China has an enormous market, which the Chinese government has protected from foreign competition. Thanks to that sheltering mechanism — typically labeled as a “ barrier,” indigenous Chinese companies, such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent, have flourished. While they are still smaller than Amazon, Facebook, and Google, they are technologically at or near par, and they are growing fast, Of course, there are other, less savory, aspects of the Internet. For instance, on the subject of computer hacking, the Chinese might well be the world’s leaders — even more so than the Russians. Newt Gingrich has said that China’s hacking of U. S. intellectual property costs our country $360 billion a year, while another estimate, admittedly from an source, puts the cost to the U. S. at $5 trillion a year. In view of those statistics, it’s fair to ask: Will the U. S. be able to keep any sort of lead? And in addition, is the U. S. safe from an overt future hack attack — an electronic Pearl Harbor? In the meantime, here’s a statistic to consider: China makes 90 percent of the world’s computers, including virtually all of them sold in the U. S. — even those used, more and more, by the Department of Defense. And speaking of computers, China continues to make quantum leaps in futuristic computer hardware. Last year it was reported that China has built the world’s fastest supercomputer — and built it entirely without U. S. computer chips. In the words of Computerworld: There is no U. S. system that comes close to the performance of China’s new system, the Sunway TaihuLight. Its theoretical peak performance is 124. 5 petaflops . . . A petaflop equals one thousand trillion (one quadrillion) sustained operations per second. The new computer, the article continued, can be used for “advanced manufacturing, earth systems modeling, life science and big data applications. ” Indeed, according to a worried U. S. Chamber of Commerce, China intends to leverage its high tech into overall economic dominance in the 21st century. And oh yes, such economic dominance would allow for rapid gains in nuclear weapons technology and other kinds of military technology. One might ask: What other kinds of “miltech”? Answer: One day, we’ll find out. Thus we can conclude: Whereas the Chinese of ago made the drastic mistake of neglecting technology, they’re not making that mistake any more. So even though the U. S. started with an enormous early lead, the People’s Republic is catching up fast — and may even surge ahead. Indeed, the rest of the world must be wondering whether China, which led the world in technology for most of the last five thousand years, is now in the process of reasserting its historic global edge. So at minimum, we can conclude that America is in a serious competition with the Chinese. We might call it the cyberspace race. Such competitive racing among nations doesn’t have to end in war, although it’s a bleak lesson of history that oftentimes national rivalry does, in fact, end in confrontation, if not outright conflict. Thus for the sake of our national security, including economic security, it would seem imperative that the U. S. should be striving hard to both stay secure and stay ahead. As we saw in the first installment, the national price of falling behind is too painful to contemplate. So with that injunction — failure is not an option, or at least it darn well shouldn’t be — let’s resolve not to let the American technological achievement of the Internet be dissipated into global mediocrity and weakness. Okay, so now let’s turn from cyberspace to outer space. That is, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. Interestingly, just as the hinge year for cyberspace was 1969 — when that fateful first electronic message was sent — the same year was a banner year for outer space. I’m referring, of course, to the moon landing: On July 20, 1969, the command module Columbia of the Apollo 11 mission, carrying two astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, set down on the lunar surface. Back on earth, billions of people watched it happen, live on TV. In the long run, the moon landing might well have been, as Armstrong said, “one giant leap for mankind,” but in the short run, it was a giant leap for the USA. It was our technology, our achievement, our glory — and our moon. In those days, everybody knew about the moon landing, and NASA, while almost nobody knew about ARPA. Yet almost immediately thereafter, interest in, and support for, the space program took a tumble. We had been there and done that, the thinking went, and so now we must move on to other things — mostly, to address “unmet needs” down on earth. And so, amidst massive national apathy, the last American astronaut trod the moon’s surface in 1972. In the decades since then, several U. S. presidents, including Donald Trump on April 24, have talked about returning to the moon, or even going to Mars. But there’s been no definitive vision, and no determined plan along the lines put forth by President John F. Kennedy, who pledged, back in 1962, that the U. S. would become “the world’s leading nation. ” Today, in fact, a grand total of two Americans are currently in space. That’s two out of more than 324 million Americans. In other words, we aren’t at all, as JFK had hoped, a spacefaring nation. (In fairness, no other country is, either: The world’s total spacefaring population — all aboard the International Space Station — is a mere five.) Still, for the U. S. once the unquestioned leader in space, the question arises: In losing interest in space exploration, is the U. S. making a mistake today akin to the mistake that the Chinese made in the 15th century, when they stopped their oceanic expeditions? That does seem like a highly pertinent question. To be sure, some will protest that another, less ambitious, aspect of the space program is doing just fine: namely, the orbital satellite business. That business is indeed huge according to one recent estimate, there are more than a thousand satellites orbiting the earth, some for surveillance, most for communication, and a few for various kinds of research and development. And yes, there are a few for military purposes — more on that later. As a matter of fact, there are also a handful of satellites orbiting the sun and other planets. Indeed, worldwide, the industry now spends several hundred billion dollars a year, and new companies are entering the space biz all the time, including, recently, Apple. Yet of course, all those satellites aloft don’t just belong to the U. S. No fewer than 12 countries — including such avowed enemies as Iran and North Korea — have independently launched satellites. In addition, the European Union, which numbers 28 countries, has its own robust orbital space program. So on the one hand, it’s cool that so many countries have space programs, and yet on the other hand, such space proliferation is a reminder that the U. S. hardly has space to itself anymore. Once again, American has been spread all over. Once again, we face serious competition. And of those competitors, China is the most serious. Indeed, it’s possible that China could overtake us. The People’s Republic has announced that it hopes to get an unmanned spacecraft to Mars by 2020, and it’s reported that China hopes to send taikonauts to the moon later in that same decade — which is to say, not long from now. If America doesn’t get off its national fanny, we could be aced in space. Moreover, it’s also been suggested that China might team up with Russia to build a new space station of its own. And what might the purpose of that space station be? Would it be for peaceful science? Or military science? And what is the U. S. doing in the meantime? What will be the world be like if the world knows everything we know — or maybe even more? We’ll take up those questions in the next installment. Next: The Strategic Imperative of the High Frontier | 1 |
Email
An internal memo released Wednesday by WikiLeaks reveals how a longtime Clinton confidant played an "unorthodox" dual role – raising money for the Clinton Foundation and finding paid work for Bill Clinton, The Hill reports.
The 12-page document written in 2011 by Doug Band of Teneo, a private consulting firm that raised millions for the foundation and also scouted out paid gigs for what was dubbed "Bill Clinton, Inc.", the Washington Examiner reports.
In one instance, Band secured a $540,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation from banking giant UBS. He later arranged for Bill Clinton to give three paid speeches to the firm for a total of $900,000, The Hill reported.
But in his memo, Band argues his double duties were "independent" of one another; the memo was written after Chelsea Clinton criticized Band's role within the family's network of interests, The Hill reports.
"In the unique roles in which we have had the opportunity to serve, we have been able to help balance the multiplicity of activities that demand [Bill Clinton's] time and engagement to best fulfill his personal, political, business, official former President, and Foundation/non-profit goals," Band writes.
According to The Hill, Teneo's overlapping responsibilities worried some in the Clintons' inner circle, and in one email published by WikiLeaks, Chelsea Clinton raised "serious concerns" with Teneo's liberal use of the Clinton name to court clients.
Band lashed out, calling the former first daughter a meddlesome "spoiled brat" in one hacked email released by WikiLeaks.
"We appreciate the unorthodox nature of our roles, and the goal of seeking ways to ensure we are implementing best practices to protect the [tax exempt] status of the Foundation," Band wrote in his memo to justify his role and bat back criticism, The Hill reports.
Band co-founded Teneo with former State Department employee Declan Kelly while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state – and paid Bill Clinton as an adviser through 2012, The Hill reports.
Band's memo lists several Teneo clients that he and Kelly "leveraged" into major donors for the foundation, and also details the personal introductions the two principals made between the Clintons and the prospective donors, The Hill reports.
One that Kelly "cultivated" was Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, which led to seven-figure donations beginning in 2009.
In a previous hacked email to Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, Band worried the press might catch wind of his role and misconstrue it.
"I'm starting to worry that if this story gets out, we are screwed," Band wrote.
"[Kelly] and I built a business. Our business has almost nothing to do with the Clintons, the foundation or [the Clinton Global Initiative] in any way. The chairman of UBS could care a less [sic] about CGI."
A week after Band sent his memo, Clinton lawyer Cheryl Mills sent a document to Podesta and Band laying out ways to unwind the former president's charitable and business interests — all of which distanced Band from the foundation.
In December 2011, the former president resigned his position on Teneo’s advisory board, The Hill reports. | 0 |
Staying up all night playing computer games not insomnia, teenagers told 27-10-16 PLAYING Red Dead Redemption until dawn is not a recognised medical condition, doctors have confirmed. Increasing numbers of under-21s have self-diagnosed as insomniacs thanks to their reluctance to sleep while there’s zombies to be shot. Nikki Hollis, a GP, said: “I used to think I suffered from insomnia as a student, but it turns out I was just raving until 6am four nights a week. The problems went away when I stopped. “Being unable to sleep is quite different to not sleeping because you are doing fun stuff and cannot delay your gratification to a more civil hour.” Student Wayne Hayes said: “Sometimes I’m tossing and turning all night long trying to complete a dynastic alliance with Aquitaine in Crusader Kings 2 . And other times I haven’t slept a wink because I’m chasing promotion with Barnet in Football Manager . “I’ve been self-medicating with crisps and cans of Monster, which has alleviated the worst of the symptoms, but I really think I need to be signed off college for a week or two until I’ve won the Champions League .”
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MAWLAMYINE, Myanmar — The scene would have been unlikely a year ago. Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets to protest a decision by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to name a new bridge for her father. “Recognize the will of the local ethnic people,” protesters chanted last month as they marched along the waterfront of this historic city in southern Myanmar. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate once celebrated as a champion of democracy, was insulting the Mon people, the dominant ethnic group in the area, protest leaders said, by naming the bridge for a Burmese leader infamous here for steamrollering over their rights. “This is not a democratic process,” said Min Zarni Oo, general secretary of the Mon Youth Forum. “This is a big issue for the local people. The government doesn’t value ethnic diversity. ” No one expected governing to be easy for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who became the country’s de facto leader a year ago after her party won a landslide election that ended more than a of military rule. Even so, her first year has been a disappointment to many. She made it a top priority to end the ethnic insurgencies that have torn the country apart, but her anemic peace effort has proved fruitless so far, and fighting between government forces and ethnic groups has increased. The world has been shocked by reports that the military has carried out atrocities, including rape and murder, against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in western Myanmar, but Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said little on the matter and done even less. Her government’s growing suppression of speech on the internet seems perverse for a onetime democracy icon who spent 15 years under house arrest. Among the public, patience is wearing thin. “She doesn’t have support like before,” said Zar Zar Oo, 31, a vendor selling bottled water at the Yangon train station. “We loved her so much before, but it seems like she doesn’t do enough for us. For now, we are in trouble. ” In a televised speech to the nation commemorating her first year in office, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi struck a defensive note, acknowledging her government’s lack of progress and saying people could choose another leader if they were unhappy with her. “If you think I am not good enough for our country and our people, if someone or some organization can do better than us, we are ready to step down,” she said. Some voters apparently listened. In parliamentary last weekend, her National League for Democracy won only nine of 19 seats. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 71, cites building roads as one of her biggest accomplishments. The party spokesman Win Htein said her government had doubled spending on health care and education, though he provided no details. And the economy has continued to grow as the country emerges from isolation under military rule. But Richard Horsey, a political analyst and former United Nations official, said that the growth had slowed and that foreign investment had dipped significantly. Washington’s lifting of economic sanctions last year has yet to translate into stronger trade, investment or job creation, he said. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration has not offered any compelling economic vision,” he said. In Yangon, people are waiting for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to deliver results, said Myat Suu Mon, 28, a department store clerk. The cost of taking the bus to work has doubled, she said, while her pay has remained the same. “Support is less than before because people’s expectations were too high,” she said. “But in reality we don’t see things changing here. ” Zaw Htay, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, acknowledged that progress had been slow but said the government faced complex problems, such as ethnic conflicts and clashes with the Rohingya, that had been years in the making. “It’s very complicated,” he said in an interview. “We are not magicians. ” Indeed, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi faces daunting challenges. In rebuilding the country, she must overcome decades of mismanagement and profiteering by previous military governments that enriched the generals and their cronies and brought the economy to its knees. Though her party has a strong majority in Parliament, it is hamstrung by a arrangement dictated by the Constitution, which gives the military control of key ministries and enough seats in Parliament to block any constitutional amendment. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is barred by the Constitution from serving as president because her children are foreigners, a prohibition she circumvented by creating the office of state counselor for herself and declaring that the president would report to her. She also named herself foreign minister. Supporters say her ability to get along with the military is a significant accomplishment. But critics suggest she suffers from Stockholm syndrome, becoming too cozy with her former captors. Moreover, they say, her imperious approach alienates potential allies and contributes to the country’s growing crises. “She’s Mary Poppins without a sense of humor,” said David Scott Mathieson, an independent analyst. “She has a schoolmarmish way where instructions are given and obedience is observed. She takes that approach with government, and it is highly misplaced. Politics is compromise. ” She rarely takes questions from the news media or speaks out on major issues. Her office declined a request for an interview for this article. Perhaps most disheartening to many of her longtime supporters has been her record on human rights. While she released dozens of political prisoners held by the former regime and repealed laws used to suppress political dissent, she left in place a law that is increasingly used to stifle criticism of public officials. Under the telecommunications act, defaming someone online is punishable by three years in prison. Anyone can bring a case, and suspects can be held without bail while they await trial. The previous government, which adopted the law in 2013, used it only seven times. In the year since Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi took office, 47 cases have been brought, according to Maung Saungkha, who was once imprisoned under the law and now tracks its use. In one case, two media executives were jailed after posting comments on Facebook questioning why a government official was wearing an expensive watch. Five cases have been brought by supporters of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi against people they claim defamed her, Mr. Maung said. “Without freedom of expression, there won’t be democracy,” he said. “If the government wants national reconciliation, this kind of law has to be discarded. ” Mr. Win, the party spokesman, said Parliament would amend the law in its next session. “Don’t worry about this,” he said. “We will solve this problem. ” The biggest stain on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s record may be her government’s brutal treatment of the Rohingya, and her tepid response to it. In recent months, government soldiers have been accused of widespread killing and rape of Rohingya in Rakhine State. A United Nations report concluded in February that the army and police had slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children women and girls and forced as many as 90, 000 people from their homes. The deadly crackdown, which the government says was a response to attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents, has been roundly criticized by human rights groups, the United Nations, Pope Francis and even 13 of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel laureates, who wrote a letter calling it “a human tragedy amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. ” Although Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has no direct control over the military, she has played down the reports of atrocities and stood by the military. “I don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on,” she said in a rare interview with the BBC last week. “I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening. ” She did appoint a commission led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, to examine conditions in Rakhine, but reviewing the military’s conduct was not part of its mandate. “Entire villages were razed,” said Matthew Smith, director of the group Fortify Rights. “Children were thrown into fires. Suu Kyi’s denials and failure to provide a shred of moral leadership to deal with the situation is a really damning revelation of her character. ” Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said her most important goal is negotiating peace with armed ethnic groups, and in August, she convened a peace conference with great fanfare to resolve the conflicts in northern Myanmar. But the meeting produced no agreements, and analysts say there is more fighting now in that part of the country than there has been in many years. The blowback over the in Mon State, seen here as more evidence that the government is out of touch with the concerns of ethnic minorities, should have been easier to avoid. Mr. Zaw, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, said senior party leaders had been warned that naming the bridge for her father, Gen. Aung San, would turn the population against them. They went ahead anyway, and last weekend it cost them the parliamentary seat in Chaungzon, the township across the bridge from Mawlamyine. “It was a mistake to name this bridge,” Mr. Zaw said. “It is a good lesson for N. L. D. leaders. ” | 1 |
MANCHESTER, N. H. — Michelle Obama issued a deeply personal denunciation of Donald J. Trump on Thursday for his lewd comments about women, exhorting voters in scathing terms to reject his candidacy and the campaign’s increasingly vulgar tenor by backing Hillary Clinton as a matter of conscience. “This is not normal. This is not politics as usual,” Mrs. Obama said in a speech here during which her voice at times quavered with emotion. “This is disgraceful, it is intolerable, and it doesn’t matter what party you belong to,” she added. “No woman deserves to be treated this way — none of us deserves this kind of abuse. ” In remarks that were among the most outspoken by a first lady in modern history, Mrs. Obama, who has mostly avoided the political limelight, positioned herself at the center of a campaign she characterized as having devolved into “madness. ” She implored voters to “stand up and say enough is enough. ” “I can’t believe that I’m saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women,” the first lady told several hundred voters at a university here. “I can’t stop thinking about this — it has shaken me to my core,” Mrs. Obama said, reacting to the emergence last week of a recording in which Mr. Trump was heard coarsely boasting about kissing and groping women without their consent. What followed from the first lady, who has styled herself America’s “mom in chief,” was a message about empowering women to rise up against sexual abuse and harassment in every context. The speech was all the more striking because it was delivered on behalf of Mrs. Clinton, whose experience with her husband’s infidelity all but disqualifies her from speaking in similarly vivid terms. Aides said Mrs. Obama had always planned to reshape her stump speech as Election Day neared to focus more on women and the significance of electing the first female president. But when Mr. Trump’s remarks surfaced on Friday, she ripped up that speech, ultimately settling on one that was all the more biting for its intimate tone. “I feel it so personally,” Mrs. Obama said on Thursday, placing her hand against her heart for emphasis as she spoke about Mr. Trump’s treatment of women. “It’s like that sick, sinking feeling you get when you’re walking down the street minding your own business and some guy yells out vulgar words about your body, or when you see that guy at work that stands just a little too close, stares a little too long so you feel uncomfortable in your own skin. ” “I can tell you that the men in my life do not talk about women this way,” Mrs. Obama added. “To dismiss this as everyday locker room talk is an insult to decent men everywhere. ” The speech was a riveting moment in an already remarkable campaign, coming just before Mr. Trump appeared in West Palm Beach, Fla. to angrily denounce as “false smears” news reports in which several women said he had made unwanted advances on them. The New Hampshire rally was Mrs. Obama’s sixth campaign appearance for Mrs. Clinton in a month, and the first lady broke from her usual approach and did not speak about Mrs. Clinton’s qualifications for the presidency until halfway through her speech. She said the former secretary of state “embodies so many of the values that we try hard to teach our young people,” and ticked off highlights from Mrs. Clinton’s résumé, saying that any parent would be proud to raise a daughter like her. But she also sought to appeal to those unenthusiastic about Mrs. Clinton or politics itself, issuing a call to voters across the political spectrum who have been alienated by a contest dominated by outrageous statements and partisan rage. “We simply cannot endure this, or expose our children to this any longer — not for another minute, and let alone for four years,” Mrs. Obama said. “This has got to stop right now. ” She argued that even voters repulsed by the tone of the campaign — “we are drowning in it,” she said at one point — must consider the norms of behavior they wanted to instill in their children. “In our hearts, we all know that if we let Hillary’s opponent win this election, then we are sending a clear message to our kids that everything they’re seeing and hearing is perfectly O. K. We are validating it. We are endorsing it,” Mrs. Obama said. “We’re telling our sons that it’s O. K. to humiliate women. We’re telling our daughters that this is how they deserve to be treated. We’re telling all our kids that bigotry and bullying are perfectly acceptable in the leader of their country. ” Instead, she framed the decision to vote for Mrs. Clinton as akin to a woman’s choice to speak out in the face of sexual mistreatment or violence. “We need to recover from our shock and depression and do what women have always done in this country,” Mrs. Obama said. “We need you to roll up your sleeves. We need to get to work. ” | 1 |
In a move that left many veterans groups breathing a sigh of relief, Donald J. Trump on Wednesday selected the current head of the nation’s sprawling veterans health care system, Dr. David J. Shulkin, an appointee of President Obama’s, to become secretary of veterans affairs. If confirmed, he will be the first secretary to lead the department who is not a veteran. While Mr. Trump’s chosen cabinet is largely made up of Washington outsiders, Dr. Shulkin, 57, is a relative insider. He has helped lead several private health care systems, including Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. In 2015, he was appointed under secretary for health by Mr. Obama and told to cut wait times in the troubled health care system, which includes 1, 700 hospitals and clinics that serve nearly nine million veterans. In that time, Dr. Shulkin has nearly doubled the amount of health care that veterans receive through private doctors. But he has also rejected calls for broader privatization, saying that it would cost untold billions and undermine the hospital system — a stance that puts him at odds with Mr. Trump. While campaigning, the regularly criticized the department as hopelessly corrupt and incompetent, and said he would allow all veterans to choose to go to private doctors. But the selection of Dr. Shulkin may signal that Mr. Trump plans to take a more measured approach. “The Trump campaign made a big deal of what a sucking chest wound the V. A. was,” said Phillip Carter, an Iraq veteran who studies the agency for the Center for a New American Security, a research organization that focuses on the military and veterans. “Then they realized how hard it would be to turn around, and decided they needed to continue with the reforms that are already taking effect. ” Mr. Carter, who advised Hillary Clinton’s campaign on veterans issues, called Dr. Shulkin a smart choice, saying he was among a very small group with the expertise to run a large, complicated health care system. “He knows the V. A. but he is not of the V. A.,” Mr. Carter said. “He comes from the private sector and knows how to blend private and public care. ” Mr. Trump praised Dr. Shulkin on Wednesday, saying in a statement, “I have no doubt Dr. Shulkin will be able to lead the turnaround. ” The pick came after weeks of scrambling by the Trump transition team, which the said had considered “at least 100” candidates to lead the troubled agency. Names under consideration included former candidate Sarah Palin and former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, as well as a few generals and admirals. Three weeks ago, the team settled on Toby Cosgrove, the chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic and a former Air Force surgeon, but he turned down the offer, according to a person close to the transition team who was not authorized to speak publicly. That left the team divided. Some favored one of the few remaining candidates, Pete Hegseth, an Iraq veteran and Fox News commentator. But others saw him as too extreme because for years he ran Concerned Veterans for America, a small advocacy group financed by the Koch brothers’ network that seeks to discredit and privatize the veterans health care system. Many veterans groups vigorously opposed Mr. Hegseth, leaving the transition team with no obvious alternative. So, although Mr. Trump had vilified the department’s leadership for months on the campaign trail, he ended up picking one of its top officials. The news, announced by Mr. Trump at a news conference on Wednesday, left many veterans groups bewildered but pleased. “This is a very surprising pick, but he is the best out of all the candidates,” Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said of Dr. Shulkin. The group’s membership would have preferred a veteran, Mr. Rieckhoff said, but added that Dr. Shulkin was well respected. “We know him, we trust him and we can work with him,” he said. Dr. Shulkin will inherit a thicket of challenges in the aging and overburdened veterans health care system. Its hospitals often do not pay enough to attract new staff members, even as demand rises. Waits for appointments have not fallen since a scandal over the delays in 2014 prompted Eric Shinseki to resign as secretary. The department’s computerized records system is obsolete and unable to communicate with outside doctors. And though its buildings are on average more than 50 years old, closing underused centers is often politically impossible. “The system is changing for the better, but the transformation could take many years, and it will be difficult,” said Nancy Schlichting, who retired recently as chief executive of the Henry Ford Health System and was chairwoman of a commission that studied overhauling the system. “Someone new coming in could take a year just to understand the issues,” she said. “Someone like David Shulkin really provides continuity that can get reforms moving forward. ” | 1 |
Gold medal Olympian turned reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner, formerly known as Bruce Jenner, has reportedly accepted an invitation to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration. [Jenner, who previously praised Trump during a contentious election campaign, will be among the many figures to travel to Washington, D. C. for the January 20 event, UsWeekly reports. A lifelong conservative, Jenner came out in support of presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz in March, and even offered to serve as Cruz’s “Trans Ambassador. ” That same month, Jenner was seen on an episode of reality TV series I Am Cait calling Hillary Clinton a “f*cking liar” and a “political hack. ” “I would never ever ever vote for Hillary,” Jenner said during the episode. “We’re done, if Hillary becomes president — the country is over. ” A few months later, Jenner was praising Trump as possibly being “better” on women’s issues than Clinton. “Everybody looks at the Democrats as being better with these issues. But Trump seems to be very much for women,” Jenner told the health magazine. Jenner shocked Hollywood and the world in June 2015 with a Vanity Fair magazine spread that featured the first photographs taken following the former Olympian’s gender reassignment surgery. In a speech at the University of Pennsylvania in February, Jenner said that being transgender in Hollywood is easier than being a conservative Republican. Jenner later legally changed his name to Caitlyn Marie. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson | 1 |
ASHBURN, Va. — Silent protesters. A group in AARP shirts. A crying baby. They all ended up having to leave Donald J. Trump’s rally in Virginia on Tuesday, for various reasons. The silent protesters were escorted out by staff members midway through his speech, and they went silently, with peace signs over their heads. The group left in a similar fashion. But the crying baby was initially welcome in the event, or so the crowd was led to believe. “Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies,” Mr. Trump said. “I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. ” But the platitudes did nothing to comfort the infant, whose persistent wails seemed to be getting on the candidate’s nerves. “Actually, I was only kidding. You can get that baby out of here,” Mr. Trump said a few beats later with a slight smirk as laughs and a few gasps escaped from the crowd. “Don’t worry, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s O. K. People don’t understand. That’s O. K. ” Later in the rally, another baby cried, daring a rebuke from the candidate. But eventually the child calmed down. Senator Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee, was swift to pick up on Mr. Trump’s baby episode, taking a jab at him as he brought up the issue of prekindergarten at a rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. on Tuesday. “I saw that Donald Trump kicked a crying baby out of an event earlier today,” Mr. Kaine said, “so as I’m thinking about sometimes you wonder who the baby is. ” | 1 |
A rally by a white nationalist group at California’s State Capitol in Sacramento became violent on Sunday when protesters clashed with the group, leaving at least 10 people hurt, two of them critically, fire officials said. Videos posted on Twitter showed members of the nationalist group, the Traditionalist Worker Party, which had obtained a permit to demonstrate, brawling on the Capitol grounds with protesters who were dressed in black and concealed by face coverings. It was unclear whether the protesters were affiliated with any organization. Chris Harvey, a Fire Department spokesman, described them as “ anarchist types. ” “It was a very chaotic situation,” he said. “All we could do was just grab, load and go. ” The two critically injured people were expected to survive, fire officials told The Associated Press. At least eight others were reported to have suffered various cuts, bruises and stab wounds. The two groups began fighting shortly before noon on Sunday, just as the rally had been scheduled to begin, Mr. Harvey said. Local news reports indicated that the nationalists were heavily outnumbered. In videos published online, people could be seen punching, kicking and swinging sticks at one another amid screams of “racists” and “Nazis. ” At one point, police officers in riot gear intervened as several people kicked a person on the ground. At another, people dressed in black became physically confrontational with a news crew, ordering it to leave. The Capitol grounds cover several blocks in downtown Sacramento. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, said the Traditionalist Worker Party was formed last year as the political wing of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a group that it said aims to lure young people to white nationalism. In a post announcing the rally on the Traditionalist Youth Network website, the group said it expected to be confronted, and outnumbered, by protesters, but said it planned to go to draw attention to “the precarious situation our race is in. ” News media reports, citing a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said that about 30 members of the Traditionalist Worker Party had gathered at the Capitol for Sunday’s rally and that they were confronted by about 400 protesters. Law enforcement officers, some on horseback, broke up the melee as others helped tend to the injured until medical personnel arrived. For several hours after the violence broke out, the Capitol was on lockdown as the police restored order to the area. | 1 |
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(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. It was a remarkable moment in the relationship, and for Secretary of State John Kerry. With 23 days left in office, Mr. Kerry dropped diplomatic niceties and harshly criticized Israel over settlements, arguing that they imperil the solution. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blaming the United States for orchestrating last week’s Security Council resolution condemning the settlements. The United States denies doing so. Mr. Kerry appears to have concluded there is nothing left to lose, and he spoke knowing the new administration may well abandon American negotiating positions. _____ 2. Nearly 200 Homeland Security employees and contractors have accepted almost $15 million in bribes to let immigrants and drugs into the country over the last decade. That was our finding after a review of thousands of court records and internal agency documents. The employees sold green cards, gave sensitive information to drug cartels and looked the other way as drugs and people crossed the border. _____ 3. Women who took fish oil during the last three months of pregnancy significantly lowered the risk that their children would develop asthma, a new study found. But the researchers say the study should be replicated before doctors recommend that pregnant women routinely take fish oil. Doctors are eager to find ways to prevent the chronic disease, which is on the rise in developed countries. _____ 4. A wild Christmas Party at a beach in Sydney, Australia, drew more than 10, 000 people who left behind 16 tons of trash. The huge mess prompted officials to ban alcohol at the beach for the remainder of the Australian summer. “By late evening, it got so bad that we let the shark alarm off three times to try to get the swimmers out of the water,” said a community patrolman. “They were all intoxicated. ” _____ 5. Each December, predictions of next year’s hottest food items barrel forth. We’re hearing jackfruit, sorghum and harissa are about to have their moment. And don’t ignore horseradish, spirulina and breakfasts. Here’s a look at food trends over the last 20 years (remember bubble tea? So 2002) and a deeper exploration of the dark and often dubious work of forecasting. _____ 6. Donald Trump’s promise to impose high tariffs on American companies that manufacture goods abroad could take aim at his own brand, and his daughter’s as well. Much of the Ivanka Trump apparel on sale at Saks Off Fifth in New York on a recent visit was made in Indonesia, Vietnam or China. And at Trump Tower, a cap made in Bangladesh was on sale for $35. _____ 7. Tributes continue to pour in for Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in “Star Wars. ” She died Tuesday at age 60. Our film critic remembers Ms. Fisher for changing a popular understanding of female heroism, calling her the “foremother of Hermione Granger and Katniss Everdeen and of countless Disney princesses. ” And many fans remembered Ms. Fisher, who was candid about her struggles with bipolar disorder, by speaking out on Twitter about their experiences with mental illness. _____ 8. Fentanyl has surpassed heroin to become the deadliest drug on Long Island, where the number of fatalities are part of a national pattern. The synthetic opioid is often prescribed to cancer patients and can be 100 times more potent than morphine. “It’s essentially the serial killer of drugs,” said one addiction counselor. _____ 9. Among our articles today: The Marine Corps taught one recruit how to kill, but not how to come home. Our deep dive looks at the case of a young marksman who landed in prison after he returned from Afghanistan. He was so drunk, he didn’t remember the violent act that landed him there. His lawyers’ strategy of using PTSD and alcoholism as a defense initially failed. _____ 10. Finally, a proposal for a new kind of New Year’s resolution. Our tech experts say you should be focusing on a different kind of fitness in 2017: your tech fitness. Are your passwords outdated? Or worse, are your devices not ? Where are you storing old devices? Are your batteries optimized? The time is now to clean up and cast out — in an environmentally friendly manner, of course. _____ 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 |
Welcome to Watching, The New York Times’s guide. We comb through releases big and small to email readers twice a week with our timely recommendations. You can browse previous guides here, and to receive recommendations straight to your inbox, sign up here. Stay tuned for our coming website. Dear Watchers, Toss the confetti, pop the champagne, put on the nice sweatpants: We’re in for a great TV week. New shows, returning favorites, a bird documentary — heaven is a place on earth. And that place is within our televisions (and computers and tablets and whatnots). If you find yourself in need of some TV guidance, I’d love to answer your questions, or settle your disputes. I am, as I ever was, and ever shall be: watching@nytimes. com. And a “1776” fan. Happy watching! Watch “Gomorrah,” Wednesday, 10 p. m. SundanceTV. First came Roberto Saviano’s 2007 nonfiction book about Neapolitan organized crime. Then came the 2009 movie. Now there’s this Italian 2014 airing weekly in chunks. If you’re looking for romantic, sweeping Italian vistas, try “The Wine Show. ” “Gomorrah” is violent and bleak, almost suffocating. There are some familiar beats here, but the cinematography alone is worth tuning in for. Watch “Halt and Catch Fire,” Season 3 premiere, Tuesday, 9 p. m. AMC. The new season of this drama transplants the show to Silicon Valley from Texas — sort of a bummer, unless you are dying for another show about how people in California are just a little different from the rest of us. Thank god enough of the show’s emotional core — Donna, mostly — is still intact. This premiere highlights the strengths and shortcomings of “Halt. ” (The first episode is available now on AMC.) “Mad Men” is superficially about advertising, but more deeply it’s about constructing identity. “The Americans” includes tales of espionage, but foundationally is about defining truth. When it’s its best, “Halt” is about the need for human bonds, and how that need will override all other behaviors. Too often, though, it’s just about how computers and the internet worked (or didn’t) in the ’80s. Watch “The Profit,” Tuesday, 10 p. m. CNBC (Previous episodes are on Hulu). The entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis travels the country and invests his own money in struggling small businesses, on the condition that he be “100 percent in charge. ” If you like shows like “Tabatha’s Salon Takeover” or “Kitchen Nightmares,” but wish they were more supportive and had better messages, “The Profit” is for you. Lemonis is calm and direct, and he doesn’t yell at anyone or look to humiliate people anyone who comes across poorly does so on their own. This week’s Season 4 premiere is another venture (the show has included several such businesses) but more important, Lemonis seems to have retired his Hermès belt. Watch “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team,” Thursday, 9 p. m. CMT. Warning: The season premieres of “Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” tend to be the worst episode of the season. The early auditions include too many aspiring cheerleaders who clearly have no chance of making the team, and too many randos weighing in. (Being married to a football player does not make you an expert in dancing.) But once the show into gear, it’s one of the most absorbing, brutal reality shows going. The level of drive and athleticism on display is staggering, and if you’ve ever wondered just how extrinsic one’s image can be, this is the show for you. Everything is up for scrutiny: Are her eyes just too intense? Is that smile a little forced? Do her breasts seem natural enough? Hair: too severe? Every inch of the women’s bodies is critiqued candidly and often, which can be galling, but it’s almost refreshing to hear these narrow constraints articulated so openly. Watch “Toucan Nation,” Wednesday, 10 p. m. Animal Planet. Warning: This doc contains very sad footage of an abused toucan. But Grecia survives! And inspires the nation of Costa Rica! Viva Grecia and his new beak. On Monday at 8 p. m. ESPN2 has “Pin Kings” — wrestling, not bowling, alas. It’s the true story of high school wrestling teammates whose lives took different paths: One became a D. E. A. agent, one a cocaine kingpin. On Tuesday at 10 p. m. the tattoo contest show “Ink Master” returns to SpikeTV. And Thursday at 8 p. m. on Logo, it’s the premiere of the new season of “RuPaul’s All Stars Drag Race. ” Get swept up in the drama and passion of the dancers María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes in the recent Argentine documentary “Our Last Tango. ” Once a renowned couple from the Buenos Aires tango scene, the two split professionally after their marriage fell apart. Now the veteran dancers reflect on their life’s work and tumultuous relationship before a reunion. “Our Last Tango” goes a step further than the standard memoir doc, creatively reinterpreting moments from Rego’s childhood and her relationship with Copes into stylish modern and tango dance numbers. Between the couple’s colorful anecdotes and impressive choreography, the movie makes it easy to get caught up in its bittersweet story. (Watch on Netflix) — Monica Castillo | 1 |
Iraqi Christians Return to Charred Churches Captured from ISIS October 31, 2016 Iraqi Christians Return to Charred Churches Captured from ISIS
(QARAQOSH, Iraq) Surrounded by charred walls and in front of a ruined altar, dozens of Iraqi Christians celebrated mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh on Sunday for the first time since it was recaptured from Islamic State. Church bells rang out in the town on the southeastern approaches to Mosul where Iraqi troops, backed by U.S.-led air and ground forces, have been driving back the Sunni Muslim jihadists ahead of a battle for the city itself. "Today Qaraqosh is free of Daesh (Islamic State)," Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Butrus Moshe told worshippers. Islamic State has targeted the adherents and religious sites of minority communities in both Iraq and Syria. When it seized control of Mosul two years ago it issued an ultimatum to Christians: pay a tax, convert to Islam, or die by the sword.
READ MORE: ANCIENT NINEVAH CHRISTIANS FEAR ISIS IN RETURN HOME
Most abandoned their homes and fled toward the autonomous Kurdish region, abandoning one of Christianity's earliest centers.
"Our role today is to remove all the remnants of Daesh," the archbishop said. "This includes erasing sedition, separation and conflicts, which victimized us," said the archbishop, who was born in Qaraqosh.
"Political and sectarian strife, separating between one man and another, between ruler and follower, these mentalities must be changed,” he said.
Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to the first century AD. The number of Christians fell sharply during the violence which followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the Islamic State takeover of Mosul two years ago purged the city of Christians for the first time in two millennia.
It was from a Mosul mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a "caliphate" in 2014, spanning northern Iraq and eastern Syria. The recapture of the city would mark the effective defeat of the Iraqi wing of that domain.
Reuters contribution by Mahdi Talat ; Writing by Bushra Shakshir and Stephen Kalin; Editing by Dominic Evans) Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news
We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories | 0 |
Russia may have executed the ruthless and elusive leader of the Islamic State ( ) terrorist group Abu Bakr in Syria back in May, the Kremlin’s military claimed in a far from definitive statement. [“A May 28 airstrike on a suburban Raqqa, Syria, command post killed as up to 30 leaders and 300 troops in the militant group also identified as Daesh, ISIS, and ISIL. Reclusive leader Abu Bakr was present ‘and was eliminated in the strike,’” the ministry said, reports United Press International (UPI). “According to information, which we are checking through various channels, at the meeting was also present the leader of ISIS who as a result of the strike was destroyed. The American side was informed about the time and place of the Russian aviation through the channels of cooperation,” the Russian ministry declared in its statement, according to ABC News. Nevertheless, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, only hours after the defense ministry’s claim surfaced, said he does not have “100 percent confirmation” that Baghdadi has died. There have been multiple reports erroneously claiming Baghdadi has been wounded and even killed, but the Kremlin’s military statement marks the first time Russia acknowledged it might have executed the war criminal. Prior to the recent allegations by the Russian military that the ISIS chief may be dead, “unconfirmed news claimed that Baghdadi, whose exact whereabouts remained unknown for long, had been seriously wounded when airstrikes targeted a senior leadership meeting he chaired near the borders with Syria,” noted Iraqi News. Moreover, the West and Iraq are skeptical about Moscow’s claim that it has taken out Baghdadi, points out Reuters. “We can’t confirm these reports at this time,” said Col. Ryan Dillon, the spokesman for the U. S. coalition, which maintains communications with Russia. “We have no information to corroborate those reports,” reiterated U. S. Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “His death has been reported so often that you have to be cautious till a formal Daesh [ISIS] statement comes,” an unnamed European security official told Reuters. Pentagon officials say there are no indications of any “chatter” within the ranks of ISIS that Baghdadi has been killed or wounded, revealed Ret. Marine Col. Steve Ganyard who once served as a former deputy assistant secretary of state, according to ABC News. “There’s nothing to back it up, no intelligence to back it up. So we need to remain very, very suspect of this claim,” added the retired Marine. The Russians claimed that they killed the ISIS chief on the outskirts of Raqqa, the jihadist group’s de facto capital of Syria. Raqqa is under siege by dictator Bashar ’s Syrian military, supported by Russian airpower and Shiite militias, including the group Hezbollah, as well as the U. S. armed forces and their allies. That makes it difficult to know for certain whether the world’s most wanted terrorist has in fact fallen. “Raqqa is a city under siege, so the Russians have no hard evidence. There’s no DNA evidence that would suggest that he’s dead,” noted Col. Ganyard. However, Baghdadi this year reportedly disseminated a “farewell speech” to his subordinates, followers, and sympathizers in Mosul, ISIS’s last major stronghold in Iraq where U. locals are believed to be close to victory — pushing the terrorist group out. Echoing the commander of Iraq’s Federal Police, Baghdadi admitted defeat in Mosul and revealed that ISIS officers, apparently including him, had fled to Syria. The speech directed its combatants to “‘disguise and escape’ to the mountainous areas” of Iraq and Syria, reported News. Prior to the recent allegations by the Russian military that the ISIS chief may be dead, “unconfirmed news claimed that Baghdadi, whose exact whereabouts remained unknown for long, had been seriously wounded when airstrikes targeted a senior leadership meeting he chaired near the borders with Syria,” notes Iraqi News. | 1 |
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Gildardo Ramírez reached Mocoa on Sunday, only to find a scene of rubble where his Aunt Claudia’s neighborhood had been. He looked desperately through the ruins for his missing aunt, who he said had not been seen since a flood of mud and debris plowed through Mocoa the night before. “I arrived to the house, and it was destroyed,” he said by telephone from Mocoa, a small city in the southern mountains of Colombia near the border with Ecuador. “The only thing I found was a backpack. ” Anxious relatives like Mr. Ramírez and more than 1, 500 rescue workers raced on Sunday to find anyone who might still be alive and trapped in the wreckage in Mocoa, where parts of the city have been wiped off the map by a deluge of mud and floodwaters. In the air of the town, witnesses said they could already smell the dead under the rubble. Cadavers lay unburied in a cemetery while those in the town focused on search and rescue. “We have a huge challenge to find the missing people,” Carlos Ivan Márquez, the head of Colombia’s natural disaster unit, told reporters. The Colombian Red Cross said on Sunday that at least 234 people had died some news outlets reported higher tallies from other sources. Mr. Márquez said that in addition to the deaths, the authorities believed that more than 200 people had been injured. Some 600 residents were evacuated to temporary shelters. The destruction began with an overnight downpour of rain that lasted for hours, causing rivers around Mocoa to overflow their banks while most residents were sleeping. The resulting flood surged through the city on Saturday, carrying tons of debris, leveling houses and sweeping away cars and even large trucks. “The avalanche startled me when I was sleeping, and I went out to the street,” said Carolina Garreta, 20, a firefighter. “People were running and yelling the names of family members. Others were screaming at God. ” Ms. Garreta said that night she had found a boy clinging to a washing machine that had been carried away by the waters. “He told me that his mother and father were still in the home,” she said. “But where he pointed to, there was nothing. ” Torrential rains have pummeled other parts of the region as well, including Peru, where at least 80 people have been killed in mudslides in recent weeks. Roads and bridges throughout Peru have been damaged, and some 120, 000 people have been left homeless. After Wilson Carrera heard the news of the disaster in Mocoa, he traveled 50 miles on treacherous roads from the Colombian town of Puerto Asis to search for his parents. He said he had found his father, who told him that his mother may not have survived. “They had managed to get out of the house when they started to hear noise,” he said in a telephone interview. “But the water caught up to them in the street, and my mother let go of his hand. ” The city was cut off from many services on Sunday, leaving nearly all residents without electricity, clean water or gasoline many people huddled in shelters. Survivors used car batteries to recharge cellphones in hopes of contacting loved ones in other towns. “There’s not a single drop of drinkable water — we need water, that’s what’s urgent — and there’s nothing to eat,” Marisol González, the head of a nearby technological institute, told the newspaper El Tiempo. President Juan Manuel Santos visited Mocoa on Sunday for the second time since the disaster struck. He said more help was on the way, while acknowledging that there had been “bottlenecks” in the response. He promised that electric power would be restored soon, that water would be brought in and that destroyed parts of the city would be rebuilt. “The idea is that Mocoa will be better than it was,” he said. Colombia’s Weather Service predicted light rains on Sunday, far less extreme than those that hit the region earlier in the weekend. Dr. Herman Granados, a surgeon at a hospital in Mocoa, said the medical staff there was overwhelmed and that blood supplies were running very low. Many people were still missing, he said: “Under the mud, I am sure there are many more. ” | 1 |
Politics Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says UK voters ‘have to build the capability to mobilize and to organize’ against Brexit.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says Britain should keep its “options open” on whether or not to leave the European Union until after Brexit talks with the bloc are completed.
During an interview on Friday with BBC Radio 4's “Today” program, Blair described the EU referendum as “a catastrophe” and said UK voters should be given the option of a second EU referendum.
Britain should not withdraw from the EU until it becomes clearer how Brexit would impact UK’s economic, social and cultural future, Blair said.
"The bizarre thing about this referendum is that we took a decision but we still don't know the precise terms,” he said. “There’s got to be some way, either through parliament, or through an election, possibly through another referendum, that people express their view.”
The former premier, who was in office from 1997 until 2007, said it should be possible for the public to switch their verdict if it becomes clear the alternative negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May is going to be worse.
Blair’s argument contrasts sharply with that of May, who has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit” and that she’ll respect the referendum result. Blair had argued that Britain should stay in the EU before the referendum.
Economic growth in the UK is expected to slow significantly next year, due to uncertainty over of the Brexit vote.
Experts have warned that leaving the EU will severely hurt London’s position as a financial hub, unless the UK decides to keep its access to the single EU market by loosening its stance on immigration.
If the UK loses its access to the EU’s single market, the resulting increase in the costs of doing business and exporting to the EU would hurt Britain’s competitive position in Europe. Loading ... | 0 |
Times Insider delivers insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this piece, David E. Sanger, a national security correspondent, tells why he didn’t travel to Egypt to cover Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit with President Abdel Fattah . VIENNA — When Secretary of State John Kerry traveled on Wednesday to the presidential palace in Egypt, ostensibly the United States’ closest Arab ally and the recipient of billions of dollars in American aid, the reporters traveling with him were left behind at the airport. The Egyptian authorities made clear, State Department officials said, that reporters like myself would not be welcome at the presidential palace, apparently out of fear we might ask President Abdel Fattah a question or two about the dissidents he has jailed. Instead, only photographers and videographers would be permitted inside, to record the ritual handshakes between Mr. Kerry and Mr. Sisi — images that will suggest all is right between the authoritarian former general who leads Egypt and the nation that provides him with helicopters and tanks, as well as riot control equipment that human rights groups say may be used to facilitate Egypt’s crackdown against activists. In fact, this meeting comes against a backdrop of increasing tension over Washington’s $1. 3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt, which in recent years has been dwarfed by inflows to the country from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The State Department has lately been unable to obtain answers to its questions about whether any equipment bought with American dollars has been used by Egyptians to violate human rights, according to a blistering report issued last week by the Government Accountability Office. After more than two decades of traveling with American presidents and chief diplomats — on visits to places that have included some of the world’s most repressive nations — I am used to watching leaders disappear behind closed doors. But not even being allowed to see the doors close sets something of a new standard. State Department officials said that once they learned reporters would be barred from the palace, they never even requested visas for us so we could, as is customary, follow Mr. Kerry into the capital for his to visit. Instead, those who made the long trip were stuck in a lounge at the airport. I decided to stay behind in Vienna and meet up with the secretary’s entourage this weekend in Myanmar, where he is meeting with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has emerged from a long house arrest to become a leader of the new government. (There have been hints that we will have some access.) The contrast between Myanmar, once one of the world’s most closed societies, and Egypt made me revisit my recent travels with Mr. Kerry in terms of what restrictions were placed on us journalists. In November, Mr. Kerry zipped through Central Asia on a tour of some of the world’s most repressive states, including Turkmenistan, whose leadership shares Mr. Sisi’s approach to anyone who utters a thought the government finds distasteful. Still, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov allowed international reporters to record his encounters with Mr. Kerry, though local Turkmen journalists were kept at a far remove. The King of Bahrain, who knows a thing or two about clearing the streets of critics, invited reporters in for the start of his meeting with Mr. Kerry last month, and, with a deep understanding of how to keep them docile, fed them at the palace before they were packed off. Even China’s leaders routinely let the news media pool in, though they do their best to ignore them. Egypt used to do the same — in what now looks, by comparison, like the days of openness when Hosni Mubarak was still president. Mr. Mubarak was not known for tolerating much criticism before he was deposed, and would never have won an award from Transparency International. But he let reporters record his meeting with President Obama in 2009, when Mr. Obama made a trip to Cairo for a landmark speech about the future of the Arab world that reads today like a trail of broken dreams. Even as the aging Mr. Mubarak fell from power — pushed partly by Mr. Obama in phone calls during the Tahrir Square protests — he showed some savvy about the Western news media. During one of his last visits to Washington, Mr. Mubarak invited me and afew other reporters to his hotel suite to talk about the Middle East’s future — and about his differences with the Obama administration. For those of us trying to divine the workings of American foreign policy, there are certain accepted rituals that make up the everyday fabric of diplomatic reporting. The journalists on Mr. Kerry’s small plane — an older Boeing 757 that he despises — usually depart from the rear door, hop into a van that joins the back of his motorcade, and catch a glimpse of the start of most meetings. Sometimes, after these private chats, we are ferried back into a ceremonial room to ask questions, even uncomfortable ones. On rare occasions, we even receive answers. Tuesday in Vienna, where Mr. Kerry held talks on Syria, was typical: Two old American adversaries, happily or not, subjected themselves to our inquiries. First came Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia, who answered, and avoided, questions at a news conference. Then Mr. Kerry traveled to the Coburg Palace, where he had negotiated the final stages of the Iran nuclear deal for a month last summer, to see Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. I arrived there before the secretary, and Mr. Zarif came over for a handshake and a few jokes. He then answered a question about Iran’s complaints that companies and banks around the world are not returning to Tehran now that many sanctions have been lifted. Mr. Sisi took power in Egypt in 2013, after what was viewed by many around the world as a coup against Mohamed Morsi — who had been elected after Mr. Mubarak’s ouster — and led a crackdown in which more than 1, 000 Egyptians were killed and thousands more imprisoned. After the meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Kerry’s spokesman, Mark Toner, emailed State Department reporters with an official “readout. ” The two men had “discussed a range of bilateral and regional issues, including recent developments in Libya and Syria,” the statement said. Mr. Kerry had “also stressed the importance of Egypt’s role as a regional partner and reiterated U. S. commitment to help Egypt fight terrorism, increase economic growth, strengthen democratic institutions and bolster regional security. ” Such anodyne descriptions of these meetings, making no mention of the hard questions in the relationship, are exactly why reporters are expected to press American and foreign officials. But Mr. Sisi’s government seems to be avoiding questions even from its American benefactors. In its report, the Government Accountability Office said the Defense Department had been unable to conduct “ monitoring” on missiles and devices before 2015. And even though the checks were done in 2015, the report said, the State Department had been unable to vet the training and equipping of the military for possible human rights violations. “State deemed G. A. O. ’s estimate of the percentage of Egyptian security forces that were not vetted to be sensitive but unclassified information, which is excluded from this public report,” it said. That made it difficult to know if the military aid the United States was now giving Egypt violated the Leahy amendment, which links human rights performance to the delivery of American security equipment and training. I would have loved to ask Mr. Kerry and Mr. Sisi about that estimate at the presidential palace on Wednesday. If only reporters had been allowed in. | 1 |
BERLIN — She is considered the indispensable European, yet one of the biggest questions looming over the Continent’s crucial elections this year is whether Germany still regards Angela Merkel as indispensable, too. Seven months before national elections in Germany, the prevailing wisdom has held that Ms. Merkel, now seeking a fourth term as chancellor, is most vulnerable to the rising popularity of the country’s far right, just as other populist, parties are gaining in coming elections in the Netherlands and France. Yet suddenly, Germany’s left has unexpectedly resurged, prompting Der Spiegel magazine this weekend to pose a question on its cover: “Will She Fall?” A reliable answer is not in sight. The shocks of 2016 — Britain’s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States — have profoundly shaken Germany, which depends more than any other European nation on Pax Americana and global institutions set up after World War II. But on Sunday, the rebound of the left — along with the broad German distaste for Mr. Trump that has helped fuel it — was on full display. The Social Democrat Steinmeier, who has served in Ms. Merkel’s coalition government as foreign minister for seven years, won the presidency with 931 votes in the assembly that elects the president to a term. Despite being a largely ceremonial position, the presidency provides stature and an important platform for Mr. Steinmeier, a popular and charismatic politician. In his brief acceptance speech, he encouraged Germans to be bold in difficult times. “If we want to give others courage, then we must have some ourselves,” he said on a day when many other speakers evoked the country’s dark past and its emergence as a democracy after the Nazis’ defeat in World War II. One marvel of traveling the world, he said, was to realize that Germany has become a model. “Isn’t it wonderful that this, our difficult fatherland, is seen as an anchor of hope for many people in the world?” Mr. Steinmeier said. Before the vote, the conservative head of parliament, Norbert Lammert, gave a surprisingly fiery speech that — without mentioning names — attacked Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for trying to divide or weaken Europe. “Whoever champions a closed mind instead of openness to the world, whoever literally walls themselves in, bets on protectionism instead of free trade and preaches isolationism instead of states cooperating, and declares ‘We first’ as a program, should not be surprised if others do the same — with all the fatal side effects for international ties which we know from the 20th century,” Mr. Lammert said. That goes, he added, for individual European states “but also for our great partner country across the Atlantic. ” Once, it would have been rare for German politicians to lecture other democracies on values, especially the United States, but Germany is now regarded as a critical pillar in upholding the liberal Western order, which is one reason the Sept. 24 national elections are being watched so closely. It is also why some of Ms. Merkel’s fellow conservatives quietly grumbled that she was outfoxed when she agreed to put Mr. Steinmeier forward as the presidential candidate of her grand coalition government, which unites her conservative bloc with the Social Democrats. Even as the presidency stands above party politics, Mr. Steinmeier, 61, a lawyer and lifelong politician, is likely to be a boon for his party. His election coincided with a Social Democratic surge in polls since the chose Martin Schulz, a former president of the European Parliament, to lead them into battle against Ms. Merkel in the elections. Mr. Schulz grew up in a village in the Aachen area, becoming mayor of the nearby town of Würselen in 1987, and likes to tell stories from those days to portray himself as an ordinary guy. He first won election to the European Parliament in 1994, going on to become president in 2012. Most unusually for a German politician, he did not finish high school with a certificate, and trained initially as a bookseller. He outpolled Ms. Merkel in personal popularity, 50 percent to 34 percent, in the Infratest dimap survey this month, albeit with a slightly smaller degree of support than Ms. Merkel’s last Social Democratic challenger had at a similar stage of the 2013 race. Perhaps because he has spent most of his political career in European institutions in Brussels, Mr. Schulz can appear fresh to German voters. “What he is doing is filling a vacuum which has obviously arisen,” said Franz Müntefering, a veteran Social Democratic leader. “He is reaching people through emotions. ” In its weekend cover story, Der Spiegel described the current period as “the twilight of Merkel” and noted that she had appeared listless of late. Ms. Merkel’s conservative bloc appears somewhat rattled. Her respected finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, the member of Germany’s parliament, used an interview in Der Spiegel this weekend to accuse Mr. Schulz of populism. “When Schulz lets his supporters shout, ‘Make Europe great again,’ then it is almost word for word Trump,” Mr. Schäuble told the newsmagazine. Sigmar Gabriel, the Social Democrat who has replaced Mr. Steinmeier as foreign minister, swiftly retaliated: “The radical and mockery” in American politics “should not be swept in to Germany,” he said. Unquestionably, Mr. Trump’s election has so deeply altered the geopolitical landscape for Ms. Merkel. She has kept a cool distance, and the two leaders are expected to meet for the first time this spring. Domestically, Ms. Merkel is contending with a continuing political backlash to her 2015 decision to admit more than one million migrants, many of them Muslim, into the country. The Alternative for Germany party, which started as a movement against the euro currency, now carries an message and has leaders who have sympathy for Mr. Trump’s politics. Tellingly, Frauke Petry and other Alternative for Germany leaders did not applaud with everyone else during Mr. Lammert’s speech when he attacked isolationism or what he termed a “We first” attitude. Under pressure, Ms. Merkel has backpedaled somewhat in recent months, reducing the influx of migrants and taking a tougher line on deportations. As is often the case, people outside the bubble of national politics sounded considerably less stirred when asked about Ms. Merkel’s standing. Metin Elcivan, 41, who helps run a corner store in western Berlin’s Schöneberg district, was certain that German voters would prove conservative. “I think nothing will change at the elections,” he said, “and that we will have a grand coalition again, with Merkel as chancellor. ” | 1 |
Share on Facebook Share on Twitter “Decades ago, visitors from other planets warned us about where we were headed and offered to help. But instead, we, or at least some of us, interpreted their visits as a threat, and decided to shoot first and ask questions after.” advertisement - learn more The quote above comes from Paul Hellyer, former Canadian defence minister. ( source ) Based on all of my research into this topic, which has been conducted for more than 10 years, I’ve come across a number of apparent instances where these UFO’s completely avoided our aircfract, commercial or military. Their (the UFO) actions, based on all the documentation out there, always seem to be evasive in nature, regardless of whether these craft are human controlled, or extraterrestrial controlled. On the other hand, it’s not the same for the human race. When an unknown object enters into sensitive airspace, it’s going to be known about, and it’s not uncommon for military agencies to scramble jets in order to take a look. This is something that’s been very well documented, based on my estimates, this is something that’s happened thousands of times around the world for decades. “The nations of the world are currently working together in the investigation of the UFO phenomenon. There is an international exchange of data. Maybe when this group of nations acquires more precise and definite information, it will be possible to release the news to the world”– General Carlos Castro Cavero, Spanish Air Force General (0) advertisement - learn more Another common question that comes about when it comes to crashed craft, is if they are so advanced, how have we been able to bring some of them down? Roswell was not the only incident, I believe this to have happened several dozens of times, and I’m not the only one. From what I’ve looked into, they could disable guided missiles, nuclear weapons and electronic equipment, but were not well prepared for anti-aircraft fire (guns). I’m not quite sure if things have remained the same. Below are the words of Dr. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut and the 6th man to walk on the moon, clearly I am not alone in my research and beliefs. We now have statements from hundreds of credible whistleblowers on the topic of UFOs and Exxtraterrestrials. “Yes there have been crashed craft, and bodies recovered… We are not alone in the universe, they have been coming here for a long time.” ( source ) ( source ) “I happen to be privileged enough to be in on the fact that we have been visited on this planet, and the UFO phenomenon is real.” ( source) So, What Happens When They Are Tracked On Radar? When the FAA tracks them on radar, a protocol is followedT hey report it to data collection centers, one of them being the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies. (1) But evidence suggests that it’s not so simple as just following protocol. Retired FAA Senior Division Chief, John Callahan, shared his experience with regards to a specific UFO incident, you can watch hat b read more about that here . Representatives from the FBI and CIA showed up to find out more about the incident, and to obtain all documentation and video footage. Bigelow Aerospace Director, Mike Gold, recently expressed that he is glad somebody is taking the reports, because it is a “serious issue,” but he also said that he could not comment on what they do with them. To see that interview, click here . “If one thing is glaringly obvious, it is that the UFO phenomenon is global and has included many military encounters.”– Richard Dolan, Author, Historian, UFO Researcher. (0) So, what happens when UFOs are tracked on military/defence agency radar? Well, the first thing that happens is that it is recorded and documented. Documents regarding UFOs and the tracking of them on radar have been declassified within the past few years, there are countless examples from multiple agencies, like the NSA. ( source ) If something is violating your airspace, and performing maneuvers that defy our understanding of physics, maneuvers that no known air craft can perform, you’re going to want to take a closer look. As UFOs do present a number of defence, national security and air safety issues. One case in particular I’d like to start out with is the incident over Tehran, Iran. This incident occurred on the night of September 18th, 1976. A four page U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and NSA report describes the encounter in detail. Furthermore, both of the pilots involved discussed the event years later. (source) What happened on this night is an example of what has happened multiple times with regards to military encounters with UFOs. Residents of the city noticed a big bright object in the sky. The airport traffic controller also noticed, “it was an intensely bright object that was not supposed to be there.” The Iranian Air Force was contacted (at the time they were a close ally of the United States, under the rule of the Shah), and they dispatched two F-4 fighter jets to check out the object. The United States took this encounter very seriously, a report of what happened was sent to multiple national security officials AND U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, CIA Director George Bush, and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, among others. (0) Both of the F-4 interceptor pilots reported seeing the object visually, it was also tracked on their airborne radar. Both planes experienced critical instrumentation and electronics go offline at a distance of twenty-five miles from the object. Here is an excerpt from the report: “As the F-4 approached a range of 25 nautical miles it lost all instrumentation and communications. When the F-4 turned away from the object and apparently was no longer a threat to it, the aircraft regained all instrumentation and communications. Another brightly lighted object came out of the original object. The second object headed straight toward the F4. ” (source) The report also described how a smaller object detached from the bigger object, turned inside the arc of the F-4 itself, and then regained the original object. This incident lasted for several hours. I decided to use this example because it has a number of declassified supporting national security documents, which goes to show how serious this event was taken. Another significant event occurred over NATO’s Aviano Air Base in Italy, on July 1, 1977. During this event, several U.S. Air Force personnel saw a UFO hovering outside of the base perimeter. While the object was there, the facility lost electrical power. (5) From November 9th through December 18th in 1978, several major UFO events occurred over the oilfields of Kuwait. They also appeared to disrupt major electrical equipment in this case. This event received major attention from the Kuwaiti government, as well as the U.S. government and Embassy. (6)(0) According to Richard Dolan, one of the world’s leading UFO researchers, perhaps the most dramatic of all were two encounters that year on December 16th by the Chilean Air Force: “Two pilots on a training mission, each flying an F5 fighter aircraft, tracked the object on their airborne radar. It gave a return equal to ten or more aircraft carriers-except this object was in the air, not floating on the water. Each pilot assumed his radar equipment was faulty, until he learned that the other pilot was also getting the same return. Not only this, but ground radar from a nearby airport also picked up the object and confirmed its huge size. The pilots also saw the object with their own eyes. One pilot later said that at a distance of twenty miles, it looked “like a plantain banana swathed in smoke.” The pilots were frightened, having no missiles or weapons. As they approached the massive object, which had been motionless all this while, it took off at an unimaginable speed. All at once, it vanished from the three radar screens.”(7)(0) The very next morning the Chilean Air Force scrambled some F5 fighter jets to intercept another very large UFO. The pilots described this one as very bright, and very large. The Chilean Air Force has officially acknowledged these events, but could not explain what had occurred. (7)(0) On May 19, 1986, there was a large portion of Brazilian airspace that was constantly occupied by UFOs. The Brazilian air-force constantly scrambled their jets to get a closer look at what they were picking up on radar. Here is a quote from the Brazilian Minister of Aeronautics, Brigadier General Otavio Moreira Lima: “At least 20 objects were detected by Brazilian radars. They saturated the radars and interrupted traffic in the area. Each time that radar detected unidentified objects, fighters took off for intercept. Radar detects only solid metallic bodies and heavy (mass) clouds. There were no clouds nor conventional aircraft in the region. The sky was clear. Radar doesn’t have optical illusions. We can only give technical explanations and we don’t have them. It would be very difficult for us to talk about the hypothesis of an electronic war. It’s very remote and it’s not the case here in Brazil. It’s fantastic. The signals on the radar were quite clear.” (8)(0) I’d also like to point out that UFOs have been seen and coincide with the deactivation of nuclear missiles and nuclear missile facilities all over the world. Below is a video of Robert Hastings , you can look into him if you want to learn more. The list goes on and on, UFOs tracked on radar and military jets scrambled to check them out is nothing new. I hope I’ve given you a good amount of info to further your research if interested. Dozens and dozens of governments have recently released their UFO files, admitting to the phenomenon being real. You can access the United Kingdoms latest batch that was released in June 2013 here . According to U.S. defense records, an interesting sighting of a UFO was reported by the Ghana Air Force on July 27, 1987. It was a large, silent object which the pilot described as two or three times large than a Boeing 747. He said that the “object dropped altitude, then gained altitude, then was replaced by small bluish lights arranged in a circular formation.” (9)(0) Below is a quote from Paul Hellyer, X Canadian Defence Minister describing another documented case. “In one of the cases during the cold war, 1961, there were about 50 UFOs in formation flying South from Russia across Europe. The supreme allied commander was very concerned and was about ready to press the panic button when they turned around and went back over the North Pole. They decided to do an investigation and they investigated for three years and they decided that with absolute certainty that four different species, at least, have been visiting this planet for thousands of years. There’s been a lot more activity in the past two decades, especially since we invented the atomic bomb. They are very concerned about that and if we will use it again, because the whole cosmos is in unity and it affects not just us but other people in the cosmos. They’re very much afraid that we might start using atomic weapons again and this would be very bad for us, and them also.” – Paul Hellyer ( source ) What Do They Look Like When The Pilots See Them? “If it does indeed turn out that there is relevant physical evidence, if this evidence is carefully collected and analyzed, and if this analysis leads to the identification of several facts concerning the UFO phenomenon, then will be the time for scientists to step back and ask, what are these facts trying to tell us? If those facts are strong enough to lead to a firm conclusion, then will be the time to confront the more bizarre questions. If, for instance, it turns out that all physical evidence is consistent with a mundane interpretation of the causes of UFO reports, there will be little reason to continue to speculate about the role of extraterrestrial beings. If, on the other hand, the analysis of physical evidence turns up very strong evidence that objects related with UFO reports were manufactured outside the solar system, then one must obviously consider very seriously that the phenomenon involves not only extraterrestrial vehicles but probably also extraterrestrial beings.” ( source ) The quote above comes from Peter Andrew Sturrock , a British Scientist, and an Emeritus Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University. Sturrock and a number of other notable scientists around the world came together during the 1990’s in order to examine the physical evidence that is commonly associated with the UFO phenomenon. One example used by Sturrock in his analysis, was a photo taken by two Royal Canadian Air Force pilots on August 27th, 1956, in McCleod, Alberta, Canada. ( “Physical Evidence Related To UFO Reports”– The Sturrock Panel Report – Electromagnetic Effects ) ( source ) ( source ) The pilots were flying in a formation of four F86 Sabre jet aircraft. One of the pilots described the phenomenon as a “bright light which was sharply defined as disk-shaped,” that looked like “a shiny silver dollar sitting horizontal.” Another pilot managed to photograph the object, as you can see to the left. The sighting lasted for a couple of minutes, and this specific case was analyzed by Dr. Bruce Maccabee, who estimated (from available data) that the luminosity of the object (the power output within the spectral range of the film) to be many megawatts. The Sturrock Panel also found it to be the case that a strong magnetic field surrounding the phenomenon or object was a common occurrence. Maccabee published his analysis in the Journal of Scientific Exploration (“Optical Power Output of an Unidentified High Altitude Light Source,” published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, vol. 13, #2, 1999). He also published one in 1994 titled “Strong Magnetic Field Detected Following a Sighting of an Unidentified Flying Object,” in the same journal (8, #3, 347) Dr. Jacques Vallee, notable for co-developing the first computerized mapping of Mars for NASA, and for his work at SRI International on the network information center for ARPANET , a precursor to the modern Internet, also published a paper in the Journal of Scientific Exploration titled “Estimates of Optical Power Output in Six Cases Of Unexplained Ariel Objects With Defined Luminosity Characteristics.” ( source )( source ) This particular case is also referenced in this paper. “Behind the scenes, high ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense.” Former head of the CIA, Roscoe Hillenkoetter, 1960 (source, NY Times) It’s only now that more people are starting to become aware of this information. Here is a quote from Senator Barry Goldwater before the de-classification of all of these files: “This thing has gotten so highly-classified… it is just impossible to get anything on it. I have no idea who controls the flow of need-to-know because, frankly, I was told in such an emphatic way that it was none of my business that I’ve never tried to make it to be my business since. I have been interested in this subject for a long time and I do know that whatever the Air Force has on the subject is going to remain highly classified.” – Senator Barry Goldwater , Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee (source) Below is a great clip from author and researcher Richard Dolan , taken from The Citizens Hearing On Disclosure summing it all up in one short speech. For more information on the UFO/Extraterrestrial topic, and for more articles on the subject by CE, click HERE . Sources: | 0 |
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has published a story entitled “What is Islamophobia?” containing misleading information such as the common trope that “Islam means peace”. [Published just hours after the terrorist attack outside Finsbury Park mosque, the BBC’s article is hosted on their CBBC (Children’s BBC) website. It begins: “Following recent events in the news you might have been hearing a lot about Islam and maybe the term ‘Islamophobia’ — but what does this mean?” It states: Islam is over 1, 400 years old, dating back to the 7th Century. The Islamic word for God is Allah. The word “Islam” comes from an old Arabic word meaning “peace. ” UPDATE 21 June 2017: Following the publication of this article, the BBC has changed its copy to state: Islam is over 1, 400 years old, dating back to the 7th Century. The Islamic word for God is Allah. The word “Islam” means submission to God’s will and obedience to God’s law. It comes from an old Arabic word meaning “peace. ” In reality, the word “Islam” actually means “submission” implying submission to Allah. There has been a broader discussion on the matter in recent years, but while “Salam” means welcome or peace, the root of the word Islam is grounded in the idea of submission to Allah. This has been confirmed by a number of Quranic scholars, as well as Muslims on the Ummah Forum website. One writes: “i would sum it up as, islam means submission, one who submits is a muslim, and submission to Allah will bring peace to your heart insha Allah. ” Even Britain’s most notorious Islamist preacher Anjem Choudary concurred, in an interview with CBN: “You can’t say that Islam is a religion of peace,” Choudary told CBN News. “Because Islam does not mean peace. Islam means submission. So the Muslim is one who submits. There is a place for violence in Islam. There is a place for jihad in Islam. ” CBBC adds, with no evidence: “ … many people say those terrorist groups have extreme beliefs of hatred and violence that have little to do with what most Muslims believe. ” In reality, vast numbers of Muslims, even in the Western world, hold views and ideals that fit well with the modus operandi of terrorist groups. While indeed there is some discrimination all around the world, and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated groups created and seized upon the word Islamophobia in order to promote the ideas of fitna and fasad: effectively the idea of standing in the way of the spread of Islam. Quran 2:191 commands: “And kill [the unbelievers] wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter, and do not fight with them at the Sacred Mosque until they fight with you in it, but if they do fight you, then slay them such is the recompense of the unbelievers. ” Quran 5:32 says: “Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment. ” Following the London Bridge terrorist attack, CBBC wrote: A white van hit pedestrians on London Bridge at about 10pm on Saturday, then three men got out and attacked people in nearby Borough Market. Police arrived within a few minutes and the three men believed to be responsible for the attack were killed by the specially trained police. Dozens of emergency service workers were sent to the scene and the injured were taken to five London hospitals to be treated. Police investigations into what happened are continuing. A group called Islamic State has said it was behind the attack, but police haven’t confirmed if that is true. Under an article entitled “What is the Islamic State?” the BBC’s children’s website says: “IS are a group based in the Middle East, mainly in Iraq and Syria, who have extreme religious beliefs. They use brutal violence against anyone who doesn’t agree with their views. “They claim to follow the religion of Islam, but many people say their beliefs of hatred and violence have little to do with what the majority of Muslims believe. ” | 1 |
During a rally in Tuesday night in Florida, Hillary Clinton lied. Wait a second, that’s not surprising. That’s like saying the sky is blue . . . unless you’re a liberal, in which case you’ll probably say “the sky is green” and “how dare you discriminate against it.”
Via TruthAndAction
At least you can say this about Hillary Clinton, she’s consistent. She’s a consistent liar, a consistent hypocrite and most of all, she’s a consistent criminal. Unlike most of her past lies, which have somewhat intricate and easy to believe for the lazy minded, her latest lie is so far-fetched and comes at a time when she’s seeking as much sympathy as she can get, that you would have to be the world’s biggest idiot to believe it.
During her rally in Florida, Hillary claimed that she was in New York City on 9/11. The only problem is that she wasn’t. Not even the media can back up this claim, because many of them wrote sob stories about how she was in Washington that day.
Uh oh . . .
Not only was she not in New York, there’s a story published by Politico about exactly what she did that day and how she reacted when she heard the news. Clinton did go to New York, but not until the following the day.
She had CNN on as she talked on the phone with her legislative director when the first plane hit. Then the second. By the time she got to the Capitol, the Pentagon had been hit by a third plane. Capitol police were evacuating Senate office buildings. She dialed her daughter, who was in New York. She dialed her husband, who was in Australia. She and other senators received a briefing at the Capitol police station early in the evening. And after “a day indelibly etched in my mind,” and as nightfall approached, Clinton joined congressional colleagues on the steps of the Capitol, standing next to some of her fiercest political opponents, singing “God Bless America” with tears in her eyes.
Her statements came as she was opening old wounds revolving around the Pulse night club in Florida. She claimed that she was in New York on 9/11 and that she would defeat ISIS and protect America. Does that include from herself? Let’s hope she doesn’t get the opportunity.
Source: dailycaller.com
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