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The Real, Damning Reason Trump Opened Fire On Blumenthal Via Twitter (DETAILS) | By now you ve seen Donald Trump s absolute Monday meltdown on Twitter, a ten-hour tweeting frenzy that beat every other tirade he s ever had on the social media platform. Trump was cooped up indoors because he really wanted to golf, while still claiming it wasn t a vacation, so he was forced to stay at his New Jersey golf club and he was rained off the course.But scrambled in with the rest of his nonsense were four tweets about Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Four out of thirteen total. That means at least a third of the Orange Babyman s fury was directed at one guy. What could have gotten Trump mad enough for this?Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a phony Vietnam con artist! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017Never in U.S.history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal. He told stories about his Vietnam battles and . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017 conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017I think Senator Blumenthal should take a nice long vacation in Vietnam, where he lied about his service, so he can at least say he was there Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017And did you notice the time gap there? Eight and a half hours passed after the initial spate of Blumenthal tweets, and Trump was still fuming about him.It turns out Trump has more to be upset with Blumenthal over than his supposed lies about Vietnam, and it wasn t just his appearance earlier in the day on CNN s New Day, where he discussed the ongoing investigation into Trump s collusion with Russia.According to a Jeffrey Toobin article in the New Yorker from June 20th, Senator Blumenthal is the Democrat most likely to succeed in having his case against Trump heard regarding violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. From the article:Other lawsuits against Trump, on emoluments grounds, have been filed, including one by the governments of Maryland and the District of Columbia (none have yet been decided), but Blumenthal believes that his suit will be the one that survives a challenge on standing grounds. The clause specifically says that the President needs the consent of Congress to receive this money from foreign countries, so he s deprived us of the chance to give our consent, Blumenthal said. I think that s enough for us to get into court. Notably, if Judge Emmet Sullivan, of the federal district court in Washington, allows the case to proceed, the plaintiffs may be allowed to obtain Trump s elusive tax returns as part of the discovery process.So there s that. Looks like Mr. PhonyPants McDraftDodger was doing a little projecting about Vietnam because he was afraid of the war Blumenthal is bringing down on him, right here at home.Blumenthal had the last laugh:Mr. President: Your bullying hasn't worked before and it won't work now. No one is above the law. Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) August 7, 2017Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 1real |
US Military Hackers Claim Penetration of Russia | US Military Hackers Claim Penetration of Russia 11/07/2016
SPUTNIK NEWS
US military hackers have penetrated Russia’s electric grid, telecommunications networks and Kremlin’s command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons, according to a series of reports by a major US television network.
NBC News disclosed the penetration in a series of reports, explaining that US efforts parallel claims, also by US officials, that Russia, China and other nations have placed hidden malware on parts of US critical infrastructure.
The penetration by all sides appears to be in preparation for an all-out war in cyberspace, according to NBC News, which said it was briefed by a US intelligence official and given an opportunity to review highly classified documents.
At the same time, the network downplayed the prospect of a cyber war, making it appear as if the leak was intended as a warning to US adversaries.
NBC News then attempted to link its explosive report to Tuesday’s US presidential election, citing concerns of mischief by Russian hackers that would fall far short of the Armageddon-like scenario that the report implied.
Instead, the network explained US election-related concerns as “cyber mischief,” which could involve releasing fake documents or creating bogus social media accounts to spread misinformation.
The Obama administration has created a public, but unconfirmed narrative, that hackers controlled by the Russian government have stolen emails from the Democratic Party headquarters, a private computer used by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while serving as secretary of State and computers used by Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta.
According to the narrative, Russia stole the emails and gave the messages to WikiLeaks, which has flooded the internet with the material on a daily basis leading up to Tuesday’s election.
Russia has denied any responsibility for the Clinton-related hacks and links between WikiLeaks and Russian intelligence have never been substantiated.
Moreover, recent media reports in the United States indicate that Clinton’s private server she used for official business during her tenure as secretary of state had been penetrated by at least five foreign intelligence services.
The emails have proved especially embarrassing for the Clinton campaign by disclosing decisions in the Clinton State Department that favored large donors to the Clinton Foundation in what appear to be “pay-for-play” schemes of selling access and influence.
Moreover, the activity appears to coincide with lucrative speaking engagements for former President Bill Clinton. | 1real |
U.S. House Democrats' Pelosi: administration may shift funds for Zika | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the Obama administration may announce as early as Thursday that it is shifting more money into fighting the Zika virus. “Maybe today or tomorrow,” Pelosi told reporters in a hallway on Thursday. She did not give an amount, but said, “I think they are going to try to do it a piece at a time, hoping that something else will happen,” an apparent reference to the administration’s request that the Republican-led Congress approve a funding bill to combat the virus. The Obama administration in February requested $1.9 billion to fight the virus, which was first detected in Brazil last year and has spread rapidly in the Americas. Before going home on summer recess, lawmakers were discussing a $1.1 billion measure, but the bill stalled amid partisan bickering. House Democrats at a news conference urged the Republicans to reconvene Congress to address the virus. Florida is grappling with at least 21 cases of locally transmitted Zika, and the Obama administration has already reprogrammed nearly $600 million to fight the virus. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will spend all of its remaining funds by the end of September, while two other agencies will exhaust their resources for Zika by the end of August, Representative Rosa DeLauro said. Money will have to be shifted from biomedical research to fight Zika, DeLauro said. “If they don’t, vaccine development will be stopped dead in its tracks,” she said. | 0fake |
BLACK STUDENT With Hot Glue Gun Causes Elite LIBERAL COLLEGE To Lock-Down Campus | After a sighting of black student with a hot glue gun caused the tolerant, liberal campus of Colgate quickly jumped into action and locked down the school. The university president took swift action, blamed the Campus Safety Director and quickly placed him on administrative leave until an investigation is completed. There have been no shots fired Colgate University locked down its campus today, after a student spotted an armed individual who was actually holding a hot glue gun.The upstate New York university s official Twitter account tweeted out a warning late Monday urging students to seek shelter. The tweets warned there was an armed person on campus, although there were no reports of shots fired. But shortly before midnight, the lockdown was lifted. In a statement to students, Colgate announced that after thorough investigation, and with the assistance of the person in question, law enforcement identified the individual as a student who was using a glue gun for an art project. Students on social media quickly reported that the glue-toting student was African-American, and grumbled that race may have played a factor. In an additional statement Tuesday morning, Colgate President Brian W. Casey confirmed the student s race and apologized. WFBColgate Alert: Because of a dangerous situation in the Coop, everyone is advised to leave the building. Colgate University (@colgateuniv) May 2, 2017Colgate Alert: There is an armed person at the Coop. Find a safe space and remain indoors. If you are off-campus,stay away. Colgate University (@colgateuniv) May 2, 2017Law enforcement is on campus for reports of an alleged armed person in the Coop. They are searching the building. Colgate University (@colgateuniv) May 2, 2017Campus safety officials report there have been no shots fired. Situation is still under investigation. Updates as available. Colgate University (@colgateuniv) May 2, 2017Colgate University President made the following statement: This morning I received an update from Campus Safety regarding the events of last night, details of which I want to share with the campus. Please know that I have called for a thorough, deeper review of all matters related to last night from the original reporting of the events to the University s response. I will have this report within ten days and I will share its findings with the campus.At a few minutes before 8 PM last night a Colgate student called Colgate Campus Safety reporting that they had seen a black male entering the Coop, carrying what appeared to be a gun. A few minutes later, Campus Safety sent out the first of two campus announcements, the first identifying an Emergency Situation and the second indicating, in a profound error, that there was an active shooter on the campus. (The remaining campus notices last night were sent out by our Communications Office and an emergency response team.)After the initial report, Campus Safety contacted local law enforcement units, which proceeded to engage in steps associated with reports of a person with a gun in a public setting. Only after it was determined that the person in the Coop was a Colgate student who had a glue gun needed for an art project was Campus Safety able to end the campus lockdown.To more fully understand the events of last night, we are in contact with the student who had the glue gun and will be with the student who made the initial report. Importantly, I am also in contact with those who were making the essential administrative decisions last night.It is important that we understand the role that implicit racial bias had in the initial reporting of and responses to the events of last night. I want to make sure we speak with those who made and received the initial report to understand the role this played.More egregiously, perhaps, was the effect profiling had on the response of safety officers and other University offices to these events. In addition, communication and enforcement steps were taken that, I believe, confused and harmed this campus and our students. As a first step, I have asked Campus Safety Director Bill Ferguson, who was leading university security efforts last night, to take an administrative leave from his position effective immediately while we conduct a review of the events of last night.This has been a difficult, painful several hours on this campus. My obligation is, first, to demand a full accounting of what happened. My next obligation is to take steps to ensure the safety of all Colgate students, faculty and staff. My final obligation my desire is to improve Colgate. If there is anything that can and should come from these events it must be that concrete steps are taken to make Colgate a better place, and a university worthy of both regard and respect. | 1real |
U.S. Interior chief recommends shrinking Utah's Bears Ears monument | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said on Monday he has recommended that President Donald Trump reduce the size of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah - a move that drew quick fire from conservationists but was supported by mining and drilling interests. The 1.35 million acre (5,463 square kms) area, designated by former President Barack Obama during his final days in office and named for its iconic twin buttes, is the first of 27 national monuments to be reviewed by the Trump administration as part of a plan to increase development on federal lands. “My job is to make sure that I ... reflect the concerns of Utah, and reflect the concerns of the taxpayers and the public who own the lands, and I think we’ve done that,” Zinke told reporters in a teleconference about his interim recommendation sent to Trump on Saturday. Zinke toured Utah for four days before making the recommendation. His report said that the Antiquities Act, used by past presidents to declare monuments, should cover the “smallest area compatible” with protecting important sites. “Therefore... the Secretary of the Interior recommends that the existing boundary of the (Bears Ears) be modified to be consistent with the intent of the act.” Rather than designating a vast monument, as Obama did, “it would have been more appropriate to identify and separate the areas that have significant objects to be protected to meet the purposes of the Act,” Zinke’s report said. More study is necessary to determine how much smaller Bears Ears should be, Zinke said, and that decision will not be made until all of the 27 monuments are reviewed. Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society, said Zinke’s recommendation was “nothing less than an attack on the future of all American monuments, parks and public lands,” and was “against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of Americans.” A public comment period that closed in late May generated hundreds of thousands of comments, with the majority expressing hope that monuments like Bears Ears remain protected. Zinke also recommended that tribes be allowed to co-manage “cultural areas” within the resized monument - a nod to Native Americans who had lobbied for protections for the territory - and that Congress review conservation policies in the area. His recommendation to Trump set the tone for the administration’s broader review, triggered by an executive order in April. Trump had argued that previous administrations “abused” their right to designate monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906 and put millions of acres of land, mainly in western states, off limits to drilling, mining, logging and ranching without adequate input from locals. The review is likely to add fuel to a heated national debate over Washington’s role in America’s wildest spaces. Environmentalists and tribal groups support federal oversight, but many state political leaders, conservatives and industry groups say the lands should generate money for business, creating jobs, or yielding revenue for education and other public services. While the land encompassed by the Bears Ears monument is not believed to contain huge amounts of coal, oil or gas, several other monuments on Zinke’s review list do - making the Bears Ears decision symbolically important to industry groups. Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, representing oil and gas companies, said Zinke’s approach was sensible. “It’s clear that Bears Ears was an overreach, and was much larger than necessary to protect cultural resources.” | 0fake |
Turkish army expands deployment in Syria's northwest: rebels | AMMAN (Reuters) - The Turkish army is expanding its deployment in northwest Syria with the goal of encircling a Kurdish enclave and reining in Russian strikes in the Idlib border province under a deal to reduce clashes, rebels and witnesses said on Sunday. A convoy of Turkish army troops entered Syria near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing on Thursday in the first such deployment since last year when Ankara launched a major ground and air offensive to clear Islamic State militants from its last stretch of border with Turkey. At least four convoys carrying scores of armored vehicles and equipment have been stationed in several locations in the first phase of a deployment that is expected to deepen inside rebel-held Idlib, opposition sources said. Nearly 200 troops are now stationed in areas that separate territory under control of Kurdish groups and opposition groups, said Ibrahim al Idlibi, a military adviser in the opposition s Free Syrian Army (FSA). Witnesses said Turkish bulldozers were working around the clock, digging fortifications and setting up observation posts. A new deployment of Turkish armored vehicles and personnel arrived along the Syrian border on Saturday, positioned on the Turkish side, witnesses said. Turkey was expanding its presence in an area where it hopes to act as a barrier to Kurdish ambitions of uniting the isolated Afrin region, north of Idlib, with the rest of a self-declared autonomous Kurdish zone in the country s north. Turkish positions near Samaan castle in the Sheikh Barakat mountains of the fertile, olive-growing province put them just a few kilometers from Kurdish militia forces based in Jendaris. Turkish forces are still in a state of advancing and expanding, said Mustafa al Sejari, a Free Syrian Army official. Turkey says its operations there, along with the Syrian rebel groups it backs, is part of a deal it reached last month with Russia and Iran in Kazakhstan to reduce fighting between insurgents and the Syrian government. Syria on Saturday denounced the Turkish incursion saying it was a flagrant violation of its sovereignty and demanded Ankara pull its troops.[L8N1MP0EN] The Turkish incursion into the province dominated by the jihadist group Tahrir al Sham, whose backbone is ex-Nusra Front, Syria s former al Qaeda offshoot, has run smoothly. Rebel sources familiar with the deployment said the operation was preceded by weeks of coordination between Tahrir al Sham with Turkish intelligence officers to ensure no clashes happened. Free Syrian Army rebel groups said the goal of the campaign was to push deeper into the province, with the expansion of supply lines and observation posts. The jihadists would be retreating further south in a phased withdrawal. The Turks will be taking up positions 40 km deep inside Idlib as agreed, Idlibi said. The goal was ultimately to create a contiguous stretch that goes from Bab al-Hawa all the way to Jarablus city, west of Euphrates River and as far south as the city of Bab, widening a pocket of the northern border under the control of Turkey-backed rebels. Many residents in the towns of Idlib province, where more than two million people live, have welcomed the arrival of Turkish troops. They are seen as a bulwark against heavy Russian and Syrian army bombardment to crush the rebel province that would cause massive devastation and high civilian casualties. The Turks presented the factions of the FSA the military and logistical support so that Idlib escapes the fate of Deir Zor or Raqqa, said Colonel Abdul Jabar Akaidi, a senior commander in the FSA in the north. Heavily populated Idlib has been the target of hundreds of strikes by the Russia and Syrian air forces in the past year that has killed hundreds of civilians and destroyed hospitals and civil defense centers. Six months of relative peace under a Turkish-Russian understanding that gave a temporary reprieve to thousands of people was shattered when Russia resumed an intensive bombing campaign last month when jihadists launched an offensive against Syrian army positions.[L5N1M508R] On Saturday in southern Idlib, jets believed to be Russian killed at least three civilians and injured scores when bombs struck the outskirts of Maarat al Numan. The air raids also targeted a camp run by Failaq al Sham, a Turkey-backed FSA group in Kafr Ruma village where a strike last month killed dozens of its fighters. | 0fake |
The Working Class Won The Election — Paul Craig Roberts | By Paul Craig Roberts on November 9, 2016 It seems that the oligarchs were deceived by their own media propaganda. Donald Trump has won a stunning victory over Hillary Clinton, wrongfooting investors around the world and defying Republican and Democratic political elites with his populist “Drain the Swamp” and “Make America Great Again” movement.
by Paul Craig Roberts
The US presidential election is historic, because the American people were able to defeat the oligarchs.
Hillary Clinton, an agent for the Oligarchy, was defeated despite the vicious media campaign against Donald Trump. This shows that the media and the political establishments of the political parties no longer have credibility with the American people.
It remains to be seen whether Trump can select and appoint a government that will serve him and his goals to restore American jobs and to establish friendly and respectful China, Syria, and Iran.
It also remains to be seen how the Oligarchy will respond to Trump’s victory. Wall Street and the Federal Reserve can cause an economic crisis in order to put Trump on the defensive, and they can use the crisis to force Trump to appoint one of their own as Secretary of the Treasury. Rogue agents in the CIA and Pentagon can cause a false flag attack that would disrupt Russia.
Trump could make a mistake and retain neoconservatives in his government.
With Trump there is at least hope. Unless Trump is obstructed by bad judgment in his appointments and by obstacles put in his way, we should expect an end to Washington’s orchestrated conflict with Russia, the removal of the US missiles on Russia’s border with Poland and Romania, the end of the conflict in Ukraine, and the end of Washington’s effort to overthrow the Syrian government. However, achievements such as these imply the defeat of the US Oligarchy. Although Trump defeated Hillary, the Oligarchy still exists and is still powerful. NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Trump said that he no longer sees the point of NATO 25 years after the Soviet collapse. If he sticks to his view, it means a big political change in Washington’s EU vassals. The hostility toward Russia of the current EU and NATO officials would have to cease. German Chancellor Merkel would have to change her spots or be replaced. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would have to be dismissed.
We do not know who Trump will select to serve in his government. It is likely that Trump is unfamiliar with the various possibilities and their positions on issues. It really depends on who is advising Trump and what advice they give him.
Once we see his government, we will know whether we can be hopeful for the changes that now have a chance.
If the oligarchy is unable to control Trump and he is actually successful in curbing the power and budget of the military/security complex and in holding the financial sector politically accountable, Trump could be assassinated. Wars
Trump said that he will put Hillary in prison. He should first put her on trial for treason and war crimes along with all of the neoconservatives. That would clear the decks for peace with the other two major nuclear powers over whom the neoconservatives seek hegemony.
Although the neoconservatives would still have contacts in the hidden deep state, it would make it difficult for the vermin to organize false flag operations or an assassination. Rogue elements in the military/security complex could still pull off an assassination, but without neocons in the government a coverup would be more difficult.
Trump has more understanding and insight than his opponents realize. For a man such as Trump to risk acquiring so many powerful enemies and to risk his wealth and reputation, he had to have known that the people’s dissatisfaction with the ruling establishment meant he could be elected president.
We won’t know what to expect until we see who are the Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries. If it is the usual crowd, we will know Trump has been captured.
A happy lasting result of the election is the complete discrediting of the US media. The media predicted an easy Hillary victory and even Democratic Party control of the US Senate. Even more important to the media’s loss of influence and credibility, despite the vicious media attack on Trump throughout the presidential primaries and presidential campaign, the media had no effect outside the Northeast and West coasts, the stomping grounds of the One Percent. The rest of the country ignored the media.
I did not think the Oligarchy would allow Trump to win. However, it seems that the oligarchs were deceived by their own media propaganda. Assured that Hillary was the sure winner, they were unprepared to put into effect plans to steal the election.
Hillary is down, but not the Oligarchs. If Trump is advised to be conciliatory, to hold out his hand, and to take the establishment into his government, the American people will again be disappointed. In a country whose institutions have been so completely corrupted by the Oligarchy, it is difficult to achieve real change without bloodshed.
CrossTalk: Trump’s Triumph! Against almost all the odds Donald Trump wins the American presidency. This is a historic political earthquake for the United States and the world. Welcome to Trumpland! CrossTalking with Mark Sleboda, Gilbert Doctorow, and Rory Suchet. Published on Nov 9, 2016 Related Posts: | 1real |
Biden says he's not interested in serving in Clinton administration | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday he is not interested in serving under Democrat Hillary Clinton if she is elected president. “I’ll do anything I can if Hillary’s elected to help her, but I don’t want to remain in the administration,” Biden said in an interview with NBC’s KBJR affiliate in Duluth, Minnesota. On Thursday, Politico reported that Clinton’s campaign was considering Biden for secretary of state if she wins the Nov. 8 election. | 0fake |
Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race | Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race Posted on Oct 29, 2016
By Julia Angwin and Terry Parris Jr. / ProPublica David Sleight / ProPublica
Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.
That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.
The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls “Ethnic Affinities.” Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.
Here is a screenshot of an ad we purchased in Facebook’s housing categories via the company’s advertising portal :
Advertisement Square, Site wide
The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an “affinity” for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. ( Here’s the ad itself .)
When we showed Facebook’s racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman , he gasped and said, “This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.”
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal “to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines .
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits the “printing or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discrimination” in employment recruitment.
Facebook’s business model is based on allowing advertisers to target specific groups — or, apparently to exclude specific groups — using huge reams of personal data the company has collected about its users. Facebook’s microtargeting is particularly helpful for advertisers looking to reach niche audiences, such as swing-state voters concerned about climate change. ProPublica recently offered a tool allowing users to see how Facebook is categorizing them . We found nearly 50,000 unique categories in which Facebook places its users.
Facebook says its policies prohibit advertisers from using the targeting options for discrimination, harassment, disparagement or predatory advertising practices.
“We take a strong stand against advertisers misusing our platform: Our policies prohibit using our targeting options to discriminate, and they require compliance with the law,” said Steve Satterfield, privacy and public policy manager at Facebook. “We take prompt enforcement action when we determine that ads violate our policies.”
Satterfield said it’s important for advertisers to have the ability to both include and exclude groups as they test how their marketing performs. For instance, he said, an advertiser “might run one campaign in English that excludes the Hispanic affinity group to see how well the campaign performs against running that ad campaign in Spanish. This is a common practice in the industry.”
He said Facebook began offering the “Ethnic Affinity” categories within the past two years as part of a “multicultural advertising” effort.
Satterfield added that the “Ethnic Affinity” is not the same as race — which Facebook does not ask its members about. Facebook assigns members an “Ethnic Affinity” based on pages and posts they have liked or engaged with on Facebook.
When we asked why “Ethnic Affinity” was included in the “Demographics” category of its ad-targeting tool if it’s not a representation of demographics, Facebook responded that it plans to move “Ethnic Affinity” to another section.
Facebook declined to answer questions about why our housing-categories ad excluding minority groups was approved 15 minutes after we placed the order.
By comparison, consider the advertising controls that the New York Times has put in place to prevent discriminatory housing ads. After the newspaper was successfully sued under the Fair Housing Act in 1989, it agreed to review ads for potentially discriminatory content before accepting them for publication.
Steph Jespersen, the Times’ director of advertising acceptability, said that the company’s staff runs automated programs to make sure that ads that contain discriminatory phrases such as “whites only” and “no kids” are rejected.
The Times’ automated program also highlights ads that contain potentially discriminatory code words such as “near churches” or “close to a country club.” Humans then review those ads before they can be approved.
Jespersen said the Times also rejects housing ads that contain photographs of too many white people. The people in the ads must represent the diversity of the population of New York, and if they don’t, he says he will call up the advertiser and ask them to submit an ad with a more diverse lineup of models.
But, Jespersen said, these days most advertisers know not to submit discriminatory ads: “I haven’t seen an ad with ‘whites only’ for a long time.”
Clarification, Oct. 28, 2016: We’ve updated the story to explain more clearly that the ad we bought was not for housing itself — it was placed in Facebook’s housing categories.
Julia Angwin is a senior reporter at ProPublica. From 2000 to 2013, she was a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she led a privacy investigative team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2011 and won a Gerald Loeb Award in 2010.
Terry is ProPublica’s community editor. Prior to joining ProPublica, he led digital production and engagement at WDET 101.9 FM, NPR’s affiliate in Detroit. TAGS: | 1real |
Wisconsin blocks federal funds from reaching Planned Parenthood | (Reuters) - Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker signed two bills into law on Thursday that block federal funding from Planned Parenthood and could cost the local organization millions of dollars. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose about $7.5 million a year because of the measures, an organization spokeswoman said. Texas, Louisiana other Republican-controlled states tried to halt funding for the reproductive health organization after an anti-abortion group released videos last summer purported to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. Under federal law, donated human fetal tissue may be used for research, but profiting from its sale is prohibited. A grand jury in Texas cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing and indicted two anti-abortion activists behind the filming of the videos for tampering with a government record and violating a prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs. One of the new Wisconsin rules requires the state to apply for federal “Title X” family planning grant money and to give those monies to “less controversial public entities” such as state, county and local health departments and clinics, a statement from Walker’s office said. Planned Parenthood is currently the only entity in Wisconsin receiving this federal money and the funds will not be sent to the organization, the statement said. State entities providing abortions will now bill Medicaid only for acquisition costs and dispensing fees for prescription drugs. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose roughly $4 million a year as a result of this measure, depending on patient volume and the type of birth control patients choose, organization spokeswoman Iris Riis said. The legislation singles out Planned Parenthood and is an attempt to stop the organization from providing essential healthcare, the group said. “The move was the latest in a long line of attacks by the Governor and the Republican controlled state Legislature on the health of Wisconsin women and families,” the organization said in a statement. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has 22 health centers in the state, three of which offer abortion services, according to its website. Earlier this month, Ohio legislators approved a bill blocking state and federal funds for groups that perform or promote abortions, which cut $1.3 million annually used by Planned Parenthood clinics for HIV testing, pre-natal care and other programs. States including Alabama, Utah and Arkansas have fought losing court battles over their plans to cut funding for local Planned Parenthood operations. | 0fake |
null | Don't worry, the PEOPLE are coming to TAKE BACK their country!! | 1real |
HILLARY TO OBAMA: “call off your f–king dogs” | According to insider, and author Edward Klein, Hillary took on Barack Obama over his involvement in exposing her email scandal several months ago. Many Americans are wondering if Obama is stonewalling the FBI s investigation, or if in fact, he is encouraging the investigation, hoping it will take her down. This isn t the first report of Hillary behaving in a manner that is, shall we say, un-presidential? According to White House insiders, it seems that Bill has been on the receiving end of Hillary s rage more than once as well An enraged Hillary Rodham Clinton blew up at President Obama, demanding he call off your f king dogs looking into her emails during a tense Oval Office meeting, according to a new book.The book, Unlikeable: The Problem with Hillary, says the former first lady was furious at what she believed were damaging leaks by Obama aides that led to investigations of her use of a private email server as secretary of state. So she went right to the top to settle the matter.Clinton requested a meeting with Obama, against the advice of hubby Bill Clinton, believing she was being persecuted for minor, meaningless violations, author Edward Klein writes.Clinton initially took a friendly approach during the meeting and Obama reacted as if he didn t know what she was talking about, the book claims. He was almost being deliberately dense, a Clinton source said. It really angered her. Clinton lost her temper and called the president by his first name in an emotionally driven break with White House decorum, according to the book. What I want for you to do is call off your f king dogs, Barack! Clinton allegedly barked at Obama, according to Klein s account, which cited sources close to Clinton and Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.The president was so stunned by Clinton s disrespectful demands, he needed a moment to compose himself, the book claims.Obama then responded, There is nothing I can do for you one way or another. Things have been set in motion, and I can t and won t interfere. Your problems are, frankly, of your own making. If you had been honest . . . Klein reports Clinton interrupted, There are always haters out there to get the Clintons. The Democratic 2016 front-runner is said to have later regretted her tirade against the president not for the disrespect she showed, but for the weakness she displayed.Nick Merrill, Clinton s spokesman, called Klein s account bulls t. Another book? Someone should do a book about Ed, said Merrill. They could call it Bulls t: The Problem with Anything Ed Klein Writes. The only true thing about him is his consistent and utter lack of a relationship with the facts, Merrill said. He has more hair than credibility, and the man is bald. So we re not going to get down in the gutter with him and his outrageous fabrications. Via: NYPHillary s on a mission to be a softer, warmer, funnier candidate but according to a new book, the real Hillary Clinton is so volatile and prone to violent outbursts that she terrorizes staff, Secret Service agents and even her own husband. Hillary Clinton has a long history of being domestically violent with Bill, Stone writes. Hillary has beaten Bill, hit him with hard objects, scratched and clawed him, and made him bleed. | 1real |
MAXINE WATERS TELLS THE “GREATEST DESIRE” FOR NASTY DEMS: “To Lead Trump Right Into Impeachment” [Video] | Congresswoman @MaxineWaters, on working with President Trump: My greatest desire is to lead him right into impeachment. #CheddarLIVE pic.twitter.com/Hr5THHR3XM Cheddar (@cheddar) February 3, 2017 | 1real |
At the Mosul Front: Traps, Smoke Screens and Suicide Bombers - The New York Times | Mr. Denton, a Times photographer, and Mr. Gordon, a Times military correspondent, are with Kurdish forces near Sheikh Amir, Iraq, on the eastern approach to Mosul. The Kurdish pesh merga forces started their advance by moonlight, in the early hours of Monday. East of the Islamic city of Mosul, columns of tanks and trucks lumbered their way toward the objective: clearing villages of militants before any broader advance on the city could happen. As day broke, the vehicles piled off the roads to avoid any improvised bombs and began moving across the dusty Nineveh plain toward the villages. The tank fire began, booming across the distance. Soon the crawl became a run. Thick funnels of black smoke began rising from the towns — a past tactic used by the Islamic State militants, setting oil barrels aflame to try to screen them from American airstrikes. The strikes came anyway, sending shock waves through the haze. The campaign to retake Mosul was officially underway. In the weeks ahead, officials are planning an array of efforts by Iraqi security forces, allied militias, Kurdish forces and air support from the United States as the assault reaches to the city — the most critical population center captured by the militants in their blitz across Iraq in 2014, and now their last major stronghold in the country. But in the opening hours on Monday, the Kurdish advance on outlying villages east of Mosul was the main action. New York Times journalists traveled with one group of Kurdish fighters as they set out. Islamic State militants quickly showed that they were not going to abandon the villages without a fight: They unleashed at least five suicide vehicle bombs — the militant force’s take on weapons. Near the village of Badana, one vehicle packed with explosives streaked toward the Kurdish positions. A blast and a billowing plume of white smoke proclaimed its fate: Either a missile or airstrike had abruptly halted the suicide run, short of its target. One Kurdish officer, Col. Salar Jabar, put the final toll of the operation at five Kurdish dead and five wounded. Colonel Jabar, who uses a cane after surviving a attack this year, was understated about the challenge. “There was some resistance” was how he put it, insisting that his troops could handle it. As the Kurds settled into their positions, bulldozers came up to start making walls of sand outside some of the villages — berms against further car bomb attacks. Kurdish commanders insisted that they were satisfied by the day’s advance, which came in three main columns. Even so, fewer than half of the 10 or so villages they had encircled had been fully cleared, in painstaking and potentially dangerous operations to ensure that no Islamic State fighters were hiding in the settlements. And on Tuesday, Iraqi officials said the advance had halted indefinitely. The monumental challenge that lies ahead was becoming clear. After all, the ultimate objective of the combined assault is not to clear largely depopulated villages, but to reclaim a city of more than a million people that is defended by as many as 4, 500 Islamic State fighters. In preparation, the militants have filled trenches with oil, built tunnels and planted copious improvised bombs along the roads to the city and on the streets within it. “The Iraqi flag will be raised in the middle of Mosul and in each village and corner very soon,” Iraq’s prime minister, Haider promised early Monday as he announced the start of the assault. Mr. Abadi has closely tied his political fortunes to the retaking of Mosul, Iraq’s city, and his announcement of the operation, just before 2 a. m. was hours before the Kurds began their main push. Under the overall plan to retake Mosul, troops from Iraq’s counterterrorism unit are to link up with the pesh merga in coming days and press forward. That could be the first serious test of Iraq’s premier force in the fight for Mosul. But political tensions between the Kurds and the Iraqi government are a concern. Toward the end of the day, Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish semiautonomous region, appeared with a senior Iraqi military officer, in a news conference intended to demonstrate that the two sides could work together, at least as far as fighting the Islamic State is concerned. There is little in the way of shelter or cover along the approaches the pesh merga were taking, and there are many other villages to clear. Smoke from some could be seen from miles away over the flat plain. The stark nature of the landscape points to another problem ahead: As fighting intensifies, hundreds of thousands of residents are expected to pour out of the city — even though the United States and Iraqi forces are publicly urging the civilians to stay in their homes. “Basically, we have little less than a week,” Lise Grande, the top United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, said on Monday. Ms. Grande said that the United Nations had stockpiled supplies — including tents and shelters that can accommodate 400, 000 people at the ready — but that there were not yet enough sites ready for temporary camps. It is also unclear in which direction fleeing civilians will go. The military, Ms. Grande said, has drawn up secret escape routes for civilians that will be conveyed to residents inside Mosul as the battle progresses. This is a lesson from the battle of Falluja last summer, when the routes — known as humanitarian corridors — were targeted by the Islamic State after being made public. | 0fake |
Icahn praises Trump economic plan, says candidate will get blue-collar vote | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said on CNBC on Tuesday that Donald Trump is “right on about the economy” and said “the Archie Bunker of the world” will vote for the Republican presidential candidate. Archie Bunker, a fictional conservative blue-collar worker from the New York City borough of Queens, was the main character in the 1970s television comedy “All in the Family.” Icahn praised Trump’s economic plan a day after the New York real estate developer unveiled it in a speech in Detroit. Trump proposed sweeping tax breaks, cuts to federal regulations and a revival of the stalled Keystone XL project. Bunker has been described as the show’s “lovable bigot,” but Icahn said there was no bad intention in comparing middle-class voters to the character. “Any middle-class worker, you know, ‘the Archie Bunker of the world’ - that was a great show, I used to watch it - those guys are going to vote for him because those are smart guys,” Icahn said. “They know they are getting screwed, and that is what I think will happen,” Icahn said in an apparent reference to the decline in U.S. manufacturing, a theme of Trump’s. “Archie Bunker is a middle-class guy, somewhat educated even, that doesn’t know where his next check is coming to send his son or daughter to school, doesn’t know if he’s going to keep his job. ... Why the hell should he vote for a system that is not giving him a good-paying job?” Icahn said. Icahn echoed his remarks on CNBC on Twitter, saying, “Trump is right on about our economy. A capitalistic system cannot exist if government is at war with business. CEOs rightly so are afraid to invest in new equipment, etc. to make our manufacturing competitive. “It is no surprise that today it was announced growth in productivity was down for the 3rd straight quarter and is at an all-time low. Our workers cannot be productive with ‘worn out tools’.” The Labor Department reported that U.S. nonfarm productivity unexpectedly fell in the second quarter, pointing to sustained weakness in the economy. Trump’s speech came after a week of falls in opinion polls and clashes with the family of a fallen U.S. Muslim soldier and fellow Republican leaders. Icahn said he did not defend Trump’s remarks about the family of soldier Humayun Khan, calling them a “mistake. People make mistakes.” Asked by CNBC why Icahn was not named to Trump’s group of economic advisers, Icahn said he wanted to focus on a new Super PAC. Last week, Icahn’s general counsel, Jesse Lynn, told Reuters that Icahn turned down an invitation to join the group because the investor is considering funding a Super PAC focused on regulatory reform. It would be Icahn’s second Super PAC. | 0fake |
House Speaker Ryan won't endorse Trump 'authoritarian' critique | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Tuesday that he does not agree with critics of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump who have labeled Trump authoritarian or fascist. “I don’t see it that way,” Ryan told reporters in the Capitol. He was responding to a question about whether he agreed with critics such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called Trump authoritarian, and Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has likened Trump’s “strident tone” to the ascent of 1930s fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Ryan also said he was not worried that the Republican-majority House of Representatives might switch to Democratic control as a result of the November elections. “I’m not concerned about the House flipping because we are in control of our own actions.” | 0fake |
ONLY DAYS AFTER ANNOUNCING Shameless Money Grab…Clock Boy Explains Why He Wants To Come Back To Texas | It s hard to be famous for being a victim in an Arab Gulf state who settles their disputes in a Sharia Court of Law. Someone should have told Clock Boy that being a victim in a country where victims are plentiful isn t really that special. Unlike America, being accused of bringing a fake bomb to school in Qatar isn t likely a guarantee you ll land a visit with their King.Within days of demanding a total of $15 million from the City of Irving and the Irving Independent School District, Clock Boy Ahmed Mohamed announced in a long distance phone interview from Qatar, he is homesick and wants to come home to Texas now.In October, Ahmed accepted a fully-funded education scholarship from the Qatar Foundation, an organization with reputed ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, over an invitation to MIT, which is among the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in the world. The family announced they would relocate to Qatar to accommodate his education, which they did.Happy #Thanksgiving!! Ahmed Mohamed (@IStandWithAhmed) November 26, 2015Dallas KTVT 11 (CBS) interviewed the teen from halfway around the world over Facetime. Now, Ahmed claims he misses Texas. I want to go back to a place where everyone knows me, meaning the kids he grew up with. He also hinted a trip to Dallas may be in the works over the Christmas holiday. He told the CBS affiliate he is ready to come home and wants to do so immediately, but insists last week s armed yet peaceful protest outside the Irving mosque stopped him.Breitbart Texas reported on the small group outside of the Islamic Center of Irving. The organizer released dozens of names and addresses considered Muslim and Muslim sympathizers over social media. The list, however, was posted on the City of Irving s website since March with the information of those who signed up to speak for and against the topic of American laws for American courts at an Irving city council meeting.Ahmed told the TV news outlet: I was scared because I ve heard what happened recently with, like, people with guns going to my local mosque, adding: I mean, they have the right to do that but it s scary because I m afraid, you know. Last week, through West Texas attorney Kelly Hollingsworth, Ahmed s family demanded $15 million plus apologies in letters that asserted they moved to the Middle East because threats and fear drove his family from Texas. However, Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne received serious online threats and remains under fire over decisions made by the Irving ISD and Irving police to detain the high school freshman, who, on Sept. 14, brought into school a makeshift clock that resembled a briefcase bomb.The KTVT reporter pointed out that questioning the teen about the $15 million was something that nearly ended (the interview). He captured Ahmed s metered responses with eyes drifting off camera that appeared to look offside for approval from someone before answering questions. Ahmed first looked away when asked if he wanted to come back to Texas before answering yes with a smile. Clock Boy then told the CBS affiliate he was waiting for people to calm down back home before he returned.In a Christmas season blanketed by the Islamic State attacks in Paris, State Department travel alerts, and Syrian refugees at U.S. borders, sympathy continues to wane for the Islamophobia poster child. Breitbart News reported that the same liberal media that championed the teen s every move, including his Qatar Foundation-sponsored tour of Education City, lost interest.The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette added what little sympathy Americans had for the Clock Boy is gone thanks to a shameless money grab by the teen s family. The newspaper added that the Mohamed family s departure and subsequent demands make them look like opportunists, or worse. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
U.S. frustration simmers over Belgium's struggle with militant threat | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shortly after last November’s attacks on Paris by a Brussels-based Islamic State cell, a top U.S. counter-terrorism official traveling in Europe wanted to visit Brussels to learn more about the investigation. When the official tried to arrange meetings, however, his Belgian counterparts were not welcoming, according to U.S. officials familiar with the events. The Belgians indicated it was a bad time to speak to foreign officials as they were too busy with the investigation, said the officials, who asked not to be identified. Belgian officials declined to comment on the incident. The brush-off was one small sign of mounting U.S. frustration over Brussels’ handling of its worsening Islamic militant threat. Concern that the small European nation’s security and intelligence officials are overwhelmed — and that its coordination with allies falls short — have again come to the fore following the Islamic State-claimed attacks on Tuesday that killed at least 31 people. Several U.S. officials say that security cooperation has been hampered by patchy intelligence–sharing by Brussels and wide differences in the willingness of different agencies to work with foreign countries, even close allies. One U.S. government source said that when American investigators try to contact Belgian agencies for information, they often struggle to find which agency or part of an agency might have relevant information. Belgium has ordered a sharp increase in security budgets following the Paris attacks, despite being under steady pressure to limit its debt levels under euro zone rules. The government has promised to recruit around 2,500 more federal police, who pursue major crimes, to make up for a shortfall of close to a fifth of the full-strength force of 12,500. It also says it thwarted a major attack in January 2015, and is eager to cooperate with European and U.S. counterparts. “These attacks show that more coordination with the United States is clearly desirable,” Guy Rapaille, the president of the committee that provides oversight of Belgium’s security and intelligence services, told Belgium’s state broadcaster RTBF. “But you have to remember that big powers guard their intelligence very closely.” U.S. officials acknowledge the recent Belgian efforts to step up funding and recruitment. Yet they say Belgian security services are outmatched by the threat in a country that, per capita, has supplied the highest number of foreign fighters to Syria of any European nation. “They’re way behind the ball and they’re paying a terrible price,” Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters. Asked on Wednesday whether Belgium was too complacent over the threat posed by Islamic militancy, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said: “I want to stay clear of saying that Belgium was somehow caught by surprise or not aware. You know, we collaborate, we work with Belgium closely.” Some U.S. counter-terrorism officials say much of the gap between Washington and Belgium — and some other European countries — is cultural. Europeans’ deeper commitment to personal privacy sometimes prevents or delays sharing of information such as travel data — that is taken for granted in the United States. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government radically reshaped its counter-terrorism agencies. It broke down walls between law enforcement and intelligence authorities, and created new coordinating institutions such as the Director of National Intelligence and National Counterterrorism Center. Belgium, by contrast, is a patchwork country divided between French and Dutch speakers and with multiple levels of government. Belgian security chiefs have repeatedly complained that they cannot handle up to 900 home-grown Islamist militants, among the highest per-capita rates in Europe. Belgium does not divulge the exact number of personnel in its security services and military intelligence, but security experts say they appear under-resourced compared to European counterparts. “Add to that the problem of two languages (French and Flemish), lack of Arabic speakers, and weak coordination between national and local government, you have a huge discrepancy between threat and response,” said former CIA official and White House advisor Bruce Riedel, now at the Brookings Institution. | 0fake |
Angel Messages For November 7-13, 2016 [Video] | Leave a reply
Doreen Virtue – It’s a powerful and intense week with the Angel Numbers 11-11 which is a sign of instant manifestation, and the upcoming election and impending Super-Super Full Moon of November 14.
You will be in touch with your God-given spiritual power of being a healer and a positive role model for those who are stressed. Yet, you’ll also need to take time for yourself – ideally a quiet retreat (even for a few moments each day).
You may feel the effects of the upcoming powerful full moon, with sleep issues, sensitivity, or mood swings. Avoid anyone or anything that trigger you.
To learn more about Angel Numbers, please visit our free page for an Angel Numbers reading: http://www.angeltherapy.com/angel-num…
From the Magical Messages from the Fairies Oracle Cards at http://bit.ly/Fairycards
SF Source Doreen Virtue | 1real |
TAXPAYERS PAID SAME WOMEN WHO CRUSHED BABIES’ SKULLS FOR LIVING AND SOLD THEIR LUNGS TO ADVISE OBAMA ADMIN ON “Healthy Baby” BIRTHS | No conflict of interest here! Only the most pro-abortion president in the history of the United States would have an expert who butchers babies for a living being paid by the American taxpayer to advise on healthy baby births Deborah Nucatola the Planned Parenthood doc with the stone-cold heart and the lucrative skill of crushing babies in just the right spot has been advising the Obama administration on family planning policy since 2010.From April 2010 through April 2014, Nucatola was one of several experts the U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Population Affairs (OPA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Reproductive Health tasked with creating federal guidelines for quality family planning services. A member of the Expert Work Group and the Technical Panel on Clinical Women s Services, Nucatola was actively engaged in the multistage process that produced the government s 2014 report, Providing Quality Family Planning Services (QFP).Her responsibilities as a technical consultant and an expert included analyzing research summaries and professional advisories, providing individual feedback on the government s initial recommendations, reviewing the CDC-OPA staff s core recommendations, giving her expert opinion, and then approving the recommendations. (See the report s appendices for the names of Expert Work Group members and technical experts, and detailed descriptions of the experts involvement in formulating the report s recommendations.)What s the goal of those government recommendations? To help clients achieve their desired number and spacing of children and increase the likelihood that those children are born healthy. Leave it to the Obama administration to tap an abortionist for expert advice on ensuring that children are born healthy an abortionist, mind you, who relishes butchering a 17-weeker and bagging up a tiny infant s heart, lung, liver to sell for a few extra bucks.Taxpayers Reward BarbarismThe barbaric nature of Nucatola s chosen work, however, is all too clear. That s reprehensible. Sen. Rand Paul and others have announced plans to defund Planned Parenthood in light of the Nucatola debacle. Good, but not enough.We need to delegitimize Planned Parenthood and delegitimize the cruel doctors whose expertise consists in knowing which parts of the unborn baby to crush in order to to harvest the money-producing parts intact. We need to insist that being an expert in baby dismemberment disqualifies instead of qualifies a doctor from being an expert consultant for the government an expert on making sure children are born healthy, no less.Planned Parenthood runs a bloody business. Many Americans are seeing, for the first time, the chilling, violent reality of abortion and the insatiable greed driving America s abortion business. Now, the question is: What is Congress willing to do about it?Read more of exclusive story: The Federalist | 1real |
BOOM! Companies That Openly Criticized Trump For “Making America Safe Again” Take Stock Market Hit | Among the high profile companies opposing Trump s seven Muslim country refugee and immigration ban: Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) was down 0.83 percent. Amazon has big operations in the Phoenix area. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Bezos sent a memo to all of his employees stating, This executive order is one we do not support, and the memo listed several actions the company was taking to opposed the order. We re a nation of immigrants whose diverse backgrounds, ideas, and points of view have helped us build and invent as a nation for over 240 years . It s a distinctive competitive advantage for our country one we should not weaken. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) was down 0.23 percent, Apple reported strong earnings Tuesday afternoon. Its shares were up in after-hours trading. Apple has a big data center in Mesa. Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) was down 1.22 percent closing at $55.22 per share, according to Google Finance. Starbucks has an education partnership with Arizona State University.Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz We are living in an unprecedented time, Schultz said in a memo to Starbucks (SBUX) employees. He pledged to hire 10,000 refugees over five years in the 75 countries where Starbucks does business to reinforce our belief in our partners around the world. Yesterday a huge #BoycottStarbucks campaign was started on Twitter and Facebook. Starbucks took a big hit in the stock market today:Here s what we don t need advice from America s wealthiest welfare recipient, Tesla s Elon Musk:The blanket entry ban on citizens from certain primarily Muslim countries is not the best way to address the country s challenges Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2017Tesla s Elon Musk criticized Trump s temporary travel ban. Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space.And he s built those companies with the help of billions in government subsidies. Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The LA Times. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) was down 0.74 percent.Microsoft said it s providing legal advice and assistance to its employees affected by the executive order. We share the concerns about the impact of the executive order on our employees from the listed countries, all of whom have been in the United States lawfully, the tech giant said in a statement.According to Microsoft s general counsel Brad Smith, 76 Microsoft employees are citizens with a U.S. visa from the affected countries.MasterCard Inc. MA, +0.02% CEO Ajay Banga, who was born in India, sent an email to company employees expressing his deep concern over the fracturing society. According to The Wall Street Journal, Banga said MasterCard has been in close contact with employees who ve been affected by the ban and is working to help them and their families. What affects one of us, affects all of us, he wrote. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) one of the few Wall Street firms to speak out against Trump s orders was down 1.96 percent closing at $229.32 per share. Goldman was one of the key drivers for the post-election rally and the Dow hitting 20,000 last week. Early Twitter Inc. TWTR, -0.17% and Uber investor Chris Sacca said he would match donations to the ACLU up to $75,000.Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had this to say about Trump s temporary travel ban:The Executive Order's humanitarian and economic impact is real and upsetting. We benefit from what refugees and immigrants bring to the U.S. https://t.co/HdwVGzIECt jack (@jack) January 28, 2017Uber investor Chris Sacca offered to help the ACLU with any legal charges incurred in their fight against making America more secure:I'm inspired by all who are barely scraping by yet still giving monthly to the @ACLU. Show me your receipts and I'll match 'em to $75k. https://t.co/dej1dXag3a Chris Sacca (@sacca) January 28, 2017 Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) was 0.5 percent. Yeah thanks for your input Mark. We re pretty sure everyone is aware by now of your leftist political leanings. Why didn t you make the same proclamation when Obama banned Iraqi s from coming to the US in 2011? No need to answer, it s a rhetorical question Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) was down 0.36 percent. Netflix Inc. NFLX, -0.08% Chief Executive Reed Hastings, in reaction, said on Facebook that it had been a very sad week. Google parent Alphabet (Nasdaq; GOOGL) was down 0.44 percent.In a staff memo, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the move affects at least 187 of the Internet giant s staff. We re concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that could create barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S., Google said in a statement. We ll continue to make our views on these issues known to leaders in Washington and elsewhere. Companies and executives not known for speaking out on political matters, such as Nike Inc. NKE, -0.38% CEO Mark Parker, condemned the ban. In an internal letter Parker mentioned Nike athlete Sir Mo Farah, a Somali-born Olympic gold medalist now living in Oregon. What Mo will always have what the entire Nike family can always count on is the support of this company. We will do everything in our power to ensure the safety of every member of our family: our colleagues, our athletes and their loved ones, Parker s email read.Ford, NYSE Was down .08% Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and CEO Mark Fields In a memo to employees, they said they do not support the ban. Respect for all people is a core value of Ford Motor Company, and we are proud of the rich diversity of our company here at home and around the world, they wrote.Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent Kent said in a statement that the Coca Cola (CCHGY) Company is resolute in its commitment to diversity, fairness and inclusion, and we do not support this travel ban or any policy that is contrary to our core values and beliefs. Chobani is not traded on the stock market, but is one of the biggest advocates for importing employers to the US from Muslim majority nations to Twin Falls, ID Chobani CEO Hamdi UlukayaChobani is owned by Turkish Muslim immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya. Chobani has filled 30 percent of its 600 positions at the world s largest Yogurt plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, with refugees resettled in America through a U.S. State Department program carried out in cooperation with the United Nations.Ann Corcoran, author of the Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, said the potential conflict of interest is disturbing and should be questioned by Twin Falls residents. Twin Falls is really a microcosm of what we find going on in so many of the refugee communities across the U.S., where you have people moving in and out of government and the Chamber of Commerce with a vested interest in making sure a meatpacking plant or some other industry has continuous access to refugee labor, said Corcoran. Only in this case we have a blatant example of conflicts of interest by an elected official who is also the head of the Chamber enticing companies to come in and make use of the steady influx of cheap, overseas labor. These are jobs that Americans would be happy to fill but they are forced to compete now with someone from Sudan or Iraq who is used to working for a dollar a week. The local Muslim community in Twin Falls grew out of its mosque and built a new, much larger house of worship last year.Here s Chobani CEO s response to Trump s moratorium on refugees from 7 countries: This is very personal for me, Ulukaya wrote in internal memo to his staff that was obtained by CNN. As an immigrant who came to this country looking for opportunity, it s very difficult to think about and imagine what millions of people around the world must be feeling right now. General Electric GE (NYSE) stock was down .87% CEO Jeff Immelt said, in a memo on the G (GE)employee blog, that he shares the concern felt by his employees and said the company has many employees from the countries named in the ban. These employees and customers are critical to our success and they are our friends and partners, he wrote, adding that GE would stand with them and try to find a balance between security and movement of law abiding people. Immelt was one of 28 business leaders named to a council to advise Trump on manufacturing growth.Trip Advisor CEO Stephen Kaufer Trip Advisor s (TRIP) CEO wrote in a Linkedin post that Trump s immigration ban is not only heartless and discriminatory, but also against the principles that make our country great. Kaufer also said in a tweet that We need to do more, not less, to help refugees, and said the action was wrong on humanitarian grounds, legal grounds, and won t make us safer.' In a separate tweet, he called out Republican lawmakers: You can t sit this one out. We need to do more, not less, to help refugees. Trumps action was wrong on humanitarian grounds, legal grounds, and won't make us "safer." stephen kaufer (@kaufer) January 29, 2017Trump hasn t backed off his order and could change up visa programs used by high-tech companies. Biz Journals, Market Watch | 1real |
In campaign trail debut with Clinton, Warren says Trump driven by greed | CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Liberal Elizabeth Warren attacked Republican Donald Trump on Monday during her first campaign appearance with U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, calling him an “insecure money grubber” who is driven by greed and hate. Warren, a leader of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and a potential vice presidential pick, said Clinton had spent her career fighting for liberal values while Trump, a wealthy real estate developer, was focused on boosting his bottom line. The U.S. senator from Massachusetts appeared with Clinton before a raucous, enthusiastic crowd in Cincinnati, Ohio, targeting a battleground state in a potential preview of a Clinton-Warren campaign team. She repeatedly accused Trump of looking out for himself instead of for average Americans. “When Donald Trump says he’ll make America great, he means make it even greater for rich guys just like Donald Trump,” Warren said, standing shoulder to shoulder with a cheering Clinton. Clinton has struggled to win over some liberal backers of rival Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist U.S. senator from Vermont, since beating him for the Democratic nomination this month. She hopes the support of Warren can help her in that effort as she campaigns against Trump for the Nov. 8 election. Warren, who has vigorously attacked Trump in recent weeks, called him “a small, insecure money grubber who fights for no one but himself” and warned: “He will crush you into the dirt to get whatever he wants. That’s who he is.” The capacity crowd repeatedly roared its approval, and a line of supporters who could not get inside stretched out the door and down the street. At one point, Warren stopped her speech to turn and applaud Clinton, a former secretary of state. “She knows what it takes to beat a thin-skinned bully who is driven by greed and hate,” said Warren, known for calling for reining in Wall Street and eradicating income inequality. WARREN ‘A SELLOUT’ - TRUMP In a statement, Trump called Warren “a sellout” for backing Clinton, who has taken donations from Wall Street interests and once backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Asian trade deal. Clinton has since reversed her trade stance. In an interview with NBC News, Trump called Warren “a fraud” and “a racist,” accusing her of making up claims about her Native American heritage to advance her career. He again called Warren “Pocahontas,” the name of a 17th-century Native American figure, to draw attention to a controversy first raised during Warren’s 2012 Senate race in Massachusetts. “She is one of the least productive senators in the United States Senate,” Trump told NBC. “We call her Pocahontas for a reason.” Two other potential Clinton vice presidential picks - U.S. senators Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sherrod Brown of Ohio - rejected Trump’s assertion and defended Warren’s record. “That’s what he does, he attacks people. He acts like he’s attacking their character - he’s attacking his own character when he does that,” Brown told Reuters. “You can’t believe anything Donald Trump says. Period,” Kaine told Reuters. Taking the microphone in Ohio, Clinton said she liked Warren’s aggressive approach to her Republican rival, who has sprayed rivals and critics with insults throughout his campaign. “I just love how she gets under Donald Trump’s skin,” Clinton said. Clinton’s decision to campaign with Warren for the first time in Cincinnati, a city on Ohio’s southwestern border with Kentucky and Indiana, underscored the swing state’s vital role in the November showdown with Trump. Ohio has backed every successful presidential nominee since 1964 and no Republican has won the White House without carrying the state. Warren’s calls to rein in corporate excess could resonate with two groups Clinton must court in the election - Sanders supporters and those anxious about the economy who are drawn to Trump’s promise to toss out international trade deals. Ohio’s manufacturing base has taken a hit in recent economic slowdowns, and Trump has identified it as a state where his anti-free trade rhetoric could resonate with alienated blue-collar voters. Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, Clinton has repeatedly tried to portray businessman Trump as fundamentally unfit for the presidency. Clinton said Warren’s long history of fighting for progressive economic values made her a perfect messenger for that critique. | 0fake |
Eric Trump: ‘Alpha Personalities’ Brag About Sexual Assault, It’s Just What They Do | Eric Trump, one of Donald Trump s two creepy adult sons, tried on Monday to defend his father s revolting comments about sexually assaulting women. His pathetic excuse? That s just what happens when alpha males get together and start talking.The younger Trump followed the narrative that has been put forth by everybody else in his daddy s campaign: It s no big whoop, it s just locker room banter. And besides, it s the Clintons who we should really be talking about. I think that s Hillary going low, Eric Trump said on Tuesday. I think you ve seen that for a long time. If you look at her track record with women, I think you saw that yesterday with some of the people we had sitting at the debate. It s horrible. She ll dig out dirt on someone from 15 years ago when someone is in entertainment. And, listen, my father apologized for it. He was right to apologize for it, and I m glad he apologized for it, he continued. At the same time, if you look at her track record with women, it s horrible. It s absolutely horrible. Nevermind the fact that there isn t one shred of evidence that the Clintons were behind the release of the bombshell p*ssy tape.Eric added that he was completely surprised it came out. At the same time, I think it s locker room banter, he said, repeating his father s description of it. I think sometimes when guys are together they get carried away, and sometimes that s what happens when alpha personalities are in the same presence. At the same time, I m not saying it s right. It s not the person that he is. So, there s nothing to see here folks. Ignore that my father will soon be sitting before a judge after being accused of raping a 13-year-old child. Forget that he nags out with the likes of proven sexual predators like Jeffery Epstein and Roger Ailes. He s just an alpha male and all alpha males brag about sexual assault.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Fifty interesting facts about Russia | Fifty interesting facts about Russia 31.10.2016 Print version Font Size 1. Russia is the largest country in the world. The country has 17,075,400 square kilometers, which makes Russia 1.8 times larger than the United States of America. The territory that Russia takes on planet Earth practically equals the surface area of planet Pluto.2. Russia is home to the world's largest active volcano - Klyuchevskaya Sopka. Its height is 4 kilometers 850 meters. The volcano shoots columns of ash up to eight kilometers high and becomes even taller with every eruption. Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano erupts for the past 7,000 years.3. The subway system (metro) of St. Petersburg is the deepest in the world. Its average depth - 100 meters.4. The number of bridges in St. Petersburg exceeds the number of bridges in Venice three times. 5. The oldest Christian church on the territory of Russia is the ancient temple of Thaba-Yerdy located in Ingushetia, Jeirakh District. It was built in VIII-IX centuries. Three oldest of existing churches are located in the village of Nizhny Arkhyz in Karachay-Cherkessia. The temples were built in the X century.6. The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest railway in the world. The Great Siberian Way, connecting Moscow with Vladivostok, is 9,298 kilometers long. The railway crosses eight time zones, passes through 87 cities and towns and crosses 16 rivers, including the Volga.7. Lake Baikal in Siberia is the deepest lake in the world and the largest source of fresh water on the planet. Baikal holds 23 cubic kilometers of water. All the world's major rivers - the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, the Yenisei, the Ural, the Ob, the Ganges, the Orinoco, the Amazon, the Thames, the Seine and the Oder would have to flow for almost a year to fill the basic, equal to the volume of Lake Baikal.8. Russia is the only country whose territory is washed by 12 seas.9. Russia is only four kilometers far from America. The is the distance between the island of Ratmanova (Russia) and the Kruzenshtern Island (USA) in the Bering Strait.10. The distance from Moscow to Chicago is smaller than the distance from from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro.11. In the cultural capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, there are 2,000 libraries, 221 museums, 100 concert organizations, more than 80 theaters, 80 clubs and houses of culture, 62 cinemas and 45 art galleries.12. The Ural Mountains are the oldest mountains in the world. The Karandash Mount located in the Kusinsky area near the village of Aleksandrovka was formed 4.2 billion years ago. The historical names of the Ural Mountains are - the Big Rock, the Siberian Rock, the Earth Belt, the Belt Rock.13. In Moscow, there are seven exactly the same high-rise buildings: two hotels, two office buildings, two residential buildings and the University. In English, this ensemble is known as the Seven Sisters, whereas in Russian, the buildings are known as Stalinist skyscrapers. The style, in which the skyscrapers are built, is called the Stalinist gothic.14. The Moscow Kremlin is the world's largest medieval fortress.15. The total length of the Kremlin walls is 2,235 meters.16. In Moscow, there is a large fountain that contains drinking water. The fountain is part of the architectural group "Alexander and Natalie" with a sculptural composition of Pushkin and Goncharova in a graceful rotunda.17. St. Petersburg is the world's northernmost city with a population of over one million people.18. The area of Siberia is 9 million 734.3 thousand square kilometers, which accounts for nine percent of the world's land.19. Russia borders with 16 countries: Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Japan and the United States. Russia also borders on two unrecognized states: South Ossetia and Abkhazia.20. The number of Kalashnikov assault rifles in the world is larger than the number of all other assault rifles combined. 21. Russia proclaimed equal rights for men and women before the United States. In Russia, the right to vote was granted to women in 1918, in the United States - in 1920.22. Russia had never known slavery. The period of the most distinguished form of feudal dependence, serfdom, was shorter in Russia than, for example, in England and most of Europe. Serfdom in Russia had milder forms. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, whereas the United States abolished slavery in 1865.23. On January 16, 1820, the Russian expedition led by Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev discovered Antarctica.24. The most famous computer game -Tetris - was created by Russian programmer Alexey Pazhitnov in 1985. This game became popular in the Soviet Union, and then, in 1986, in the West.25. Ivan the Terrible was not a tyrant, his rule was unprecedentedly mild for his time. During his rule, Russia's size was equal to that of Europe, but Ivan the Terrible executed 100 fewer people in comparison with European kings during the same period of time - 3-4 thousand people against 300-400 thousand.26. Ivan the Terrible did not kill his son.27. Trains of the Moscow metro run more often than in any other subway system in the world. At rush hours, intervals between trains is only 90 seconds. There are stylized trains in the Moscow metro, for example, a train called "Watercolors" that represents a traveling exhibition of paintings.28. In Peterhof, near St. Petersburg, there are 176 fountains, 40 of which are huge and five are built as cascades.29. The Russian samovar is an ancient version of the electric kettle. The samovar was powered by coal, but its function was to boil water. 30. In the Russian town Oymyakon, the lowest temperature of air was recorded. The cold record was set in 1924, when temperates dropped to -71.2 °C.31. In the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics, there is a monument to the laboratory mouse that knits the DNA.32. During the Second World War, metro stations were used as bomb shelters. As many as 150 babies were born there during air raids. 33. In Russia, there are many beautiful excursion and hiking routes. The most famous one of them is the so-called Russian Golden Ring, as well as the Silver Ring of Russia and the Great Ural Ring.34. The total length of 12 lines of the Moscow metro is 310 kilometers.35. In the 18th century, Russia was the third largest empire in the history of mankind, occupying the territory from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America. 36. The West Siberian Plain is the largest plain in the world.37. The Hermitage is one of the largest and oldest museums in the world. The Hermitage stores three million works of art from the Stone Age to the present. If a visitor pays only one minute of their attention to each exhibit, it would take them 25 years to see all the exhibits of the Hermitage. 38. A half of the city of Chelyabinsk is located in the Urals, whereas the other half - in Siberia. Strangely enough, the coat of arms of Chelyabinsk depicts a camel. It turns out, however, that Chelyabinsk used to take caravans of camels 200 years ago. 39. A while ago, Moscow had more billionaires than any other city in the world.40. The Russian Public Library is the largest library in Europe and the second largest in the world after the United States Library of Congress. The Russian Public Library is located in Moscow, it was founded in 1862.41. On the opening day of a 700-seat McDonalds restaurant on Pushkin Square in Moscow, the line of people willing to go there made up 5,000 individuals at 5 a.m. During the first day of work, the restaurant served 3,000 customers. To this day, the McDonald's on Pushkin Square remains the most visited McDonald's in the world.42. The State Hermitage Museum keeps a flock of cats against rodents. Each cat of the Hermitage has a passport with a photo.43. In Altai, there are more than 820 glaciers that occupy a total area of 600 square kilometers.44. In Russia, a new sport has recently emerged in Russia - helicopter golf. Two helicopters, equipped with 4-meter sticks, play two balls one meter in diameter. Each team consists of five people.45. Russia regularly appears on lists of least friendly countries in the world, but this is just a misconception based on cross-cultural differences. In Russia, children are taught not to smile for no reason, as this kind of behavior displays light-mindedness. In fact, the Russians are friendly and are always ready to help a foreigner.46. In 2002, the city of Yekaterinburg was put on UNESCO's list of 12 perfect cities in the world.47. The largest bell ever cast is the Russian Tsar Bell made by Ivan Motorin and his son Mikhail. The weight of the Tsar Bell is 12,327 puds and 19 pounds, or 201 tons and 924 kilograms. The Tsar Bell is 6 meters 14 centimeters tall. 48. The city of Suzdal takes only 15 square kilometers of land and has the population of a little over 10,000 people. Yet, there are 53 churches in Suzdal. 49. The Russian Federation consists of eight federal districts, which are divided into 83 regions -subjects of the Federation, including 21 national republics. According to the Constitution, each republic is assigned to a titular ethnic group. The Russian republics take 28.6% of the territory of Russia, which is home to 16.9% of the population of the country. Ethnic Russians account for approximately 83% of the Russian population. However, the Russian Constitution does not contain a word about the Russian people. This legal mishap is one of the most pressing domestic problems of the Russian Federation, and it will be settled sooner or later.50. A myth about a myth: the Russians think that Americans think that bears walk in the streets of Moscow. In fact, bears do not appear in Russian city streets, and the Americans do not have a stereotype of the wild Russia.Newsinfo | 1real |
U.S. Senate confirms Trump's pick for top Supreme Court lawyer | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as his administration’s top advocate before the U.S. Supreme Court, overcoming united Democratic opposition. Noel Francisco, a Washington lawyer with strong conservative credentials who previously worked in Republican former President George W. Bush’s administration, was confirmed by the Senate as U.S. solicitor general on a vote of 50-47. All the Senate’s Democrats voted against him except for New Jersey’s Robert Menendez, who is currently on trial facing corruption charges in Newark. Francisco takes up his new position as the Supreme Court prepares to begin its new term on Oct. 2. The court has several potential blockbuster cases on its docket, including the challenge to Trump’s travel ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries entering the United States. That case will be argued before the justices on Oct. 10. Francisco, who previously worked at the Jones Day law firm, will now be overseeing the Justice Department’s defense of the ban and other major policy initiatives that are challenged in court. He has argued three cases at the Supreme Court. Most recently, he represented Republican former Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell in a successful attempt to throw out corruption convictions. The justices ruled in favor of McDonnell last year in an 8-0 ruling that could make it tougher to prosecute politicians for corruption. Francisco served as a White House lawyer from 2001 to 2003 and spent another two years in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2003 to 2005. He previously worked as a clerk for the late Supreme Court conservative Justice Antonin Scalia. | 0fake |
This One Factor Determines If You’re A Trump Supporter, And It’s Not What You Think | Trump supporters have a lot in common. They lack education. They re a bunch of horrible racists. They want to make America great again by viciously beating African-American protesters and homeless people. The idea of keeping brown people out of Murika appeals to them. His appeal to racists is so great that white supremacists are actively campaigning for him and terrorist groups are using his hate speech to recruit. But did you know that one factor you haven t thought of defines Trump support better than jingoism, racism, homophobia, extreme anti-Muslim sentiments, or a desire to build a gigantic wall so we never have to even look at a Hispanic person again?Politico s Matthew MacWilliams says he has discovered one factor that predicts whether or not someone is a Trump voter:In fact, I ve found a single statistically significant variable predicts whether a voter supports Trump and it s not race, income or education levels: It s authoritarianism.That s right, Trump s electoral strength and his staying power have been buoyed, above all, by Americans with authoritarian inclinations. And because of the prevalence of authoritarians in the American electorate, among Democrats as well as Republicans, it s very possible that Trump s fan base will continue to grow.MacWilliams just finished conducting a national poll which sampled 1,800 voters across the nation. I found that education, income, gender, age, ideology and religiosity had no significant bearing on a Republican voter s preferred candidate, he writes. Only two of the variables I looked at were statistically significant: authoritarianism, followed by fear of terrorism, though the former was far more significant than the latter. MacWilliams explains that Trump s pledge to make America great again as well as his horrific suggestions that Muslims be banned from the United States, wear special ID badges if they re already here, and be rounded up into concentration camps (as well, of course, as his Great Wall of Murika), all cater to authoritarian inclinations:Authoritarianism is not a new, untested concept in the American electorate. Since the rise of Nazi Germany, it has been one of the most widely studied ideas in social science. While its causes are still debated, the political behavior of authoritarians is not. Authoritarians obey. They rally to and follow strong leaders. And they respond aggressively to outsiders, especially when they feel threatened.This, of course, describes Trump supporters perfectly. Frighteningly, authoritarianism (while prevalent among Republicans) is not limited to the Right. In the 2008 Democratic primary, the political scientist Marc Hetherington found that authoritarianism mattered more than income, ideology, gender, age and education in predicting whether voters preferred Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, MacWilliams notes. But Hetherington has also found, based on 14 years of polling, that authoritarians have steadily moved from the Democratic to the Republican Party over time since they began to embrace civil rights, gay rights, and other hallmarks of liberalism that are common in the party today.MacWilliams notes that authoritarianism is not a statistically significant factor in the Democratic primary race thus far, but it does appear to be playing an important role on the Republican side, as 49 percent of Republicans score in the top quarter of the authoritarian scale. MacWilliams poll asked voters some simple questions about parenting to gauge authoritarianism: whether it is more important for the voter to have a child who is respectful or independent; obedient or self-reliant; well-behaved or considerate; and well-mannered or curious. Based on these questions, Trump was the only candidate Republican or Democrat whose support among authoritarians was statistically significant, he concludes. This, combined with the 52% of respondents who live in fear of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, gives us something to fear. While it s easy to say President Trump can t happen here that Americans won t stand for the ideological reincarnation of Adolf Hitler being elected MacWilliams points out that it s time that Democrats and all who oppose fascism begin taking Trump seriously.Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr | 1real |
Trump says to stop visa abuses that undermine U.S. workers | BATON ROUGE, La (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Friday pledged to stop companies from abusing the visa process for foreign workers in a way that undermines the labor market for Americans. Speaking at a rally in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Trump said he had spent time during the presidential campaign with workers who were laid off but forced to train foreign hires brought in to replace them. “That’s actually demeaning,” Trump said. “We’re not going to let that happen any more.” Without naming companies, he said firms would withhold severance pay from the workers unless they trained their foreign replacements. “One of my first executive orders will be to ask the Department of Labor to investigate all visa abuses that undermine jobs and wages to the American worker,” he said. | 0fake |
Re: ‘D*ckileaks’? NY Post unveils tomorrow’s Weiner cover for your pleasure | — Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) October 28, 2016
For those of you who were waiting, the wait is over: Tomorrow's cover: Weiner sext probe found dirt on Hillary https://t.co/6z0BJkr23s pic.twitter.com/hAk6D02j8y
— New York Post (@nypost) October 28, 2016
So, does it live up to your expectations?
— Shoshana Weissmann (@senatorshoshana) October 28, 2016 "Stroking Gun"– that's pretty funny! https://t.co/sSec2Z3isp | 1real |
Britain, U.S. deny that Trump state visit delayed | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said on Sunday there had been no change to plans for U.S. President Donald Trump’s to come to Britain on a state visit, after the Guardian newspaper reported the trip had been postponed. The paper, citing an unidentified adviser at May’s Downing Street office who was in the room at the time, reported Trump had told May by telephone in recent weeks that he did not want to come if there were likely to be large-scale protests. “We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations,” a spokeswoman for May’s office said. “The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans.” The White House also denied the Guardian report, with an administration official telling Reuters, “The subject never came up on the call.” No date has been set for the visit, which was agreed during May’s visit to Washington in January, but British media had reported it was planned for October. May’s hold on power has been significantly weakened since the results of a snap election last week cost her Conservative Party a parliamentary majority. In a bid to save her position, May has been trying to form a government with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, a small faction of social conservatives. British politics is going through an upheaval just a week before talks begin on Britain’s exit from the European Union, set for 2019. Trump’s public criticism this month of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to an attack by Islamist militants in London was condemned in Britain. May found herself forced to defend Khan, who is from the opposition Labour party. At that time, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said there was no reason to cancel the visit, while White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump intended to go and that “he appreciates Her Majesty’s gracious invitation”. | 0fake |
Trump to make day trip to Washington during his vacation: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will make a day trip to Washington, D.C., on Monday, briefly interrupting his 17-day August working vacation, a White House official said on Friday. Trump has been spending time at a golf course he owns in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he has held meetings with his advisers about North Korea’s nuclear threat and other issues. Trump will leave his golf course on Sunday for his Manhattan home, where he said he had scheduled a lot of meetings. No reason for the Monday trip to Washington from New York City was immediately provided. The trip was first reported by Politico. Trump’s vacation comes as the West Wing of the White House goes through some long-planned renovations to update the air-conditioning system, fix leaks in the roof and make other repairs. | 0fake |
Syrian Airstrike May Open Door to Congressional Funding for Refugee Safe Zones Overseas | Last week’s American airstrike on a Syrian base believed to house chemical weapons used to attack Syrian civilians has brought the issue of refugees once again to the forefront of the political debate. [Democrats, ranging from Hillary Clinton to Maxine Waters, have used the airstrike as an opportunity to call again for the importation of 100, 000 more Syrian refugees into the United States. “Rep. Maxine Waters (D, Calif.) slammed President Donald Trump on Sunday for his temporary refugee ban and backed a MoveOn. org petition calling for the United States to take in 100, 000 Syrian refugees,” the Free Beacon reported earlier this week. “Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton chided President Trump Friday for ordering airstrikes against the Syrian regime at the same time as he attempts to bar Syrian refugees from the U. S. urging the administration to recognize that we cannot in one breath speak of protecting Syrian babies and in the next close America’s doors to them,” CBS News reported last week. But for President Trump and many Republicans, the airstrike presents an opportunity to a concept President Trump raised on the campaign trail: the establishment of refugee safe zones overseas. The summary of President Trump’s proposed budget for FY 2018 released by OMB in March suggests the administration may be including a funding request to establish such refugee zones. “The blueprint for the Trump administration’s FY 2018 budget released on Thursday ‘allows for significant funding of humanitarian assistance, including food aid, disaster, and refugee program funding’ in the State Department,” Breitbart News reported in March: The language of the blueprint, however, could be interpreted to suggest that the Trump administration’s “significant funding of . . . [the] refugee program” defines the program broadly to include safe zones in other parts of the world in addition to the federal refugee resettlement program. As such, a further reduction of refugees resettled in the United States in FY 2018 could be entirely possible. President Trump supported the establishment of safe zones for refugees during the campaign. The Refugee Admissions Program authorized by the Refugee Act of 1980 has been surrounded by political and legal chaos for several years, and that controversy has heightened during the campaign of 2016 and the first months of the Trump administration. Trump campaigned on stopping the flow of Syrian refugees to the United States, while Hillary Clinton wanted to dramatically increase that flow. Trump won the Presidency in part based on his stance on refugees, but his efforts to honor his campaign pledge have been hampered by court decisions that have temporarily halted both Executive Order 13769 and Executive Order 13780. Overall, the flow of refugees into the United States has declined under the Trump administration, but a significant number of refugees from the six Middle Eastern countries “hostile to the United States” Trump attempted to impose a temporary travel ban on in Executive Order 13780 — Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, and Yemen — has continued unabated. Paying for the resettlement of refugees is expensive. Breitbart News estimated that the annual cost to American taxpayers to fund the resettlement of refugees exceeds $4 billion. Several cost estimates indicate that safe zones overseas would cost less than ten percent, on a per refugee basis, what it costs to resettle a refugee in the United States. In addition to the financial cost of refugee resettlement, the cultural cost to the United States is very high as well, since refugees — especially from Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, and Yemen — have a long track record of failing to assimilate into American culture. That failure manifests itself in several ways. These refugees have been involved in a number of terrorist incidents in the United States. Somalian refugees in particular have participated in a number of terrorist incidents in the United States and been arrested for attempting to join ISIS. Then there is the huge public health impact of refugees, again particularly from these six countries in the Middle East. Breitbart News has reported, for instance, that the number of cases of active TB from refugees during the four year period from 2012 to 2015 exceeded 1, 500: The increase in the number of refugees diagnosed with active TB from 358 in 2012 to 409 in 2015 was partially responsible for the increase in the total number of cases of active TB increased from 6, 274 to 6, 350 during those four years. Other categories of cases of TB that increased included those who arrived under regular immigrant visas, which increased from 1, 437 in 2012 to 1, 670 in 2015, those who arrived in the “other” category, which includes illegal immigrants (called “undocumented immigrants” in the CDC reports) which increased from 1, 312 in 2012 to 1, 408 in 2015, and those who arrived under student visas, which increased from 158 in 2012 to 191 in 2015. TB cases as a percentage of all TB cases diagnosed in the United States increased from 63. 1 percent in 2012 to 66. 4 percent in 2015. Finally, there is a huge problem of common crimes committed by refugees who do not assimilate into American culture, or actively reject it. “Three boys from Iraq and Sudan who were invited into the country via refugee programs pled guilty to charges of sexually brutalizing a American child in Twin Falls, Idaho, last year,” Breitbart News reported earlier this month. In North Dakota recently a “Somali refugee in the U. S. was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of molesting a teenage girl at gunpoint,” Breitbart News reported. The list of crimes reported by refugees in the United States is much longer than this, as a brief scan of the daily headlines around the country confirms on a regular basis. In one recent key appointment, President Trump indicated that it may no longer be “business as usual” in the Refugee Admissions Program. “President Donald Trump has selected Scott Lloyd to serve as the new director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) the office within the Department of Health and Human Services that administers the payments to the voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) that resettle refugees in the United States,” Breitbart News reported last month. Still, Obama holdovers who have historically been strong refugee advocates, most notably Jennifer Higgins, remain in positions of authority in the Department of Homeland Security’s program responsible for refugee vetting. The Trump administration will shortly reveal how serious it is about establishing refugee safe zones overseas as a preferable alternative to bringing thousands more Middle Eastern refugees into the United States. The Continuing Resolution that has funded the federal government’s operations for the first half of FY 2017 is about to expire later this month on April 28. Recent comments by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ( ) suggest refugee safe zones may be part of budget considerations. McConnell “wouldn’t comment on whether Trump should let refugees into the U. S. but said it would be beneficial to create some safe zone in Syria, “which would require some military action … so people don’t feel like they have to run for their lives,” Axios reported last week. Any proposal by the Trump administration to increase refugee funding to establish safe zones during the remainder of FY 2017 will be included in the budgets brought to a vote in Congress to fund the balance of the fiscal year later this month. | 0fake |
Pence Pushes Paul Ryan’s Obamacare Bill on Capitol Hill as House Republicans Push Back - Breitbart | WASHINGTON, D. C. — Vice President Mike Pence took to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers on the heels of the release of Republican House Leaders’ plan to replace Obamacare. [Pence was scheduled for a Senate Republican Policy lunch, after which he was to hold “a series of meetings with lawmakers. the White House released a readout of the Vice President’s meeting with U. S. House Representatives Marks Meadows ( ) and Jim Jordan ( ): The Vice President today met with conservative leaders in the House to discuss the failures of Obamacare and the need to repeal and replace that disastrous law. Participants discussed their shared desire for fiscally responsible, reforms that encourage competition and provide individuals and families with the ability to choose the health insurance option that is best for them. The Vice President stressed this is the first step in the process to deliver on the President’s promise to the American people and looks forward to House passage of the American Health Care Act. Shortly after the meeting, members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Meadows and Jordan, held a press conference on Capitol Hill, during which they addressed repeal and replacement of Obamacare. Rep. Meadows recalled for reporters that he campaigned alongside Donald Trump during the presidential election. He said that talk of repeal meant to many that the entire bill would be repealed. Both Meadows and Jordan spoke of getting rid of Obamacare completely and bringing down healthcare costs for Americans. Jordan told reporters: Tomorrow I will introduce the bill that every single Republican voted on just 15 months ago, the bill that actually repeals Obamacare. Our plan has always been repeal in one piece of legislation, replace in the other and that replacement we talked about a few weeks ago is the bill sponsored by [Rep.] Dr. [Rand] Paul in the Senate and [Rep.] Mark Sanford in the House. He went on to summarize and differentiate three different replacement plans. The first he named was the plan, which he defined as essentially the plan to keep Obamacare. The second Jordan named was the House Leadership plan, “which I believe when you look through it, is Obamacare in a different form. ” The third he named as “our plan,” as he spoke alongside members of the House Freedom Caucus. He said of this third plan that it is “the one that I think is consistent with what we told the voters we were gonna do. Repeal Obamacare, replace it with a plan that actually brings down the cost of insurance, brings down the cost of healthcare. ” Member after member denounced the House Leadership plan to replace Obamacare as unacceptable based on what they promised to the American people. Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Mark Sanford, Rep. Dave Brat, and Sen. Rand Paul were among those who also spoke at the Tuesday afternoon House Freedom Caucus press conference. Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana | 0fake |
MN: Mayoral Candidate Wants To DISARM COPS After Muslim Cop Kills Unarmed Woman | Minneapolis mayoral candidate Raymond Dehn proposes disarming cops in wake of Damond shooting. Only one year ago, the FBI named Minneapolis, MN as one of the most dangerous cities in America. Minneapolis is also home to the largest Somali refugee population in America. According to the Star Tribune, Minnesota remains near the top among states for refugee resettlement, measured as a share of state population. It is also the top destination for refugees who move from the state where they were originally resettled. Of the 2,338 total, almost 45 percent hailed from Somalia.In the wake of the shooting death of Australian Justine Damond, Raymond Dehn, a candidate in the race for Minneapolis mayor has proposed disarming police officersThe Australian woman was shot dead by police officer Mohamed Noor after calling 911 to report a suspected sexual assault. Officers don t need to carry a gun on their person all the time, said Raymond Dehn, one of the frontrunners in the mayoral race and who currently serves in the Minnesota House of Representatives. Currently, officers carry all sorts of assault weapons in their cars. So why can t one of those weapons be the side arm (such as a baton that sits on a holster)? It s important that we begin to have a conversation, and I would say that all things are on the table. We live in a culture where guns are pervasive. Cops carrying guns is part of a larger conversation about guns in our society, he said, according to the Star Tribune .Better yet, how about just disarm the cops who, like Mohamed Noor, are only on the force to demonstrate Minneapolis commitment to diversity, rather than because they re competent to be police officers?Even better still, how about hire and fire cops based on merit, rather than for their value as trophy Muslims or Somalis on the force?Nah that would be Islamophobic. Jihad Watch | 1real |
U.S. Commerce nominee Ross calls China 'most protectionist' country | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for commerce secretary, voiced sharp criticism of China’s trade practices on Wednesday, telling senators he would seek new ways of combating them. In his confirmation hearing, Ross also said that renegotiating the North American Free Trade agreement with Mexico and Canada would likely be the Trump administration’s first priority, calling it a “very, very early topic.” Ross, who made his fortune turning around troubled companies in steel, auto parts, textiles and other industries, called China the “most protectionist” country among large economies, with high tariff and non-tariff barriers to imports. The 79-year-old billionaire vowed to level the playing field for U.S. companies competing with Chinese imports and those trying to do business in China. Chinese officials, he said, “talk much more about free trade than they actually practice. We would like to levelize that playing field and bring the realities a bit closer to the rhetoric.” His comments came a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping took the stage in Davos, Switzerland, to defend free trade and make the case for a greater global leadership role for Beijing, describing China’s economy as “wide open.” In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said, “Under the current circumstances, who is sincerely and vigorously promoting the liberalization of trade and investment and who is engaged in trade protectionism? “I think it is clear to everyone. The answer is just the opposite to Mr Ross’,” she told a regular news briefing on Thursday. Ross said state-owned enterprises in China were a particular problem that needed to be dealt with, charging that up to one-third have never made a profit and this has fueled overcapacity that has led to dumping of products such as steel and aluminum. “They’re being kept alive by state-owned banks. To me that looks and feels and tastes a lot like artificial subsidies,” he said, adding that the Commerce Department will be “very scrupulous” in identifying unfair subsidies that require countervailing duties. Ross did not specifically mention Trump’s threats to levy punitive tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the United States, but said countries that dump products below costs or fail to provide a fair trading field should be “severely punished.” He said he would pay particular attention to sectors in need of anti-dumping tariffs, including steel and aluminum. The Commerce Department may initiate some anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases on its own, rather than relying on private companies to build the cases, to shorten the processing time, he said. Ross also was critical of moves by Chinese firms to buy control of U.S. entertainment and distributors when Beijing was denying such opportunities to U.S. firms in China. Trump has criticized China’s trade practices and NAFTA, accusing both of causing millions of manufacturing job losses in the United States. The president-elect has pledged to renegotiate NAFTA to be more favorable to U.S. manufacturers or leave the 23-year-old trade pact. The Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Wednesday that Ross had informed Canadian officials a formal request for negotiations would be sent within days of Trump’s inauguration on Friday, with rules of origin a priority. Ross said it was possible for the U.S. economy to grow faster than the Obama administration. It could achieve about 3 percent growth by adopting Trump’s proposals to roll back some business regulations, expand domestic energy production, reduce U.S. trade deficits and rebuild crumbling domestic infrastructure, he said. Ross also said more wireless telecommunications spectrum, sales of which are managed by the Commerce Department, was needed by the private sector. He pledged to press government and military agencies that control it to release what they do not need. “I am not anti-trade. I am pro-trade,” Ross said. “But I am pro-sensible trade, not trade that is to the disadvantage of the American worker and to the American manufacturing community.” Ross disclosed on Tuesday that he would sell investments valued at up to about $300 million, including his stake in his private equity firm, to avoid conflicts of interest as commerce secretary. The position’s responsibilities range from trade enforcement and economic data publication to telecommunications auctions and weather forecasting. {nL1N1F720V] | 0fake |
Milan Fashion Week, Day 3: At Armani, Expect Signature Tailoring and Evening Wear ... but No Fur - The New York Times | And so to Friday, the end of the working week for some but not for the nomads of the fashion tribe, who have just reached the halfway point of a frenzied Milan schedule. Here’s what’s on for today: • This season, Giorgio Armani will show the Emporio Armani spring 2017 collection in Paris, so he has bumped his main label (usually the closing show of Milan) into an earlier slot. Expect plenty of Mr. Armani’s signature tailoring, and gushing Italians in the audience breaking into applause at the sight of the evening wear. One thing no longer on the catwalk? Fur, after Mr. Armani pledged to go 100 percent fur free after fall 2016. • Season in and season out, Etro offers up bohemian prints on gorgeous billowing fabrics. But before the show, the company also offers up the most delicious lunchtime snacks for the hungry hordes, not to mention pretty printed cushions to sit on, cushions that can then be taken away. It’s a winning combination. • The king of color, Marco de Vincenzo, who spent 13 years at Fendi before introducing his own label and gaining backing from LVMH in 2014, is often touted as one of Italy’s most promising emerging talents (which, given that he’s knocking on 40, can occasionally feel a little ridiculous). His shows tend to excite and delight he’s a man who knows his way around a rainbow. • As evening falls, it will be time for Versace, where no doubt Donatella will dish out her usual dose of barely there on some of the starriest models of the moment. Log on to the NYT Styles Facebook page we’ll be backstage and on Facebook Live with the beauty doyenne Pat McGrath before peeking at the latest beauty looks for the season. • Accessories labels staging catwalk shows appears to be a big trend of the season. The latest to jump onto the bandwagon is Sergio Rossi. The company is staging performances at the Teatro Gerolamo, putting the latest collection in the spotlight. Across town, hotfoot it to the shoe guru Gianvito Rossi’s party for a glass of prosecco or three. In the real world, it is Friday, after all. And in case you missed it: • Rebelling Against at Fendi and Roberto Cavalli. Our reviewer weighs in. • In the Studio With Silvia Fendi • The Wild Ride of Supermodel Naomi Campbell Isn’t Slowing Down • Rankin, and Fashion, Take to the Milan Streets • At Philipp Plein: Fergie Down the Rabbit Hole | 0fake |
From Bad to Worse: Obama’s Ransom Payment to Iran is Just the Tip of the Iceberg | Search form Search From Bad to Worse : Obama’s Ransom Payment to Iran is Just the Tip of the Iceberg In his bid to pursue a legacy, Obama charts disastrous course with reckless abandon. November 2, 2016 Ari Lieberman
Most of us, including several democratic lawmakers, cringed when Obama inked the Iran deal but those of us who are familiar with the malevolent nature of the Iranian regime, recoiled in horror when we learned that Obama transferred $400 million to the Iranians in exchange for four American citizens held captive by the mullahs on trumped up charges. The $400 million was part of a larger installment totaling $1.7 billion, ostensibly to settle claims Iran had against the United States stemming from aborted Iranian arms purchases dating back to the Shah. Obama claimed that this was money that was “owed” to Iran and the settlement, which included $1.3 billion in interest, saved the U.S. taxpayer “billions” because the Iranians were demanding even more at the Hague tribunal, where the claim was being adjudicated.
The timing and method of the cash transfers were disquieting to say the least and raised serious questions of legality as well as broader geo-political concerns. The Americans were freed only after Iran received its $400 million. The payment, which was airlifted in the dead of night in an unmarked cargo plane, was made in untraceable cash, stacked on wooden pallets. The Iranians demanded Swiss Francs and Euros rather than Dollars and a pliant Obama agreed to the Islamic Republic’s dictates. Gleeful Iranian leaders were quick to announce victory and claimed that the payment was indeed a ransom, contradicting the administration’s adamant denials.
Even within the administration there was confusion about whether the payment was in fact a ransom. State Department spokesman Mark Toner came very close to acknowledging this fact when he noted that the $400 million was used as “leverage” to ensure the Americans’ safe return. The White House however, quickly repudiated the State Department’s characterization.
Even if one were to believe the story peddled by the administration, the mere appearance of a quid pro quo payment potentially exposes the U.S. to extortion and hostage-taking. The Iranians certainly believed it was a ransom payment and more likely than not, every two-bit dictator on the planet saw it that way as well.
But there are deeper more troubling aspects to this convoluted story. In his January 17, 2016 address to the American people, Obama tried to put a positive spin on his dealings with the Islamic Republic but as noted by Rick Richman in an excellent article featured in Mosaic , the deal struck with the Iranians was rotten to its core and the administration deliberately kept the American people in the dark about various aspects of the shady arrangement.
The $400 million that the U.S. transferred to Iran came from Iran’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) account with the Pentagon. The balance of 1.3 billion ostensibly represented interest accrued since 1979. But Obama neglected to note that when Iran filed its lawsuit, the U.S. filed counterclaim against Iran for $817 million for Iranian breaches of its obligations under the FMS program. The U.S. could have conceivably won that counterclaim which would have meant wooden pallets of cash for the American treasury, courtesy of the Islamic Republic.
Moreover, American plaintiffs maintained sixteen U.S. court judgments against the Islamic Republic stemming from that regime’s involvement in terrorist activities. Those judgments totaled $3.9 billion in compensatory and punitive damages.
Some plaintiffs sought to recover their Judgments directly from Iran’s FMS account but their efforts were stymied by the Clinton administration. Instead, under a convoluted deal struck between Congress and the Clinton administration in 2,000, the U.S. treasury was to pay the holders of the judgments against Iran for the amount of their compensatory damages and 10 percent of their punitive damages up to the amount in the FMS fund. The judgments would then be subrogated to the United States, which meant that judgments became direct U.S claims against the Iranian government.
Iran ignored the Judgments and never paid any of the plaintiffs. Under U.S. law, the $400 million sitting in the FMS account should have gone back to the U.S. treasury, which had already paid the judgment holders. But the U.S. treasury never collected a dime on the subrogated claims since Obama shipped the money off on wooden pallets to Iran. Essentially, the U.S. taxpayer ended up footing the bill for Iran’s terrorism while the Iranians were never held accountable for their maleficence.
Obama’s actions represented blatant disregard for the law, for the victims of terrorism and for the American taxpayer. His claim of saving the taxpayer “billions” represents the zenith of mendacity.
Obama claimed that the payments had to be made in cash because existing sanctions prohibited normal banking procedures. But as noted by Richman, the sanctions regimen expressly permits payments made to settle Iranian claims instituted at The Hague, exposing yet another lie by the Obama administration.
There was one, and only one reason why the Iranians requested cash and all but the most disingenuous know what that reason is. The Iranians are the world’s foremost state-sponsors of international terrorism. They finance terrorist groups and proxy militias throughout the region and internationally but can only do so through illicit means that circumvent normal methods of financing. Hence, they demanded untraceable cash. The misery that we are currently witnessing in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere is due in no small part to the Obama administration which provided the Iranians with the cash necessary to keep operations flowing.
In addition to the $1.7 billion in cash, Obama also authorized the release of seven convicted Iranian felons and expunged warrants on 14 others. But this aspect of the transaction seems almost trivial when considering the sheer mendacity and illegality of nearly every other aspect of the deal.
Lastly, the transfer of such a large sum to Iran in “settlement” of an alleged legal claim required the attorney general’s approval but the administration has yet to produce any document bearing Loretta Lynch’s signature authorizing such payment. On October 7, Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) presented Lynch with a series of questions seeking clarification of various aspects of the deal. Lynch, whose tenure as attorney general is proving to be as corrupt and partisan as her predecessor, has inexplicably refused to answer the lawmakers’ queries.
In a desperate attempt to establish a legacy, Obama pursued the Iran deal with reckless abandon, forfeiting positions previously regarded as red lines and signing the worst deal in U.S. diplomatic history. The ancillary deal struck with the Iranians concerning American hostages was laced with outright lies and enabled the Iranians to continue their reign or regional terror. More importantly, it may also have been in violation of existing U.S. law and Lynch’s stonewalling only lends credence to that notion. | 1real |
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Anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned, permanently. Daily Stormer Presents: Dr. David Duke Š Copyright Daily Stormer 2016, All Rights Reserved | 1real |
Russian Spacecraft Carrying Supplies Burns Up in Flight - The New York Times | A Russian spacecraft carrying 2. 6 tons of food, fuel and supplies — but no astronauts — to the International Space Station failed to reach orbit on Thursday and largely burned up in the atmosphere as it fell back down. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, reported that a Soyuz rocket carrying the Progress 65 cargo ship successfully lifted off from Kazakhstan. The first six minutes and 22 seconds of the flight proceeded normally. But shortly after the upper stage separated from the core booster, flight telemetry stopped, leaving ground controllers confused about what had happened. Roscosmos later confirmed that the Progress 65 and its cargo had been destroyed, with the failure occurring about 120 miles over Tuva, a Russian republic in southern Siberia. The six astronauts at the space station — three Russian, two American and one French — are safe and have adequate supplies, Roscosmos and NASA said. The cargo included 1, 400 pounds of propellant, 112 pounds of oxygen, 925 pounds of water, and 2, 750 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware. NASA said the Progress was not carrying any supplies crucial for the United States side of the space station. A Japanese cargo ship is scheduled to launch and head to the space station on Dec. 9. Space station managers will have to do some juggling of plans and adjust coming cargo flights. This is the fourth loss of a spacecraft carrying cargo to the space station in the past 25 months. In October 2014, an Antares rocket built by Orbital ATK exploded six seconds after it lifted off in Virginia. Six months later, a Russian Progress cargo ship spun out of control. Then, a Falcon 9 rocket built by SpaceX disintegrated during flight. Before that, the space station program had experienced the loss of only one cargo ship — another Progress, in August 2011 — in nearly 16 years. This fall, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia called for accelerated construction at a new launch site to replace the current Cosmodrome, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan. The financially ailing Russian space program will temporarily reduce the number of crew members to two from three at the space station next year. In recent months, the flow of supplies to the space station appeared to be getting back on track. An Antares rocket with different engines successfully reached the space station in October. Several Progress ships successfully ferried cargo to the space station before Thursday’s failure. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 also resumed flights but then was grounded again after one of the Falcon 9 rockets exploded on the launchpad during fueling for an engine test. SpaceX is now aiming to resume the launching of commercial satellites this month, and its next cargo flight is planned for January 2017. NASA officials now seem prescient in asking Orbital ATK to launch its next cargo mission with an Atlas 5 rocket, built by United Launch Alliance, rather than an Antares rocket. Although the redesigned Antares worked well, the Atlas 5 has a long, successful track record and it can lift a heavier payload, allowing NASA to pack in more supplies. That mission is to take off in the spring. | 0fake |
Before election, Putin proposes writing off part of Russians' debts | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is running for re-election in March, has proposed writing off some of the tax debts accumulated by Russian individuals and small businesses. A total of about 80 billion roubles ($1.4 billion) would be written off under Putin s proposal, a high-ranking official told Reuters. Speaking at his annual news conference, Putin said that some of the debt accumulated because of flaws in Russia s tax system. I think that people should be freed from these payments, and it should be done in the most de-bureaucratic way, without the need to apply to a tax inspection, he added. He estimated that debts of 42 million people worth 41 billion roubles should be written off. The high-ranking official told Reuters that Putin was speaking about debts for property tax and penalties accrued before 2015 that the tax service recognizes as uncollectible. The debts of 2.9 million self-employed entrepreneurs worth more than 15 billion roubles should also be written off, Putin said. He also proposed writing off profit tax, accumulated by some Russian citizens on their so-called waived debts. According to the high-ranking official, the latter would mean writing off 22 billion roubles. ($1 = 58.8600 roubles) | 0fake |
Trump Takes Travel Ban Case to SCOTUS - Breitbart | The Department of Justice filed a petition for a writ of certiorari just before midnight on Thursday, asking the Supreme Court of the United States to take up the hotly contested travel ban executive order blocked in the lower courts. [Should the Supreme Court accept the petition for Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Program, the nine justices, including the recently seated Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch, will consider overturning the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s injunction blocking enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning most travel from six countries. The case will be heard if four of the nine justices agree to take it up. The temporary travel ban has now been through a revision and been the subject of several hearings at both the trial and appellate level. Most recently, an en banc panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled to uphold the injunction. Thursday’s petition fulfills Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ promise immediately following that ruling to take the fight to the Supreme Court. Over the strenuous objections of the dissent, the Fourth Circuit ruled, in a similar manner as their sister Ninth Circuit Court Appeals has in a parallel challenge to the travel ban, that even though the executive order is neutral with regard to Muslims in its text, statements President Trump and his surrogates made during the campaign turn it into violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The majority opinion made no mention of the terror attacks in Manchester, England, committed by the Islamist son of immigrants from Libya, a country named in the order as a potential source of terror, on the day before the ruling was issued. Instead, Fourth Circuit quoted “former National Security Officials” saying the executive order served “no legitimate national security purpose” and that “there is no evidence of any new security risks emanating from these countries. ” The vote split on party line of the appointing president of each judge on the panel. Because the travel ban was only written to apply for 90 days, and is scheduled to expire on June 14, the Supreme Court would have to hear arguments and rule on the case on expedited emergency schedule in order to preserve the order as written. The Court normally does not hear arguments at this time of year. It is unclear if the current case could be preserved if the order is allowed to expire without the Supreme Court ruling. The government’s petition, written in the name of Acting Solicitor General Jeffery B. Wall, asks the Court to reverse on grounds brought up by the Fourth Circuit dissenters, that precedent prohibits courts from looking for evidence of “bad faith” outside the text of the order itself. It also goes further, asking the court to dismiss the First Amendment challenge to the ban out of hand based on the broad power of the president to exclude aliens outside the United States, to whom the First Amendment does not apply, from entering the country. The petition quotes a 1950 Supreme Court case saying, “‘The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty’ that lies in the ‘legislative power’ and also ‘is inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation.’ “ | 0fake |
Al Franken Hilariously Roasts Ted Cruz During Variety Show Appearance (VIDEO) | Al Franken returned to his comedic roots last Friday and his target was none other than Republican presidential wannabe Ted Cruz.The Minnesota Democratic Senator made an appearance at MinnRoast, an annual variety show, where he used the funnyman skills he honed as a cast member of Saturday Night Live to roast the Texas Senator.On this very welcome special performance, Franken revealed who Cruz s parents really are. Republicans are in kind of a bind since their best hope for stopping Donald Trump is a guy who s the lovechild of Joe McCarthy and Dracula, Franken quipped.Indeed, Ted Cruz bears a striking resemblance to McCarthy, who led the persecution of suspected communists during the Red Scare in the 1950s, sort of like how Cruz leads the effort to persecute non-Christians and gay people in the present day. Franken was even dead-on with the Dracula comparison. Just take a look at Grandpa Munster as played by Al Lewis on The Munsters TV show and you ll see why.Franken wasn t finished, however. He also took a swing at Cruz s personality and his effort to use it to charm voters into foolishly supporting him. Cruz can be really hard to get along with, but I understand that in a couple weeks he s planning to launch a charm offensive, Franken began. He s having a little trouble with the charm part but he s got the offensive part down cold. Then Franken capped off his brief appearance with a jab at House Speaker Paul Ryan about how much Republicans are begging him to run for president so they don t have to watch Donald Trump sink the party in November.Here s the video via YouTube:Franken has rarely used his comedic prowess since becoming a Senator in 2009, and this performance makes us wish he would use it more often, even on the Senate floor. Because just about every Republican deserves to be mercilessly roasted for how they have turned the Senate into an embarrassing joke over the last eight years.Featured image: Screenshot | 1real |
Joy Reid: Being Black and Muslim Puts You in ’the Crosshairs of Trumpworld’ - Breitbart | While Rep. Keith Ellison ( ) touted on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” Saturday why he is a better candidate for chair of the Democratic National Committee, host Joy Reid tacked on that what he accomplished was done while being black and Muslim, “two things in the crosshairs of Trumpworld. ” “You managed to do that while being two things in the crosshairs of Trumpworld — being black and being Muslim,” Reid told Ellison. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Trump’s Leaks To Russia May Well Have Put Individual Lives In Serious Danger | Trump s ignorance, incompetence, and ego are putting intelligence agents at risk.It won t come as any surprise that international espionage is a complicated, high-stakes affair. At any given time, agents from countries all around the world are embedded with ISIS and other terrorist groups, secretly reporting back to their superiors in order to ensure that America and her allies have the latest intelligence. As the New York Times and Addicting Info have reported, the intelligence that President Trump shared with the Russians came from Israeli sources. That s a problem.Iran is one of Israel s greatest enemies and one of Russia s biggest allies. They certainly have an interest in learning everything they can about Israeli intelligence assets. And now, thanks to Donald Trump s startling incompetence, their Russian allies are free to tell them everything they know.The Wall Street Journal s statement confirming Israeli intelligence was the source.This sort of intelligence breach is literally unprecedented. Until now, no American president has ever handled classified information so carelessly. But that s not the worst of it. Israeli field agents have been compromised thanks to Trump s propensity for gossip. Sources say that they re being recalled right now, forced to flee from the ISIS units in which they ve worked so hard to embed themselves.One of the biggest ironies about this ongoing story is just how many intelligence officials worried it was going to happen. Stories have broken since the election last year that quote intelligence sources saying they were worried about Trump s stupidity.It was NOT appropriate 4 Trump 2 disclose this intel to Russia. It was NOT ours to share. It was Israel's, provided on high confidentiality. Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) May 16, 2017One article, which ran in Israeli newspaper Haaretz and was written by investigative reporter Ronen Bergman, mentions this exact scenario, complete with a warning from American intelligence agents not to trust Trump. The article said, American intelligence officials implied that Israel should be careful when transferring intelligence information to the White House and the National Security Council following Trump s inauguration at least until it is clear that Trump does not have inappropriate connections with Russia. Nobody can say we weren t warned.Featured image by Spencer Platt via Getty Images | 1real |
Dieser Mann ist durch Carsten Maschmeyers Millionärs-Ratgeber unglaublich reich geworden | Mittwoch, 23. November 2016 Dieser Mann ist durch Carsten Maschmeyers Millionärs-Ratgeber unglaublich reich geworden Hannover (dpo) - Geldverdienen kann so einfach sein: Carsten M. (57) aus Hannover hat in kürzerster Zeit ein Vermögen verdient. Seinen Erfolg verdankt er laut eigener Aussage dem Ratgeber "Die Millionärsformel: Der Weg zur finanziellen Unabhängigkeit" des Unternehmers Carsten Maschmeyer. Machte Carsten M. reich: dieses simple Buch "Ich kann niemanden ernst nehmen, der behauptet, dass solche 'Wie werde ich reich?'-Ratgeber nicht funktionieren", erklärt M. energisch. "Schauen Sie mich an! Ich bin der lebende Beweis, dass an der 'Millionärsformel' eben doch was dran ist." Es sei schlicht unglaublich, wie viel Geld er schon mithilfe dieses Buches verdient habe: "Der Mann, der das geschrieben hat, muss ein Genie sein!" Welcher der zahlreichen Tipps des Autors es war, der ihn in Rekordzeit zum Erfolg führte, kann oder will Carsten M. nicht verraten. "Aber seit diesem Buch verdiene ich Geld, ohne auch nur einen Finger zu rühren." Der 57-Jährige ist fest davon überzeugt, dass es grundsätzlich jeder schaffen kann, auf dieselbe Art reich zu werden. "Sie brauchen nur ein Buch mit einem griffigen Titel, der dem Leser schnellen Erfolg verspricht. Auch wenn es aussieht, als stünde ziemlich viel nichtssagender Müll darin – glauben Sie an das Werk! Wenn Sie sich das zu Herzen nehmen und nie auch nur eine Sekunde am Autor zweifeln, können Sie das auch schaffen!" Auch wenn er nur ungern darüber spricht, Carsten M. kennt noch mindestens eine andere unfehlbare Methode, um reich zu werden. Allerdings ist diese nicht in einem Buch zu finden, sondern am besten in einem Film erklärt: Der Drückerkönig | 1real |
Kissinger says impressed by China's 'calm reaction' to Trump's Taiwan call | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said on Monday he was impressed by the Chinese leadership’s calm reaction to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s call last week with the president of Taiwan. “At this moment I’ve been very impressed at the calm reaction of the Chinese leadership, which suggests a determination to see whether a calm dialogue can be developed,” Kissinger said at an event sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. | 0fake |
Мечтатели из Пентагона: как армия США впустую потратила $58 млрд на оружие будущего | Короткая ссылка 27 октября 2016, 00:10 Заместитель министра обороны США Фрэнк Кендалл опубликовал отчёт, согласно которому Пентагон c начала 90-х годов потратил около $58 млрд на оборонные проекты, которые так и не были реализованы. RT рассказывает о самых необычных образцах вооружения, которые так и не увидели свет несмотря на многомиллиардное финансирование. Крейсер CG(X) © DOD Крейсер CG(X)
Разработка высокотехнологичного эскадренного миноносца CG(X) (на изображении выше) по программе ВМС США началась ещё в начале 90-х годов. В результате пересмотра финансирования проекта, от него были отделены программы по созданию эсминцев DD(X) и Zumwalt. В 2010 году проект CG(X) был закрыт из-за того, что совпадал по своим задачам с уже существующими кораблями класса Arleigh Burke. Всего на программу было потрачено более $200 млн. Выросший из этой программы головной эсминец проекта DDG-1000 Zumwalt в единственном экземпляре вошел в состав ВМС США в мае этого года. О этой высокотехнологичной новинке RT уже рассказывал своим читателям. XM2001 Crusader Самоходная гаубица XM2001 Crusader © DOD
Самоходная гаубица Crusader также разрабатывалась с начала 90-х. Предполагалось, что она станет более лёгкой заменой уже существующей M109A6 Paladin. К моменту завершения проекта комитет начальников штабов США посчитал орудие, разрабатывавшееся для армии времён холодной войны, не отвечающим новым концепциям ведения боевых действий. Программа, на которую было выделено $2 млрд, была закрыта в 2002 году Дональдом Рамсфельдом, министром обороны при Джордже Буше-младшем. Плавающий бронетранспортёр EFV Бронетранспортёр EFV © DOD
Новый плавающий бронетранспортёр с тяжёлым вооружением под названием «Экспедиционная боевая машина» (Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle — EFV) для корпуса Морской пехоты США начали разрабатывать ещё в конце 1980-х годов. После многочисленных срывов срока завершения и превышения стоимости на 270%, разработка EFV была прекращена в 2011 году. Всего на бронетранспортёр потратили $3,3 млрд. Вертолёт RAH66 Comanche Вертолёт Boeing-Sikorksy RAH66 Comanche © DOD
На разработку разведывательных вертолётов поддержки RAH66 Comanche ушло 22 года и $6,9 млрд. «Команчи» должны были заменить вертолёты классов Huey, Kiowa и Cobra, состоящие на вооружении армии США. Однако с развитием технологий беспилотных летательных аппаратов, концепция RAH66 успела устареть, прежде чем была готова к производству. Вдобавок, полностью снаряжённые прототипы в ходе испытаний зачастую просто не могли оторваться от земли. Проект был закрыт в 2004 году. Boeing YAL-1 Самолёт Boeing YAL-1 с лазерной установкой © DOD
В 1996 году ВВС США приступили к реализации программы экспериментального самолёта, оборудованного лазерной установкой для поражения в воздухе баллистических ракет противника. Спустя 15 лет работ в воздух поднялся лишь один прототип, созданный на основе старого Boeing 747 компании Air India, обозначенный как Boeing YAL-1. В 2011 проект был закрыт из-за «дороговизны и технических требований», а также «больших сомнений в его практической пользе». Всего на разработку самолёта с лазерным вооружением было потрачено $5 млрд. «Боевая система будущего»— FCS © DOD
Предложенная в 1999 году начальником штаба армии США Эриком Шинсеки, «Боевая система будущего» (Future Combat System — FCS) должна была объединить в себе целое семейство управляемых и беспилотных боевых машин и летательных аппаратов, которые бы обеспечили превосходство американских вооружённых сил на поле боя XXI века. Постоянно меняющиеся требования военных в связи с открытием новых театров боевых действий после терактов 11 сентября 2001 года тормозили разработку и увеличили стоимость программы на 25%. В 2009 году, когда проект находился на стадии системного дизайна и был готов к первым демонстрациям, он был закрыт. Всего было потрачено $19 млрд, что делает FCS самим дорогим из проектов оружия будущего, так и не законченных Пентагоном. | 1real |
Taiwan the most important issue in Sino-U.S. ties, China's Xi tells Trump | BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan is the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. ties, Chinese President Xi Jinping told visiting U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, ahead of the one-year anniversary of Trump taking a precedent-breaking call from Taiwan s president. China considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province and integral part of its territory, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is the island s main source of arms. Trump upset China last December by taking a telephone call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, shortly after he won election, the first call between U.S. and Taiwan leaders since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979. While there was no public mention of Taiwan in comments Xi and Trump made in front of reporters, the official Chinese foreign ministry statement about their talks did not mince its words. The Taiwan issue is the most important, most sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations, and concerns the political basis of the China-U.S. relationship, the ministry paraphrased Xi as telling Trump. China hopes that the U.S. side continues to scrupulously abide by the one China principle, and prevents disturbances to the broader picture of China-U.S. ties , Xi added. Trump told Xi that the United States government upheld and stuck to the one China policy, China s official Xinhua news agency reported. In Taipei, Chiu Chui-cheng, deputy minister of Taiwan s China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, said China should respect Taiwan s people. We think China should deeply understand and respect Taiwan people s opinions on the growth of relations across the Taiwan Strait, Chiu told reporters. We are also willing to work with the other side to find a new, positive model in cross-straits ties that would use dialogue to resolve differences, and to create a proper path for harmonious relations. China suspects Tsai wants to push for the formal independence of Taiwan, a red line for Beijing. Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan s democracy and security. China has pressured Taiwan since Tsai took office last year, suspending a regular dialogue mechanism and slowly peeling away its few remaining diplomatic allies. China is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward Taiwan, and was upset when the United States recently allowed Tsai to transit through Hawaii and Guam on her way to and from diplomatic allies of Taiwan s in the Pacific. Defeated Nationalist forces fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communists. | 0fake |
Obama oval office speech aims to reassure nation over terror threats | Washington (CNN) President Barack Obama will try to reassure a nervous nation on Sunday that he has a plan to defeat the fast-evolving threat of terrorism, as fears multiply of ISIS attacks on the homeland and public trust in his handling of the threat has dipped to record lows.
Obama's rare 8 p.m. ET Oval Office address reflects growing anxiety that the global showdown with the extremist group has now spread to U.S. soil following a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California , that authorities are treating as terrorism.
His appearance comes at a time of public disquiet over terrorism and a political debate over the threat, now consuming the 2016 campaign , raging at levels not seen since the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in 2001 . Obama has also struggled to convince critics he has a viable strategy for destroying ISIS in the Middle East and has been accused of downplaying the threat from the group for political reasons.
Obama will use Sunday night's address to pledge to use of every available tool to keep American people safe and destroy ISIS, senior administration official says.
The gravity of the occasion is underscored by Obama's decision to use the symbolic power of the Oval Office for only the third time in his presidency, following addresses on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the end of the Iraq war in 2010.
In a new CNN/ORC poll released on Sunday, 60% of Americans disapproved of Obama's handling of terrorism -- up nine points since May. Two thirds of those polled, meanwhile, said they disapproved of the president's handling of ISIS.
The poll was conducted before the attacks in San Bernardino and also showed a shift in public opinion on how to tackle the group -- with a majority -- 53% -- for the first time saying the U.S. should send ground troops to fight ISIS. And 68% said the American response to the group's rise had not been sufficiently aggressive.
Those figures reflect Obama's struggle so far to convince critics he has a viable strategy for destroying ISIS in its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria and after he has been accused of downplaying the threat from the group for political reasons.
The figures tracked with a a Washington Post/ABC News poll last month, after an ISIS rampage in Paris but also before the California attack, that found that a record low of 40% of Americans approved of Obama's handling of terrorism and only 35%
"He will reiterate his firm conviction that ISIL will be destroyed and that the United States will draw upon our values -- our unwavering commitment to justice, equality and freedom -- to prevail over terrorist groups that use violence to advance a destructive ideology," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Sunday's address also seems to be an implicit acknowledgment that Obama has failed to convince Americans that he is prepared to take on the ISIS threat, amid widespread criticism of his strategy and rhetoric on the issue that keeps being overtaken by events.
Republicans have redoubled attacks following the California killings to fire up a hawkish party base ahead of early nominating contests and to suggest that Obama's policy isn't working and that the president does not understand the threat.
"Why on earth did the Obama administration not know this ahead of time and stop them before they carried out this terror attack?" Cruz said of the California shooting.
"Moving forward, this is not going to be the last attempt to attack the homeland," Rubio said.
"People are dead. A lot of people are dead right now," Trump said on CBS "Face the Nation" on Sunday.. "So everybody wants to be politically correct, and that's part of the problem that we have with our country."
The real estate mogul also said he would "live tweet" the President's address.
Other candidates have warned the United States is in a war of civilizations with radical Islam and that a new "world war" has reached U.S. soil.
Such political fury complicates Obama's effort to ease public fears of terrorism and to build support to confront two critical problems -- the expanding battle against ISIS and its evolving tactics and his own political vulnerabilities on the issue.
His speech comes at an alarming moment.
Terrorism experts are warning that the San Bernardino attack could be the harbinger of a much more acute threat to U.S. soil.
'More of what we can expect'
"Unfortunately I think it is more of what we can expect in the future -- whether it is copy cats or whether you have, again, either ISIS-aligned or inspired or ISIS-directed individuals," said Dean Alexander, director of the Homeland Security Research Program at Western Illinois University. "It might instigate ISIS to take a more proactive approach to send individuals here to the U.S. or to try to recruit."
Such a "self radicalization" scenario by Muslims on U.S. soil has long been feared by anti-terrorism experts who say such attacks are nearly impossible for the administration to detect and stop.
But critics say he has consistently underplayed the threat from ISIS because its rise conflicts with his assurances that he has severely degraded the threat from global terror -- a key legacy issue as he nears the end of his second term.
"Instead of being contained, they're conducting or inspiring spectacular terrorist operations on multiple continents -- including now in the United States. ISIS affiliates are spreading across the Middle East and south Asia."
Under increasing pressure to toughen his rhetoric, Obama is also likely to use his address to counter claims the United States is somehow at war with Islam itself.
"They can't beat us on the battlefield, so they try to terrorize us into being afraid, and changing our patterns of behavior, and panicking, and abandoning our allies and partners, and retreating from the world," Obama said at a press conference in Malaysia last month.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie rejected the idea that Muslims would be offended by the use of specific terminology to describe the threat.
"Now when you say radical Islamic jihadist, they understand, the rest of the Muslim community understands," Christie said on "Face the Nation."
But Clinton said on ABC News "This Week" that throwing around such terms actually helped the extremists.
"It helps to create this clash of civilizations that is actually a recruiting tool for ISIS and other radical jihadists who use this as a way of saying, 'We are in a war against the West -- you must join us,'" she said.
"We must never accept the premise that they put forward because it is a lie," Obama said in February.
"Nor should we grant these terrorists the religious legitimacy that they seek. They are not religious leaders. They are terrorists." | 0fake |
University of Chicago Strikes Back Against Campus Political Correctness - The New York Times | The anodyne welcome letter to incoming freshmen is a college staple, but this week the University of Chicago took a different approach: It sent new students a blunt statement opposing some hallmarks of campus political correctness, drawing thousands of impassioned responses, for and against, as it caromed around cyberspace. “Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own,” John Ellison, dean of students, wrote to members of the class of 2020, who will arrive next month. It was a rebuke to the protests calling for limits on what kinds of speech should be condoned on campus, and who should be allowed to speak, that have rocked Yale, Wesleyan, Oberlin and many other colleges and universities in recent years. Some alumni, dismayed by the trend, have withheld donations from their alma maters. The Chicago letter echoed policies that were already in place there and at a number of other universities calling for “the freedom to espouse and explore a wide range of ideas. ” But its stark wording, coming from one of the nation’s leading universities, and in a routine correspondence that usually contains nothing more contentious than a dining hall schedule, felt to people on all sides like a statement. Kevin Gannon, a history professor at Grand View University in Des Moines, dismissed the letter on his website as “a manifesto looking for an audience,” one that “relies on caricature and bogeymen rather than reason and nuance. ” The Heritage Foundation wrote on Facebook that the letter “will make you stand up and cheer. ” Other universities have made similar statements, but the message from Chicago is “clearer and more direct than I’ve seen,” said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a leading critic of what it says are destructive speech restrictions at many campuses. “Sending a letter to freshmen is different than I’ve seen, at least in a long time, and certainly from a major university. ” Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, said the Chicago letter was, at least in part, a publicity stunt — “Gosh, is there any doubt?” he asked — and a way of “not coddling students, but coddling donors. ” Jeremy Manier, a University of Chicago spokesman, insisted there were no hidden motives behind the letter. And he said professors remained free, at their discretion, to use trigger warnings, the messages sometimes posted atop campus publications, assignments and other material, noting that they might be upsetting for people who have had traumatic experiences. Conservatives have been the loudest critics of campus political correctness, and hailed the Chicago statement as a victory. Mary Katharine Ham, a senior writer for The Federalist, a conservative website, wrote that it was “a sad commentary on higher education that this is considered a brave and bold move, but it is, and the University of Chicago should be applauded mightily for stating what used to be obvious. ” But while conservatives often frame campus free speech as a issue, the dispute is often within the left. “Historically, the left has been much more protective of academic freedom than the right, particularly in the university context,” said Geoffrey R. Stone, a University of Chicago law professor who specializes in free speech issues. Conservatives “suddenly became the champions of free speech, which I find is a bit ironic, but the left is divided. ” Mr. Lukianoff said he and his group are often mistakenly called conservative, adding, “I’m a former A. C. L. U. person who worked in refugee camps. ” The dispute over free speech has ricocheted off campuses and around the country. In a commencement speech this year at Howard University, President Obama said: “Don’t try to shut folks out, don’t try to shut them down, no matter how much you might disagree with them. There’s been a trend around the country of trying to get colleges to disinvite speakers with a different point of view, or disrupt a politician’s rally. Don’t do that — no matter how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths. ” The University of Chicago has long been associated with the conservative school of economics that is named for it. It also takes pride in a history of free expression, like allowing the Communist Party candidate for president, William Z. Foster, to speak on the ornate campus on the city’s South Side in 1932, despite fierce criticism. Mr. Obama taught constitutional law at the university law school. The university said Friday that Dean Ellision and the university president, Robert R. Zimmer, were not available to discuss the letter or what prompted it, but Mr. Manier referred queries to Professor Stone, a former university provost. Last year, a faculty Committee on Freedom of Expression, appointed by Dr. Zimmer and headed by Professor Stone, produced a report stating that “it is not the proper role of the university to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. ” “We didn’t feel we were doing something, internal to the University of Chicago, that was in any way radical or different,” Professor Stone said Friday. It is clear that some colleges are retreating from the same free speech values, he said, “but my guess, if you asked most of these institutions 10 or 20 years ago, they would have said more or less what we said in our statement. ” Since Professor Stone’s committee produced its report, several other universities, including Princeton, Purdue, Columbia and the University of Wisconsin system, have adopted similar policies or statements, some of them taken almost verbatim from the report. And this week’s letter to University of Chicago freshmen draws from that and specifically cites the report as embodying the university’s point of view. Many academics say the concerns reflected in the University of Chicago letter, while real, are overblown. “I asked faculty if any had ever been asked to give trigger warnings,” said Dr. Roth, of Wesleyan. “I think one person said they had. ” There often seems to be a generational divide on campus speech — young people demanding greater sensitivity, and their elders telling them to get thicker skins — but a survey by the Knight Foundation and Gallup gives a murkier picture. It found that 78 percent of college students said they preferred a campus “where students are exposed to all types of speech and viewpoints,” including offensive and biased speech, over a campus where such speech is prohibited. Students were actually more likely to give that response than adults generally. But when asked specifically about “slurs and other language on campus that is intentionally offensive to certain groups,” 69 percent of college students said that colleges should be allowed to impose restrictions on such expression. Eric Holmberg, the student body president at the University of Chicago, said the letter suggested that administrators “don’t understand what a trigger warning is,” and seemed “based on this false narrative of coddled millennials. ” “It’s an effort to frame any sort of activism on campus as just young people who are upset,” Mr. Holmberg said, “when in reality I’d say the administration is far more fearful of challenge than any student I know. ” Sara Zubi, a Chicago junior majoring in public policy, said the dean’s letter seemed contrary to some of the support programs the university has created or endorsed, like a “safe space program” for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. “To say the university doesn’t support that is really hypocritical and contradictory,” she said, “and it also just doesn’t make sense. ” | 0fake |
Russian Dissident Artist Will Seek Asylum in France - The New York Times | PARIS — He has nailed his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square, sewn his lips shut to protest restrictions and set fire to the doors of Russia’s Federal Security Service. Now, Pyotr Pavlensky, Russia’s performance artist, has fled to France, where he intends to seek political asylum. Russian authorities questioned Mr. Pavlensky and his partner, Oksana Shalygina, last month after an actress at an Moscow theater filed a complaint accusing them of sexual assault. The couple deny the allegations, saying that the encounter was a consensual threesome and that the case is politically motivated. Amid the ambiguities — and at a time when violence against women is a topic of intense debate in the country — Russia’s cultural opposition is now divided over a figure once seen as a symbol of the resistance to President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. Mr. Pavlensky and Ms. Shalygina have not been formally charged, but were questioned by the police in Moscow on Dec. 15 and informed that they could face up to 10 years in prison. Told not to leave Moscow while the case was pending, they said they saw what was likely to happen and took their daughters, ages 6 and 8, to France over the weekend after spending a month in Ukraine. “We’ve become victims of this investigation,” Mr. Pavlensky said in an interview on Monday in a Paris cafe, speaking Russian through an interpreter, and with Ms. Shalygina at his side. “It’s like a horrible dream that you can’t even imagine. ” The situation — with its charges of a honey trap and “kompromat” (compromising material gathered by the authorities) — reflects the climate of suspicion and growing authoritarianism in Russia, where artists like the female punk band Pussy Riot have faced jail, but, for the most part, outright censorship has given way to artistic in the face of changing laws and cuts to culture funding. The accusations, however, have prompted even some supporters of Mr. Pavlensky to question his behavior. The theater where the actress works, Teatr. doc, is known for plays that have criticized and angered the Russian government, and it has supported Mr. Pavlensky in the past. But its leadership has seconded the assault accusations and defended the actress against the couple’s assertions that she was working for the state. This is not the first time Mr. Pavlensky has found himself in the cross hairs of the Russian authorities. Over the years, they have ordered him to undergo a dozen psychiatric evaluations, a technique long used to quash political dissent. In 2014 he chopped off his right earlobe for a piece called “Segregation,” inspired by van Gogh and intended, he said, to show that “psychiatry is a collection of subjective opinions. ” After setting fire to the doors of Lubyanka, the Moscow headquarters of Russia’s infamous security service, in 2015, he served seven months in pretrial detention on charges of vandalism. (He called that action “Threat” and said it was intended to illuminate “what people prefer to forget,” that the security apparatus hadn’t changed since Soviet times.) He was released last June with a fine, a move human rights activists said was intended to avoid an international incident of the kind that ensued after members of Pussy Riot were jailed in 2012 on charges of hooliganism for performing an song in a Moscow church. Soon after, Mr. Pavlensky said, he gave some lectures at Teatr. doc. It was at one of them last September that he met the actress who later filed the assault complaint. Mr. Pavlensky said that on Dec. 4, the actress texted Ms. Shalygina. The couple — who say they have an open relationship — invited her to their Moscow apartment that evening. “We talked about art,” he said. “We sat and drank coffee. We drank Cognac, but not a lot. ” “There was some form of intimacy,” he added. “And then she said she wants to leave. We said, ‘Fine, no problem.’ We parted as friends. ” Both Mr. Pavlensky, 32, and Ms. Shalygina, 37, said it was the first time the three had had sex together. Yuri A. Lysenko, a lawyer for the actress, said that Mr. Pavlensky had committed a “crime,” a rape, and that he wanted to portray the police investigation as politically motivated to avoid punishment. Adding to the confusion over the allegations, this week Teatr. doc posted on its Facebook page a video dated Oct. 31 that it said showed Mr. Pavlensky and others beating up a man they said was the actress’s boyfriend, in the theater’s parking lot. Mr. Pavlensky said that the video was “murky” and that he didn’t recognize himself in it. But he said he had been involved in a physical altercation with the actress’s boyfriend in October, when he and others confronted the man over allegations that he had beaten her. The Interfax News Agency reported that the police told him that a criminal case had been opened about the fight. Mr. Pavlensky said that was not the case. Mr. Lysenko said the fight with the boyfriend and the sexual assault allegations were “not related. ” He then added: “You have to ask Mr. Pavlensky if he has seen a psychiatrist recently. What he did is part of his carefully crafted plan to paint his crime in political colors. ” In a Facebook post that she said would be her last word on the matter, Yelena Gremina, the director of Teatr. doc, called the couple’s claims that the actress worked for the security services “slander. ” On Russia’s vibrant social media, artists are divided over the case. “The hysteria with Pavlensky is an alarming sign that anyone who becomes a significant ‘fighter against the regime’ is immediately put on a pedestal and declared a saint,” the artist Lena Hades wrote on Facebook. Others came out against Mr. Pavlensky. “Alas, yesterday a national hero and a great performance artist, today — it’s true — a criminal, a psychopath and a rapist,” Olga Papernaya, a former art director at a Moscow film club, wrote on Facebook, suggesting that she was friends with the actress. “For now, the authorities are winning,” Mr. Pavlensky said. The press is weak, he added, and “the opposition” divided, even over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “But each move is not the last,” he said of the country’s situation. “It’s not clear who will have the last word in this conflict. ” | 0fake |
Chuck Grassley Demands Answers About Illegal Aliens Accused of Raping 14-Year-Old - Breitbart | Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley fired off letters to two Cabinet agencies demanding answers about the illegal alien suspected accused of raping a girl during school hours at Rockville High School. [Officials in the Maryland county where the alleged March 16 rape use their legal power to shield illegal aliens with criminal convictions from being sent home — and Grassley wants to know how the Department of Homeland Security plans to stop the possible release of illegal alien suspects Henry E. Sanchez. Sanchez Milian, 18, and Jose Montano, 17. “Montgomery County, Maryland is a sanctuary jurisdiction,” Grassley asked DHS Secretary John Kelly. “If Montgomery County or any other local law enforcement agency declines to honor a detainer or notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding Jose Montano and Henry Sanchez Milian, what action will DHS take to ensure that they are not released from custody and allowed to reoffend?” Grassley also wants to review the agency’s record of the suspects’ immigration histories, criminal records, gang affiliations and immigration benefits. The Iowa senator also requested that Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw young illegals from the Central American surge caught at the border and released into the U. S. under Obama administration policies, provide information about the illegal alien suspects’ sponsors. Roughly eighty percent of the illegal alien minors were placed in the custody of other illegals. Roughly eighty percent of the illegal alien minors released at the border were placed in the custody of other illegals. There is almost no monitoring of the young illegals once they’re shipped into the U. S. interior, an expert on illegal immigration told Breitbart News: “The federal office within HHS that is responsible for their resettlement has spent billions of dollars, but does little monitoring of the kids beyond one phone call to check in with the household. They say that many kids will not be at the address where they were resettled, and they lose track of most of them. ” Sanchez Milian and Montano allegedly dragged the young victim into a bathroom and forced her into a stall as she tried holding onto a sink. They allegedly raped the victim orally, vaginally, and anally, sometimes simultaneously, in a bathroom stall while she screamed, according to a police interview with the victim. A forensic specialist later found blood and bodily fluids in the boys’ bathroom after the victim told school staff about the alleged attack. The alleged took place a month before her fifteenth birthday, according to the date of birth marked on the detective’s statement of probable cause. Sanchez Milian’s attorney claims the alleged rape was “consensual” and his client “is being used as an unjust scapegoat by the opponents of recent immigration practices. ” Sanchez Milian and Montano face “ rape and two counts of sexual offense,” according to WTOP. com. ICE has a immigration detainer request on Sanchez Milian, but would not comment on Montano’s case since he is still a minor at 17. Read Grassley’s letters to Kelly and HHS Secretary Tom Price are here. | 0fake |
Most Corrupt Presidential Lawyer In History Is Terrified Of Trump’s Lying | John Dean knows something about corruption. He was the White House Council for Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal. He was even prosecuted for his part. That s why we should heed his warnings about Donald Trump, who the former White House Council, accuses of being a liar, and worse.Dean, who s apparently been paying attention to Trump and to Trump s overall ignorance of anything when it comes to matter of state, tweeted on Thursday that Trump is an idiot and a liar. Okay, that first word is mine, but the meaning is the same: It is deeply troubling when you realize that the president-elect generally does not know what he is talking about, Dean tweeted. And when he does he lies. It is deeply troubling when you realize that the president-elect generally does not know what he is talking about and when he does he lies. John Dean (@JohnWDean) December 29, 2016Dean is far from the first person to note that Trump is a habitual liar. Even his own lawyers say he s a liar. In fact, according to a deposition from 1992, Trump s lawyers had to double up during that bankruptcy hearing since Trump can t be trusted. We tried to do it with Donald always if we could because Donald says certain things and then has a lack of memory, attorney Patrick McGahn said during the deposition in transcripts obtained by BuzzFeed.As McGahn explained, It s always been our practice to make sure that two people are present, and we don t have a problem of people lying. He added that Trump is an expert at interpreting things. Let s put it that way. Source: SalonIn depo for Trump Plaza bankruptcy case, Trump s own lawyer testifies they often met with him in pairs because Trump lies so much. pic.twitter.com/TdEkdf4ZiB southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 6, 2016As Trump gets closer to January 20th, it s becoming more and more apparent that Nixon will be his role model, of sorts. Actually, all we have to do is go back a few months for a hint at that. In an interview in the Washington Post with Watergate journalist Bob Woodword, Trump had some misgivings about Nixon, but they weren t about his dishonesty:Nixon failed, I think to a certain extent, because of his personality. You know? It was just that personality. Very severe, very exclusive. In other words, people couldn t come in. And people didn t like him. I mean, people didn t like him.When pressed about the fact that Nixon broke the law, Trump shrugged it off, speculating that it was insecurity. According to Trump, it was hate that destroyed Nixon, not dishonesty. Ironically, he sees no lessons in Nixon s legacy. Trump, along with being a habitual liar, seems to think of himself as someone who s very likable and not at all (swallow your drink before reading this next word) vindictive, and that, according to him, will save him, lies or not.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images. | 1real |
SHIFTING PARADIGM: You’ll Only Understand Trump and Brexit If You Understand the Failure of Globalization | 21st Century Wire says It s hard to not to draw a comparison between the Brexit referendum and the stunning surprise victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election in America. Many now argue that both were a repudiation on globalization.Indeed, anxiety over the global economy as a whole contributed to 2016 s historic rejection of the status quo: big trade, big banks and Wall Street.Yesterday in his overseas speech, even President Obama acknowleged that the globalized policies of the world have absolutely contributed to a political upheaval that has given rise to Brexit vote and a Trump presidency: The current path of globalization demands a course correction, adding Any legislation that is proven flawed can be corrected through the process of democracy. Earlier this year, conservative leaning Washington Times discusssed the nature of falied policy that has led to such sluggish growth in the US over the past 7-8 years: The previously bullish Fed finally and openly acknowledged that sluggish growth is the long term new normal for America. Secular stagnation is here to stay. The growth rate has limped out of the 2008-09 recession at a 2 percent pace now for seven years. The Joint Economic Committee of Congress tells us a normal recovery gives us about 3.5 percent growth and the Reagan and JFK booms were closer to 4 percent. So the GDP today thanks to President Obama is about $2 to $3 trillion smaller than it should be. This is roughly the equivalent of losing the entire annual output of every business and worker in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana combined.Instead of speeding up to recover all this lost ground, we re decelerating. Growth was 1.4 percent in the 4th quarter of 2015. It was 0.8 percent in the first quarter of this year. The Fed now has downgraded growth now to less than 2 percent for the rest of 2016 down from an original forecast of 2.4 percent. One day after the US election, The Intercept s Glenn Greenwald (of Snowden fame) captured the frustartion that led to the Brexit vote and Trump s win. Here s a short passage from his piece: The institutions and elite factions that have spent years mocking, maligning, and pillaging large portions of the population all while compiling their own long record of failure and corruption and destruction are now shocked that their dictates and decrees go unheeded. But human beings are not going to follow and obey the exact people they most blame for their suffering. They re going to do exactly the opposite: purposely defy them and try to impose punishment in retaliation. Only time will tell what the future holds for Brexit or Trump but for the moment, the voice of the everyday man has been heard loud and clear.More from Washington s Blog below (Image Source: Onmanorama). Washington s BlogTrumpTrump made rejection of globalization a centerpiece of his campaign. In his July 21st acceptance speech as the Republican nominee, he said:Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.The Boston Globe bannered this headline on Thursday: Trump won. Globalization lost. Now what? On election night, CNN s Jake Tapper explained that many Americans voted for Trump because they are sick of the income inequality, globalization, and politics-as-usual that the status quo have given us. He pointed out that only a handful of people have gotten rich off of globalization, and a lot of people have been left behind.Counterpunch wrote Friday:The real meaning of this upset is that Wall Street s globalization project has been rejected by the citizens of its homeland.***Trump voters had several reasons to vote for Trump other than racism . Most of all, they want their jobs back, jobs that have vanished thanks to the neoliberal policy of transferring manufacturing jobs to places with low wages.BrexitSimilarly, Brexit was largely a vote against globalization.For example, the Guardian ran an article in June explaining, Brexit is a rejection of globalisation :Britain s rejection of the EU. This was more than a protest against the career opportunities that never knock and the affordable homes that never get built. It was a protest against the economic model that has been in place for the past three decades.***Europe has failed to fulfil the historic role allocated to it. Jobs, living standards and welfare states were all better protected in the heyday of nation states in the 1950s and 1960s than they have been in the age of globalisation. Unemployment across the eurozone is more than 10%. Italy s economy is barely any bigger now than it was when the euro was created. Greece s economy has shrunk by almost a third.***Inevitably, there has been a backlash, manifested in the rise of populist parties on the left and right. An increasing number of voters believe there is not much on offer from the current system. They think globalisation has benefited a small privileged elite, but not them. They think it is unfair that they should pay the price for bankers failings. They hanker after a return to the security that the nation state provided, even if that means curbs on the core freedoms that underpin globalisation, including the free movement of people.***Torsten Bell, the director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, analysed the voting patterns in the referendum and found that those parts of Britain with the strongest support for Brexit were those that had been poor for a long time. The result was affected by deeply entrenched national geographical inequality , he said.There has been much lazy thinking in the past quarter of a century about globalisation. As Bell notes, it is time to rethink the assumption that a flexible globalised economy can generate prosperity that is widely shared. But What Do the Experts Say?Mainstream economists, organizations and politicians including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (and see this), McKinsey & Company and Obama now admit that globalization creates inequality. People worldwide are furious at runaway inequality and it s affecting elections globally.The Bank of International Settlements the Central Banks Central Bank says that financial globalization itself makes booms and busts far more frequent and destabilizing than they otherwise would be.The Economist pointed out in July:Most economists have been blindsided by the backlash [against globalization]. A few saw it coming. It is worth studying their reasoning .David Autor, David Dorn and Gordon Hanson have documented how the costs of America s growing trade with China has fallen disproportionately on certain cities. And so on.Branko Milanovic of the City University of New York believes such costs perpetuate a cycle of globalisation. He argues that periods of global integration and technological progress generate rising inequality .Supporters of economic integration underestimated the risks both that big slices of society would feel left behind .The New York Times reported in March:Were the experts wrong about the benefits of trade for the American economy?***Voters anger and frustration, driven in part by relentless globalization and technological change [has made Trump and Sanders popular, and] is already having a big impact on America s future, shaking a once-solid consensus that freer trade is, necessarily, a good thing. The economic populism of the presidential campaign has forced the recognition that expanded trade is a double-edged sword, wrote Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.What seems most striking is that the angry working class dismissed so often as myopic, unable to understand the economic trade-offs presented by trade appears to have understood what the experts are only belatedly finding to be true: The benefits from trade to the American economy may not always justify its costs.In a recent study, three economists David Autor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, David Dorn at the University of Zurich and Gordon Hanson at the University of California, San Diego raised a profound challenge to all of us brought up to believe that economies quickly recover from trade shocks. In theory, a developed industrial country like the United States adjusts to import competition by moving workers into more advanced industries that can successfully compete in global markets.They examined the experience of American workers after China erupted onto world markets some two decades ago. The presumed adjustment, they concluded, never happened. Or at least hasn t happened yet. Wages remain low and unemployment high in the most affected local job markets. Nationally, there is no sign of offsetting job gains elsewhere in the economy. What s more, they found that sagging wages in local labor markets exposed to Chinese competition reduced earnings by $213 per adult per year.In another study they wrote with Daron Acemoglu and Brendan Price from M.I.T., they estimated that rising Chinese imports from 1999 to 2011 cost up to 2.4 million American jobs. These results should cause us to rethink the short- and medium-run gains from trade, they argued. Having failed to anticipate how significant the dislocations from trade might be, it is incumbent on the literature to more convincingly estimate the gains from trade, such that the case for free trade is not based on the sway of theory alone, but on a foundation of evidence that illuminates who gains, who loses, by how much, and under what conditions. Continue reading Washington s Blog here READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Two Turkish soldiers killed in northern Iraq: military statement | ANKARA (Reuters) - Two Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday in northern Iraq by an improvised explosive device, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement. The military also said that eight militants were killed in air raids, which followed a clash between the armed forces and militants. Turkish media previously reported that two soldiers were killed in Turkey s southeastern province of Hakkari, near the Iraqi border. | 0fake |
[VIDEO] OBAMA TELLS HOMETOWN KENYANS: “I’m A Pretty Good President, And If I Ran For A Third Term, I Could Win” | We re not sure what s funnier, the fact that he talks about being a pretty good president or that he actually thinks anyone believes him when he says he can t run again because the Constitution prohibits it, saying: the law s the law. When did this President ever let a little thing like the Constitution or the law get in the way of his agenda? | 1real |
Modi wants deeper U.S.-India security relationship | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a closer security relationship between his country and the United States on Wednesday, in an address to the U.S. Congress stressing the importance of warming ties between the two countries. He dedicated much of the speech to the importance of fighting terrorism, thanking Congress for U.S. support after a Pakistan-based military group’s rampage in Mumbai killed 166 people in 2008. “The fight against terrorism has to be fought at many levels. And the traditional tools of military, intelligence or diplomacy alone would not be able to win this fight,” Modi told a rare joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives. “We have both lost civilians and soldiers in combating it. The need of the hour is for us to deepen our security cooperation,” Modi said. He leavened the speech to lawmakers, the first such address by an international leader since Pope Francis’ in September, with jokes about Congress’ bitter partisan divide and yoga. But Modi used it to make serious points about India’s neighbor and arch-rival Pakistan and regional concerns about Chinese expansionism. “I commend the members of the U.S. Congress for sending a clear message to those who preach and practice terrorism for political gains,” he said, not mentioning either country by name. Modi is on the U.S. leg of an international tour. On Tuesday, he met with President Barack Obama at the White House, where the two leaders said India agreed to work toward joining the Paris Agreement on climate change this year and discussed security and cyber security issues. The visit, two years after Modi became prime minister, capped an improving relationship between New Delhi and the United States. Before he was elected, Modi was barred from even entering the country because of concerns about his handling of 2002 riots that killed at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. Today, he is one of the international leaders most popular in Washington, where Modi’s government is seen as a counterbalance to China. He and Obama have a warm personal relationship. “We are now standing shoulder to shoulder in ways that no one could have imagined a generation ago,” Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee, said at a reception for Modi after the address. In a 45-minute speech interrupted by cheers and at least eight standing ovations, the 65-year-old Indian leader said deeper U.S.-Indian security cooperation should isolate anyone who harbors, supports or sponsors terrorists. Although he did not mention Pakistan, that line was greeted with applause from the lawmakers, many of whom are increasingly frustrated with what they see as Islamabad’s failure to crack down on militants behind attacks on American troops in Afghanistan. Modi also stressed that India is committed to helping rebuild a peaceful and stable Afghanistan. Amid heightened tensions over China’s assertive pursuit of territory in the South China Sea, Modi said a stronger U.S.-India partnership could boost peace and prosperity “from Asia to Africa and from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.” He did not mention China. “It can also help ensure security of the sea lanes and commerce and freedom of navigation on seas,” Modi added. Democrats leaped to their feet when Modi referred to the recent climate change summit. But Republicans in the House chamber remained seated, reflecting the U.S. political divide over the issue. House Speaker Paul Ryan greeted Modi at his office before his speech. After the Indian leader’s remarks, he attended lunch with congressional leaders and a reception with members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees. | 0fake |
ARE THEY SERIOUS? Here’s The Insane Thing Republicans Did Instead Of Passing Zika Funding Last Week | This week marked a particularly shameful level of the kind of Republican obstruction that has now become the norm. As reports came in that Zika had hit the United States with a vengeance, a crucial spending bill that would have allocated funds to fight the devastating illness was derailed. Having ignored the request by President Obama at the advice of disease scientists for $1.9 billion for research and prevention, Republicans offered first just half of that then just a third.The sheer heartlessness astounded even some among the Republican Party. Senator Marco Rubio, whose state of Florida is ground zero for the Zika virus, gave a strongly worded condemnation of his colleagues actions on Capitol Hill. The rest of the country merely braced for what is going to be a very scary summer.But while Republicans once again proved they have absolutely no interest in fulfilling even basic levels of governance, they were busy wasting everyone s time on something else. Given the stakes of the spending bill they didn t pass, what they did do is especially offensive.Just as the House was derailing the Zika funding (and an energy and water bill for that matter), they were drafting up a petition to demand the Library of Congress go back to using the degrading term Illegal Alien to refer to undocumented immigrants. That s how they spent their work week.Republicans on a powerful House panel Tuesday narrowly defended a tea party-fueled move to tell the Library of Congress how to label immigrants living in the country illegally.The GOP move is designed to force the Library of Congress to retain the term illegal alien for cataloging and search purposes, reversing the library s plan to replace illegal alien with less prejudicial terms like noncitizens or unauthorized immigration. The Library of Congress has previously explained to Republicans that using the term illegal alien in its records is both offensive and confusing. For one thing, Library employees pointed out, the term alien could mean a space alien. Nobody is going to confuse an unauthorized immigrant with ET.This year, Congress scheduled itself for the least amount of workdays of any congressional term in modern history. Just 111 days will be spent legislating (and let s use that term loosely here). This is partly because Republicans have come to the conclusion that the best way to reduce government is to make it dysfunctional, but the other reason is that Republican leaders have realized that with an election coming up, their fanatical anti-government base will abandon them if they even so much as think about reaching across the aisle. Even for something as important as funding the fight against a virus that causes severe birth defects. So instead they ve taken to sitting on their hands. Cowardly? Craven? Cynical? All of the above?It s comforting to know that in the short time that they do spend on lawmaking, Republicans have their priorities in order. Zika funding? No. Supreme Court confirmation hearings? Nah. Changing the semantics of the cataloging and search functions in the Library of Congress so as to be intentionally derogatory? You better believe it.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 1real |
Trump Disproves The Effectiveness Of Walls As He Climbs Over One Himself (VIDEO) | Since the beginning of Donald Trump s campaign for president, his cornerstone plan has been to build a wall, a great, big, YUGE wall, spanning the entirety of the United States and Mexico border. He s got his fans so excited to be racist that they just can t wait to be the utter isolationists they ve always wanted the country to be.Well, it looks as though Trump just disproved the effectiveness of walls as he was able to easily climb over one on his way to a campaign stop in San Francisco, California. He needed to do so because of all the protesters who had arrived. And because things got very heated, with violent exchanges between the pro and anti-Trump crowds, the real estate mogul had to find an alternative way into the Hyatt Regency where his event was taking place.Of course, he noticed the very tangible hypocrisy in the whole ordeal, but he made a joke of it in very a Trumpian fashion. He told his crowd: That was not the easiest entrance I ve ever made. It felt like I was crossing the border, actually. Which is both offensive because it s NOTHING like crossing the border, as many have died seeking better lives for themselves and their families, and it was true only in the sense that a border wall is a joke of an idea. Clearly, as Trump has just proven himself, one can find a way over, or even under walls. The centerpiece of his campaign was just flushed down the toilet by the reality star himself.Maybe Trump will now start talking actual policy plans. Ha! Who am I kidding? He has no plans, he just wants to be King of America, because he clearly thinks he deserves it, despite not having any of the proper experience whatsoever..@realDonaldTrump forced to climb over wall to attend his own event in San Francisco. #9News https://t.co/qavo3f9qzH Nine News LA (@9NewsLA) April 30, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 1real |
California or bust: Bernie Sanders charts a White House path | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Defying opinion polls and expert predictions, Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders aims to seize the party’s White House nomination from Hillary Clinton’s grasp with a last-ditch come-from-behind triumph in California. By far the most populous U.S. state, California is the largest prize of the state-by-state nominating contests, and the vote on June 7 is one of the last before Democrats convene in July to select a nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election. An aggressive schedule of large rallies is planned along with heavy purchases of TV, radio and online advertising in three languages and a “far, far more expensive” campaign effort than in any other state, Sanders campaign sources disclosed. “I think they’re still riding rainbow unicorns if they think there’s a path,” said Steve Schale, a Florida-based strategist, of Sanders’ bid for the White House. California has been a reliable source of campaign funds for Clinton, and opinion polls show her ahead there by as many as 14 percentage points. The statistical analysis media site FiveThirtyEight gives her a 91 percent chance of winning the state primary. The Sanders campaign push aims to net as much as a 10-point win in California, helping him deny the front-running Clinton the 2,383 convention delegates she needs to clinch the nomination and give him the momentum to force a contested convention where he can try to win over the “superdelegates,” those not decided by a state nominating contest and free to support anyone, the campaign sources said. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, has eroded Clinton’s lead in California, according to a Field Poll released on Friday. Clinton led Sanders by only 6 points in that survey, down from a double-digit lead earlier this year. “With California what we’re going to do is something that (Sanders) really likes to do: Barnstorm the place,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior adviser, acknowledging Sanders’ underdog status against Clinton, the former secretary of state. That means two or three large-scale rallies a day for weeks, possibly starting in late April to target early voters, he said. Such rallies are a sweet spot for the 74-year-old New York-born democratic socialist’s firebrand speaking style championing the working class and vowing to erase economic inequality. At a late March event in The Bronx, he drew 18,500 people. Clinton leads in pledged convention delegates - those allocated to candidates on the basis of the state primaries and caucuses - with 1,287 to 1,037 for Sanders. A candidate needs 2,383 delegates to clinch the nomination. California has 475 delegates, to be divided proportionally according to the June 7 primary vote. The Clinton campaign plans to put up a fight. Local and national surrogates will speak out in English and Spanish and staff will beef up offices up and down the West Coast as the California vote nears, her campaign said. “We’re fighting for every vote by talking to Californians about why Hillary Clinton is the only candidate in this race who will break down the barriers that hold people back and deliver real results,” Amanda Renteria, Hillary for America national political director, said in a statement to Reuters. “Headed into the June 7 primary, our volunteers and supporters are knocking on doors and hitting the phones to share with friends, family and neighbors Hillary Clinton’s plans to create more good-paying jobs in California, keep our streets safe from gun violence, protect our environment, reform our immigration system and ensure all Californians have access to a good education and quality affordable health care.” Sanders has won seven of the last eight state nominating battles but faces a potentially rougher road in big states like New York, where Clinton was a U.S. senator and which holds an April 19 primary. Sanders aims to overcome the edge that Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton, has enjoyed with minorities. Larry Cohen, a senior adviser to the campaign, said the campaign aims to match or outdo the 10,000 volunteers it enlisted in New York by drawing on the Labor for Bernie volunteer group, local and national unions and other groups. “We’ll certainly do Spanish-language advertising,” Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. Devine said that Vietnamese was also part of the plan. The languages are nods to California’s large populations of Latino and Asian voters. Weaver compared California to Michigan, where Sanders notched a surprise win in early March after advertising in Arabic to woo the state’s heavy concentration of Muslims. The campaign has yet to set a budget for California, but given the state’s size, the effort will be “hugely expensive - far, far more expensive than any other state that we’ve done,” Weaver said. In California so far, the campaign has raised about $9.8 million from more than 26,000 donors, the most Sanders has received from any one state, according to a Reuters analysis of campaign finance disclosures. Clinton has raked in significant sums also in California. An analysis of campaign reports filed with the Federal Election Commission indicate her campaign raised $26,687,011.37 from donors in California from the time she entered the race in 2015 until the end of February. | 0fake |
Shocking! Scientists Reveal The Universe Could Delete Itself At Any Moment! | The end of everything is nearing us all! Or perhaps not, but we won't know when it's here.
It's a mysterious universe we are living in, so magnificent and complex that researchers and experts have come up with hundreds of theories on how it originated, how it works and when it ends.
The infinite questions that we hold about the universe will keep us thrilled for the rest of our lives, and the universe will probably end before we can even figure it out.
We fear the universe will trigger either a Big Crunch or a Big Rip during it's course, colliding into a singularity state or ripping itself apart .
Scientists have revealed that the universe could delete itself, without anyone even noticing it. Experts believe that our universe has reached it's lowest state with every particle in existence except for the "Higs Field".
Watch the following video to know more!
Disclose TV SOURCE | 1real |
PRICELESS: Watch Bill Clinton Defend Hillary’s Criminal Activity in 1992 Presidential Debate | Career criminals professional grifters the ultimate Democrat politicians Voters in Illinois and Michigan witnessed the nastiest moments thus far of the Democratic presidential campaign Sunday night when former California Gov. Jerry Brown accused Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, of unethical behavior and funneling state business to her Little Rock law firm.With former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas standing by during a one-hour TV debate in Chicago, Brown launched a harsh, personal attack on the Democratic front-runner, citing a Washington Post story published Sunday that raised questions about the relationship between the state of Arkansas and the law firm of which Hillary Clinton is a partner.Watch the exchange between Governor Jerry Brown and Bill Clinton here:Clinton ardently defended his wife`s integrity, and he charged that Brown`s attack was driven by electoral desperation and poll results.The confrontation came as the three Democrats met for the last time before Tuesday`s presidential primaries in Illinois and Michigan.Against that backdrop, Brown unleashed his barrage after he and Tsongas were asked by a debate panelist about Clinton`s electability in a possible fall campaign against President Bush. I think he`s got a big electability problem, Brown said, citing the Post story as well as other newspaper articles that addressed the governor`s environmental record in Arkansas.Calling it a scandal of major proportions, Brown said, He is funneling money to his wife`s law firm for state business. . . . It`s the kind of conflict of interest that`s incompatible with the kind of public servant we expect. The Post story did not say that either Clinton or his wife had channeled money or state business to the law firm. It did note that the Rose law firm has several state agencies and large corporations on its client list.Stabbing a finger at his rival, Clinton said: Let me tell you something, Jerry. I don`t care what you say about me, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife. You`re not worthy to be on the same platform with (her). Clinton mocked Brown`s populist campaign approach and his bulldog tactics. I don`t think you can take much of what he says seriously, Clinton said. Jerry comes here with his family wealth and his $1,500 suit, making lying accusations about my wife. I never funneled any money to my wife`s law firm. Never. Never. Clinton insisted that his wife had turned down her partnership share in any income the firm receives from state business.The candidates then began shouting over one another, Clinton alluding to Brown aide Patrick Caddell, a longtime Washington political consultant, and suggesting the former California governor was somebody else`s mouthpiece. I feel sorry for Jerry Brown, Clinton barked. He reinvents himself every year or two. Clinton, whose campaign has thus far survived supermarket tabloid allegations of infidelity and questions about his draft history, has been forced to respond to suggestions from all of his Democratic rivals that he cannot defeat Bush.Last week, Clinton had to address a New York Times report that documented the Clintons` investment in a real estate deal with a man who later became head of a savings and loan that eventually failed.Brown`s attack was the most pointed of the campaign, and may have marked a transition point in American politics, a point at which the career and conduct of a male politician`s spouse becomes fair game for attack.From her role on CBS` 60 Minutes defending her husband against charges of philandering to a less celebrated role as a campaign adviser, Hillary Clinton has played an exceedingly public role in the campaign.Via: Chicago Tribune | 1real |
BREAKING: Trump Campaign CAUGHT Paying Off Hillary-Hating Sexual Assault Victim (DETAILS) | If you wanted to see how low the Trump campaign would go to win, look no further than the stunt they pulled at the second presidential debate. For weeks the Trump campaign had been hinting they would invite Bill Clinton s alleged victims to the debates, but they teetered when GOP establishment shut them down.Well, at the second debate, they did just that. They invited four women, including Paula Jones and Juanita Broaddrick, to sit front and center as the two candidates squared off.One victim, however, wasn t a victim of Bill Clinton. She, Kathy Shelton, was the victim of Thomas Alfred Taylor, a rapist Hillary Clinton was assigned to represent in the 1970s.Clinton represented her client, begrudgingly and reluctantly, but had to uphold her oath as an attorney to represent her client to the best of her ability. It worked.Yet Shelton still blames Clinton, accusing her of crossing the ethical boundaries beholden to an attorney (she didn t or she would have been disbarred). So what did the Trump campaign do? They paid Shelton $2,500 to record an in-depth interview with her regarding her experiences with Hillary.The money was funneled by Roger Stone, the insane and graphically vile Trump ally, through his PAC, Committee to Restore America s Greatness.So now the Trump campaign is buying off Hillary haters and coordinating directly with PACs.According the Associated Press:Stone has arranged to pay other women critical of the Clintons.Earlier this year, Stone sought to raise money to pay off the mortgage of Kathleen Willey, who accused Bill Clinton of making unwanted sexual advances toward her during her time as a volunteer in his White House in the 1990s. Stone claimed in an online video interview that Trump had personally contributed to the fund.Trump s campaign has not endorsed Stone s political action committee, and has sent the group a cease and desist letter. The campaign has denied that Trump gave money to Willey s mortgage fund.Classy, Republicans. Real classy. Buying victims of childhood sex abuse to smear a qualified woman while their own candidate admits, on tape, to sexually assaulting women. Republicans have forfeited the right to call themselves the party of family values and morality.Kathy Shelton is once again being victimized, this time by a national political party who can t win on ideas, so they have to win on disgusting tactics like this.How much lower will they sink?Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 1real |
Man Wrongfully Convicted of Murder Awaits His Exoneration, 52 Years Later - The New York Times | A couple of years ago, Paul Gatling, a retired landscaper in Virginia, happened to see an article in a local newspaper about the Brooklyn district attorney’s efforts to identify wrongful convictions. Mr. Gatling, then 79, had himself been wrongfully convicted in 1964 of murdering an artist in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. He spent nine years in prison for the crime until, with the help of the Legal Aid Society, his sentence was commuted by Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York’s governor at the time. Even with the reduction in his sentence and his eventual parole, Mr. Gatling remained, officially, a convicted murderer. Intrigued by the possibility that he might finally be able to clear his name, Mr. Gatling called the lawyer who had handled his commutation and was, some 40 years later, still working for Legal Aid. The lawyer suggested that he write to the district attorney’s office to ask if its new Conviction Review Unit would his case. Mr. Gatling did, and his request began an inquiry that led investigators into a tale of legal malfeasance, one that is to culminate on Monday in Mr. Gatling’s formal exoneration. “I wanted to be done with all of this,” Mr. Gatling, now 81, said in a telephone interview last week. “I was still angry about having to spend that time for something I didn’t do. ” Mr. Gatling’s exoneration will be the 20th time in the last two years that the Conviction Review Unit has helped to clear defendants found guilty in Brooklyn of crimes they did not commit. Charles J. Hynes began a similar effort as the district attorney in 2011, but when his successor, Ken Thompson took office in 2014, he renamed the unit and put his support squarely behind it. The review unit initially focused on cases connected to one detective, Louis Scarcella, whose alleged misconduct has called into question nearly 50 murder cases. But as news of the unit’s work has spread, its reach has widened to include cases like Mr. Gatling’s. Mr. Gatling’s ordeal began on Oct. 15, 1963, when a man armed with a shotgun burst into the home of Lawrence Rothbort, an artist who lived on Bedford Avenue with his wife, Marlene, and their two children, a boy and an infant daughter. According to police reports and, later, testimony at trial, the man demanded money from Mr. Rothbort. When the artist refused, the gunman shot him in the chest. During the investigation, suspicion first fell on Mr. Gatling when one of the Rothborts’ neighbors, a felon named Grady Reaves, informed the police that he had seen Mr. Gatling in the area just minutes after the shooting. When Mr. Gatling was interviewed by detectives in the 80th Precinct (which was later absorbed by another precinct) he told them that he had been paying his rent at the time — a fact that his landlord eventually confirmed. A few hours into the interview, Mr. Gatling’s lawyer called the station house, but the detectives told him that he could not see his client until the questioning was complete, court papers say. That same evening, Mr. Gatling, who was was placed in a lineup with three notably shorter men. Mrs. Rothbort was called in to identify him, but did not pick him out, even though, court papers say, the detectives directed her to focus on “the tall one. ” A few nights later, Mrs. Rothbort went back to the station house as Mr. Gatling was again being interviewed. This time, after seeing him facing questions, she told detectives that he was the man who had killed her husband. Largely on the basis of this identification, Mr. Gatling’s lawyers persuaded him to plead guilty — in the middle of his trial. After all, he faced the possibility of being sent to the electric chair. So Mr. Gatling pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. Within a week, however, he had asked the judge to withdraw his plea, but the petition was denied. Over the next few years, there were more petitions, all of them turned down. Finally, in 1973, Malvina Nathanson, a young Legal Aid lawyer, sent a report on Mr. Gatling’s case to Governor Rockefeller. The next year, he commuted Mr. Gatling’s sentence he was eventually released on parole. Forty years later, when the Conviction Review Unit plunged into the Gatling case, most of the witnesses were dead. Investigators had to dig up case files from the city archives and track down copies of police reports on microfiche at 1 Police Plaza. They found that Mr. Gatling had been denied many of the legal protections that defendants take for granted these days — the presence of a lawyer during questioning, for example. Perhaps more important, they also found an alternate theory of the case that the jury never heard. It turned out that one of the Rothborts’ neighbors had told the police that their marriage was “not a healthy situation” and that the couple often argued — sometimes violently in the middle of the night. Mrs. Rothbort, moreover, told detectives that she was having an affair with a musician who was living as a boarder in their home. When the boarder, Leon Tolbert, was interviewed, he explained to the police that he had recently heard Mrs. Rothbort tell her husband that she would kill him if he ever hit her again. Much of this information was not provided to the defense, and that was cause enough for the district attorney’s office to request a reversal of Mr. Gatling’s conviction. On Monday, he is expected to appear in court for the reversal with, among others, Ms. Nathanson, his lawyer. “It’s restored my enthusiasm,” Ms. Nathanson said last week. She added, struggling for words, “It’s been a lot of years. ” | 0fake |
Bannon Is Given Security Role Usually Held for Generals - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — The whirlwind first week of Donald J. Trump’s presidency had all the bravura hallmarks of a Stephen K. Bannon production. It started with the inauguration homily to “American carnage” in United States cities by Mr. Bannon, followed a few days later by his “shut up” message to the news media. The week culminated with a blizzard of executive orders, mostly hatched by Mr. Bannon’s team and the White House policy adviser, Stephen Miller, aimed at disorienting the “enemy,” fulfilling campaign promises and distracting attention from Mr. Trump’s less than flawless debut. But the defining moment for Mr. Bannon came Saturday night in the form of an executive order giving the rumpled agitator a full seat on the “principals committee” of the National Security Council — while downgrading the roles of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence, who will now attend only when the council is considering issues in their direct areas of responsibilities. It is a startling elevation of a political adviser, to a status alongside the secretaries of state and defense, and over the president’s top military and intelligence advisers. In theory, the move put Mr. Bannon, a former Navy surface warfare officer, admiral’s aide, investment banker, Hollywood producer and Breitbart News firebrand, on the same level as his friend, Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, a former Pentagon intelligence chief who was Mr. Trump’s top adviser on national security issues before a series of missteps reduced his influence. But in terms of real influence, Mr. Bannon looms above almost everyone except the president’s Jared Kushner, in the Trumpian pecking order, according to interviews with two dozen Trump insiders and current and former national security officials. The move involving Mr. Bannon, as well as the boost in status to the White House homeland security adviser, Thomas P. Bossert, and Mr. Trump’s relationships with cabinet appointees like Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have essentially layered over Mr. Flynn. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Bannon — whose Breitbart website was a magnet for white nationalists, antiglobalists and conspiracy theorists — always planned to participate in national security. Mr. Flynn welcomed his participation, Mr. Spicer said, but the general “led the reorganization of the N. S. C. ” in order to streamline an antiquated and bloated bureaucracy. Former White House officials in both parties were shocked by the move. “The last place you want to put somebody who worries about politics is in a room where they’re talking about national security,” said Leon E. Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and C. I. A. director in two Democratic administrations. “I’ve never seen that happen, and it shouldn’t happen. It’s not like he has broad experience in foreign policy and national security issues. He doesn’t. His primary role is to control or guide the president’s conscience based on his campaign promises. That’s not what the National Security Council is supposed to be about. ” That opinion was shared by President George W. Bush’s last chief of staff, Josh Bolten, who barred Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s political adviser, from N. S. C. meetings. A president’s decisions made with those advisers, he told a conference audience in September, “involve life and death for the people in uniform” and should “not be tainted by any political decisions. ” Susan E. Rice, President Barack Obama’s last national security adviser, called the arrangement “stone cold crazy” in a tweet posted Sunday. Mr. Spicer said the language the Trump White House used in its N. S. C. executive order is, with the exception of Mr. Bannon’s position — which was created during the transition — almost identical in content to one the Bush administration drafted in 2001. And Mr. Obama’s top political operative, David Axelrod, sat in on some N. S. C. meetings, he added. There were key differences. Mr. Axelrod never served as a permanent member as Mr. Bannon will now, though he sat in on some critical meetings, especially as Mr. Obama debated strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “It’s a profound shift,” Mr. Axelrod said. “I don’t know what his bona fides are to be the principal foreign policy adviser to the president. ” But Mr. Bannon’s elevation does not merely reflect his growing influence on national security. It is emblematic of Mr. Trump’s trust on a range of political and ideological issues. During the campaign, the sly and provocative Mr. Bannon played a paradoxical role — calming the easily agitated candidate during his frequent rough patches and egging him on when he felt Mr. Trump needed to fire up the white base. The president respects Mr. Bannon because he is independently wealthy and therefore does not need the job, and both men ascribe to a credo when put on the defensive, according to the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Mr. Bannon is a deft operator within the White House, and he has been praised by Republicans who view him skeptically as the most knowledgeable on policy around the president. But his stated preference for blowing things up — as opposed to putting them back together — may not translate to his new role. The hasty drafting of the immigration order, and its scattershot execution, brought a measure of Mr. Bannon’s chaotic and hyperaggressive political style to the more predictable administration of the federal government. Within hours of the edict, airport customs and border agents were detaining or blocking dozens of migrant families, some of whom had permanent resident status, until John F. Kelly, the new homeland security secretary, intervened. Mr. Kelly’s department had suggested green card holders be exempted from the order, but Mr. Bannon and Mr. Miller, a on immigration, overruled him, according to two American officials. Mr. Priebus, speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, indicated a softening of the stance, saying the order would not block “green card holders moving forward” — but said anyone seeking to enter the country from the listed countries would be subjected to tighter scrutiny. People close to Mr. Bannon said he is not accumulating power for power’s sake, but is instead helping to fill a staff leadership vacuum created, in part, by Mr. Flynn’s stumbling performance as national security adviser. Mr. Flynn still communicates with Mr. Trump frequently, and his staff has been assembling a version of the Presidential Daily Briefing for Mr. Trump, truncated but comprehensive, to be the president’s main source of national security information. During the campaign, he often had unfettered access to the candidate, who appreciated his brash style and contempt for Hillary Clinton, but during the transition, Mr. Flynn privately complained about having to share face time with others. Mr. Flynn “has the full confidence of the president and his team,” Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said in an email. Emails and phone calls to Mr. Flynn and his top aide were not returned. A president who likes generals and abhors political correctness, Mr. Trump found in Mr. Flynn — who joined Trump backers in an “lock her up!” chant during the campaign — perhaps the most politically incorrect general this side of his hero, Gen. George S. Patton. But Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon’s intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in 2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N. S. C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team. Mr. Flynn’s penchant for talking too much was on display on Friday in a meeting with Theresa May, the British prime minister, according to two people with direct knowledge of the events. When Mrs. May said that she understood wanting a dialogue with Mr. Putin but stressed the need to be careful, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Flynn when the two were scheduled to speak. Mr. Flynn replied it was Saturday — he had delayed it to fit in Mrs. May’s meeting for “protocol” as a United States ally, adding at length that Mr. Putin was impatient to chat. Mr. Trump, the person said, appeared irritated by the response. Still, the episode that did the most damage to the relationship occurred in early December when Mr. Flynn’s son, also named Michael, unleashed a series of tweets pushing a discredited conspiracy theory that Clinton associates had run a child ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant. Mr. Trump told his staff to get rid of the younger Mr. Flynn, who had been hired by his father to help during the transition. But Mr. Trump did so reluctantly because of his loyalty during the campaign, when dozens of former military officials were dismissing Mr. Trump as too unstable to command. “I want him fired immediately,” Mr. Trump said in a muted rendition of his “You’re fired!” line in “The Apprentice,” according to two people with knowledge of the interaction. That has not stopped the general’s son from spouting off: On Saturday, at a time when Trump surrogates were pushing back on the idea that the executive order did not discriminate against any religion, the younger Mr. Flynn tweeted his approval of the policy, adding “#MuslimBan. ” The tweet was subsequently deleted his entire account disappeared later in the day. Still, the national security adviser has also continued to dabble in the kind of behavior that concerns Mr. Trump’s allies, such as planning to attend an “Deploraball” event at the time of the inauguration. He was urged to skip it by Trump allies, and ultimately agreed. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Bannon still regard Mr. Flynn as an asset. “In the room and out of the room, Steve Bannon is General Flynn’s biggest defender,” said Kellyanne Conway, another top adviser to the president. But it is unclear when the maneuvers to reduce Mr. Flynn’s role began. Two Obama administration officials said Trump transition officials inquired about expanded national security roles for Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner at the earliest stages of the transition in November — before the younger Mr. Flynn became a liability — but after Mr. Flynn had begun to chafe on the nerves of his colleagues on the team. Mr. Flynn’s reputation has raised questions among some in the cabinet. Two weeks ago, both men held a meeting with Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s pick to run the State Department, Mr. Mattis and Mike Pompeo, now the C. I. A. director, to discuss coordination — Mr. Flynn was invited but did not attend. Part of the meeting was devoted to discussing concerns about Mr. Flynn, according to an official with knowledge of it. | 0fake |
The Sleazy Shot Trump Just Took At Manafort Proves He’s Terrified | It was just revealed today that Federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid late last month at a house owned by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and that has apparently sent a chill down Donald Trump s spine because his former colleague could flip on him. And it should because of Manafort s dubious past. Trump s former campaign chairman also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer who promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump Jr. released emails last month which detailed how that meeting was arranged. Jared Kushner, Trump s son-in-law, also attended the meeting.For years, Trump has been in bed with the National Enquirer, a fake news rag sold in supermarkets.Just after the Manafort news was reported, the Enquirer tweeted out their latest hit-post, Donald Trump Advisor Paul Manafort Caught Up In Sick Sex Scandal! Donald Trump Advisor Paul Manafort Caught Up In Sick Sex Scandal! https://t.co/Z0CHJWIzjQ pic.twitter.com/dTCPiCSFyZ National Enquirer (@NatEnquirer) August 9, 2017We re not going to link to the tabloid, but you can follow the link in the tweet if you want IQ points sucked out of your head.Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, the hosts of MSNBC s Morning Joe, published an op-ed in The Washington Post in late June claiming that top White House staffers had threatened them with a negative story in the National Enquirer unless the hosts begged President Donald Trump to stop it.In late 2016, the Wall Street Journal reported that the tabloid shielded Trump from a Playboy model s claims of an affair with the former reality show star.Trump has also wondered why the National Enquirer hasn t won a Pulitzer Prize and yet, he s the same guy who rants about fake news .The breaking news from the tabloid follows a pattern and it s obvious what they re doing. Yeah, Manafort is a sleaze but so is Trump. After all, Trump s reading list includes a tabloid that previously published a post alleging that Hillary Clinton has brain cancer. The tabloid geniuses knew this because of her eye movements. Trump just threw Manafort under the Mueller bus.Read more:Photo by Justin Merriman/Getty Images. | 1real |
The Revolution Won’t Be Beat: Here’s How Sanders Is Going To Change The Democratic Party (VIDEO) | While Bernie Sanders is nowhere near ready to concede defeat in the Democratic primary race, on Thursday the Vermont Senator vowed to bring the most progressive agenda that any party has ever seen to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.According to Fortune, Sanders and his backers have not yet decided on all of the issues they will press for during the convention, which is scheduled to take place at the end of July.But on Monday Senator Sanders listed single-payer healthcare and a comprehensive climate change plan as issues the Democratic party would need to adopt if they hoped to gain support from his backers.Later in the week, during an interview with CNN, Jane Sanders pointed to election reform as another of the campaign s top issues.Mrs. Sanders said during the interview: One of the things that we will be fighting for on the platform, whether he s the candidate or not, is electoral reform. The process needs to change. We need an open electoral system, same-day registration and open primaries. According to Fortune, Sanders team may also press the party to change primary rules, and to eliminate the use of superdelegates to determine the party s nominee, a system which many Democratic voters are uncomfortable with.Another item likely to be on Sanders agenda is a $15 federal minimum wage.With 14 primaries yet to be held, Sanders told a crowd of supporters at Purdue University on Wednesday that he s in this campaign to win and become the Democratic nominee. Watch a video clip from the candidate s speech, via YouTube, below:While many pundits and pollsters say that Senator Sanders has little chance of winning the party s nomination, as Fortune reports here, win or lose, if Sanders captures at least 40 percent of pledged delegates during the primary, party rules provide a lot of room for his supporters to define the party s platform.It would not be the first time in history that such a maneuver has taken place.As Fortune reports:In the divisive 1980 Democratic convention, losing candidate and then-Senator Ted Kennedy battled with President Jimmy Carter over major platform points, bringing amendments to the convention floor in a show of defiance. Kennedy was able to help push the Equal Rights Amendment into the party s platform.Few today would say that was a bad thing.Image: 4/29 Indianapolis, IN by Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Merkel points to grand coalition with Social Democrats | BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday welcomed the prospect of talks on a grand coalition with her Social Democrat (SPD) rivals and defended the record of the previous such government, saying it had worked well. Merkel s fourth term was cast into doubt when the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) walked out of three-way coalition talks with her conservative bloc and the Greens last Sunday, causing a political impasse in Europe s biggest economy. But on Friday, the SPD reversed a previous decision and agreed to talk to Merkel, raising the possibilities of a new grand coalition which has ruled Germany for the last four years, or of a minority government. Addressing party members on Saturday, Merkel argued voters had given her conservatives a mandate to rule in the Sept. 24 election which handed her party the most parliamentary seats but limited coalition options. Her conservatives bled support to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Europe needs a strong Germany, it is desirable to get a government in place quickly, Merkel told a regional party meeting in northern Germany, adding, however, that her acting government could carry on day to day business. Asking voters to go to the polls again would, I think be totally wrong, she said. On Monday, Merkel had said she would prefer new elections to a minority government in which her party would be only held in power by others. Without even mentioning the option of a minority government, Merkel said she wanted to look ahead after the setbacks of the last week. Sounding self-assured and drawing applause during her speech, she turned her attention fully to the SPD. Welcoming the prospect of talks with her former partner, she defended the record of the last coalition. We worked well together, she said, adding under the grand coalition, Germany enjoyed the strongest labor market for decades, a balanced budget and pensioners and families had benefited, she argued. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is to host Merkel, SPD leader Martin Schulz and the leader of her conservative CSU sister party for a meeting on Thursday. Steinmeier had exerted considerable pressure on Schulz to change course for the sake of stability in Germany. However, no one is saying things will be easy and the two former partners are already jostling over policy. Merkel said her aims are to maintain Germany s solid finances, cut some taxes and expand the digital infrastructure. In a nod to her CSU conservative allies, she also said she aims to limit the number of migrants entering Germany to 200,000 per year. This, however, may be hard for the SPD to swallow. A cap, which may not be called that, breaches the constitution and the Geneva Convention. With the SPD there will be no limit put on family members who want to join asylum seekers, SPD deputy leader Ralf Stegner told the Funke media group. Schulz, who had until Friday rejected any deal with Merkel, said there was nothing automatic about the outcome and promised party members a vote on talks. The SPD is split as many members fear that renewing a grand coalition would be political suicide. It scored its worst result since 1933 in the September election. Several other leading SPD members have called for other commitments, such as investment in education and homes. Some senior SPD members have made clear that they will not let Merkel hold them hostage. Mrs Merkel is not in a position to be setting conditions, Malu Dreyer, premier of the state of Rhineland Palatinate, told the Trierscher Volksfreund. | 0fake |
U.S. hikes tensions in NAFTA talks with call for 'sunset clause' | ARLINGTON, Va. (Reuters) - Washington has dramatically increased tensions in talks to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement by proposing that the lifespan of any new deal be limited to five years, people familiar with the negotiations said on Thursday. The proposal for a so-called sunset clause - just one of a series of U.S. initiatives that are opposed by NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico - only served to increase uncertainty about the future of the deal. Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks described the atmosphere as “horrible” and highly charged. The U.S. side proposed the sunset clause late on Wednesday during the fourth of seven scheduled rounds to update the rules governing one of the world’s biggest trade blocs, said two officials, who asked not to be identified because the talks are confidential. The Trump administration says the clause, causing NAFTA to expire every five years unless all three countries agree it should continue, is to ensure the pact stays up to date. But Mexico and Canada insist there is no point updating the pact with such a threat hanging over it, arguing the clause would stunt investment by sowing too much uncertainty about the future of the agreement. “It’s a source of total uncertainty,” said one of the NAFTA government officials. Speaking in Mexico City, Finance Minister Jose Antonio Meade said the government was working on plans to alter tariffs and identify substitute markets in case the NAFTA talks failed. His remarks and the tension around NAFTA helped push the peso down 1 percent against the U.S. dollar to a five-month low. U.S. President Donald Trump says NAFTA, originally signed in 1994, has been a disaster for the United States and has frequently threatened to scrap it unless major changes are made. Business and farm groups say abandoning the 23-year-old pact would wreak economic havoc, disrupting cross-border manufacturing supply chains and slapping high tariffs on agricultural products. Trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico has quadrupled under NAFTA, now topping $1.2 trillion a year. In addition to the sunset clause, the United States wants to boost how much North American content autos must contain to qualify for tax-free status and eliminate a dispute settlement mechanisms that Canada insists must stay. Some trade observers said it is difficult to see how negotiators could reach an agreement given U.S. demands that many see as non-starters. The head of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector labor union, said it was clear the United States did not want a deal. “NAFTA is not going anywhere. This thing is going into the toilet,” Jerry Dias told reporters on Thursday. Despite clear signs of impatience from Canada in particular, U.S. negotiators have yet to submit their proposal on rules of origin for the auto sector. That looked unlikely to come before Friday, another official familiar with the talks said. Trump on Wednesday repeated his warnings that he might terminate the pact and said he was open to doing a bilateral deal with either Canada or Mexico. He was speaking alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who later said Canada was “braced” for Trump’s unpredictability. Negotiators were also set to cover the difficult issue of government procurement on Thursday. Canada and Mexico want their companies to be able to bid on more U.S. federal and state government contracts, but this is at odds with Trump’s “Buy American” agenda. U.S. negotiators have countered with a proposal that would effectively grant the other countries less access, people familiar with the talks say. On automotive rules of origin, NAFTA negotiators face tough new U.S. demands to increase regional vehicle content to 85 percent from 62.5 percent, with 50 percent required from the United States, according to people briefed on the plan. The rules of origin demands are among several conditions that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has labeled “poison pill proposals” that threaten to torpedo the talks. | 0fake |
Government costs could rise $2.3 billion without Obamacare payments: study | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s costs could increase by $2.3 billion in 2018 if Congress and President Donald Trump decide not to fund Obamacare-related payments to health insurers, according to a study released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The payments amount to about $7 billion in fiscal year 2017 and help cover out-of-pocket medical costs for low-income Americans who purchase insurance on the individual insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. Trump has threatened to withhold the payments to force Democrats to the negotiating table on a healthcare bill to replace Obamacare. He has also said he will fund the subsidies if Democrats agree to funding for his proposed border wall with Mexico as part of efforts to pass a government funding bill this week and avert a shutdown. Democrats have rejected the conditional offer. If no deal is made, parts of the federal government will shut down at 12:01 am on Saturday. The payments are the subject of a pending Republican lawsuit that was appealed by the Obama administration and put on hold when Trump took office. The government could save $10 billion by revoking the payments, Kaiser said. But insurers that remain in the market would have to hike premiums nearly 20 percent to cover their losses, Kaiser found, so the government would have to spend $12.3 billion on tax credits to help pay for Americans’ premium costs - a net increase of 23 percent on federal spending on marketplace subsidies. The projection assumes that insurers remain in the marketplace next year. Health policy experts have said without the payments, many insurers could not afford to stay in the market and will likely exit, which would leave some U.S. counties without an insurer. Aetna (AET.N), UnitedHealth Group Inc (UNH.N) and Humana (HUM.N) have already exited most state exchanges for 2017 and said they will do so next year as well. | 0fake |
Peru opposition wants vice president to govern if president ousted: lawmaker | LIMA (Reuters) - A leading Peruvian opposition lawmaker on Monday called for the country s Vice President Martin Vizcarra to govern the country if Congress ousts President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski over graft allegations he denies. Enough political parties have committed to backing a motion to oust Kuczynski in a scheduled vote in the opposition-run Congress on Thursday. Kuczynski has repeatedly said there was nothing improper about recently disclosed business ties that he once denied having with Odebrecht [ODBES.UL], a Brazilian builder at the center of Latin America s biggest corruption scandal. If Kuczynski does depart, Vizcarra would be authorized to carry out the rest of Kuczynski s scheduled 2016-2021 term. Congresswoman Luz Salgado denied her party, Popular Force, which has a majority in Peru s single-chamber Congress, would seek to topple Vizcarra as charged by opponents. If he (Vizcarra) does his job well and assumes the role that history if offering to him, he ll have our corresponding support, said Salgado, a key leader in the party. We re thinking about what s best for the country. We re not trying to find fault in anyone. Kuczynski and Vizcarra s offices declined requests for comment. No major policy changes are expected if Kuczynski were replaced by Vizcarra, a former governor of a copper-rich Andean region and Peru s current ambassador to Canada. But the political crisis has spooked investors in one of Latin America s most stable economies. It s going to have an important impact on the economy. Investments are going to be delayed, said Carlos Galvez, the chief financial officer of Peruvian miner Buenaventura. A 79-year-old former Wall Street banker, Kuczynski was part of a rightward shift in South American politics when he was elected last year. His fight for survival underscores the risks facing political leaders with long business resumes as graft scandals roil the region. Kuczynski has described Popular Force s efforts to unseat him as an authoritarian attack on institutions, and criticized the party for not giving him more time to defend himself. We look like a banana republic. Without a proper procedure, Congress is just usurping the presidency, Housing Minister Carlos Bruce told journalists on Monday. Popular Force said it only hopes to uproot corruption and was acting within the bounds of the constitution. The party emerged from the right-wing movement started by the country s former authoritarian president Alberto Fujimori, who is now in prison for graft and human rights crimes. It is now led by Kuczynski s defeated electoral rival Keiko Fujimori. New elections, which would be the worst-case scenario for investors, would only be called if both Vizcarra and Second Vice President Mercedes Araoz leave office before 2021, a scenario Araoz ruled out in an interview with Reuters on Sunday. | 0fake |
[VIDEO] BALTIMORE MAYOR TO POLICE: “Let them loot…it’s only property” Police Demoralized After Being Unable To Respond To 9-11 Calls From Terrorized Business Owners | The radical Baltimore mayor who ordered the Baltimore Police Department to stand down is now calling for a federal investigation into the Baltimore Police Department. What about a federal investigation into her reckless actions that were clearly motivated by her desire to side with the rioters?? Are we living in some alternate universe where all ability to reason and to use common sense has been removed from our society?Baltimore s streets will likely take years if not decades to recover after April s riots that left scores of business owners devastated and local police disheartened. Many cops feel demoralized, hung out to dry and abandoned, Fox News Leland Vittert reported on Hannity Monday. There s a sentiment here of why bother showing up? Vittert added. Vittert was on the scene at what used to be ground zero for the rioting and said he had not seen a single police car during the time he was there. The area is known for drug dealings and gang activity, according to Vittert. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said more than 200 businesses were destroyed in the riots, Fox reported. So this was your life savings you put into this? Vittert asked a business owner whose property was destroyed. Exactly, exactly, the business owner said. He added that his life s work was demolished in 30 minutes by looters and vandals resulting in more than $30,000 worth of damage. Vitter talked to a pharmacy owner who said 99 percent of his store s shelves were ransacked and fears the prescription drugs are now out on the streets. There were dozens of businesses that were looted, and what was stunning to the business owners themselves is as the looting was going on, they were calling 911, Vittert said. And, as we have reported, the police did nothing because they had an order from the mayor to let them loot. It s only property. Business owners are now faced with the difficult decision of whether to rebuild as they worry they will not be protected from future crime and violence.Via: BizPacReview | 1real |
Review: ‘Nicotine,’ the Stuff of Burning Desire - The New York Times | The best cigarette you will ever smoke, Gregor Hens writes in his new memoir, “Nicotine,” is the relapse cigarette. It tastes better, he adds, “the longer the prior abstinence. ” This is dangerous knowledge. More than a few smokers relapsed after Sept. 11. Others did after the recent presidential election, as if heeding the poet James Dickey’s dictum that “guilt is magical. ” Some of us barely keep the urge at bay. There’s a dark sliver in a former smoker’s mind that for dire events, so as to justify lighting up again. But it’s not as if we need large cues, Mr. Hens writes, when small ones will do. “Every form of cigarette ad gives me a pang of longing, every carelessly cigarette packet at a bus stop, every cigarette butt, every beautiful woman holding a cigarette between her fingers or just looking like she could be holding one,” he writes. “My reading chair in Columbus gives me a pang, and M. ’s balcony in Berlin, and my old Jeep because I’ve smoked some of the best cigarettes while driving. ” Mr. Hens is a German writer and translator who has lived and taught in the United States. “Nicotine” is the first of his own books to be issued in English. It’s a hybrid volume: part memoir, part philosophical lament. It doesn’t always click. There are passages (“I saw myself as a part of a field of tension”) that, in this translation by Jen Calleja, veer close to psychobabble. But when “Nicotine” stays dry, earthy and combustible, like a Virginia tobacco blend, it has a lot to say and says it well. The author does not resemble your idea of a former serious smoker. There Mr. Hens is, and dimpled, in his author photo on the back flap. He looks as if he were ready to bag organic carrots during his weekend stint at the food . Indeed, he writes, he is a serious cyclist, a participant in triathlons and a member of the German Alpine Association. He’s been a health nut all along, at least in between long bouts of smoking. I can’t decide if this is suspicious or insane, like that famous photograph of the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, taking a deep drag on a cigarette in the locker room during halftime of Super Bowl I in 1967. “I’ve smoked well over a hundred thousand cigarettes in my life, and each one of those cigarettes meant something to me,” Mr. Hens writes. He goes on: “I’ve smoked cold cigarette butts, cigars, cigarillos, bidis, kreteks, spliffs and straw. I’ve missed flights because of cigarettes and burnt holes in trousers and car seats. I’ve singed my eyelashes and eyebrows, fallen asleep while smoking and dreamt of cigarettes — of relapses and fires and bitter withdrawal. ” He sees this book as a chance finally to put the urge behind him, to comprehend it, seal it and bury it. He writes about his childhood. His father smoked so much that the author thought smoking was the older man’s job. His mother, a stylish woman who drove a Range Rover, smoked more when she was depressed. There’s a faded romance in the European brand names of the cigarettes he or his family members smoked: Finas Kyriazi Frères Kims Murattis filterless Senior Services Erntes Van Nelle Halfzwares. This book takes us to unusual and evocative locations, too, such as the Frisian island of Borkum. Mr. Hens recounts a drive to the German city of Balderschwang, which sounds like a word an American politician would utter when something livelier than “poppycock” was required. He is especially good on how those who quit become vicarious smokers. “Sometimes I walk around the city and imagine that others are smoking on my behalf,” he writes. “I silently thank the smokers in front of the cafes and office buildings and in smoking areas, imagining that they do it for me, for my inner contentment. I have people smoke for me. ” Like any author worth reading, Mr. Hens is sometimes best when he goes dispatching obiter dicta. He is brutal about the Midwest. (“The most insignificant city in the United States is Columbus, Ohio. ”) He’s interesting about aphorisms and our need to attach them, usually erroneously, to famous people. He considers how often we utter the phrase “no worries” when, in fact, we are murderously aggrieved. He charts the passing of time by noting how the white tennis balls of his youth have become neon green. This book is not a deep dive into smoking and literature, or into smoking and films. He doesn’t go out of his way to conjure the romance of two lit cigarettes and a corner table. “Nicotine” mostly omits the social pleasures of smoking. Mr. Hens is, with a metaphorical carton of American Spirits under his arm, a smoking section of one. His lapidary prose will sometimes put you in mind of the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard’s, though Mr. Knausgaard is generally more penetrating. The small photographs in “Nicotine” recall the images in some of W. G. Sebald’s books. This edition of “Nicotine” includes an introduction by the English writer Will Self that belongs in the hall of fame of bad introductions. Mr. Self (never has his name seemed so apt) tries to Mr. Hens by bragging at length about his own peerless nicotine addiction. This introduction is profitably torn out, the way smokers of unfiltered cigarettes tear the filters from Marlboros. This seems like the place to mention that Mr. Hens compares the cottony insides of a cigarette filter, perfectly, to “artichoke hair. ” Someday, surely, smoking will be outlawed. Who will smoke the last unfiltered Camel? Some of us who quit years ago like to imagine that we will start again at the end of our lives. We agree with the English writer Charles Lamb, who hoped that “the last breath I draw in this world will be through a pipe, and exhaled in a pun. ” | 0fake |
Will Another Previously Killed Clinton Investigation Be Revived? | Email
With the FBI reopening the investigation of Hillary Clinton for crimes related to sending and receiving classified information over her unsecured private e-mail server, her campaign is looking at a rough last few days of the race. Now, there appears to be evidence that — even though the Justice Department had previously scuttled an investigation into the possibility that the Clintons were blurring the lines between their own personal finances and those of the Clinton Foundation — the Justice Department may finally be forced into a position to conduct a real investigation. If that happens, the wheels may come off of the Clinton cart.
When an investigation into whether Anthony Weiner sent sexually explicit messages to a teenage girl led investigators to seize and examine his laptop, they made an unexpected discovery. That laptop contained about 650,000 e-mails and some of those — according to an analysis of the metadata — came from Hillary Clinton’s personal server and may have contained classified data. Investigators brought FBI Director James Comey into the loop last week and he immediately contacted Congress to say that he was reopening the investigation . While there are multiple possible reasons for Comey’s decision , it is clear that the new investigation — announced so close to the election — will hurt Clinton’s bid for the White House.
And — whether it comes out as part of this investigation or not — the fact that there were no clear lines of demarcation between the Clintons' personal finances and those of the Clinton Foundation will hound Hillary Clinton into the future. That reality exists and will continue to exist regardless of the outcome of next Tuesday’s election.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that The latest development began in early October when New York-based FBI officials notified Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s second-in-command, that while investigating Mr. [Anthony] Weiner for possibly sending sexually charged messages to a teenage minor, they had recovered a laptop. Many of the 650,000 emails on the computer, they said, were from the accounts of Ms. Abedin [Weiner's estranged wife and vice-chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign], according to people familiar with the matter. Those emails stretched back years, these people said, and were on a laptop that hadn’t previously come up in the Clinton email probe. Ms. Abedin said in late August that the couple were separating. The FBI had searched the computer while looking for child pornography, people familiar with the matter said, but the warrant they used didn’t give them authority to search for matters related to Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement at the State Department. Mr. Weiner has denied sending explicit or indecent messages to the minor.
Also, the Justice Department seems to have made a conscious decision in recent months to ignore the evidence that the Clinton Foundation is a money-making scheme for the Clintons. That may now be changing. The Wall Street Journal reported: New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case. The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity. Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity, these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case.
Given that there is ample evidence of the chicanery of the Clinton Foundation as well as evidence that the Clintons were using the foundation to grow their vast wealth, it staggers the mind that investigators “voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence.” For instance, U.S. News and World Report recently wrote of a memo from 2011 about “Background on Teneo and Foundation Activities.” The leaked memo, which was recently published by WikiLeaks, was written by Doug Band — a top aide to Bill Clinton — and includes some damning stuff. In one part of the memo, Band writes about all the money he has raised for both Bill Clinton and the foundation — which he refers to collectively as "Bill Clinton, Inc.”
Band wrote: Throughout the past almost 11 years since President Clinton left office, I have sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the Foundation. This memorandum strives to set forth how I have endeavored to support the Clinton Foundation and President Clinton personally.
As U.S. News put it, "The memo demonstrated the kinds of commingling that the Clintons' critics — and even some allies — have said create at least the appearance of inappropriate mixing of public and charitable activities for personal gain."
That conclusion seems — if anything — conservative, since Band goes even further in his memo: Independent of our fundraising and decision-making activities on behalf of the Foundation, we have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities — including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements. In that context, we have in effect served as agents, lawyers, managers and implementers to secure speaking, business and advisory service deals. In support of the President’s for-profit activity, we also have solicited and obtained, as appropriate, in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like. Neither Justin nor I are separately compensated for these activities (e.g., we do not receive a fee for, or percentage of, the more than $50 million in for-profit activity we have personally helped to secure for President Clinton to date or the $66 million in future contracts, should he choose to continue with those engagements).
It appears that the Clintons learned nothing during the 1990s. If elected (which looks increasingly unlikely), Hillary Clinton will begin her presidency mired in a myriad of scandals. And — like her husband’s legacy — it will be difficult to say from one week to the next which of them should carry the most weight. At any rate, the Clinton Foundation money scandal deserves its place in the spotlight, even if it has to compete with the e-mail scandal, the Podesta e-mails, Benghazi, and whatever other infamous acts may not have come to light yet. Photo: AP Images Please review our Comment Policy before posting a comment
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WHY WAS THIS YOUNG MAN SPONSORED BY CAIR INVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE | It s Hard To Know Who Obama Hates More America, Israel Or Our Police Officers Barry doesn t have time to attend the funerals of any of the cops who ve been murdered in his race war, but he s got time to meet with a CAIR sponsored victim of alleged police brutality following a violent protest, supposedly at the hands of Israel police officers. He s always got time for the victim, especially if the radical muslim organization, CAIR has anything to do with using the victim s status to promote their radical cause. A White House official confirmed that the Obama administration s national security team recently met with a teenager who garnered international headlines after a video of him being beaten by Israeli police during a protest in East Jerusalem emerged on the Internet.Tariq Khdeir, a fifteen-year-old Tampa resident of Palestinian decent, was hosted at the White House for continuing meetings with the Obama administration, which says that it is continuing to monitor the case.Khdeir was filmed being beaten and arrested by Israeli police last summer during a riot in a Palestinian neighborhood over the death of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, Tariq s cousin.A White House official confirmed late Monday to the Washington Free Beacon that Khdeir and his family were hosted at the White House for meetings. The confirmation came following initial reports of the April 15 meeting by CNN. The U.S. government has remained closely engaged with Tariq and his family since his return from Jerusalem, a White House official told the Free Beacon. As part of the follow-up on pending issues related to his case, National Security Council staff met with the Abu Khdeir family recently. While Tariq Khdeir was originally accused of participating in the riot which came amid a series of similar riots in Jerusalem last summer he was cleared of all charges in January.Khdeir s cousin Muhammad was the victim of an apparent revenge killing in the wake of the abduction and slaughter of three Israeli teens by Palestinian terrorists.Anti-Israel activists touted the video of Khdeir s beating as proof of widespread Israeli aggression and malfeasance in East Jerusalem. Organizations such as the Council of America-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have featured Khdeir as a speaker at various anti-Israel conferences.The family is reportedly seeking assurances that Khdeir will not be subjected to retaliation by Israel should he return to Jerusalem.The Obama administration is reportedly miffed with Israel over the incident and believes the government has not taken such incidents seriously, according to CNN. Based on numerous conversations with administration officials on background, there is a widespread belief within the Obama administration that the Israeli government does not take these incidents against American citizens with the seriousness U.S. officials believe they merit, CNN reported. Unless there is video evidence that excessive force was used, as in the case of Tariq Khdeir, Israeli government officials inevitably conclude that the action taken was justified and in keeping with national security needs, officials say, according to the report.Via: Washington Free Beacon | 1real |
LEO DITCHES HILLARY: Shady Excuse Doesn’t Fly In DiCaprio Fundraiser Cancellation | If you believe this excuse, you ll believe anything..Leo dumps Hillary:Leo DiCaprio abruptly backed out of hosting a $33,400-per-guest fundraiser for Hillary Clinton at his LA home on Tuesday, saying the change in plans was because of the production schedule for a documentary he s producing but not everybody is convinced of the story.The move came just days after the Hollywood Reporter said the star and his eponymous foundation could be linked to a scandal involving a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, at the same time Hillary and Bill Clinton s own charitable fund is under scrutiny.Leo has been seen out and about in the Hamptons with his latest super model guess he couldn t squeeze in any work:Guests attending the Clinton event in LA were notified via email over the weekend that the production schedule for [DiCaprio s] climate change film Before the Flood has altered . . . which will prevent him from returning to Los Angeles . . . As a result, Leo personally asked his friends Justin Timberlake and wife Jessica Biel to host Tuesday s lunch with Hillary at their home in the Hollywood Hills. In protest of the upcoming fundraiser, street artist SABO displayed a DiCaprio/Clinton money laundering machine on Sunset Blvd:Read more: Page Six | 1real |
CONGRESSMAN WRITES TELL-ALL BOOK: “I seldom read any bills I vote on.” | A Congressman decided to come clean about what really goes on in DC and it s not pretty. For one thing, he never read anything he voted on A new book threatens to blow the lid off of Congress as a federal legislator s tell-all book lays out the worst parts of serving in the House of Representatives saying that his main job is to raise money for re-election and that leaves little time for reading the bills he votes on.Mill City Press, a small Minnesota-based vanity press publisher describes The Confessions of Congressman X as a devastating inside look at the dark side of Congress as revealed by one of its own. No wonder Congressman X wants to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. His admissions are deeply disturbing. The 84-page expos is due in bookstores in two weeks, and Washington is abuzz with speculation about who may be behind it. The book, a copy of which DailyMail.com has seen, discloses that the congressman is a Democrat but not much else. The anonymous spleen-venter has had a lot to say about his constituents, however. Robert Atkinson, a former chief of staff and press secretary for two congressional Democrats, took notes on a series of informal talks with him whoever he is and is now publishing them with his permission. Voters claim they want substance and detailed position papers, but what they really crave are cutesy cat videos, celebrity gossip, top 10 lists, reality TV shows, tabloid tripe, and the next f***ing Twitter message, the congressman gripes in the book. I worry about our country s future when critical issues take a backseat to the inane utterings of illiterate athletes and celebrity twits. Much of what s in the book will come as little surprise to Americans who are cynical about the political process. Fundraising is so time-consuming I seldom read any bills I vote on, the anonymous legislator admits. I don t even know how they ll be implemented or what they ll cost. My staff gives me a last-minute briefing before I go to the floor and tells me whether to vote yea or nay. How bad is that? And on controversial bills, he says, I sometimes vote yes on a motion and no on an amendment so I can claim I m on either side of an issue. It s the old shell game: if you can t convince em, confuse em. Read more: Daily Mail | 1real |
5 takeaways from the first presidential debate | There were a couple of not-so-very-subtle signals here inside of Hofstra University that Donald Trump lost Monday night’s highly-anticipated debate against Hillary Clinton, and badly.
The first was the audible sound of groaning by some of his supporters (picked up by my attentive colleague Steve Shepard) inside the debate hall as Trump meandered self-defensively through a succession of answers against a very focused, very energized and very well-rehearsed Hillary Clinton.
Another tell: After the 90-minute sparring match finished, Clinton’s team practically bounded into the spin room – more in glassy-eyed disbelief than visible elation that things had gone so much better than expected. The GOP nominee’s people, by contrast, dribbled into the media pen like surly seventh-graders headed for homeroom the day before summer vacation. “F—k, let’s do this,” a prominent Trump surrogate said before diving into a scrum.
Trump and his new-ish messaging team have labored mightily to turn the avatar of populist rage into a reasonable facsimile of someone who you could see sitting in the Oval Office. But this best-laid plan unraveled on Monday – amid Clinton’s steely assault and the dignified interrogation of NBC’s Lester Holt, who struck a deft balance between facilitator, BS detector and lion tamer.
Within minutes of the opening bell, Clinton’s attacks forced domesticated Donald to go feral – he bellowed, interrupted her repeatedly, grunted, and toward the bedraggled end, became muted and pouty.
“It was bizarre,” said Barack Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe, who, like many Clinton allies, seemed visibly relieved. “He was clearly rattled, and clearly focused on defending himself, which I’m told narcissists are prone to do, and he clearly faded at the end. It’s not like she’s going to jump out to a 10-point lead, but this was good.”
Whether or not this reverses Trump’s momentum, or reestablishes Clinton's control of the race is an open question. Who won is not. Here are five takeaways.
Trump was wimpy when defensive. He is supposed to be the big meanie but it was Clinton who hit him where it hurt most. It doesn’t take a Jung (or even Dr. Phil after a couple of Bud Lights) to figure out that the GOP nominee – who boasts like a barfly – just might be over-compensating. Hence, Clinton, who started the debate a little tentatively, quickly launched into a carefully planned program of Freudian mind-games, contrasting her own middle-class businessman dad (who had his own issues) with Trump’s imperious, larger-than-life father Fred who launched his son’s business career but also was said to be extremely tough on him.
First she started in with a paean to her father’s running a small printing business in Chicago (This might be the first time a candidate has described, in detail, the silk-screen squeegee process on a debate stage) – then she pivoted to mocking supposedly self-made Trump’s start in the real estate business. “You know, Donald was very fortunate in his life and that's all to his benefit. He started his business with $14 million, borrowed from his father,” she said icily.
“My father gave me a very small loan in 1975 and I built it into a company that's worth many, many billions of dollars,” he responded weakly – and so it went on a range of topics.
Whether it was because Clinton was so well prepped, and Trump was so breezily unprepared – or had a simple case of opening night jitters – the bully-boy nominee abandoned his most effective mode of debate combat, answering an attack with a harsher one. She went right for Trump’s ego – questioning his questionable $11 billion net worth, his boastful record on job creation and picking apart his tough talk on fighting ISIS.
In 2007, preparing for a primary race she’d eventually lose, Clinton told me that the key to presidential political campaigns was understanding that the most effective attacks weren’t about exploiting someone’s weaknesses but challenging an opponent’s perceived strengths. When confronted with that assault, Trump wilted and offered a series of meandering answers that had his Republicans wincing. “It was a draw,” former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown said. “But he was on the defensive far too much. That’s a direct result of his inexperience.”
What about the Clinton Foundation? The former secretary’s debate team (including longtime aide Phillippe Reines, who snapped a pre-debate photo in a Trump circled-finger pose) expected him to savage her on the various questions raised about her family’s foundation. They were worried about it. While he hammered her ever-so-briefly on emails, he was so engaged in self-justification, he flat-out forgot to pursue an attack that could have made the night a lot less lousy.
His “30 years” attack worked – and he’ll use it again. Trump may have lost the first debate, but he’s proven to be a fast learner, and is likely to come back stronger in early October for the second debate, a town hall style affair, in St. Louis. And there were a few gold nuggets strewn in the wreckage of Hofstra – the most valuable an assault (demonstrable and fact-checker-friendly) on Clinton’s effectiveness in 25-plus years of public life.
The been-there-not-done-that argument was particularly useful when coupled with his usual slams on Bill Clinton’s passage of the increasingly unpopular NAFTA agreement from the 1990s and Hillary Clinton’s election-year flip-flop from TPP booster to opponent.
“When she started talking about this, it was really very recently,” Trump said of her opposition to the trade deal. “She's been doing this for 30 years. And why hasn't she made the agreements better? The NAFTA agreement is defective. Just because of the tax and many other reasons, but just because of the fact.”
When Clinton claimed that she planned to “really work to get new jobs and to get exports that helped to create more new jobs.” He scoffed, and shot back, “But you haven't done it in 30 years or 26 years.”
Clinton effectively attacked his business career. Trump’s attempt to head off debate-night questions about his five-year campaign promoting the birther slander against Barack Obama was a humbling face-plant. His attempt to pin the origin of the charge against Clinton associate Sid Blumenthal was semi-effective with the political press, but it withered under the insistent interrogation of an African-American moderator determined to extract an apology or reasonable explanation. Trump offered neither – and suggested Obama should actually be grateful he pursued the canard because it’s now been resoundingly put to rest.
Politically, his tortured explanation helps energize black voters – who already oppose him in historic numbers. But later in the debate, Clinton plucked the strains of what could be a genuine crossover hit this fall among ever-elusive white working-class voters and independents: Trump’s failure to turn over his tax returns. Clinton went there with a vengeance – engaging in a little Trump-esque fact-free speculation about the motives of the billionaire developer-turned-reality TV star.
“So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns?” Clinton mused, with relish. “And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings... Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.”
Trump’s answer did more harm than good:
“That makes me smart,” he said – referring to his business, not his political, acumen.
Her most effective attack – and his worst answer. If the GOP nominee needed any more proof that preparation trumps bombast in a general election debate, he got it when Clinton launched a merciless attack on his habit of stiffing contractors who have labored on his construction projects over the years. Again, Clinton brought it back to her father, describing how bad he would have felt if one of his clients had accepted his work without paying his bill.
"I’ve met dishwashers, painters, architects, marble installers, drapery installers, who you refused to pay when they finished the work you asked them to do,” Clinton said, delivering a carefully scripted attack. “We have an architect in the audience who designed one of your clubhouses at one of your golf courses. It's a beautiful facility. It immediately was put to use. And you wouldn't pay what the man needed to be paid, what he was charging you to do.”
This is a particular dangerous issue for a candidate whose entire campaign is rooted in fighting for the working class -- and his flippant response, yet again, gave comfort to his enemies.
“Maybe he didn't do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work,” Trump quipped. | 0fake |
Pennsylvania state senator, Democratic official charged in vote-buying scheme | (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania state Senator and a Democratic Party official were charged in a federal indictment for their involvement in a bribery and fraud scheme related to a 2011 election for a Democratic ward leader in Philadelphia, the Justice Department said on Tuesday. Lawrence “Larry” Farnese, 47, and Ellen Chapman, 62, both of Philadelphia, were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and violations of the Travel Act, the Justice Department said in a statement. Farnese was a state senator at the time of the alleged illegal conduct. | 0fake |
Singapore sees running autonomous buses on public roads from 2022 | SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore is hoping to deploy autonomous buses on public roads in three different districts of the city-state from 2022 to provide better connectivity, the country s Ministry of Transport said in a statement on Wednesday. Countries around the world are encouraging the development of self-driving technologies. High-density Singapore, which has manpower shortages in many sectors, is at the forefront of such efforts and is hoping to prompt its residents to use more shared vehicles and public transport. There are at least 10 companies testing their autonomous technology on the island. Autonomous scheduled bus services will complement human-driven public buses, and will initially travel on less crowded roads, according to the statement. Autonomous on-demand shuttles will allow commuters to hail the services via their mobile phones. The government said it was seeking inputs from the industry and research institutions on the key requirements for the successful pilot launch of these autonomous vehicles. | 0fake |
USA's Tillerson and Saudi crown prince discuss terrorism by phone | RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday to discuss regional security, Saudi state news agency SPA reported. The two discussed ways to combat terrorism and coordination of efforts to reinforce security and the stability of the region, according to the report. | 0fake |
3 reasons the economy boomed in 2015 | December's job growth numbers are in, and they make it official: 2015 was the second-strongest year for job growth since the 1990s, and only slightly behind the big gains of 2014. Unemployment fell in 2015 from an already low 5.6 percent at the end of 2014 to 5 percent in December 2015. Wages grew 2.5 percent during 2015, which isn't a huge number but looks more impressive when you remember that inflation was close to zero for the year.
So what accounts for the second straight year of strong economic results? The US economy is a complex system, so it would be a mistake to point to any single factor as driving economic growth and job creation. No one fully understands how and why economies grow. And to some extent, you could look at 2015's solid but not spectacular performance as the kind of thing that happens when there's nothing holding the economy back.
But we can also identify several specific factors that positively influenced economic growth in 2015.
Short-term interest rates fell to zero percent in 2008, and the Federal Reserve kept them there until December 2015. Lower interest rates tend to promote economic growth and job creation. Some people believe the Fed should have done even more — earlier in the recession the Fed ran a series of "quantitative easing" programs to pump even more money into the economy, which it phased out in 2014 — but there's little doubt that the Fed's decision to keep interest rates near zero percent for most of the year promoted faster job growth than an earlier interest rate hike would have done.
In December, the Federal Reserve raised its target interest rate by 0.25 percent, and signaled that it may increase rates further in 2016. That may create a drag on the economy this year.
Oil prices were high — around $100 per barrel from 2011 until mid-2014. But then prices started to fall, and they haven't stopped since. They were around $50 per barrel when 2015 began, and they've now fallen below $35 per barrel.
Energy is an important input to lots of different products and services, so cheaper oil (and other fossil fuels like natural gas) meant that everyone not associated with the oil industry had a bit of extra cash in their pockets in 2015.
It's hard to say exactly where that extra cash went — at least some of it went to boost people's savings and pay down debt — but consumers also spent some of it on other stuff. That provided a nice economic tailwind throughout 2015.
Since the Great Recession, state and local governments have been tightening their belts. Early in the recession, this added to the magnitude of job losses; later, it partially offset job gains in the private sector.
But as this data from the Brookings Institution shows, things started to change in mid-2014. After years of shedding employees, state and local governments started hiring again.
Overall, Brookings estimates that federal, state, and local government spending and tax policies exerted a modestly positive effect on the growth of gross domestic product — that's after four years of spending cuts and tax hikes that Brookings argues imposed a net fiscal drag on economic growth. | 0fake |
Trump’s Spokeswoman FLIPS OUT On CNN: ‘It Was A Complete Misspeak!’ (VIDEO) | Donald Trump ignited a firestorm on Wednesday when he told MSNBC s Chris Matthew s that abortion should be banned and women should be punished for having them. When he realized that people were flipping their lids, he backtracked and said he meant doctors should be punished. Now his campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, is adding to the controversy after she yelled at CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota Thursday morning for repeating Trump s words verbatim.During the interview, Pierson became visibly angry when Camerota asked her about Trump wanting to ban abortions. She told the host that her boss never called for a ban on abortion. Actually, he did. Several times during his interview with MSNBC, and Camerota pointed that out by repeating his exact words: He said, I would ban it. Katrina, You are mincing words here. Pierson responded: This is a misspeak, Alisyn. No Alisyn, there was a misspeak here, and you have a presidential candidate that clarified the record. Not once, but twice. Although he did clarify his abortion position, his clarification was just as, confusing. First, he said it should be up to the state. Then he said At this point Pierson completely lost it, cutting the host off, she shouted: No, they weren t confusing! Because the first thing was about a ban. That s correct and that s correct, it should be down to the states because that s what the potential ban was talking about. Unfazed by her anger, the CNN host continued to repeat Trump s words back to her, demolishing her it was about the states talking point. She also muses that it is a window into Trump s mind and asks the spokeswoman if he has even bothered to sit down with policy advisors and discuss this issue. After about a minute of back and forth with the CNN host refusing to let Pierson glass over the fact that he said women should be punished if they terminate a pregnancy, the Trump puppet repeated: It was a misspeak! How many times do I have to say that? This was a complete misspeak during a conversation over a hypothetical concept and there was a clarification issue. Here s the problem with this it was a misspeak nonsense: Trump has obviously never considered the ramifications of his pro-life stance and Matthews shone a glaring light on that. The entire point of the question was to see whether or not the blustering tough guy had actually sat down and laid out a concrete agenda on the issue of women s rights, his response showed that he clearly has not. Furthermore, Trump and his people can say that he isFurthermore, Trump and his people can say that he is pro-life all they want, but nobody actually believes that. He did not just change his mind this year, he has always been pro-choice, but he isn t saying that because he wants to appease the right-wing s base. It s actually pretty ironic, someone who puts on this big show of not caring what other people think and refusing to be politically correct is too afraid to stand up for his own beliefs. And if he can t do that for himself, what makes Republicans think he could do it for the country?Watch the interview below: Featured image via video screenshot | 1real |
New York Times is Advocating for Internet Censorship (controlled by them and other ‘approved’ agents) | The Times asserts that such censorship would be good for democracy and it surely is true that hoaxes and baseless conspiracy theories are no help to democracy but regulation of information in the manner that the Times suggests has more than a whiff of Orwellian totalitarianism to it. Robert Parry Consortium NewsIn its lead editorial on Sunday, The New York Times decried what it deemed The Digital Virus Called Fake News and called for Internet censorship to counter this alleged problem, taking particular aim at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for letting liars and con artists hijack his platform. As this mainstream campaign against fake news quickly has gained momentum in the past week, two false items get cited repeatedly, a claim that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and an assertion that Trump was prevailing in the popular vote over Hillary Clinton. I could add another election-related falsehood, a hoax spread by Trump supporters that liberal documentarian Michael Moore was endorsing Trump when he actually was backing Clinton.But I also know that Clinton supporters were privately pushing some salacious and unsubstantiated charges about Trump s sex life, and Clinton personally charged that Trump was under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin although there was no evidence presented to support that McCarthyistic accusation.The simple reality is that lots of dubious accusations get flung around during the heat of a campaign nothing new there and it is always a challenge for professional journalists to swat them down the best we can. What s different now is that the Times envisions some structure (or algorithm) for eliminating what it calls fake news. Photograph published by the New York Times purportedly taken in Russia of Russian soldiers who later appeared in eastern Ukraine. However, the photographer has since stated that the photo was actually taken in Ukraine, and the U.S. State Department has acknowledged the error.But, with a stunning lack of self-awareness, the Times fails to acknowledge the many times that it has published fake news, such as reporting in 2002 that Iraq s purchase of aluminum tubes meant that it was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program; its bogus analysis tracing the firing location of a Syrian sarin-laden rocket in 2013 back to a Syrian military base that turned out to be four times outside the rocket s range; or its publication of photos supposedly showing Russian soldiers inside Russia and then inside Ukraine in 2014 when it turned out that the inside-Russia photo was also taken inside Ukraine, destroying the premise of the story.These are just three examples among many of the Times publishing fake news and all three appeared on Page One before being grudgingly or partially retracted, usually far inside the newspaper under opaque headlines so most readers wouldn t notice. Much of the Times fake news continued to reverberate in support of U.S. government propaganda even after the partial retractions.Who Is the Judge?So, should Zuckerberg prevent Facebook users from circulating New York Times stories? Obviously, the Times would not favor that solution to the problem of fake news. Instead, the Times expects to be one of the arbiters deciding which Internet outlets get banned and which ones get gold seals of approval.The Times lead editorial, following a front-page article on the same topic on Friday, leaves little doubt what the newspaper would like to see. It wants major Internet platforms and search engines, such as Facebook and Google, to close off access to sites accused of disseminating fake news. The editorial said, a big part of the responsibility for this scourge rests with internet companies like Facebook and Google, which have made it possible for fake news to be shared nearly instantly with millions of users and have been slow to block it from their sites. Facebook says it is working on weeding out such fabrications. It said last Monday that it would no longer place Facebook-powered ads on fake news websites, a move that could cost Facebook and those fake news sites a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier on the same day, Google said it would stop letting those sites use its ad placement network. These steps would help, but Facebook, in particular, owes its users, and democracy itself, far more. Facebook has demonstrated that it can effectively block content like click-bait articles and spam from its platform by tweaking its algorithms, which determine what links, photos and ads users see in their news feeds. Facebook managers are constantly changing and refining the algorithms, which means the system is malleable and subject to human judgment. The Times editorial continued: This summer, Facebook decided to show more posts from friends and family members in users news feeds and reduce stories from news organizations, because that s what it said users wanted. If it can do that, surely its programmers can train the software to spot bogus stories and outwit the people producing this garbage. Mr. Zuckerberg himself has spoken at length about how social media can help improve society. None of that will happen if he continues to let liars and con artists hijack his platform. Gray AreasBut the problem is that while some falsehoods may be obvious and clear-cut, much information exists in a gray area in which two or more sides may disagree on what the facts are. And the U.S. government doesn t always tell the truth although you would be hard-pressed to find recent examples of the Times recognizing that reality. Especially over the past several decades, the Times has usually embraced the Official Version of a disputed event and has deemed serious skepticism out of bounds.Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, co-author of the Iraq aluminum tube story.That was the way the Times treated denials from the Iraqi government and some outside experts who disputed the aluminum tube story in 2002 and how the Times has brushed off disagreements regarding the U.S. government s portrayal of events in Syria, Ukraine and Russia. Increasingly, the Times has come across as a propaganda conduit for Official Washington rather than a professional journalistic entity.But the Times and other mainstream news outlets along with some favored Internet sites now sit on a Google-financed entity called the First Draft Coalition, which presents itself as a kind of Ministry of Truth that will decide which stories are true and which are fake. If the Times editorial recommendations are followed, the disfavored stories and the sites publishing them would no longer be accessible through popular search engines and platforms, essentially blocking the public s access to them. [See Consortiumnews.com s What to Do About Fake News. ]The Times asserts that such censorship would be good for democracy and it surely is true that hoaxes and baseless conspiracy theories are no help to democracy but regulation of information in the manner that the Times suggests has more than a whiff of Orwellian totalitarianism to it.And the proposal is especially troubling coming from the Times, with its checkered recent record of disseminating dangerous disinformation.*** Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).READ MORE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LIES AT: 21st Century Wire MSM Watch FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 1real |
Trump Spews FILTH At Charity Event, Audience BOOS Him And CHEERS Hillary (VIDEO) | Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have traditionally gone to New York City s Al Smith Dinner to help raise money for charity and to exchange sharp-tongued roast type jokes. But when the event kicked off on Thursday night, Donald Trump decided to head right for the gutter.Instead of light-hearted humor, Trump returned to the well-worn accusations he has peddled for months on the campaign trail. And demonstrating his inability to calmly make jokes or be on the receiving end of them was in full display with Trump yet again.He appeared to straddle the line when he talked about how listening to Hillary rattle on and rattle on has made him better appreciate his former nemesis Rosie O Donnell. But he then seemed to cross it when he referred to her as corrupt during a lengthy riff on the FBI s investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Hillary is so corrupt she got kicked off the Watergate Commission. How corrupt do you have to be to get kicked off the Watergate Commission? Pretty corrupt, he said to loud boos and at least one call demanding he get off the stage.Trump is the ultimate bubble candidate. He knows how to throw red meat out to his audience of rabid deplorables , but as the campaign shows so far, he is unable to translate that into mainstream election results.Trump turned a traditionally lighthearted charity event into yet another venue for his bile to go on display and made the watchers both in-house and watching on TV to shudder. There is just about twenty days left of the Trump campaign and they seem dead-set on losing support in any way possible. Insulting every single American comes from a place of special hatred towards the audience, and it seems this is the way Trump has chosen to go out.Featured image via screen capture | 1real |
PIERS MORGAN: “Get Off Your High Horse, Hillary. Only ONE Candidate is Up To Her Neck in FBI Probes and Her Name Isn’t Donald” – TruthFeed | Breaking News PIERS MORGAN: “Get Off Your High Horse, Hillary. Only ONE Candidate is Up To Her Neck in FBI Probes and Her Name Isn’t Donald” PIERS MORGAN: “Get Off Your High Horse, Hillary. Only ONE Candidate is Up To Her Neck in FBI Probes and Her Name Isn’t Donald” Breaking News By TruthFeedNews November 4, 2016
By Piers Morgan When I competed in Donald Trump ’s first season of Celebrity Apprentice , he pitched me in the finale against country music star Trace Adkins. NBC promoted our showdown in endless commercials as ‘USA versus UK, good versus evil.’ Trace was portrayed as a strong, kind, polite, hard-working, all-American hero. I was depicted as an arrogant, obnoxious, ruthless British villain. There was just one problem, as I pointed out to Trump in a boardroom exchange that tragically never got aired. ‘One of us,’ I explained, ‘is a violent alcoholic who’s been shot by an ex-wife, stabbed in bar-room knife fights, and has a criminal record for a DUI.’ I competed in Donald Trump’s first season of Celebrity Apprentice – and I was once portrayed as evil, not unlike how Donald has been branded these days Yesterday, Hillary Clinton showed she didn’t get the ‘rise above the monster’ memo, shrieking herself hoarse (pictured today speaking in North Carolina) I paused for effect. ‘The other…. is me…. the bad guy.’ Trump roared with laughter. He got the irony, even if viewers never got the chance to. I was reminded of this today as I watched President Obama tear into Trump, branding him a small-brained, star-f***ing, Ku Klux Klan tolerating ‘loser’ born with a silver spoon in his mouth. It was an astonishingly personal and nasty attack from a man whose own wife Michelle recently declared from atop her lofty moral plinth: ‘When they go low, we go high.’ Yesterday, Hillary Clinton showed she didn’t get the ‘rise above the monster’ memo either, shrieking herself hoarse as she once again laid into Trump supporters she recently described as ‘The Deplorables’. ‘I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and the anger of people who support Donald Trump,’ she raged. This follows a familiar pattern from Team Clinton as election day draws closer: when in doubt, trash Trump and his followers in the meanest, ugliest, most personal way possible. The mantra seems to be: ‘When they go low, we plummet even lower.’ A similar mistake was made in Britain during the EU referendum debate when the Remain campaigners belittled and berated the Brexiters in a snide, sneering, superior manner. They lost. The problem for Mrs Clinton as she gallops across the fields of America like a crusading white knight trying to single-handedly save the nation from imminent Armageddon at the hands of Mr Evil is that she’s the Trace Adkins of this battle. In other words, she ain’t no saint herself. Her supporters don’t accept this of course. To them, Hillary is a vestal political virgin of unimpeachable integrity. ‘Why would I want to criticise her?’ a female Clinton-ite actress indignantly asked me on Twitter yesterday. ‘She’s up against a mad man. Compared to him, she’s bathed in golden light.’ It was the kind of thing I’d expect Tom Cruise to say in defence of his beloved basket case Scientologists. Yet as I write this, Clinton is facing potential FBI criminal investigations on two fronts. One is the re-opened case of her ongoing email scandal, this time centering on the contents of sexting pervert Anthony Weiner’s laptop. The second, according to the Washington Post, is an investigation into an alleged ‘pay-or-play’ operation Hillary ran out of the State Department that favoured donors to the Clinton Foundation charity. At the root of it lies a central charge that the Clintons have cynically and greedily exploited political power and status to enrich themselves, under the convenient protective umbrella of their Foundation. Big sponsors have been repeatedly ‘invited’ to donate big sums to the Foundation, then also donate big sums to the personal fortunes of Bill or Hillary in the form of cash, holidays, private jets and other benefits. On the face of it, this seems like a prima facie case of potential corruption. Yet the Post further reports the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation has been held up by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to the fury of many in the FBI. This is the same Loretta Lynch who Bill Clinton hijacked for a 30-minute conversation on a private airstrip days before the original FBI email investigation verdict exonerating his wife was made public. We can all draw our own conclusions, none of them I suspect very pretty. I know from first-hand experience there’s no such thing as a free lunch with the Clintons. There is no such thing as a free lunch with the Clintons. I know from my own dealings it’s quid-pro-quo: Bill would scratch my back if I scratched his I’ve interviewed Bill Clinton twice, for CNN. On both occasions, the request was only granted once I had agreed to moderate a panel for the former president at his annual Clinton Global Initiative event in aid of Clinton Foundation. It was a strict quid-pro-quo: Bill would scratch my back if I scratched his. So I scratched away, as do many other TV journalists each year who want an interview with him. There’s a similar pattern to almost everything in Planet Clinton: they trade favours. But when that trade involves millions of dollars raked into personal bank accounts on the back of charity donations, it stinks to high heaven. ‘Trace’ Clinton should get off her high horse, before she gets a nosebleed.
H/T – DailyMail
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Trump pulls nearly even with Clinton after Republican convention: Reuters/Ipsos poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pulled nearly even with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for the first time since May, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken over the course of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland this week. The July 18-22 national online poll found that 41 percent of likely voters supported Clinton, while 38 percent supported Trump. Given the poll’s credibility interval of about 4 percentage points, Trump and Clinton should be considered to be about even in the race. MORE ELECTION 2016 COVERAGE: Just before Republicans opened the convention on Monday, Trump had trailed Clinton by nearly 10 percentage points in the poll. The New York businessman-turned-politician formally accepted the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 presidential election during a convention at which the party at times struggled to show unity. The week started with a dustup between convention leaders and delegates who wanted to change the party’s rules to derail Trump’s nomination. Later in the week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who dropped out of the nomination race in May, refused to endorse Trump in a prime-time speech. Yet, on the final night of the convention, Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation as he pledged to take back a country that he said is plagued by crime, terrorism and ineffective leadership. Party conventions are partly meant to introduce the candidate to the country, and nominees tend to get a boost in opinion polls afterward. In 2012, then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney rose by about 5 percentage points in the Reuters/Ipsos poll after his party’s convention. Clinton, who is expected to be formally nominated by her party at its convention in Philadelphia next week, has led Trump most of the year in the poll. The last time Trump drew about even with Clinton was in mid-May, after his last two rivals for the Republican nomination dropped out of the race and party leaders started to get behind his campaign. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted in English in all 50 states with 1,036 likely voters. | 0fake |
U.S. Captures Ryder Cup, Ending Europe’s Streak - The New York Times | CHASKA, Minn. — Ryan Moore was the last player to gain a spot on the teams for the 41st Ryder Cup. On Sunday, exactly a week after he found out he had made the United States team, he was 2 down with three holes to play in his singles match against Lee Westwood when two of his teammates, Patrick Reed and J. B. Holmes, showed up on the 16th hole in a show of support. As Reed and Holmes looked on, Moore produced an finish to hand Westwood a defeat and deliver the United States its 15th point, clinching the Americans’ first victory in the biennial event against a European team after losses. It did not matter, Moore said, that he was making his Ryder Cup debut while Westwood was making his 10th appearance. “I saw both of those guys,” Moore said, “and I said: ‘All right, I’m going to do it for my team. I’m going to try to flip this match somehow. ’” The Americans, who had lost eight of the previous 10 Ryder Cups, flipped their fortunes in the competition one man and one match at a time. Playing for one another, the United States turned a lead at Saturday’s close into a victory, its first against Europe since 2008 and only its third in the past 11 years. Patrick Reed, whose fiery demeanor and play earned him the nickname Captain America, gained the first point for the United States in Sunday’s singles matches with a victory against Rory McIlroy in a showdown of showmen that featured exquisite shotmaking, exchanges and a warm embrace when it was over. By sundown, every United States player had earned at least a point during the event. The last time that happened was in 1975, when an American team captained by Arnold Palmer dominated a squad from Britain and Ireland. It was the perfect tribute to Palmer, who died five days before this year’s competition got underway at Hazeltine National Golf Club. The United States captain, Davis Love III, whose 2012 squad squandered a lead and lost on the final day at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, said he was proud of how his players competed in the face of immense pressure. “But mostly, proud of the way they came together as family and supported each other,” Love said. Brandt Snedeker, a player on that losing squad in 2012, said this team was closer. “I think this week the underlying theme was everybody had your back,” he said. Snedeker was the only American to go unbeaten. He said he could not have finished if not for the support of Bubba Watson, who helped him get past his singles opponent, Andy Sullivan, by 3 and 1. Watson walked with Snedeker during the match on Sunday and kept him loose and in a positive frame of mind after Snedeker fell two holes behind after three holes. Watson, the golfer in the world, was not playing because he had been bypassed for the 12th and final team berth in favor of Moore. Desiring to be included in the event, Watson volunteered to serve as part cheerleader, part errand boy for Love’s team. “I don’t know if I could have done it without him out there,” Snedeker said of Watson, one of the American team’s five vice captains. In truth, Love had six assistants, because everyone included Phil Mickelson — who, at 46, qualified for his 11th Ryder Cup — as part of the captain’s coterie. Perhaps no one, including Love, came into this competition with more pressure on his shoulders than Mickelson, who had spoken out against the status quo in the news conference after the Americans’ loss in Scotland in 2014. Mickelson criticized the leadership style of that year’s captain, Tom Watson, who was seated a few feet away. His insurrection led to an overhaul of the system for selecting the players and the captain. The players, past and present, got more input, and a more collaborative process was put in place. One of the changes instituted paved the way for the selection of Moore. Mickelson’s contributions to the victory ended with his record but started with that news conference in 2014. At Sunday’s session, the first question was for Mickelson. He was asked what he thought of Love’s leadership. Mickelson laughed along with everyone else on the dais. “We had a great week this week,” he said. “We had a lot of fun together as a team, and we played some great golf, and we are really excited to have won. ” When he was finished, Mickelson’s teammates and their support crew applauded him. “We can’t thank Phil enough,” Snedeker said, adding: “He realized how this week turned out was going to reflect on him 100 percent, and to have shoulders that big and go out there and realize you’re going to have to shoulder it one way or the other — we all felt invested in that. We were not going to let Phil go down as a scapegoat. ” Mickelson said he felt their support all week but especially Sunday, in his singles match against Sergio García. It was an epic contest, with the players combining for 19 birdies, 10 by Mickelson. He had one bogey for a 63 but made a clutch putt at the 18th hole to secure a halve with García and extend his career singles record to . His teammates, Mickelson said, “told me all the time they had my back, and it was an awesome feeling. ” “It elevated me to a different level of play having that type of support system,” he added. “I felt the support, the energy, and I played my best golf. ” After his last putt dropped, Mickelson’s feet left the ground. His jump was not as high as his putt was long, but it didn’t matter. He got his message across. The margin of victory was deceptive. Trailing by 3 points on Sunday morning, Europe’s captain, Darren Clarke, had in desperation his singles lineup. His strategy sent shivers through the partisan crowds when no American player in the first five matches held a lead after the first nine. The Europeans pulled to within a point of the United States with victories in three of the first four completed singles matches. But the Americans finished strong. Led by Moore and Snedeker, they won five of the last six matches while Mickelson sat with his wife, Amy, behind the 18th green soaking up the scene. The European team featured six Ryder Cup rookies, including Thomas Pieters, who compiled a record of . Pieters and McIlroy are not going anywhere, so the United States cannot afford to rest on this win. “We need to build on this,” Mickelson said. “Otherwise, it’s all for naught. ” | 0fake |
The Anti-Police Epidemic | Dawn Perlmutter
The war on law enforcement is epidemic. Every aspect of culture has been infected. The anti-police disease is highly contagious and rapidly spreading on social media, in memes, in movements, in popular fast food restaurants, at football games, on campuses, in media and in every aspect of American culture.
An epidemic is defined as the rapid spread of infectious disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. Colin Kaepernick is the Typhoid Mary of the anti-police epidemic. Kaepernick refuses to stand while the U.S. national anthem is being performed at the start of NFL games as a protest against alleged racial injustice and police brutality. On Sept. 1 Kaepernick chose to kneel on one knee as his protest gesture instead of just sitting on the bench. His explanation for his decision to switch is that it was an attempt to show more respect to former and current U.S. military members. As if kneeling is somehow symbolically less offensive than sitting. He misinterpreted the meaning of the military expression, ‘take a knee’ which occurs when troops take a pause before continuing their mission. Similar to ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ the anti-police gesture has been imbued with a trendy righteousness regardless of its original meaning. The media reverently refers to Kaepernick’s protest as ‘Taking a Knee’ as if it is some kind of sacred act. There are no headlines that read ‘Kaepernick Disses the Flag’ or ‘Kaepernick Takes a Crap on his Country’. Just in case his gesture didn’t send a clear enough message, Kaepernick also uses clothing to symbolize his anti-police sympathies. He has worn everything from t-shirts honoring the militant Black Panther Party to socks that depict police as pigs. In addition to numerous other crimes the Black Panther Party was responsible for the murder of at least 15 officers and originated the expression ‘Off the Pigs’ meaning murder police.
Like the typhoid infected cook Mary Mallon, Kaepernick is rapidly spreading the anti-police pathogen. In what has been dubbed the ‘Kaepernick Effect’ dozens of NFL and WNBA players have knelt, sat, or raised a fist during the national anthem. The disease has also spread to over 50 high schools, 35 colleges, and one middle school. In what can only be described as a bizarre symbolic contradiction there were two incidents where women performing the Star Spangled Banner got down on one knee in protest of what they were singing. One of the women, Denasia Lawrence, not only kneeled while performing the anthem but also opened her jacket to display a Black Lives Matter t-shirt exposing Miami Heat fans to the contagious disorder.
Rapid spread is well known for infectious diseases. The anti-police disorder also contaminated the Navy. An unidentified sailor assigned to the Naval Air Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, filmed herself deliberately not standing for the National Anthem and posted it on Facebook. She remained seated and raised a fist during morning colors and then praised Colin Kaepernick. Another sailor Petty Officer 2nd Class Janaye Ervin, an intelligence specialist in the Navy Reserve, stationed at Pearl Harbor, did not stand for the national anthem while in uniform. She also posted a statement on Facebook saying she was inspired by Colin Kaepernick. The Navy acted decisively. She lost her security clearance and may be facing jail in response to her actions. It is yet to be known if facing real consequences will contribute to curing the virus or accelerating it.
Kaepernick is just one carrier of the anti-police disease. The source of the infection can be attributed to specific movements such as Black Lives Matter that originated in Florida during the Trayvon Martin protests. The disease went airborne in Ferguson, Missouri where it was transmitted to college students, professional protesters and journalists who subsequently spread the disorder to towns and cities across the country. Currently the disease seems to cluster around populations that are susceptible to antipolice propaganda. The symptoms are irrationality, excessive anger, impaired perception, anxiety, hatred and delusions of oppression. Acute symptoms include sudden changes in behavior, aggression, paranoia, loss of control and homicidal and suicidal tendencies. All indicators are expressed in severe disrespect for law and order.
Early symptoms of the antipolice epidemic have been observed in various cultural manifestations of contempt for law enforcement officers. Anti-police graffiti is a common symptom of the virus. Writing has escalated from insults such as ‘police are murderers’ to threats of violence. A recent popular indicator is the expression ‘Kill Cops’ and related variations such as ‘Kill All Police’, ‘Save A Life, Kill a Cop’, ‘Cops Lives Don’t Matter’ and ‘Shoot Cops’. Threats are also depicted in images such as guns to officers’ heads. Violent anti-police rhetoric has also been seen in protest signs that read ‘All My Heroes Kill Cops’, ‘Put Wings on Pigs’ [Kill Cops] and ‘Cops Under Control Or Cops Under Flowers’. Disturbingly, anti-police graffiti, protests and tweets increase after officers are murdered signifying that violence against cops is celebrated and glorified.
The anti-police epidemic has also spread to well-known fast food restaurants. Employees have refused to serve officers at a Taco Bell in Phenix City, AL; Dunkin Donuts in West Hartford, CT; Krispy Kreme in Columbia, SC; IHOP in Virginia Beach, VA; Arby's in Pembroke Pines, FL; Chuck E. Cheese in Bowling Green, KY; Whataburger in Lewisville, TX; McDonalds in Brenham, TX; Chipotle in Brooklyn, NY; Genghis Grill in Dallas, TX; Noodles & Company, in Alexandria, VA; Tropical Smoothie in Winter Haven, FL; Lucky’s Teriyaki, Sedro-Woolley, WA and at the Krystal Restaurant in Irondale, AL. Other incidents involved employees refusing to let an officer use the restroom in a Philadelphia Starbucks, refusing service at a Sunoco gas station in Miramar, FL, writing Black Lives Matter on an officer’s coffee cup at a Dunkin Donuts in Providence, RI and a Walmart Bakery in McDonough, GA refusing to bake a cake for a police officer’s retirement party. These are just the incidents that have been made public.
Refusing service at a restaurant goes beyond gestures of disrespect. Law Enforcement officers are concerned that instead of simply being denied service that their food will be tampered with. For this reason, many officers will only eat at restaurants where they can see the food being made. This is a legitimate concern. On Aug 23, 2016 in Louisville, KY five police officers were denied service at a Taco Bell. When another employee took their orders, they overheard a conversation between two employees making the food saying, “I'm going to mess with them,” which resulted in them walking out of the restaurant. When officers have to fear what is being put in their food there can be no doubt that the war on police is a full-scale epidemic.
The anti-police infection went viral on social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social networks have hundreds of anti-police pages ridiculing, disrespecting and threatening officers. Protests and riots are organized on social media and some users openly advocate and celebrate the killing of police officers. The following are examples of popular hashtags: #FTP (Fuck The Police), #BlueLivesMurder, #ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards), #BlueLivesDontMatter, #FuckCops, #FuckThemAll, #APDK (All Police Dept. Killer), #FryEmLikeBacon, #BlackLivesMatter, #Ferguson, #MilwaukeeUprising and #Kaepernick.
As the disease progresses, more acute symptoms begin to manifest in acts of violence. A particularly offensive indicator of the disorder is the desecration of fallen officer memorials. Memorials honoring officers killed in the line of duty have been attacked in Philadelphia, Chicago, Albuquerque, Fresno, Denver, New Orleans, Oakland, Austin, Honolulu, Rochester, San Diego, St. Paul, Covington, Richmond, Goshen, Fayetteville, Raleigh and many other cities across the country. Vandalism has involved everything from dousing in paint, toppling and scratching granite, burning, to destroying a metal torch in order to extinguish the eternal flame. In a previous article , I described these acts as symbolic assassinations. Vandals target tributes to heroic officers because they want to appropriate the valor, honor and respect that they think they have been deprived of. This is another symptom of the anti-police disease. A sense of entitlement and resentment that leads to both symbolic and actual attacks on law enforcement officers.
At its most critical stage the anti-police disorder is lethal. This is expressed in the dozens of ambushes and killings of police officers. In the most acute phase of the disease some of those infected become homicidal and suicidal targeting and killing officers knowing that they will die in the incident. A pattern has emerged that clearly demonstrates that attacks on police escalate from protest gestures to acts of vandalism to deadly shootings that inspire further demonstrations in a continual cycle of protest and violence. Consequently, Kaepernick’s gesture is neither benign nor harmless. It is one symptom in a deadly epidemic. | 1real |
The People Are Laughing at the Liberal Media | The People Are Laughing at the Liberal Media The People Are Laughing at the Liberal Media 53 am by Cliff Kincaid Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media
Members of the media continue to talk among themselves, as if they had not been repudiated by the people on November 8. Mass firings and new faces are needed if the media are going to have any hope of regaining any credibility with the public.
Some on the far-left are waking up. Anis Shivani of the AlterNet news service asked , “Is the liberal media dead?” She answered: “One of the positives of this campaign is that despite relentless 24/7 propaganda about Trump, exaggerating his personal foibles while painting anyone not supportive of Hillary as a closet misogynist, racist or even sexual predator, the message failed to get through. In the end, no one paid any attention. Those inside the elite bubble were persuaded that they were headed for victory, hearing nothing contrary in their own ecosphere, when they were in fact doomed. The people have shown that they can tune out this noise. The media has fragmented so much that only those who are already persuaded come within the ambit of any new message, so in essence they have pounded their way into their own irrelevance (emphasis added).”
Hillary Clinton had the endorsements of most major newspapers in the United States. Her own website declared , “By all accounts, this election is historic—and so is the list of newspapers from across the country endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. That list includes a number of papers that, for decades, have exclusively endorsed Republican presidential candidates—until now.”
Reid Wilson of The Hill newspaper calculated that Clinton got 57 newspaper endorsements and Trump got only 2.
In addition to The Washington Post and The New York Times, which both endorsed Hillary, some of the other notable losers included: The Columbus Dispatch endorsed a Democrat (for the first time since Woodrow Wilson), and urged voters to elect Hillary. Ohio went for Trump anyway. The Akron Beacon said that Hillary was the change this country needed. The Cincinnati Enquirer broke a century-old tradition to endorse Hillary. The Sun Sentinel editorial board urged Floridians to vote for Hillary. Florida went for Trump. The Arizona Republic broke a 120-year tradition to endorse Hillary. Arizona went for Trump. The Dallas Morning News broke a 75-year tradition of supporting Republicans to endorse Hillary. Texas went for Trump anyway. The Houston Chronicle, the largest newspaper in Texas, usually backs Republicans but endorsed Hillary.
Among major voting blocs, one of the most amazing turnarounds can be found in the Catholic population.
On November 2, the Catholic Jesuit publication America was reporting that Clinton was leading Trump in the polls thanks to the Catholic vote. Citing a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute and the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, Clinton was getting support from 51 percent of Catholics, compared to 40 percent for Donald Trump. This is what liberal Catholics wanted to believe and encourage. Hillary’s campaign chairman John Podesta was a liberal Catholic who got a job as professor at Catholic Jesuit Georgetown University. He had communicated with other campaign officials about a scheme to force the church even further to the left. Elizabeth Yore’s article at The Remnant explained the relationship between George Soros, the Clinton campaign and the Jesuit-led Vatican.
However, exit polls show that Trump won the Catholic vote by a margin of 52 to 45 percent. What happened?
One answer is that Catholics are bypassing the liberal media and turning to alternative sources of news and information, such as The Remnant. Another such source is Boston Catholic Insider, which argued in an article, “ Why Catholics Should Vote for Trump ,” that Hillary had a “monstrous” position on abortion that justified the gruesome procedure up to and including the time of birth.
Another growing source of news and information for Catholics and non-Catholics is LifeSite . Its post-election stories include “Liberal media in meltdown over Trump election” and “America rejects Planned Parenthood and its party.”
Another important development was the airing of the film “ A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing ” by the EWTN Catholic cable channel. As we noted in a previous column, the film examined how Marxists have subverted the church from within by recruiting clergy into revolutionary socialist activities that divide people and cause conflict. The film was described as “a lens into America’s cultural Marxism euphemistically called ‘progressivism.’”
As long as the members of the liberal media continue in their old and discredited ways, without major changes in the journalism business, the alternative sources of news and information will continue to grow in power and influence. The new conservative network CRTV has just announced that Steven Crowder , from the popular show “Louder with Crowder,” is joining the new media venture.
Even with major changes in the liberal media, such as the firing of liberal hacks and the hiring of solid conservatives, it is doubtful that viewership can be maintained. On outlets like CNN, they will continue to talk and act like they still have some credibility left. The public is laughing at them and declaring, “You’re fired.” Cliff Kincaid
Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . 0 | 1real |
BIG FAT LIE Being Told By Lefty Media About Trump Wanting To Register Muslims…He NEVER Said That! | I just happened to be listening to Rush today and want to pass this on to everyone. Please share this and stop the false story being reported to try and bring down Trump. It s bad enough that the lefty media is trying to take down Trump with big lies, but now it s the establishment Republicans like Kasich who re doing the Trump Trashing. Shame on them!TRANSCRIPT OF RUSH LIMBAUGH EXPLAINING THE BIG LIE TOLD ABOUT TRUMP: RUSH: Now, I don t know if you have seen it yet today. There are stories all over the Drive-By Media the Associated Press, Yahoo News, I mean, it s everywhere that Donald Trump supposedly is calling for the registration of all Muslims in America. Trump is demanding that they all be registered and that a massive database be collected. CNN is all over reporting this. Even the Wall Street Journal has picked up on it. There s a problem, though: Trump didn t say it. I m gonna tell you what happened. At a recent public appearance Trump s coming off the stage after one of his usual one hour to 90-minute appearances.He s probably worn out and spent, and there s the usual crowd of autograph seekers and supporters and fans, and amongst them is a Drive-By Media reporter who says to Trump, Should there be a database system that tracks the Muslims that are in this country? Trump says, There should be a lot of systems, beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems, and today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border. We have to have strength, we have to have a wall, and we cannot let what s happening to this country happen again. Reporter: Is that something your White House would like to implement? There s no specificity there. The question is just, Is that something your White House would like to implement? Trump has given a multifaceted answer. She says, Is that something, without specifying what she s asking about. Trump said, Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely, and that s how they report that Trump demands a database and registration for all Muslims, when he didn t say it! He never said it. It s a Journalism 101 trick. It s right out of the manual they teach you at the first year of journalism school in how to destroy political opponents or powerful people you don t like. It s that common a technique.BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: Now, I m not sure, but I think that the reporter that asked Trump the question and has totally, totally twisted this purposefully to convey something that did not happen, I think the reporter works for Business Insider. I think the reporter is Hunter Walker. If that s who it is, you need to know that this guy is a major backer of Hillary Clinton, as most in the Drive-By Media are. He has written endless articles championing her, and now I think he writes for Yahoo News and is the Business Insider politics editor.So here is how this happened. This is in Newton, Iowa, yesterday after a campaign event. Trump s leaving the stage, and a reporter says, Should there be a database system to track Muslims in this country? Now, nobody has suggested that, keep in mind. Trump has not suggested it. So the reporter s not asking a question bouncing off anything Trump has said. It s just a question thrown at Trump, and it comes to him in the midst of autograph seekers and fans and supporters wanting to meet him after his performance is finished.TRUMP: There should be a lot of systems beyond database. We should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it. But right now we have to have a border. We have to have strength. We have to have a wall. And we cannot let what s happening to this country happen.REPORTER: But is it something your White House would like to implement?TRUMP: Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely.REPORTER: What do you think the effect of that would be? How would that work?TRUMP: It would stop people from coming in illegally. We have to stop people from coming into our country illegally.REPORTER: Muslims specifically, how do you actually get them registered into a database?TRUMP: It would be just good management. What you have to do is good management procedures. And we can do that.REPORTER: Would you go to mosques and sign these people up into the system?TRUMP: Different places. You sign em up at different but it s all about management. Our country has no management.RUSH: Okay. Now, two things about this. The first is, as I said, everybody in the Drive-By Media is running with this because they think they ve got Trump again. They re salivating out there, folks, they are hoping, they ve got their fingers crossed, they ve doubled down, they re putting this story everywhere: Trump sexist, Trump bigoted, Trump anti-Muslim, wants a database; wants to go to their mosques to sign em up; wants to have them carry around symbols on their clothes to tell everybody who they are. And he never said it.This reporter, Hunter Walker, retweeted the headline from the AP. The AP headline: Trump Says He Would Absolutely Implement Muslim Database. This little know-nothing reporter is so proud of his work today. This, as I say, journalism 101. This is what they teach you when you want to take out a political opponent or a powerful person you don t like, this is how you do it, with innuendo.Again, here s what happened. Trump comes offstage, Should there be a database system that tracks Muslims that are in this country? It s a setup question from the get-go. Nobody has suggested it. Trump said there should be a lot of systems beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it, but right now we have to have a border. We have to have strength. We have to have a wall, and we can t let what s happening to this country happen again.He has not confirmed a database. He has not confirmed registration of Muslims. He s changed the question to his favorite subject, the wall and the border and keeping illegal immigrants out. The reporter says, Is that something your White House would like to implement? Not specifying. If anything, the guy s talking about the border. The last thing Trump said in his answer was talking about the border, strength, a wall. The reporter says, Is that something your White House would like to implement? There is nothing specified. The use of the word that, the reporter then can say, Well, I meant Muslim registration, look what Trump said, Trump knew what I was talking about. But Trump s answer was, Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely. Reporter: What do you think the effect of that would be? It would stop people from coming in illegally. Trump s still talking about the border. He s still talking about the wall. He says, We have to stop people from coming into this country illegally. So how in the world can Trump be talking about the registration of Muslims or anybody when he s still talking about keeping people out of the country? Muslims are here. This is a good, old-fashioned hatchet job by this low-rent reporter named Hunter Walker who s got everybody in the media reporting it the way he wants because this is what they want people to believe about Trump. This is what they believe about all Republicans. We re bigots, we re racists, sexists and so forth, and Trump s just come along and confirmed it. And I guarantee you there s a contest inside the Drive-By Media to see who can be the one to take Trump out.Here is what they are forgetting. This isn t gonna hurt Trump. Even their journalistic malpractice is not gonna hurt Trump. They haven t figured that out. They keep applying standard, ordinary, everyday tactics on hit pieces to Donald Trump, and all that happens as a result is that Trump increases his support. Trump s support gets stronger. It gets deeper every time they try something like this because Trump is dead serious about protecting this country and its borders and keeping terrorists and so forth out of the country. He makes no bones about it. He s one of the only candidates that s unwavering on it. It s the number one issue.And you combine what s happening with ISIS in Paris and border security, national security, protecting and defending the country and the people who live here is far and away the number one most important issue because everything descends from it. The economy descends from it. Jobs descend from it. Everything that matters descends from this country remaining a country. It has to have a border. That border has to be enforced. Trump s the only guy talking about. They think they ve got him. They re gonna be crying in whatever it is they drink. This is not going to rip the bottom out of Trump s campaign. It s not gonna destroy Trump s campaign no matter how much they re lying, no matter how they try to distort this, because Trump did not say he s in favor of registration or a database of all Muslims in America.And once again, what s gonna happen here is an ever increasingly aware and sophisticated public is gonna just get angrier and angrier at the usual childish tactics of the very unrespected Drive-By Media. Once the public learns what s happened here, the anger is not gonna be at Trump. There wouldn t have been that much anger at Trump anyway among his supporters. That s what they don t understand. You people in the media have got to understand something. You re gonna have to go about this a different way. You didn t make Trump; you can t destroy him. There s nothing you can do. And look at the lengths they re now going to try. Exactly what they did to Romney, by the way. This is no different than Harry Reid saying, Mitt Romney hasn t paid his taxes in ten years. Hey, look at Mitt Romney putting the family dog on top of the station wagon. Hey, Mitt Romney, one of his employees wives died of cancer, Romney didn t care, went ahead and canceled the health care plan, didn t care. I don t think this guy s questions were even registering with Trump. I think Trump continued to talk with his own framework in mind, meaning his focus on the wall. Because if you continue on with the sound bite keep in mind here that Trump s never talked about registering or having a database of Muslims. The reporter asks a fake question: Is that something your White House would do, like to implement? Trump answers, Yeah. He keeps talking about the wall. He keeps talking about the border. Oh, I would certainly implement that, absolutely. Trump s still talking about the border.The reporter says, What do you think the effect of that would be? How would that work? Trump: It would stop people from coming in illegally. He s still talking about the border. He s still talking about his wall. We have to stop people from coming in illegally. Reporter: For Muslims specifically, how do you actually get them registered in your database? Trump has never said that he wants to register them in his database. He s talking about the wall. He s talking about the border. This idiot, talentless reporter says, Well, for Muslims specifically, how do you actually get them registered in your database? Trump says, It would be good management. What you have to do is good management procedures, and we can do that. He s still talking about the wall. He s not even listening to this kid. He s walking out of there, he s answering the question, he s got it answered, he s on the wall, he s on the border, that s what he s talking about.When it s all over the reporter makes it up that Trump s talking about registration of Muslims and a database. Totally makes it up. Anyway, I gotta take a break here. I just wanted you to see this. I wanted you to hear it, the reporter s own words, Trump s own words because it s been picked up everywhere, and, mark my words, the next poll that comes out, Trump s just gonna jump even higher and they re not gonna know what to do with themselves in the Drive-Bys. But you people in the media are gonna have to learn something. When you don t make somebody, you can t destroy him. And you haven t made Trump. The media has nothing to do with why Trump s where he is, and therefore you can t take him out. You can try, you may think you can, but he s got a bond, a connection with his supporters and his audience that you people are not gonna be able to break no matter how hard you try.BREAK TRANSCRIPTRUSH: So you know how this works? I just got an e-mail from a friend of mine who plays around on Facebook, and he sent me a screenshot of his Facebook post that he sent out, and he wants me to know that he s on top things. He says, Yeah, Trump wants to register all Muslims. The last guy that wanted to do that was Hitler with the Jews! Come on, folks! We re going backwards. So I just had to write him back: Hey, buddy, you ve got it 180 degrees wrong. Trump didn t say it! This is a guy that reads the news all day. This is exactly how this happens. You ve got every Drive-By news source now reporting this.originalI m not sure who the reporter was that actually got this whole thing started, but there are the suspects who have taken what that kid did and expanded it are all over the place. You could mention any Drive-By name out there and you d be pretty close to being accurate about who did this. I m not exactly sure who the reporter was at the Trump event. I was told one thing and now I m told that that s not necessarily true. But the guy s name I gave you is still responsible for expanding, amplifying, and leading this. That Hunter Walker is who kicked it all off. Doesn t really matter.I mean, they re all the same stripe, and they ve all got the same objective here. And this e-mail I just got from a friend of mine who s not an idiot, and you know, he s not a casual consumer of news. It s in the Wall Street Journal. This guy s a financial guy. He read it in the Wall Street Journal, and the Wall Street Journal to these guys is gospel. I have tried to tell every friend of mine, and it s probably gone for naught. I ve tried to tell them just based on the way I get covered, and they know me and they know what s written about me is all bogus. I said, Could you not apply that to every story you hear, particularly about people you support? Could you just learn to not believe anything you read if it s defaming Republicans in the Drive-By Media? Could you just learn to be suspicious of it and try to confirm it on your own? (sigh) But it doesn t work that way. People believe it. There it is! It s in print. It s right there, or, It s on my screen, Rush! I mean, they can t write stuff that isn t true! I can t tell you how often I hear that. So Trump s gonna I don t know how he s gonna deal with this. He will, but (sigh) Let me I m gonna go ahead and get in trouble myself here. Can I give you what I think might have happened with a lot of people when they first saw this BS story?What do you think? You re driving around or you re reading or whatever and you hear, Trump wants to register all Muslims! (interruption) Yeah. (chuckles) Get my drift? So I m just marveling here. I m thankful for the opportunity. I m thankful I haven t retired. I m thankful I ve still got this program and a chance to come here every day and illustrate the dishonest, the reprehensible, the just scummy way these people work. And each time I see something like this, I focus even more on, They re not media! This isn t media! This isn t the news. The media is the Democrat Party. The media is all part of the left-wing establishment that s trying to advance the Democrat Party agenda.Every time I see a story like, Trump has to fight media here or overcome media, I ask: Why would you have to overcome the media? The media s just a bunch of journalists telling people what happened who weren t there. (thumps table) Of course, this is the exact opposite. Everybody knows now, or many people. And even people who know what the media is, still get sucked in and believe this stuff. But when you read the transcript of what Trump said, when you actually read it or hear it and then compare it to the news being reported, you can t escape the fact that the media s making it up; that Trump never said it.Read more: Rush Limbaugh | 1real |
OBAMA’S GAL PAL Loretta Lynch WON’T RECUSE HERSELF From Crooked Hillary’s Criminal Investigation…Despite Private Meeting With Hillary’s IMPEACHED Husband | Reasonable Americans expected never expected unbiased justice to be served by Eric Holder in a skirt Friday on MSNBC s Morning Joe, Bloomberg Politics Mark Halperin cited a senior Justice Department official who said Attorney General Loretta Lynch will not recuse herself from the investigation into presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton use of a private email while secretary of state. Critics have called on Lynch to do so after holding a private meeting with her husband former President Bill Clinton earlier this week.Halperin also said the source does not anticipate Lynch will admit the meeting was a mistake.JUST IN @MarkHalperin: Sr. Justice Dept. official This was the Atty. General's intention all along https://t.co/ws9klpXEeM Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) July 1, 2016 This is a senior Justice Department official who is playing down that this is anything new, Halperin said. Says this was the attorney general s intention all along to let the career people decide. Quote, She is not recusing herself. She is not stepping aside and does not expect that the attorney general will say it was a mistake to meet with Bill Clinton privately for 20 or 30 minutes. BreitbartMeanwhile, the Washington Post reports Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch will support the recommendations from prosecutors and others leading probes into the use of a private email server by Hillary Clinton during her time as secretary of state, a Justice Department official said.Lynch s statement expected later Friday during a gathering in Colorado underscores the intense sensitivity surrounding the FBI and Justice investigations into the past use of an exclusive email server by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.By promising to abide by the recommendations, Lynch would directly address worries by Clinton critics and others that she as an Obama administration appointee could ultimately overrule the investigators.Her expected statement reflects an apparent desire to reinforce a by-the-book approach to the Clinton case, which has already played a dominant role in Republican attacks on the campaign trail.Lynch planned to make the comments later Friday during an appearance with Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. | 1real |
Trump Is Throwing Jared Kushner Under The Bus Over Mueller Indictments | The White House is falling apart following indictments against two former Trump associates and a third who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Here s what Manafort s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization, said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can t go any lower. He s fucked. According to Vanity Fair, Trump is reportedly blaming White House adviser Jared Kushner, who is also his son-in-law, for his role in decisions that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.Trump spoke to President Steve Bannon on Tuesday and blamed Kushner for the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller s appointment. Furthermore, Trump agreed with Roger Stone recently when the Dirty Trickster told him Kushner was giving him bad political advice. Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history, Nunberg said. I m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress, he continued.Advisers want Trump to consider ways to neutralize Mueller, from conciliation to a declaration of all-out war, according to Vanity Fair. One Republican said that a good move would be for Trump to get his poll numbers up. Trump s numbers are lower than any other president s in the history of modern polling, so that would be a neat trick. The establishment has proven time and time again they will fuck Trump over, a Bannon ally told the paper. SURE, it s the Deep State globalists who are trying to hurt Trump, when actually, the former reality show star hurts his agenda every time he tweets to lash out at the world. Trump can t afford to fire Mueller politically, Stone said, but the so-called president has also reportedly complained about Mueller s investigation being allowed to continue.Stone wants Trump to call for a special prosecutor to investigate the Uranium One non-scandal, which has been debunked, but it s just an effort to use Hillary Clinton as a shield.We re wondering how First Lady Ivanka Trump feels knowing that her husband is getting blamed for her father s scandals.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 1real |
Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa drops education minister after public outcry | (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s new president Emmerson Mnangagwa dropped his education minister, a day after reappointing him to a cabinet which gave top posts to senior military officials in what was widely seen as a reward for the army s role in the removal of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa made other changes to the cabinet that his chief secretary Misheck Sibanda called adjustments to ensure compliance with the Constitution and considerations of gender, demography and special needs . Under the Zimbabwean constitution, ministers and their deputies have to be members of parliament, except five who can be chosen for their professional skills and competence. Mnangagwa had named as ministers seven people, including Major-General Sibusiso Moyo as foreign minister and Marshall Perrance Shiri to the sensitive land portfolio, who are not lawmakers. He replaced primary and higher education minister Lazaraus Dokora with his deputy Paul Mavima. Dokora s reappointment had caused an outcry from Zimbabweans on social media and radio shows who slammed him for poor performance and undermining the country s education system. He also named ZANU-PF lawmaker Petronella Kagonye to the labor and social welfare portfolio, replacing university professor Clever Nyathi who was appointed special advisor in the president s office on national peace and reconciliation. Chris Mutsvanga, leader of the powerful war veterans association and who was named media, information and broadcast minister, has also been appointed special advisor to the president. Sworn in as president last Friday after 93-year-old Mugabe quit in the wake of a de facto military coup, Mnangagwa s cabinet drew criticisms from analysts and Zimbabweans who had expected a more broad-based lineup that marked a break from the Mugabe era. | 0fake |
Hillary Clinton Attacks Donald Trump for Threatening to Sue Accusers | PITTSBURGH—Hillary Clinton on Saturday drew a contrast between how she and Republican rival would conduct their first 100 days in office, zeroing in on his contention that he would sue the women who have accused him of making unwanted sexual advances. Speaking to reporters on her campaign plane Saturday night, Mrs. Clinton and her running […] | 0fake |
Under pressure from Trump, Price resigns as health secretary over private plane uproar | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned under pressure from President Donald Trump on Friday in an uproar over Price’s use of costly private charter planes for government business. His abrupt departure was announced an hour after Trump told reporters he was disappointed in Price’s use of private aircraft and did not like the way it reflected on his administration. “Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the president accepted,” the White House said in a statement. Trump named Don Wright to serve as acting secretary. Wright is currently the deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the office of disease prevention and health promotion. “I’m not happy. OK? I’m not happy,” Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn. Candidates to succeed Price included Seema Verma, who is administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and who is close to Vice President Mike Pence, and Scott Gottlieb, a physician who serves as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to industry analysts. Several sources saw Gottlieb as a clear front runner. They said he got along well with the White House and is viewed favorably there. Price’s resignation leaves Trump with a second Cabinet position to fill. He has yet to pick a secretary for homeland security after hiring former Secretary John Kelly as his White House chief of staff. It was the latest blow to the Trump White House, which has struggled to get major legislative achievements passed by Congress and has been embroiled in one controversy after another since Trump took office in January. Price, a former congressman, was instrumental in the Trump administration’s policies aimed at undercutting Obamacare, as well as working with governors across the country to slowly begin unraveling parts of the law. In a resignation letter, Price offered little in the way of contrition. He said he had been working to reform the U.S. healthcare system and reduce regulatory burdens, among other goals. “I have spent forty years both as a doctor and public servant putting people first. I regret that the recent events have created a distraction from these important objectives,” he said. Trump, currently trying to sell his tax cut plan and oversee the federal response to devastation wreaked by three hurricanes, saw the Price drama as an unnecessary distraction and behind the scenes was telling aides “what was he thinking?,” a source close to the president said. Price promised on Thursday to repay the nearly $52,000 cost of his seats on private charter flights. “The taxpayers won’t pay a dime for my seat on those planes,” Price said. But that was not enough to satisfy Trump. Trump told reporters that the “optics” of Price’s travel were not good, since, as president he was trying to renegotiate U.S. contracts to get a better deal for taxpayers. “Look, I think he’s a very fine person. I certainly don’t like the optics,” Trump said. Price had also been seen in the White House as having been ineffective in getting Congress to pass healthcare reform legislation, an effort that has fizzled on Capitol Hill. Price was one of a handful of senior officials in Trump’s administration put on the defensive over reports about their use of charter flights and government aircraft, sometimes for personal travel, when they could have flown commercial for less money. The White House issued an order late on Friday saying use of private planes required approval from White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and that the commercial air system was appropriate even for very senior officials with few exceptions. The Washington Post on Friday reported that Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin attended a Wimbledon tennis match, toured Westminster Abbey and took a cruise on the Thames this summer during a 10-day trip to discuss veterans’ health issues in Britain and Denmark. Shulkin, who traveled on a commercial airline, was accompanied on the trip by his wife, whose airfare was paid for by the government and who received a per diem for meals, the Post said, noting that the Department of Veterans Affairs said she was traveling on “approved invitational orders.” His six-person traveling party included an acting undersecretary of health and her husband as well as two aides. They were accompanied by a security detail of as many as six people, the Post said. Washington news media outlet Politico has reported that Price had taken at least two dozen private charter flights since May at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of more than $400,000. Politico also reported he took approved military flights to Africa and Europe costing $500,000. Senior U.S. government officials travel frequently, but are generally expected to keep costs down by taking commercial flights or the train when possible. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin have also been in the spotlight for their travel habits. | 0fake |
YOU’RE FIRED! TRUMP Makes Stunning Move To Defeat ‘Crooked Hillary’ | The New York Times and all other news outlets are reporting with glee that Donald Trump s campaign manager was fired. The truth is that Corey Lewandowski had never run a national campaign before now so it s time to bring in experienced campaign workers to get the job done. This is not to say that Lewandowski was the perfect campaign manager he wasn t. The New York Times brings up dirt on Corey but it s more likely that Trump was concerned he wasn t getting the job done soooo .YOU RE FIRED!FYI: REAGAN FIRED HIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER TOO!Donald J. Trump has fired his contentious campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, a move that comes as the presumptive Republican nominee faces challenges as he heads into the general election.Mr. Lewandowski could not immediately be reached for comment about his departure, which was announced by the campaign. The Donald J. Trump Campaign for President, which has set a historic record in the Republican primary having received almost 14 million votes, has today announced that Corey Lewandowski will no longer be working with the campaign, the campaign spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, said in a statement: The campaign is grateful to Corey for his hard work and dedication and we wish him the best in the future. Mr. Trump had faced increasing concerns from allies and donors, as well as his children, about the next phase of the campaign as he pivots toward the November election.Two people briefed on the move, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Mr. Lewandowski was fired.The campaign manager was seen as having a hostile relationship with many members of the national press corps who cover Mr. Trump, and many officials at the Republican National Committee had strained relationships with him.And Mr. Lewandowski was often at odds with Mr. Trump s chief strategist, Paul Manafort, who was brought on in March when the candidate seemed poised for a lengthy fight over delegates.Mr. Lewandowski was said to have resisted certain moves that would have increased the staff, at times blocking Mr. Manafort from making hires or later undoing them.But the people briefed on Mr. Lewandowski s departure said that the circumstances went well beyond any particular incident or any particular relationship.One person stressed that the move had been in the works for many weeks, particularly since it became clear that Mr. Trump would be the nominee. The person added said that the campaign is now focusing on bringing the party together, including hiring new staff members and adjusting to the race against Hillary Clinton. And there had been a desire for many weeks to make changes ahead of the Republican National Convention, July 18-21 in Cleveland.No one inside the campaign was given any advance warning about the dismissal of Mr. Lewandowski, who was on the campaign s daily 8:30 a.m. conference call on Monday, according to a person briefed on the developments.Read more: NYT | 1real |
Trump’s Plan To Rein In Wall Street? Tax Cuts, No Oversight, Industry Insiders In The White House | If there s one thing that unites working class Americans of all political persuasions, it s a hatred of Wall Street. Donald Trump knows this he campaigned on it in Iowa, in fact, saying I m really good at that stuff. I know Wall Street. I know the people on Wall Street. We re going to have the greatest negotiators of the world, but at the same time, I m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder. Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We re going to tax Wall Street. These days, he s singing a different tune. Instead of taxing them, he s cutting taxes on the rich. Instead of stopping them from getting away with murder, they re getting rid of the financial regulations that will stop another recession. And instead of standing up for consumers, he s destroying the agency that has recouped over $10 billion from predatory financial companies.After electorally winning the election (while massively losing the popular vote 1.7 million at the time of this writing and growing), he is openly showing what many of us knew along: He doesn t give a single sh*t about any of his supporters, and he will stab them in the back repeatedly and at length until somebody stops him.Donald Trump never had any intention of raising taxes on hedge fund guys. After all, they re in the same class of people he is! Rich, and therefore better than you. Why should they have to pay taxes? Trump doesn t, and thinks it s smart.Trump s administration wants to repeal Dodd-Frank, which is the Wall Street reform and consumer protection package passed after the Great Recession to prevent the need for another bailout at taxpayer expense. Trump thinks, instead, that the banks will do better regulating themselves much the way they did in the years leading up to the 2007-08 crash. Here s what Trump and the GOP are against:An Act to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end too big to fail, to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.And it gets worse.As ThinkProgress reports,Dodd-Frank also created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency focused on protecting Americans from predatory and fraudulent bank behavior. It s already recouped more than $10 billion for those who have been targeted by such practices. The CFPB has also written new rules for mortgage lending while extending oversight to some financial firms, such as debt collectors and payday lenders, that had previously gone with little oversight.That s right Donald Trump wants to get rid of one of the few parts of government that consistently works on behalf of the little guy. They re also targeting seniors:Trump made a campaign promise to impose a moratorium on all new regulations for the financial sector, but he has already targeted existing regulations for immediate dismantling. Trump adviser and hedge fund investor Anthony Scaramucci promised to reverse President Obama s executive action to protect retirees the fiduciary duty rule. It requires all financial advisers to put their clients interests ahead of their own, rather than being able to steer clients toward more expensive options that make money for themselves. That conflicted advice is estimated to cost retirees $17 billion a year. We ve got to get rid of this, Scaramucci told the Financial Times, calling it unnecessary. He had previously made this pledge while likening the rule to the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision that denied birthright citizenship to slaves and their descendants.He s giving the banks exactly what they want.In fact, he seems to think that he might need them a little closer to him so that he can really serve them well, because he s actually inviting bank executives to work in his administration certainly a far cry from his pro-working class messages on the campaign trail. According to Politico, his leading picks for Secretary of the Treasury are a Goldman-Sachs executive and a billionaire investor.The working class Republicans that voted for Trump are some of the people who will be most hurt by the actual policies that the Trump administration wants to put into effect. You get what you vote for, Republicans.Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 1real |
Donald Trump fires senior adviser Ed Brookover: sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday fired senior adviser Ed Brookover, two sources close to his campaign said. The sources did not say why Brookover was fired. A statement from the Trump campaign confirmed Brookover had left. “The campaign has parted ways with Ed, but we are thankful to him for his many contributions and appreciate his continued support,” the Trump campaign said in a statement. Brookover did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brookover, who joined the Trump campaign in March, was appointed in June to serve as a liaison between the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee. Prior to joining Trump, Brookover served as campaign manager to Ben Carson during his failed bid for the Republican nomination. | 0fake |
Lebanon identifies soldiers killed in Islamic State captivity | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon has identified the bodies of 10 of its soldiers found along the Syrian border in a zone taken back from Islamic State last week, state news agency NNA said on Wednesday. An offensive against the enclave ended with the evacuation of Islamic State militants and their families to eastern Syria under a Hezbollah-brokered deal. Syria s government and Lebanon s Hezbollah allowed a convoy of about 300 lightly armed fighters and 300 relatives to evacuate, surrendering their border enclave. As part of the agreement, IS militants identified where they had buried the soldiers, Lebanon s army chief said. DNA tests confirmed that all 10 bodies found in the mountainous border region were Lebanese soldiers, security sources and local media said on Wednesday. Islamic State had held territory along the border for years, and took Lebanese troops captive in 2014 when they briefly overran the town of Arsal with other militants, one of the worst spillovers of the Syrian conflict into Lebanon. Lebanese Justice Minister Salim Jrayssati said a military court would look into whether any civil or military authorities played a role in their capture. President Michel Aoun called for an investigation last week. At a conference on Wednesday, the families of the soldiers demanded an inquiry to punish anyone who led to the deaths during the fighting and negotiations since 2014. For three years, they had protested in the streets and met with many government officials to find out the fate of their relatives. There is immense and deep sadness in our hearts. But in our minds, there is pride and dignity, Hussein Youssef, the father of a soldier, said at the government headquarters in Beirut. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri declared Friday a national day of mourning after meeting with the families. They were martyred defending this country, said Nizam Mougheit, whose brother died in Islamic State captivity. Anyone who had a hand in their martyrdom should be held accountable, whoever it is. | 0fake |
BOOM! JUDGE NAPOLITANO: The ONLY Crime Committed “Senators were under surveillance by Obama administration” [Video] | This is one of the best accounts we ve seen of who REALLY committed a crime in all of this craziness. Judge Napolitano is dead on with his assessment of the unmasking for political reasons: Were senators under surveillance by Obama administration? Rand Paul and other Senators were under surveillance for political purposes according to Senator Paul. The unmasking using the name that was unmasked for political reasons is a FELONY. The principal unmasker is Susan Rice so Susan Rice needs to be dealt with. Did she unmask illegally and for political purposes?Senator Rand Paul talks about FBI Director James Comey being fired by President Donald Trump. Paul believes Comey should have been fired a long time ago for some major missteps during his tenure including the terrorist attack in Orlando, Florida. Paul also talks about Susan Rice unmasking Innocent Americans and spying on them, the Obama administration spying on Donald Trump and other Republicans. | 1real |
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